The door to the custodian's quarters was exactly as Cecil remembered it - a flimsy piece of old wood, rocky in its hinges and hardly a barrier at all - with one exception. It was already open. Small splinters of wood had been scattered around the doorframe. Cecil motioned Val to bring her light down to the floor as he examined them, twisting several of the pieces between his fingers in contemplation.
Their journey had been mostly silent, a mix of anxiety and awkwardness barring conversation beyond the occasional "I think it's this way", and that only made the halls seem to stretch even further. The main building of the campus was quite large, spanning multiple city blocks, a building meant to educate the youth of a densely populated city. The pair had passed several voices as they headed west through one of the school's main corridors. Some belonged to younger students, lost in the dark and separated from their friends. Val stopped to offer them gentle words and instructions to find the central auditorium, wherein Jack had told the student body to congregate. Many others belonged to teenage couples exchanging lustful bodily contact in the protection of the darkness. Val gave a half-supressed chuckle at those, and Cecil could only afford to shake his head to hide the blush that rose on his cheeks when, while trying to emulate Val's usual kindness, he had thrown the door to one of the lounges open on two half-naked fourteen-year-olds. They had made a quick departure from that part of the school, Val's snickering haunting him every brisk step of the way.
Cecil brought his attention back to the door after the fresh memory made his cheeks hot once again. There was no clue to point at the perpetrators of the vandalism, but Cecil only hoped that they were not still nearby.
"I guess someone had the same idea," Cecil said. "Let's see if we can get what we came for."
The interior of the office was revealed to be a spacious room with a large desk, tool bench, several shelves, a glass cabinet and another door opposite the first, this one made of sturdier stuff and effectively locked shut. Cecil quickly snatched a small black device connected to a circular strap.
"Head lamp, huh?" he said to himself, sliding the lamp over his brow. He clicked a small dial on the side and a brilliant ray erupted from his forehead, illuminating the dark corners of the room.
Several objects caught his eye, then, reflecting the light of the lamp from the floor beneath the cabinet. More fragments, this time made of glass. Approaching the cabinet made its contents apparent: keys, each hanging from its own labelled peg. Many were missing, and Cecil noted "KIT 1", "MED 1" and "BAS 1" were among them.
"Kitchen keys, medical keys, and basement keys are gone," Cecil said, turning to Val. They could have been in the custodian's pocket, but the shattered glass painted a different picture. "I guess someone took them." He turned back to the vacant key rack once again. Another key, one still present, caught his eye, and he slipped it into his pocket quietly. "At least we know where to look for them."