Mrs. Flack, a short, squat woman with bottle-orange hair. She’d favored shapeless smocks, sensible dark brown shoes and smelled of peppermint because she always seemed to be sucking on the candy, something her students, unfairly he thought, weren’t allowed to do. Had Mrs. Flack looked remotely like Brenda York, he might have discovered the pleasure of learning a lot earlier than in high school.
“This way,” Harwood directed, pointing toward the front entrance.
Behind them, the last of the firefighters were getting onto a truck. The first truck had already pulled away. The din that had been humming since before their arrival was gradually fading into the warm May air. It amazed Dax how quickly order was restored. Each and every student seemed aware that it was time to go back to the world they had vacated for such a brief amount of time. The excitement of the fire, real or imagined, was over. The teachers had obviously done their level best to keep the news of the possible abduction from spreading and reaching any young ears.
Dax glanced over his shoulder, watching the students as they resumed a tight formation before they literally marched back into the building.
Hushed whispers hummed in the air like june bugs, all, he guessed, centering around his and Nathan’s recent arrival. He returned one child’s gaze and smiled before turning back around.
His eyes met Brenda’s completely by accident. Hers were a deep crystal blue. Intense, shining like two blue lights, they seemed to penetrate his very soul. He could have sworn there was some kind of electrical shock that had gone through him.
She lowered her eyes and turned back away.
Dax felt like a survivor of a train wreck who hadn’t been aware that the train had even gone off course until the impact had hit.
Behind him, Nathan stood up on his toes. “One step at a time, buddy, one step at a time.”
He gave Nathan a dirty look. Nathan gave him a knowing one.
They entered the building. The floors were polished to a high sheen, but were amazingly non-slippery. Lawsuits obviously were the scourge of even a place like Harwood. Well-cared for wooden doors lined both sides of the corridor like timeless, learned sentries. The headmaster brought them to the far end of the hall.
“We can talk in here,” Harwood was saying.
Opening a door, he led them into a somber room whose walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books. The only break in the decor were two windows that somehow managed to filter out the light and allowed only gloom into the medium-sized room, and the door which seemed to shyly claim a space amid massive bookshelves.
Once the door was closed behind them, all noise, soft or otherwise, from the outside world ceased to exist. For a moment, the only sounds evident were the individual breaths that they took.
It was a room designed for intimidation, Dax thought. Any kid who was called in here was already scared out of his or her mind. He exchanged looks with Nathan and could tell that the same thought had crossed his partner’s mind as well.
Rather than stand with them, the headmaster took his place behind the massive desk; whether to demarcate his position or to keep himself separated from the situation, Dax didn’t know, but it came across as a definite power play of some sort.
The teacher, he noted, remained with him and his partner. Joining ranks? Or infiltrating the enemy?
She smelled of jasmine, or maybe gardenias. He never could get things like flowers straight. To him, a flower was a flower. But the scent, well, that was pretty unnerving right now.
For the first time in his life, he wished he had a cold, or some kind of allergy that would have blocked his nasal capacity. He found the scent seductive.
Just like the woman.
Brenda York appeared agitated, he noted. Was that natural concern on her part? Or was there something else at play here? He had too little input to go on and his gut was otherwise occupied, giving him no clue.
The thing that sometimes bothered him about his chosen way of life was that he could never look at anything simply. Everything had two sides and, like as not, multi-layers that usually needed unraveling. It made simplicity a thing of the past and an unattainable dream these days.
Harwood cleared his throat. But right now, Dax was more interested in what Brenda York had to say. He turned toward her, the action blocking out the headmaster.
“Are you the one who first noticed she was missing?” Dax asked her.
She still couldn’t believe any of this was happening. It was like a nightmare, a horrible, horrible nightmare and she was waiting to wake up. Except that she was already awake.
Calm, you have to stay calm. You can’t help Annie if you’re not calm.
She realized she was clenching her hands at her sides, digging her nails into her palms. She forced herself to open them. “Yes.”
The single word sounded tortured to Dax. An act? The truth? For the time being, he gave her the benefit of the doubt as he began to ask his questions. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nathan take out his pad. Nathan believed in writing everything down. As for him, he kept all the notes in his head. He’d always had that ability, to go into the recesses of his mind and pluck out whatever tiny fact he needed whenever he needed it.
He watched her face, looking for any telltale sign that might give him a clue as to what she was thinking, what she was really feeling. “Are you sure she’s missing? Maybe she wandered in with another group of kids. I saw a lot of activity going on when we pulled up—”
This time, Harwood was the one who cut in. “Our children are taught discipline from the very first day they come to Harwood Academy,” he informed Dax with alacrity. “They do not wander.”
Dax couldn’t tell if the man was taking offense on behalf of his students, or if he felt that anything other than perfect behavior reflected badly on him.
In complete control of the situation, Dax lifted a shoulder and carelessly let it fall again. “Yeah, but kids are still kids. There’s all this noise and excitement going on, firefighters, trucks, ambulances—”
“Ambulance,” Harwood corrected automatically. “There was only one.”
Dax inclined his head. The man was a stickler, he thought. Possibly a little obsessive. He was grateful that his parents hadn’t had the money to send him to a private school.
“Ambulance,” he allowed. “With all this confusion, she might have taken the opportunity to duck out on you and get in with one of her friends.”
If only, Brenda thought. If only.
But she’d searched the area, asking all the children who might have seen her if they had. Each time, she’d gotten a shake of the head in response. The tiny mouse of a child, who reminded her so much of herself at that age, was nowhere to be found.
“That’s just it,” Brenda told him, her voice growing a little more firm with every word she uttered, “Annie doesn’t really have any friends.”
There was a glimmer of pain in her eyes as she told him that. Dax couldn’t help wondering if it was genuine, or if he’d been confronted with a very good actress. It certainly wouldn’t
