in the room. If a teacher hadn’t happened along the hallway just when he did, the school and the girl would both be gone.”
Anna was appalled. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, but even less could she imagine Lorna Lacey doing it. That child was as close to an angel as a girl her age could be.
“You look chilled,” Nate said abruptly. “Let me get you some tea or coffee.”
“Tea. Please.” Still stunned, she was hardly aware that he had left the office. Her gaze wandered out to the square, which looked bleak on this graying day. The flowers that usually filled the flower beds were gone, having died in the first frost nearly a month ago. Even the people who usually sat on the benches had vanished, driven away by the bitter wind.
Lorna Lacey. A petite girl of thirteen with soft blue eyes and long blond hair and an irregular face that saved her from being beautiful. But she was attractive, very attractive, because personality bubbled out of her, and she had an infectious smile.
When Anna thought of Lorna, she thought of laughter.
But now she found herself remembering that Lorna hadn’t been laughing as much lately and had missed quite a few youth group meetings in the past year. Anna had ascribed that to the changing interests of adolescence, but now she wondered.
What could be wrong? She hadn’t heard stories of any kind of trouble either from Lorna or the other kids. The girl’s parents, Bridget and Al Lacey, seemed like nice people. Bridget was a little restrained, but that didn’t mean anything. Al greeted the whole world with a big smile, just like his daughter, and was well liked by everyone.
He was active in the church, coaching youth soccer and basketball, and was always ready to lend a hand where it was needed.
Nate returned carrying a couple of mugs. He set the one with the tea bag in it in front of her, along with a couple of packets of sweetener and creamer, and a plastic stirrer. Anna reached for the mug gratefully and cupped her cold hands around it, soaking up the warmth.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No problem.” He sat back in his chair, holding his mug, and resumed his study of the square. “Sleet tonight, I hear. Make sure you get home before it starts.”
“I will.” Neither of them, she guessed, really knew what to say about Lorna Lacey. “Are you sure Lorna started the fire?”
“She said she did. In fact, she seemed real eager to make sure we knew it.”
Anna hardly knew what to say to that. “But why?”
Nate shrugged and looked at her. “That’s why I want you to talk to her, Anna. I know people. You can’t work with all kinds the way I do every day without getting an instinct. Now, most of the kids who get into trouble around here, I could pick ’em out by the time they were eight or nine. Sometimes even earlier. The troublemaking starts young. Some of ’em outgrow it. Those with rotten families are the ones least likely to outgrow it. But what I have never seen is a thoroughly good kid from a good home turn bad without a reason.”
“Bad friends?”
He shook his head. “I’m a great believer in peer pressure, but most kids like Lorna, who are good through and through, withstand that kind of pressure and pick good friends. You know who she hangs out with. Any problems there?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Me neither. So we got us a mystery, sweet pea. That child committed an act of arson, and all my warning bells are clanging that this isn’t the act of a pain-in-the-butt kid. It’s a cry for help.”
Anna nodded, agreeing. It had to be. “But help from what?”
“God knows.” Nate sighed and settled deeper into his chair. “I’ve gotta charge her with arson. No way around it. But what scares me more than arson is that I don’t think she intended to leave that room even when the fire got really bad.”
Anna gasped and nearly spilled her tea. She set it quickly on the desk. “Not Lorna!”
“That’s the way it looks to me.”
Even more appalled now, Anna looked blindly out the window. “She hasn’t been coming to youth group meetings as often.”
“No? Then maybe whatever this is wasn’t sudden. Maybe something’s been building for a long time. She could be depressed. That’s not uncommon at her age, but maybe she doesn’t know how to ask for help. Maybe she doesn’t even guess what’s wrong with her. Or maybe she got involved in drugs somehow. Or somebody just slipped her a mickey this morning and she’s on a bad trip. I don’t know.”
He sipped his coffee, then turned to face her fully. “What I know is, I got a kid in one of my cells who shouldn’t be there. It’s not like the handwriting has been on the wall for years. And I’m not gonna be happy until we find the root of this little problem. I don’t want that child to become an ugly statistic because we couldn’t figure out how to help her.”
“Certainly not!”
“So you’ll talk to her?”
“Of course I will!”
He smiled. “I figured you would, sweet pea. I figured you would.”
“Have you talked to her parents yet? Do they have any idea?”
“No idea at all.”
“They’re not going to leave her in jail overnight.”
“They may not have any choice. Judge Williams has set a bond hearing at five o’clock to try to avoid that, but Lorna said she’s just going to tell the judge she’ll do it again if she gets out.”
Anna drew a long breath. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Please. At the very least maybe you can find out why she thinks it’s better to be in jail than out. I got my own ideas, and they ain’t pretty.”
Nor were the possibilities that were occurring to Anna, but she didn’t want to give voice to them. At least, not until she knew what was going on.
“Anyway,” Nate said, putting his mug down, “you’ve got a definite way with kids this age, especially the girls. I’ve noticed it. Hell, everybody’s noticed it. The kids you work with trust and respect you. That gives you a big advantage from square one over some psychologist I might drag in from somewhere else. At least we can skip over the part about developing trust.”
“Just don’t forget that I’m not a psychologist. And speaking of psychologists, the school has one.”
“But he’s never dealt with Lorna before. How long do you think it would take him to get her to open up compared with you?”
“I can’t venture a guess.” And if Lorna had a guy problem of some kind, she might never open up to a man.
“I don’t think we have that kind of time, whatever it is. I’ve known that girl since she was in diapers, and she won’t talk to me. But I don’t think I know her anywhere near as well as you do. So go talk to her, sweet pea. Find out what’s wrong.”
