just as fast as she had, maybe faster.
And he knew she’d been hanging out with Lex the day before. Slobag’s son Lex.
And he hadn’t come home with her, hadn’t come in to sleep with her.
Another thing she didn’t want to think about; way too many reasons for that particular decision flew into her head.
What she needed to think about was work. What she needed to think about was finding Vernal Sze and his friends and getting them to talk to her. No, she didn’t need to think about it, she needed to do it. Right away.
She left her new car in the gravel-strewn lot at the side of the building and started for the front doors of the Mercy Lewis school.
But today the walkway wasn’t empty. Students—she assumed they were students, they carried books—stood in straggly clumps outside, talking or smoking furtive cigarettes, listening to the Circle Jerks. Their eyes stripped her bare as she walked past; their conversations died when she got close enough to hear their words. It wasn’t just paranoia from the couple of Nips she’d popped to help her wake up after sleeping so hard, either. Their suspicion and aggression felt like pebbles against her skin, stinging where they hit.
The front door opened with the expected screech, though not as loud against the music playing as it had been in the previous afternoon’s silence. For a second she almost missed that silence. No one had been staring at her then.
Down the hall past the empty classrooms—apparently Mercy Lewis had a late lunch period, since it was just past one—to the office, where she was greeted by … a whole fucking crowd of people.
Frizzy—Laurie—was there, as were Monica and, smirking in the back in a gorgeous charcoal-gray suit, Beulah. She was the only one smiling. The others just glared—at each other, at the walls, at the various doors to small offices within the main Administration area, and especially at Chess.
“Here’s Miss Putnam now,” Beulah said. She unfolded her arms and straightened from her elegant lean. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to answer your questions.”
Bitch. She’d barely finished the last word before they all started talking at once. Because it was totally easy for her to make out individual comments from that, right? How stupid were these people?
Asking that question wouldn’t win Chess any friends. And the worst part was that she actually needed them to be—well, not friends, but at least sort of friendly, because there were too damn many of them and she had nothing to go on in the case.
So she stood against the door, waiting for the inevitable moment when someone would finally drown the others out.
The drowner emerged rather more quickly than she would have expected: a man, not tall but solid, with thinning hair and a broad face. “When is the Church going to do something about this? Students are afraid to come to school.”
“It’s been three weeks,” a woman—heavy, officious, sneering—interrupted. “If you people actually cared about us, you’d have done something by now.”
Another voice, she didn’t see whose. “The Church doesn’t care. They’ve never cared.”
“They care about our money,” said another, and as if that were some sort of switch, the yelling started again.
But they weren’t yelling at each other. They were yelling at her, looking right at her with their eyes narrowed and their faces reddening. She pressed herself against the door and shifted her weight, getting ready to duck from the angry voices and their condemnation, to brace herself for the fists and use her own, when she realized what she was doing. Getting freaked out? By these people? Who the fuck were they, anyway? A bunch of officious assholes who thought she owed them something. Fuck that, and fuck them.
So she straightened her back, raised her eyebrows, and just looked at them. Waiting. Sure enough, the shouts turned into speech, into grumbles, and finally into the embarrassed silence of someone who’s just vented their rage and discovered that the subject of that rage doesn’t give a shit.
Which she didn’t. Well, she did, of course she did, but not about them. Or their self-righteous desire to play victims.
She gave them another minute in the silence. “Who are you all, again?”
Balding-and-Stocky glowered at her. “We’re concerned parties.”
“And what is your concern? Do you work here? You have kids here? What?”
The small crowd was suddenly full of shifty eyes. Uh-huh. “I’m Wen Li. I’m chairman of the Student Association.”
“What is that?”
“We help mediate between students in trouble and the school administration.”
A woman—helmet hair, glasses—piped up, “I’m co-chair. Martha Li.”
Yes. They looked perfect for each other.
The introduction game made its circle around the room; every single damn one of them was chair or head of some committee or project or something. Which meant, if her memory served and what she’d learned the day before was correct, that every single damn one of them stood to bank some cash if the haunting turned out to be real. Which made them and their anger about as believable and sincere as a declaration of pure and faithful love from Bump.
After they’d finished she gave them another minute of silence. “And have any of you actually seen or experienced anything here?”
She didn’t expect anyone to speak. She was right. No one did.
“Fine. If anyone has information that might help me, let me know. I really am here to help, and believe me, I want this situation settled just as much as you do. Okay? But if you’ll excuse me, I do have some work to do today.”
She pushed herself through the crowd—well, not pushed, they stepped out of her way—and handed Laurie the list she’d made earlier. “I need to speak to these students individually, and I need an empty room to do it in.”
“Those students have a right to have an adult with them while they’re being questioned,” Wen said.
She wanted to roll her eyes, but refrained. “No, actually. They don’t.”
“They’re—”
“They’re not suspected of any crime, I’m not the Squad, and they’re over fifteen.”
Laurie scanned the list. “Room 122 will be empty in forty-five minutes. You can use that one. It’s down the hall, at the other end of the building.”
Damn, who would have thought Laurie—who still looked just as sour and disapproving as she had the day before—would be helpful? But then, with a roomful of people, none of whom she appeared to like, why wouldn’t she be? “Thank you.”
Beulah still watched her. Well, good. She could quit smirking and do something for Chess, since she obviously had nothing else to do. And since she had keys. And since the crowd apparently looked to her, for whatever the hell reason. “Beulah, will you come with me, please?”
