lips twitched again as she cast a glance at Owen. “Because he is not hard on the eyes.”
Owen clamped his teeth together. It took every ounce of strength for him to pretend he didn’t understand.
“Ms. Hunter says the English class is all she has available, and I’m to show you to your classroom,” Nick translated.
“Did she, now?” Owen bit the inside of his cheek.
“You can follow me,” Nick mumbled.
“I was kind of hoping Ms. Hunter would join us so we could go over the plan of action in more detail.” Owen directed Nick to ask.
Instead Nick signed to Ms. Hunter, “He’s not your type. And you better be careful what you say around him. I think he’s going to be harder to fool than the sheriff.”
Interesting. So Ms. Hunter was in fact fooling the sheriff about something.
Owen searched her eyes. A mischievous twinkle relayed that she definitely found something humorous. Owen now understood what Wes meant when he’d said she laughed at him. He was starting to feel like the butt of a joke, too.
The lights flickered overhead.
“That’s my TTY phone,” Ms. Hunter signed to Nick for him to translate information about her teletypewriter phone. Owen knew all about a TTY from calling his son, but he kept quiet as she explained through her interpreter. “It could be a parent trying to reach me. No one on the island has a TTY machine to type their message into, so they have to use a TTY service operator—a real live person standing by to take the caller’s message and transcribe it for me onto a screen. I can’t keep them waiting, but you go on,” she signaled with a wave of her hand and then turned the machine to face her, pushing the button to answer.
Miriam hit the button to read the message as they were about to leave. When her pleasant eyes iced over, their steps halted.
Owen zoomed in on the screen, but she hit the end call button before he could read it.
Nick raced forward.
“What did it say?” Nick’s signs demanded an answer.
Ms. Hunter shook her blanched face. “Not now.”
“Tell me.” Nick’s refusal to take her lead had Owen paying closer attention to their words. His signing secret already proved to be beneficial.
Ms. Hunter’s jumpy glances passed between Wes and Owen before she signed to her interpreter, answering his question. “Get off the island if you know what’s good for you. Now go. We’ll talk about this later.”
“Another crank call? That’s the third one this week!” Nick’s hands slapped out, seemingly unconcerned with cutting the two hearing people out of the conversation...or so he thought.
“I said not right now.” Ms. Hunter tilted her head toward Owen as she signed to Nick. Owen read the silent message loud and clear, but apparently Nick didn’t. The guy’s inability to keep his emotions at bay suited Owen just fine.
“It’s got to be someone with a TTY so they can send you the message directly,” Nick signed. “Using the operator service would be too risky. I’d give my right hand to know who on this island has one.”
“Yes. Me, too.” Ms. Hunter signed, then cringed. She studied her hands before continuing. “Well, maybe not my right hand. That would be like cutting out my tongue.”
Owen understood Ms. Hunter wasn’t worried about the pain of losing her right hand, but rather losing the only voice she had. It reiterated that his son would have the same hardship all his life—because of him.
Owen squinted up at all the diplomas and certificates hanging on the wall. There were a lot of letters after Miriam Hunter’s name. He couldn’t fathom how she’d achieved such great success. He didn’t dare hope the same for Cole.
“I still think you should report these pranks,” Nick signed quickly.
“Chasing pranks is not important right now.” Miriam signed back. “Finding a drug supplier is.”
“But what if they’re related? What if this is more than an upset islander who thinks you shouldn’t have this job?”
Owen tuned in to see what she thought about Nick’s idea. Owen thought he was onto something. The only thing he caught was a spark of anger from Miriam Hunter’s eyes. She apparently didn’t like the idea of people thinking she wasn’t worthy of her position. But come on, Owen scoffed. A deaf principal for a hearing school? She couldn’t possibly do the job right.
“I think you should take that tour now,” she signed with pinched lips. Nick’s about-face out of the room made it clear the person in charge around here was Miriam Hunter. Her authoritative expression reminded Owen of his own adolescence spent in the principal’s office.
But he had to wonder if her bravado was a cover-up for the fear he’d witnessed when she’d received that call. He hadn’t missed the pasty hue that had marred her smooth complexion. Miriam Hunter feared someone or something. But why keep it from the police?
Unless she worried alerting them would bring something else to light.
Owen followed Nick and Wes and watched them take a left out into the hall. As Owen passed by the secretary’s desk, he called out, “Give me a second, guys.” He approached the desk. “Stephanie, right?”
“Yup. Can I help you?”
“Do you have a notepad I could use?”
“Sure.” She pulled a pen from behind her multi-ringed ear and a notepad from her drawer. “Here you go.”
Owen scrawled out a message for Ms. Hunter on the notepad and tore it off. The note included his cell phone number as well as an invitation to meet later to discuss how they could work together on the case. Buddying up might get her to open up, even if they had to spend the night writing everything down.
He stepped to the open door of her office. She had her back to him. Her folded arms pulled the back of her pale blue suit coat tight. She faced the window, looking out at the distant horizon of endless water beyond the rows of the fiery foliage. For a moment, her profile came into view. He could see her worrying on her lower lip.
Knocking would do nothing to alert her to his presence. Again he wondered how a deaf person qualified for a job such as this, and he thought of the prank call he’d witnessed. It very well could have been someone who thought her disability inhibited her from doing an adequate job.
Owen thought of his son and of his future limitations because of his deafness. Owen had to agree with the prank caller. He couldn’t see how Ms. Hunter could perform her duties adequately. She obviously had the ability to fool a lot of people to get her position.
He stepped to her side, causing her to flinch. For a split second, Owen caught a glimpse of fear in her eyes. It retreated as quickly as the tide, leaving nothing but sparkles of wonder behind.
He’d never seen anyone so expressive before. She gave an elegant tilt of her head and an encouraging smile, and he could tell she was asking him what he wanted, even though she said not a word.
Owen
