be right across the border from Afghanistan. Can you imagine?”
“You couldn’t pay me enough to go there. I can’t believe you spend your hard-earned salary to volunteer in places like that. I admire your dedication, Jill, but frankly, I’d be too scared.”
“I love it. Did I tell you a group of my computer tech kids signed up to take care of my garden the whole time I’m away? They are so good. It’s like they’re doing their part, you know?”
Jill tucked a blond corkscrew curl behind her ear and frowned at a row of grades. Matthew Strong was falling behind in website design class again. Matt had so much raw talent, but he typically failed to turn in several assignments each term. She had watched this pattern for two years, and she worried that this time he might bottom out altogether.
“Have you ever had Matthew Strong in class?” she asked Marianne.
“I’ve got him in trig right now. Weird kid. But brilliant. He could do anything he wanted—if he’d bother to turn in his homework.”
“Same thing with me. I hope he hangs in till the end of the year.”
“Did you hear about his ACT score? Good grief, he could go to MIT today if he wanted. A couple of college recruiters showed up at my classroom this afternoon to talk with him, and he never came back. So there goes another homework assignment.”
“Matt’s only a sophomore, for goodness’ sake.” Jill took another bite of her burger. “These colleges need to back off and let him be a normal teenager.”
“Matthew Strong will never be a normal teenager.”
“If his father paid more attention to him, he might learn some social skills. His mom died of cancer, you know. The dad is hardly ever around.”
“Lots of kids have absentee parents, but they don’t turn out like Matt. What about that tie he wears all the time?”
Jill tucked the ringlet behind her ear for the hundredth time that hour. Even as she reached for one last fry, the curl popped back out and bounced around her chin. “It’s just Matt’s style, I guess.”
“Style? That tie is gross beyond belief.” Marianne snapped her grade book shut. “Done! I’m taking off. You’ll be okay here, I guess.”
“No problem. I’m almost through.”
As Marianne grabbed her purse, she paused near Jill’s chair and leaned down. “Uh-oh. Speak of the devil,” she murmured. “I hope this is for you, Miss Pruitt, because I’m gone.”
Jill swung around to see a tall, broad-shouldered man step into the classroom. His chambray shirt and faded denim jeans complemented dusty cowboy boots and an old leather belt. He took off his hat to reveal a thatch of short, spiky, brown hair, and he was looking at her with a pair of blue eyes that could belong to only one man.
“Matthew Strong’s father.” She stood and thrust out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Cole Strong.” His grip was firm, his palm callused. A working man.
“I’m Jill Pruitt, computer ed. And that was Marianne Weston, Matt’s trig teacher. You’d better run if you want to catch her.”
“You’ll do,” he said. The blue eyes bored into her. “I’m looking for my boy. Seen him today?”
“He was in my class this morning. Why?”
“He didn’t come home after school. Billy Younger tells me Matt likes to stay late and talk to you.”
Jill sensed a thread of suspicion in the man’s voice. “He drops by between classes or at lunch. He’s been working on a term paper—”
“Food, yeah, I know. Billy says you fired him up on it.”
“I mentioned my work with hunger relief. Matt was interested, so we discussed it. I gave him some names and addresses to use as sources. Have you checked with Jim Banyon out at Hope? He—”
“Matt’s not there.” Cole turned his hat in his hands. “Billy says he got crossways with some Agrimax honchos. He was trying to push your ideas on them, and they warned him to back off.”
“ My ideas?”
“My son doesn’t know anything about famine relief, Miss Pruitt.”
“Oh yes he does, Mr. Strong.” She returned his appraising gaze. “He uncovered a wealth of information, and he’s very excited about it.”
“Obsessed, you mean.”
She bristled. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
“You would if you knew Matt.”
“Excuse me, sir, but I do know your son. I know him very well.”
“Then where is he?”
She paused to collect herself. In fifteen years as a teacher, she had faced a lot of angry parents. Frustration, concern for a child’s GPA, confusion about assignments—all these things drove them to confrontation at the school. Jill had learned to back off, take it slow and insist on civil treatment. But the dominating stance of this man, the hostility in his voice, and the insinuations he had tossed out were getting on her nerves. If he were a more involved parent, she would sympathize with his concern. But she knew for a fact that Cole Strong had shown little interest in his son’s life at school before now.
“I’m not sure where Matt is, Mr. Strong,” she told him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m averaging midterm grades.”
“Did he go to all his classes today?” He took a step toward her.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have access to that infor—” Jill caught her breath. “Wait a minute. Two men…college recruiters, I think…asked to meet him during his trigonometry class. Marianne—Mrs. Weston—told me he never came back.”
“Who were these guys? Which university?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, look it up.” He gestured at her laptop. “You’re the computer wizard. Open the file or whatever, and find out who got permission to take my son out of class.”
Despite her irritation with Matt’s father, she felt a stab of concern about the boy. “I don’t have code access to office documents, Mr. Strong.”
“Then break the code. Isn’t that what you’ve been teaching my son to do?”
“Sir, I do not appreciate your tone. And I can assure you—”
“Look, lady.” He stuffed his hat onto his head. “My son is missing. Do you get that? Matt did not come home from school, and he’s not there now. Billy Younger and I have combed this town and haven’t found hide nor hair of the boy. Now you’re telling me two strangers showed up at school and took my son off someplace—and he never came back? And I’m supposed to be nice and polite about it?”
Jill swallowed. “I’ll call Mrs.
