Speaking of stinkers and nightmares, Mr. Vex, whom she suspected of having lofty ambitions, impatiently cleared his throat and glanced at his watch, a smug smile curving his mouth.
She’d already scheduled an appointment with Mr. Vex on Monday. But maybe she should accost him after today’s meeting. This issue couldn’t wait.
She rubbed her eyes, more exhausted now than she’d been after her three-mile predawn run.
She knew too much; that was the main problem. Too much about security threats, predators, criminals, bombs, online scams, human trafficking, pornography, weapons, violence, and the strange things people did with reptiles.
Everything will be fine.
She just needed to relax. That’s why they’d put her on administrative leave after the Incident. So she couldrelax.
Her fingers crushed the meeting agenda into a ball.
Stop it.
No. Wait. She wasn’t supposed to talk to herself using that kind oftone.
You are a beautiful woman of invincible strength. Calm your mind. Calm your body.
She silently repeated the words of her therapist.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Center yourself.
She inhaled and exhaled slowly, then uncrumpled the paper ball and attempted to iron out the wrinkles with her flattened hand.
See? Everything is fine.
But it wasn’t fine. Not even close. Once again, her mind went back to the message she’d found on her daughter’s iPad last night. She’d read it again this morning, right after her run, hoping it had been a bad dream, that it wasn’t real.
i want to do things to you
A wave of nausea had washed over her as she squinted down at the words. She’d read them over and over again, hoping the letters would somehow realign to reveal a less ominous meaning.
i want to do things to you
Her brain had screamed questions into the early-morning silence. Leaning against the kitchen island, she’d wiped the sweat from her eyes as she looked down at the iPad sitting on the quartz countertop. The girls were still asleep, her husband still out of town, the house dark and quiet.
As far as she could tell, the message had come from one of her daughter’s classmates, Alex Orlov, a boy known for causing trouble.
He’d sent the message two days ago. Her daughter hadn’t replied.
i want to do things to you
She and her husband had tried so hard to shelter the girls from things like this. No cell phones until Christmas of eighth grade. No social media accounts until high school. No Snapchat. No apps like Facetune to make them question the natural beauty of their own features.
You couldn’t be too careful as a parent. Her career as a Diplomatic Security agent protecting State Department personnel around the globe had taught her that danger lurks everywhere, especially if you’re female.
Her time detailed to the FBI, where she dealt with human trafficking, followed by her job focused on domestic terrorism at theDepartment of Homeland Security all led to the same anxious conclusion: Bad guys were everywhere, doing bad things all the time, and you had to remain vigilant to protect those you loved from harm.
And now in spite of all her precautions, her just-turned-thirteen-year-old daughter was getting messages on her school-issued iPad from a sick boy who wanted to do thingstoher.
Notwithher.Toher. That one word made all the difference in the world.
She’d heard about this boy. He’d been kicked out of at least two private schools, and now he’d ended up at Hollin Terrace, the local public school.
She knew she should muster some compassion for this child, but instead she felt a blind rage. She wanted to drive over to his house and lock him in a closet until her daughter turned sixty.
Or she wanted to call her friend Caleb on the SWAT team, dispatch him to the boy’s house, and have him carried away in handcuffs.
