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I consider it for a second. “Nah, I don’t think so. The others were older.”
“Look,” he tells me with a huff. “I don’t know why you’re busting my balls. You’re the one who said if anything that so much as smelled like a suicide popped up, you wanted to know about it.”
Kelsey stands at the door. She flashes me a quick smile as she flings her backpack over her shoulder. I watch as she hurries off to find her classmates. “Was there a note?”
“Hang on a minute.” I hear the phone fall away from his ear and then him typing on, knowing Max, what is an undoubtedly outdated computer. “No, I don’t think so. The report’s not final yet, though.”
“Okay.” I search the sea of children for a familiar head of hair, a set of shoulders I know like the back of my hand. Finally, my eyes land on Nick, and I wave. He pretends not to notice. “Send it over, I’ll take a look.”
“Lane, look—I know I owe you—but…um…this one I’ll need to get to you a different way. Sorry, but I can’t risk it. You’ll have to meet me in person.”
“Why?”
“He’s a senator’s son.”
* * *
I’m nearlyto the office when the school’s number appears on my screen. I answer, expecting to hear Nick on the other end of the line telling me he forgot his lunch on the kitchen counter, so I’m surprised by the raspy smoker’s voice I know belongs to the school counselor. She introduces herself as though we haven’t spoken half a dozen times and then she says, “I have Kelsey here in my office. She’s very upset. And I was hoping you might have time to come in and speak with me. Perhaps we could all meet together?”
“Now? I just dropped her off.”
“If you wouldn’t mind coming back to the school, that would be great.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’ve just pulled into work.”
“Perhaps I should call your wife?”
“Ex-wife,”I tell her. “And no. I’m sorry. I don’t have the time to turn around and come back and no, you should most definitely not call Bethany. Anyway, she’s out of town.”
“Kelsey is upset about her behavior at morning assembly,” the counselor tells me amid several coughing fits. “In fact, she’s more than upset. She’s crying and inconsolable.”
“What happened at morning assembly?” Kelsey doesn’t have behavior issues.
“I’m not entirely sure. All I know is, her teacher sent her to my office because she’s embarrassed about weeping in the middle of the moment of silence, and she wants to come home.”
“May I speak with her?”
I hear sniffles as Kelsey comes on the line. “Kelsey? What’s going on?”
“I’m scared.”
My heart sinks. I thought we were past this. “What happened?”
“You’re going to die. And then who will pick me and Nick up from school?”
“I’m not going to die.”
“Yes you are. The bad guy is going to kill you. Or the bad girl. Like you said.”
“I didn’t say that, Kelsey. No one is going to kill me.” I hate to hear my child cry. But it’s funny, a five-year-old’s logic. She’s only thinking about today, not the entirety of her life and what my absence might mean. “Can you give the phone back to Mrs. Rawlings?”
“So, you’re on your way then?”
“My ex-wife is on a business trip. I’m sure Kelsey is just missing her mother.”
“Change can be difficult for children.”
“Yes, and I have to admit, I didn’t exactly enforce a proper bedtime last night.”
