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If she was bothered by my temper, she didn’t show it. “What I’m saying is that you should consider the wisdom of running a gauntlet of press and photographers every morning with Grace, just to get her to school. She’s a bright girl. It won’t hurt her to have a few weeks away from class. Her teachers can provide her with work. Better that than the alternative.”
There was some sense in what she was saying, even in my worked-up state I could see that. But I could see that Cally Gabriel cared only about herself, and that made it hard to hear her. She wanted Grace gone, so that the scandal and the gossip and the inconvenient journalists and photographers would all go away.
I left her there and went to the parking lot, where one of the teachers, Mrs. Fortescue, who was pushing seventy and who should have retired years ago, shouted at me for parking in the teachers’ parking lot. On another day I would have joked with her, cheered her up, and talked her around, but I didn’t have the patience. I got in my car. The school was much quieter now. The bell had rung and the kids had gone inside. Other than Mrs. Fortescue, who was still standing there, staring daggers at me as I pulled away, there was no one around. The Range Rover was gone. But at the school gates there was a man dressed in jeans, boots, a heavy jacket, and a green beanie, hovering and staring at his cell phone. He looked up as I approached and waved at me to stop. I thought he was looking for directions. I stopped the car and rolled down my window.
“Can I help you, sir?”
He came real close to me, leaned down, and put his two hands on my doorframe, so that I couldn’t put my window up. Up close you could tell immediately that something weren’t right about him. Physically, he looked okay. He had a reddish beard and pale blue eyes set a little too far apart. But he had a little crazy in his eyes, like a TV evangelist.
“I know what you are,” he said. “You’re a pervert. You’re a piece of shit.” His mouth was wet. Spittle flew from him every time he pronounced a p. Pervert. Piece. I jerked backward, and he came forward, putting his head inside my car. “You should be arrested. Locked up.”
“Get out of my car.” I started to put my window up. He reached in and tried to pull my hand off the switch. I hit the gas, too hard, and the car jumped forward. He fell backward, but not fast enough to avoid whacking his head, hard, on the side of the window frame. The car lurched forward and then stopped as I immediately lifted my foot from the gas. I saw him in my side mirror, standing there, clutching his head, and staring after me. He was angry. Angrier. I put my foot down again and drove away, fast, all the way home, where the journalists were waiting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Leanne
When Andy came home from dropping Nina at school, I was still sitting at the kitchen table. The sound of the back door opening made me start. I hadn’t moved since he’d left, hadn’t even realized that I was staring at the wall, seeing nothing, thinking of nothing. I stood up when he came in and started to gather the breakfast dishes from the table.
“Lee.”
Something in his voice made me turn to him right away. He pulled off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair.
“What is it?”
“Have you been outside?”
I shook my head.
“There are journalists and photographers at the end of our driveway. Some of them followed us to school.”
It took me a minute to understand what he was saying. I went to the living room and looked out the window.
“Are they still out there?” I couldn’t see the gate clearly from the window. Andy had planted a hedge of honeysuckle in spring, and it had grown enough that the view was obscured.
“They’re still there.”
“Should we go talk to them?”
The expression on Andy’s face told me that I wasn’t getting it. “They’re not a friendly crowd, Lee. When I came back a couple of them yelled questions. Nasty stuff.”
“What kind of nasty stuff?”
Andy shook his head and looked away. After a minute he said, “I tried to talk to the school about keeping Grace safe. Making sure no one gets into the school. I offered Cally Gabriel money to pay for temporary security. She said no.”
I frowned. The Jordans gave a lot of money to the school. Was this Cally taking sides?
“No one knows which classes she’s in,” I said. “And there’s no reason for anyone to try to talk to her. Plus, she’s surrounded by other kids, and the school does have some security.”
“She can’t stay there, Lee. We need to take her out. Bring her somewhere safe.”
“Bring her home, you mean.”
“Lee...”
“What?”
He came to me and put his arms around me. He held me close and rested his chin on my head. “Baby, I don’t think Grace can be at home right now. I think we should bring her to Craig’s place. To the farm.”
