“It means for a while.”
“I know what it means. What I want to know is why you chose that particular phrase.”
Fallon took a step back and waved her hand in front of her nose. “Is the smell coming from you?”
“Fallon, at least two girls have gone missing from Mercy High in the last two years. And according to things uncovered by the police—and by me—possibly a lot more. You know this is all tied to witchcraft.”
Again that tiny, twitching smile. “I do?”
I cocked my head, pinning her with a glare. “Why would you say ‘sit for a spell’?”
Now it was Fallon who stepped forward, suddenly uncomfortably close to me. “Are you accusing me of something, Ms. Lawson?”
“Tell me about Cathy.”
“She was murdered. Before that, she was alive.”
I blinked, and Fallon blinked back at me, as if daring me to ask her to elaborate.
“Alyssa?”
Fallon held her ground for a beat before turning stiffly, her hair fanning out behind her. “I don’t have to—”
She stopped when I grabbed her arm. Her eyes sliced over her shoulder and narrowed, first staring at my hand on her arm, then looking directly up at me. “Get your hand off of me,” she said sharply.
I let her go as if her skin had burned my palm.
Once Fallon disappeared into the hall, I slid up on my former desk, resting my face in my hands.
Did I really believe that Fallon was some kind of witchy serial killer?
At least three bodies . . . Will’s voice echoed in my head. Gretchen Von Dow . . . I hopped off the desk and started shoving things in my shoulder bag, humming a riff from a Bon Jovi (my era) tune when there was a knock on my door.
I didn’t look up when the door opened. “Nice, Will,” I said, grabbing a sheaf of papers. “You knock on my classroom door but barge in on me in the bath—” I stopped, my eyes wide. “Tub. Kayleigh, hi. I was just—can I help you with something?”
I was fairly certain that the abject horror in Kayleigh’s eyes—Teachers have lives outside of school?—mirrored my own. She went beet red from the tips of her ears all the way down to the tops of her UGG boots.
I cleared my throat and blinked at her, flashing a pleading “let’s pretend this never happened” look.
“Can I help you with something?” I said again.
Kayleigh’s hands went from fingering the strap on her crossover bag to fumbling in front of her. She licked her already glossy lips and took a tentative step forward without saying anything.
I laid my shoulder bag back down on my desk and practiced one of those “open stances” that supposedly welcomed communication—or so Dr. Phil said.
“Do you want to talk to me about something?”
Kayleigh glanced over her shoulder—quickly, nervously—before stepping all the way into the room and pulling the door closed behind her. She waited until it clicked shut to let out a shaky breath.
“It’s about Fallon,” she said, her voice a low whisper. “And Miranda, in the hall the other day.”
I felt my ears prick as my hackles went up. I was instantly protective of Kayleigh, of whatever it was she needed to tell me.
“You can tell me anything, Kayleigh. We can keep it just between us.”
“Fallon would murder me if she knew I was talking to you, but this—this is getting really serious. You—you don’t know the whole story—everything that’s happening with Fallon and Miranda.”
“No, I guess I don’t. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Kayleigh licked her lips and hugged the strap of her bag tighter against her chest. She opened her mouth, but her words were drowned out by three hard, heavy raps on the glass. She whirled and my head snapped up, just in time to see Fallon’s narrowed eyes, that slate-blue stare boring into me. She was in the hallway, her lips set in a hard, thin line. She disappeared from view, the snap of her gum echoing in the hallway before she pulled open my door. Her eyes regarded me coolly before zeroing in on Kayleigh. I was shaking for her, the sweat breaking out at the back of my neck, but Kayleigh dropped into the iceberg-cool mode I was sure I’d never master.
Fallon snapped another bubble.
“Do you want a ride home or not? I’ve been waiting for you for, like, ever.”
I surreptitiously glanced at the clock: nine minutes since the last bell. I was about to let Kayleigh off of Fallon’s barbed hook, but she spoke, shaking her long hair over her shoulder and turned her back on me.
“Old lady Lawson said my Beowulf paper lacked depth.”
“She should know all about lacking depth,” Fallon said in a low snark.
I rolled my eyes, then grabbed a page off my desk, scrawled my number down and stepped in between the girls, shoving the half-folded paper into Kayleigh’s hands. I caught her eye, held it.