“We need to have a certain number of chaperones on the bus with the kids,” Rowan explained. “I counted you into that equation.”
“I can take Amanda in my car, and a few of her friends. They’ll be much more comfortable. I have plenty of room.” Her car is a luxury SUV that seats eight, but Amanda only has two friends to speak of, both of whom are her neighbors in Mundy Estates.
“The district doesn’t allow that. I can try to find someone else to chaperone if you’re—-”
“No, no, I’ll do it. But I wish you had told me I had to ride the bus in the first place.”
Ordinarily, Rowan would muster infinite patience, but this morning, overtired and preoccupied, it was all she could do not to snap at the woman that any idiot with half a brain knows that chaperoning a field trip means traveling with the kids.
But somehow, I managed to keep my cool. Now all I have to do is try not to explode—-or fall asleep—-for the rest of the day.
She’d lain awake nearly all night wondering what happened to Vanessa De Forrest last November thirtieth.
Several times yesterday, she almost called Rick to ask how Vanessa had died. But she couldn’t. She was afraid to do that, afraid of him.
She wants to believe the date is a mere coincidence, and might have convinced herself of it if she hadn’t received the package last Monday.
Who, besides Rick, would have reason to force her to open that ominous door to the past?
Jake?
Rowan refuses to let her mind venture very far in that direction.
She’s never felt so alone in her life.
You can’t talk to Jake, you can’t talk to Rick, you can’t talk to the police . . .
You can talk to Noreen if she ever calls you back . . .
But now that Rowan knows about Vanessa, that no longer seems vital.
Her head is spinning with possibilities at this point, and only one thing is certain: she has to protect her secret, at least until she finds out who is threatening her with it.
They’ve reached the second floor of the school, filing down another hallway lined with drying snow boots, closed lockers, and open classrooms.
-“People, please. Others are trying to work.”
“Hey, Ms. Mundy,” someone calls, “what’s that?”
“What’s what?” she asks before catching sight of the small red and green gift bag hanging from the doorknob of her classroom.
The students swoop in like tag sale early birds on a crate of Depression glass.
“It’s a present!”
“Who’s it for?”
“Let me see!”
“Stop pushing!”
Some days, it doesn’t take much to turn a group of fourth--graders into tiny kids. This is one of them.
Amanda viciously wrangles the bag from someone’s grasp and bestows it with a beatific smile more befitting gift giver than gift snatcher. “Ms. Mundy, it’s for you.”
Wary, Rowan takes the bag. The tag dangling from a rope handle bears her full name, printed in well--defined, evenly spaced, perfectly straight or rounded letters. The printing style is distinctive among elementary school teachers. Early this morning, she left a similarly addressed gift box on the table in the deserted teacher’s lounge for the library aide.
The principal’s secretary wandered in and spotted her leaving the bag. “Let me guess. Secret Santa?”
“Ho ho ho.”
“ ’Tis the season,” the secretary responded with a grin. She was wearing a jingle bell around her neck on a red silk cord and mentioned that it had been left by her own Secret Santa, tied to the Reserved sign in front of her numbered spot in the employee parking lot.
Yes. ’Tis the season. Ordinarily, Rowan wouldn’t bat an eye at an anonymous gift, but this year things are different. Yes, she’s fairly certain the package contains her Secret Santa’s Monday offering, but she can’t entirely erase the nagging doubt from her mind.
“Aren’t you going to open your present?”
“Not right now.”
“But don’t you want to see what it is?”