“Good,” she said, eyeing the sign that pointed toward the office. “That’s…” Her attempt at a pep talk died as they turned the corner.
“Th-there’s one r-r-reason to b-b-be n-nervous about school,” Sam muttered under his breath as they all came to a startled halt—all except for Dez.
“Viggy!” she called, lurching forward. Grabbing a handful of her shirt, Jules caught her little sister just in time.
“Dez! Viggy’s working!” she whispered, her hope of escaping before Theo noticed them dying a quick death. The cop—looking like hot, broody forbidden fruit—was already turning away from Hugh and moving toward them. Viggy was trying to plunge forward to get to Dez, and Theo’s arm strained, his biceps bulging under his uniform shirt, as he held back the dog. Despite her panic, Jules’s attention was caught by the way his sleeve looked on the verge of ripping, as if it was struggling to contain the impressive muscles underneath.
Despite her reluctant fascination, Jules could barely contain the urge to bolt. There were a thousand reasons why Theo might be at the school, reasons that had nothing to do with the fact that Jules was a felon and had kidnapped her siblings and he had discovered these things because he was a cop and solving crimes was what cops did and she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison knowing that she had failed her brothers and sister and—
“J-Juju,” Sam muttered under his breath. “B-b-b-breathe.”
At the reminder, she sucked in oxygen, cringing at the gasping sound she made and hoping Theo hadn’t heard. She already felt like her crimes were tattooed on her forehead; she didn’t need to act any more suspiciously in front of the cop.
Theo stopped a few feet from them, greeting them with a short jerk of his head as he half-wrestled, half-ordered Viggy into a sit. When Dez lurched forward again, jerking against Jules’s hold, Jules realized she still had a grip on the back of her sister’s shirt.
“Dez,” she said, focusing on the girl in front of her so that Theo’s…Theo-ness didn’t take away her ability to speak. “Stop.”
“But I want to pet him.” Viggy’s tail thumped against the floor, as if in approval of that plan.
“He’s on duty.” That deep, clipped voice made the hairs on Jules’s arms stand up straight, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t from fear. “He can’t play with you when he’s on duty. He needs to focus.”
“Oh.” Dez drooped a little, but she didn’t make any additional efforts to get to Viggy.
“What’s he focusing on today?” Jules asked, trying to keep the question light and casual. The tremor in her voice might have ruined the effect she was going for, though.
Theo eyed them, a frown firmly in place, long enough for Jules’s panic to start bubbling over again. She bit the inside of her lip hard to keep from filling the silence. “Looks like a false alarm,” Theo finally answered. “We get those a lot. Kids trying to get a day off of school.”
False alarm, Jules repeated in her head, confused until she remembered what Viggy’s job was. “A bomb threat?” Her voice went a little shrill on the last word. Once again, her paranoia had made her forget that there were other dangers in the world, and she needed to protect her siblings. After all, they were her kids now.
“Happens a lot.” Theo seemed awfully casual for a conversation involving a threat of a bomb. “It’s usually some kid who’s pissed at a teacher or wants a free day.”
Jules’s brain seized on what she saw as the most important word in that sentence. “Usually? Shouldn’t you have evacuated the school, just in case?”
“We try to keep it low-key unless we believe it’s a legitimate threat. Otherwise, we’re just giving the kid who called it in what he—or she—wants,” Theo explained. “If I thought there was a chance there really was a bomb, Viggy and I wouldn’t be in here. We’d call the bomb squad in Denver and get everybody out of the building.”
Although his words were reassuring, Jules still felt jumpy. She glanced around, trying not to think of all the possible hiding spots—that locker, that recycling bin with the lid, that janitor’s closet. She nibbled on the inside of her lip as she forced herself to quit looking and focus on Theo’s face. If she was honest, that last part wasn’t a hardship.
“Jules.” Tio tipped his head toward the office. The flow of students had increased, although most of them were making a wide berth around the cop and his dog, and Jules wasn’t sure how long it would take to complete the admissions paperwork. She’d hate if the kids had to walk in late to their first class. Being the new kids was bad enough without drawing extra attention. There was already a lot of staring going on, although Jules wasn’t sure if that was due to them being strangers or the K-9 cop in their midst.
Taking a step toward the office, she said, “I need to get the kids registered.”