Maybe it was a comfort for Harrison to believe that. Maybe it was even true. If so, it made what had been done to him even more evil. More diabolical.
Andrea Moore had been chosen because she was vulnerable. Believing in her own self-worth had been a struggle she’d fought for years. Despite the progress her mother and her therapist thought she’d made, the ridicule and cruelty she’d been subjected to by her peers had destroyed whatever fragile foothold she’d managed to attain in that battle. After days of unrelenting pressure from the things that were being said about her, she’d gone home and cut again. And then, despairing, she’d cut a little deeper, severing the veins in her wrists.
And Tim Harrison? Had the cruel insults he’d just watched flash across the boy’s monitor been enough to make him react by hanging himself?
“Maybe he didn’t have enemies,” Jace said aloud, “but somebody at Randolph-Lowen is behind this. Somebody is pulling the strings to make these things happen.”
And Jace believed he knew why. Just as he had told Lindsey at the beginning. He had stopped the church fires, but they’d found another way to get the rush they’d once gotten from watching the flames they had set consume their targets.
Now they were targeting their classmates. With a few carefully placed sparks, they had managed to set off a firestorm of rumor and gossip. Then they had stood in the background and watched as those flames, too, had consumed their victims.
“
S
omebody to see you,” Lindsey’s father announced as he walked back into the kitchen. He had answered the doorbell that had interrupted their dinner, assuming it would be for him.
“Did you tell them we’re eatin’ supper?”
“It’s okay, Mom.” Lindsey put her napkin beside her plate and pushed her chair back from the table.
She hadn’t talked to either Jace or Shannon since their contentious discussion at Rick’s. If either of them had come to see her, she was more than ready to heal the strains that day had created in their relationships.
“I showed him to the living room.” Her father picked up his napkin, waiting for her to leave before he resumed his seat.
“Don’t you be long,” her mother cautioned. “Your supper won’t be fit to eat if it gets cold.”
Without responding, Lindsey left the kitchen and made her way toward the front of the house. Her dad had said “he,” which meant Jace and not Shannon. That realization created a stir of anticipation, along with a nervousness over the way she’d acted the last time they’d been together.
It wasn’t that she regretted defending Justin. She couldn’t help thinking, though, that she could have made her case in a way that wouldn’t have alienated the two people, other than her family, she cared about more than anyone in the world.
She rounded the corner the hall made with the arched entry to the living room. The expectancy she’d felt dissipated in an instant, to be replaced by an even stronger sense of anxiety.
Justin Carr stood in front of the fireplace, his torso bent so that his head rested against the forearm he’d placed along the top of the mantel. The pose emphasized his thinness, making her more aware than ever that, no matter his IQ, he was still a child.
“Justin?”
He turned and straightened in one motion, a rush of blood suffusing his cheeks. Lindsey wasn’t sure if that was because she’d caught him in such a vulnerable pose or because of whatever emotion had sent him to see her.
“Your dad said you were eating. I can wait.”
“It’s okay. Is something wrong?” As she asked the question, Lindsey advanced into the room, resisting the urge to offer him some physical form of comfort, as inappropriate as that might be between a teacher and her male student.
“You have to talk to that detective, Ms. Sloan. My dad’s going to kill me. If the Point hears about this, they won’t touch me. Everything I’ve worked for will go down the drain.”
“Justin—”
“If this is about what I said in your room that day, you have to tell them I apologized. I barely knew Andrea Moore. What I said was just something stupid my dad says. I didn’t mean anything by it. Not about her. Even if it made Ms. Anderson mad, it’s not worth ruining my life over.”
“Nobody’s trying to ruin your life.” Lindsey couldn’t think of anything that might sooth his angst. Everything he said echoed her own fears. “If you weren’t involved in any of this, it will come out. Your name will be cleared, and things will—”
“
Who’s
going to clear my name? You know how that works. Once people think you’re involved in something criminal, it doesn’t matter what kind of proof you offer of your innocence. Not around here. They’re never going to forget that you were accused. If you’re accused, then it stands to reason, you must have done
something.
They’re ready to believe the worst about any of us. Especially about someone like me.”
The bitterness of being an outsider—a bitterness Lindsey would wager had been created long before Justin Carr arrived at Randolph-Lowen—marked his words, but she couldn’t deny them. The idea that someone who hadn’t come from this small, close-knit community might have set those fires would be welcomed.
Justin wasn’t even from Alabama. He’d grown up in locations all over the world, most of them far removed from the South. All those accusations of Southern-bred racism, which had swirled through the media during the last two months, would be more difficult to espouse if this boy could be proven guilty.
“And you have to know I didn’t have
anything
to do with what happened to you,” Justin went on, his voice more impassioned. “I’d
never
do anything to hurt you, Ms. Sloan. You have to believe me.”
…with what happened to you…
Despite the efficiency of the local gossips, there had been little talk about either incident. Apparently her neighbor’s version of how the snake had gotten into her house had been accepted. And although the fire at the ticket booth had been very public, it had been blamed on overloaded wiring. When she’d been asked about it, she herself had downplayed its seriousness, primarily to keep her mother from freaking.
“What do you mean, what happened to
me?
”
“The snake. The fire at the game.”
She shook her head, trying to think if this were as significant as she feared. If Justin was clever enough to have gotten away with the arson, as well as those two attacks, surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to make this kind of mistake.
“How did you learn about those, Justin?”
The boy looked confused by the question. “The detective asked my dad where I was those nights.”
“And did your dad know?”
“My dad
always
knows where I am.”
“So…where were you?”
“God, not you, too.”
“I’m just wondering how you knew about the snake.”
For a fraction of a second, the boy seemed at a loss, but his recovery was quick. And plausible. “I heard somebody talking about it at school.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember. They weren’t talking to me. I just…heard it. In the lunchroom I think.”
“What did they say? Exactly.”
Justin took a breath, as if gathering his thoughts, before he answered. “That you’d called the cops because you found a rattlesnake in your house. That was it.” His face suddenly relaxed. “They had a police scanner. They heard the dispatcher send the cops to your house.”
“But…you don’t remember who had the scanner or who you overheard talking about it.”
“It was just…” He made a quick, negative motion with his head. “I don’t know. The only reason I listened was because they were talking about you.”
She wasn’t sure how to take that, but it didn’t mitigate her uneasiness. She was accustomed to adolescent crushes and accustomed to dealing with them. For any young, single, remotely attractive teacher they were an occupational hazard. After ten years in the classroom her radar was fairly well attuned to the signs. She had never gotten that feeling from Justin, and despite what he’d just said, she didn’t have it now.
“So you listened because it was about
me?
Should I be flattered?”
“I think it was Steven. Yeah, I
know
it was. I listened because it was one of the guys in the program and because he was talking about you.”
“Steven Byrd?”
“He’s got a scanner. He’s into that kind of stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Justin shrugged. “All of it. Geek Squad. Cops and robbers. Technology.
CSI
crap.”
She knew Jace had questioned Steven about the Web site profile that had been created for Andrea. He’d come away from that meeting feeling the kid had told the truth when he said he hadn’t had anything to do with putting up that page.
Still, Justin was right about Steven’s interests. And in spite having been born here, Steven was almost as much of an outsider as Justin.
“Do you remember
who
he was telling?”
Again the boy looked as if he were struggling to retrieve the memory, but once more he shook his head. “I wouldn’t have remembered it was Steven if he hadn’t been…You know.”
“I
don’t
know. If he hadn’t been what?”
“So into you.”
Lindsey was aware of what the phrase meant, of course, but it wasn’t one she would have ever associated with Steven Byrd. Like Justin, by neither word nor deed or attitude had he indicated his feelings about her were anything other than those appropriate for their relationship.
“Steven?”
“You didn’t know?” Justin laughed. “
Everybody
knows, Ms. Sloan. He doesn’t have a girl, so…I guess fantasy’s the best he can do. And his all revolve around you.”
“He’s never given me any indication of that.”
“He’s smart enough to know you’d do something about it.”
“Like what?”
“Whatever teachers do. Talk to his mom, maybe. She’d have him up at the church altar confessing his sin before sundown.”
Lindsey had no idea if that were a fair assessment. A good proportion of her students belonged to relatively fundamentalist churches, like the one Andrea had attended. Those kinds of public confessions might well be the norm.
“Will you talk to him?” Justin asked.
He meant talk to Jace, she realized. The information Justin had just given her about his classmate seemed to mean little to him. Not nearly as much as his quest to clear his name.
“I already have.”
“You
knew
they thought I had something to do with this.”
The tone was accusatory. As if Justin expected her to have warned him of the sheriff department’s interest.
“They’re considering a lot of angles,” she said carefully.
“Does that mean they suspect other people, too?”
“I think suspect is too strong a word.”
“Not according to my dad. He’s already talked to a lawyer. Somebody well connected in Montgomery.”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad idea.”
“Then they
do
think I had something to do with this crap. Shit. Just…shit.” His face contorted as if he might cry.
“Justin—” Lindsey reached out, intending to touch his shoulder, but the boy twisted away.
“They’re going to fuck up everything. And I didn’t do anything, Ms. Sloan. Not the fires. Not to you. Why would I want to burn down a black church? Doesn’t that sound more like your little homegrown redneck bigots? I guess it wouldn’t do for anybody to accuse one of
them.
That might make everybody around here look bad. Especially when you all have got yourselves a perfectly good scapegoat.”
“Justin—”
“I swear if those assholes screw up my life…I swear…”
Either he couldn’t think of a threat dire enough, or he was too cautious to utter one. Instead he flung himself toward the front door, slamming it on his way out of the house.
The sound echoed through the hall, which was as far as Lindsey had followed him. She thought about trying to get him to stop, but there was really nothing more she could say.
“Everything all right in here?”
She turned to find her father standing at the end of the hallway. She nodded, fighting the temptation to run and throw herself against his chest to be comforted as she had as a child.
“That kid have a temper tantrum?”
“Something like that.”
And not without reason. Not if she was right about Justin. And if she were, Jace and Shannon were very wrong.
“I need to talk to you.” Even as the words came out of her mouth, Lindsey hated how they sounded. As if she had called him about some personal need. Sexual. Or even worse, emotional. “It’s about Justin Carr.”
No matter how important she thought it might be to try to convince Jace he was wrong, she didn’t want him to believe she was calling him because of what had been between them.
Past tense?
“What about him?”
Maybe it was the distortion caused by his cell, but Jace sounded distant. Preoccupied. As if he didn’t have time to talk. Or, and the thought was painful, as if he didn’t want to.
“He came to see me. At my parents’ house,” she clarified, not wanting him to jump to any other conclusion.
“Are you okay?”
She took some small comfort from the fact that the first thing Jace asked when she’d mentioned Justin’s visit was not about the case, but about her.
“Of course. He’s upset that you talked to his father. And he’s concerned that West Point or the congressman who recommended him will find out he’s the subject of a criminal investigation. Which I assume he is.” Although her inflection on the last part was inquiring, Jace didn’t address it.
“What’d you tell him?”
“That you’re investigating several people. I hope that’s still true?” Silence was the only answer she received, but it told her all she needed to know. “He mentioned both the snake and the fire, Jace. He said you asked his dad where he was on those nights.”
“That’s right.”
“I was surprised that he knew about the rattler. Nobody at school seemed to. At least they didn’t talk about it to me.”
“That may not mean anything.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was referring to Justin’s comment or the lack of gossip. But neither was really pertinent to what she wanted to tell him.
“He said he overheard Steven Byrd talking about the snake. That Steven has a police scanner.” She waited for the information to sink in, but apparently it didn’t make the impression she’d hoped for. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“A lot of people like to listen to the dispatches. It may be strange, but it’s not illegal.”
“No, but don’t you think it’s revealing? If you were tracking an investigation.”
Another silence. A considering one?
“Are you talking about the arsons?”
“Maybe. He found out about the snake that way. He knew I’d made a 9-1-1 call and that the sheriff’s department had sent someone out. What possible need would a seventeen-year-old kid have for a police scanner?”
“I told you. A lot of people have them.”
“And a lot of people know computers. And a lot are in my gifted program. And a lot went to school with Andrea and Tim. I know that. I also know Steven Byrd is one of them.”
“I felt he was truthful the day I talked to him.”
“And
I
think Justin Carr is telling the truth. I didn’t know that’s what investigations like this turn on.”
A sound like an exhalation came over the line. It took a second for her to realize it had been a laugh. “Is that funny?”
“I’m not making fun of you, Lindsey, believe me, but the reality is investigations often follow an officer’s instincts. His gut. His sense of who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”