Only when the door was open, and the heavy heat of the September night rushed into the coolness of the house’s interior, did she think about the danger of stepping out into the darkness barefoot. It wasn’t that she hadn’t done that before—to get the weekend paper or to cut off the sprinkler. But all that had been before she’d had a firsthand experience with something whose deadliness she’d recognized—and taken for granted—all her life.
She put on the porch lights as well as the spotlights on the corners of the house. And then she stepped outside, closing the door behind her.
The porch tiles were cool and smooth under the soles of her bare feet, the brick steps below them incredibly rough in contrast. Once she reached the sidewalk, she turned to look back at the front of her home.
For a moment she wondered if she would ever again feel the same way about it as she had before tonight. That it was a sanctuary. Somewhere safe. Security from the threats of the outside world.
She shook her head at the disconnect those words evoked, given what she’d just gone through. In spite of her escape, she knew this wasn’t over.
Her first impulse was to call her dad. He would come, of course, bringing one of the guns he kept locked in the tall, glass-fronted case in the hall. Armed with that, he would open the door and step into her bathroom—
She shook her head again, acknowledging that as much as she wanted him here, she wasn’t going to allow him to do that. Not at his age.
This wasn’t his job. She wasn’t sure whose job it was. But right now, she didn’t much care.
At least she knew where to begin finding that out. She reached inside her purse and dug out her phone. She flipped the case open and, for the first time in her life, dialed 9-1-1.
I
t had taken only minutes for a county cruiser to respond to her call. The deputies had listened to her story and then radioed its details to the sheriff’s office.
After almost a half hour’s wait, a hard-bitten, older man had shown up. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he had come equipped with a forked metal pole and a heavy vinyl bag.
Without so much as an introduction, he and the two deputies had disappeared inside. From then until now, maybe an hour later, no one had bothered to tell her anything about what they were doing or what they’d found.
In this close-knit neighborhood, it hadn’t taken long for a couple of neighbors to join her on the front lawn. Especially since the cruiser was still parked along the curb. Both had expressed disbelief at her assertion that someone must have put the snake into her hamper.
“That thing probably just crawled in there while you were at PTA,” Betty Savage had said.
“And closed the lid behind it?”
“Lindsey, you don’t honestly believe somebody broke into your house and put a snake in your clothes basket, do you? Who in the world would
do
somethin’ like that?”
“Maybe it was in some gardening clothes you brought in out of the yard,” Milt Trump suggested. “You just didn’t see it.”
Faced with their disbelief, Lindsey hadn’t continued to argue. Maybe their determination to deny what she was telling them was based on an unconscious realization of how much believing her might change their view of this neighborhood.
That was okay with her. She no longer had any doubt what had happened tonight. And now, after more than an hour of having nothing to do but think, she also had an idea of why.
The three of them turned when a second police cruiser pulled into the drive, lightbar flashing. When Shannon’s friend Rick Carlisle climbed out from behind the wheel, Lindsey walked over to meet him.
“Heard about your snake on the scanner as I was heading home,” he said. “You think somebody put it in your hamper?”
She hadn’t thought about how quickly her accusation would spread when she’d made it. Still, it’s what she believed had happened. And no matter how unpalatable that belief might be to anyone else, she wasn’t going to back down from it.
“That rattler didn’t crawl in there by itself. The basket was closed, Rick. Somebody had to put it there.”
“That’s a serious accusation, Linds.”
“Yeah? Well, it was a ‘serious’ snake. A pissed-off one.”
“You got an idea who might have done somethin’ like that?”
“A few.”
“You want to tell me?”
“I can’t. Not specifically.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t have a suspect, but…”
“But?”
“I think I might know what this is in relation to.”
“You make somebody at school mad at you?”
“Shannon told you that Detective Nolan thinks some of my kids might have had something to do with the church fires. I think this may have something to do with that.”
“Like
what?
”
“Nolan took me to dinner after the football game last week. He just wanted to pick my brain, but some of my students made a big deal out of seeing us together.”
“A ‘big deal’?”
“Like it was some kind of romantic relationship.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t even
know
the guy, Rick. After we ate, he took me out to Rohanna to show me the ruin.”
Rick’s mouth pursed. “To prove what?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe just to make me more aware of the destruction. He doesn’t think they’re through.”
“Whoever burned the churches?”
“He believes that since they can’t do that anymore, they’ll turn to something else. Maybe this is it.”
“You think this is what they’re doing because we’ve got patrols on the churches? Putting snakes in clothes hampers.”
Rick sounded amused, which she resented. “Not exactly.” She hesitated to put into words what she
had
been thinking. But since she’d started this…“I think when they saw me with Nolan, they thought I’d sold them out.”
“You know something about the fires you haven’t told us?”
“Of course not. Until Jace said it, I’d never had any reason to think about my students in connection with them.”
“Jace?”
“Nolan,” she amended, catching the look in Rick’s eyes. “I had dinner with the guy. During the course of the meal, we exchanged first names. It’s…” She shook her head, realizing she’d gotten off track. “Look, I probably wouldn’t have put any of this together except yesterday my seniors made such a thing about seeing me with him.”
“Give me some names, Lindsey.”
“I’m not saying there’s a correlation with the kids who brought it up. They were just the ones who saw us. But you know how things like that get talked about. And then tonight…Tonight, when every kid in that high school knows where I’m going to be and when I’m going to be there, I come home and find a rattler in my laundry basket. I can’t help thinking—”
The front door opened, and the deputies and the guy with the sack and the pole came out. Although she didn’t want to look at the bag, Lindsey could tell there was now something inside.
As the older man headed toward his pickup, one of the deputies started across the lawn to where she and Rick were standing. On the way, the deputy nodded to her neighbors, slowing to answer a question one of them asked, before he continued toward her. Neither she nor Rick said anything as they waited for his arrival.
“I don’t think you’ve got anything else to worry about, Ms. Sloan. We poked around in there pretty good.”
Despite the cringe factor inherent in having people look through her closets and less-than-orderly cabinets, she had pleaded with them to check out the rest of the house. While that wasn’t as reassuring a message as she’d hoped for, they’d probably done all they could tonight. Whether that made her comfortable enough to go back inside and crawl into bed…
“She thinks somebody put the snake into that hamper.” Rick raised his brows, shrugging slightly. “I don’t see how it could have got into a closed basket otherwise.”
In spite of her own conviction that that’s what had happened, hearing him put it into words created a sickness in the pit of Lindsey’s stomach. Never in her life had anyone deliberately tried to hurt her. To think that one of her students might be involved in this made her question every day of the ten years she’d spent in the classroom.
“You see any sign of forced entry?” Rick asked.
“No, but we weren’t looking for them, either. You got any idea who might have done something like that, Ms. Sloan?”
She remembered what Shannon had said. In a town like this even the suggestion of wrongdoing could taint a kid’s life.
“No.” She didn’t dare look at Rick.
“Lindsey.”
She turned her head, meeting his eyes. “I don’t. I told you I don’t have a name. Anything else is just speculation.”
“I’d say it’s a little more than that.”
“Not really. Besides, what I’m willing to tell you as a friend is very different from what I’m willing to put into a police report.” She looked back at the deputy who’d responded to her call. “Thanks for taking care of the snake and for searching the house. If I think of anything, I’ll call you.”
“You teach at the high school, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Think this could have been some of your students? Some version of the old puttin’ a frog in the teacher’s drawer.”
She should have expected the question, once the subject was broached. “I can’t think of a child I teach who’d do something like this.”
She heard Rick’s snort of disbelief, but she wasn’t being dishonest. Whether she bought into the idea that her students were involved in the fires or not, she couldn’t believe any of them harbored this kind of animosity toward her.
And toward Jace Nolan?
“Okay, then,” the deputy said, sounding relieved. “If you think of anything else or if you want us to check out the whereabouts of any of your students tonight, let us know.”
She knew where her kids would
say
they’d been. Either at school or at home, while she and their parents had been at the PTA meeting. And very few of them would be able to produce any witness who could verify their presence there.
“Ma’am.” The deputy touched the brim of his hat before he turned to join his partner who was waiting in the patrol car.
“You want me to come in with you?” Rick asked.
The idea was appealing, but Rick had obviously just finished his shift. He was probably tired and wanted to get home to his own bed. It must be nearly midnight by now. If the other deputies and the snake hunter hadn’t found anything…
“I’ll be okay. But thanks. I appreciate the offer. And thanks for coming by. I appreciate that, too.”
“You call me if you need me, Linds. I mean that.”
“I will.” She leaned forward and hugged him.
His arms closed around her, squeezing hard. When he released her, there was an awkward silence. Despite the number of times she’d been around Rick while he and Shannon dated, she’d never thought of him as a friend. He had been tonight.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he told her. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll do some looking around on my own. Talk to a few of the kids.”
“I don’t want to accuse my students and then find out I was wrong. Something like that can follow a kid for the rest of his life. Shannon will tell you that.”
“Maybe you and Shannon ought to be more concerned about yourselves. That wasn’t a frog in your hamper. You remember that.”
She nodded, unable to dispute his assertion. She was lucky she wasn’t at the emergency room being treated for snake bite. And she knew it. “Thanks again.”
“I meant what I said. Call me if you need me.”
“I will.”
“You going to school tomorrow?”
“It’s a little late to get a sub.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything about this. Not to the kids. Just watch how they act around you. See if you see anything that sets off alarms.”
“Like what?”
“Someone who seems a little strange. They may not, but you never know. Especially if
you
act like nothing happened.”
“You know how long it will take for this to get around,” she said, glancing back at her neighbors who were still standing in the middle of her yard.
“Not by tomorrow morning. Just keep your radar up. Whoever did this is probably going to be looking to gauge
your
reaction. Maybe you can tell which kid that is.”
She nodded, even though she wasn’t convinced she’d be able to tell anything by the way her kids acted. Between hormones and football, anything approaching normal was a crapshoot.
“You want me to let Nolan know?”
Rick’s question caught her off guard. It was logical that he’d want to tell the guy in charge of the church fire investigation that she was wondering if this were related.
“Do what you think is best,” she said finally. Jace had a right to know. And he was bound to find out anyway.
Was letting Rick tell him the coward’s way out? Maybe. But right now she didn’t want to have to face Jace and confess that she was wondering if he’d been right. Let Rick convey her doubts. In the meantime, she needed to try to get some sleep and get ready for tomorrow.
“You gonna be okay?”
Rick’s question brought her eyes up. “Of course,” she said with more conviction than she felt.
And if she wasn’t, she would deal with it in private.
Although she’d resisted the impulse to pack a bag and spend the remainder of the night at her parents’ house, she hadn’t been able to just crawl into bed and go back to sleep.
She’d settled down in the den instead, the light beside her recliner on so she could see most of the room. And if she occasionally thought she caught motion in one of its shadowed corners, that was only to be expected.
She had always functioned okay in college after pulling an all-nighter. She’d be all right at school. Then if she still felt that she couldn’t sleep here tomorrow night—
The doorbell interrupted the endless cycle of trying to deal with this. She looked down at her watch and found it was almost two. If they thought she was going to be stupid enough to open the door after what they’d done—
The bell rang again, strident and demanding.
Maybe the deputies had come back. Maybe they’d already discovered something. As appealing as that thought was, she was still reluctant to face anyone right now.
When the bell rang once more, she righted the recliner, slipping her feet into her shoes. As she headed toward the front door, she turned on the lights in her path.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Jace. Let me in.”
She wasn’t prepared to deal with him right now. That’s why she’d agreed to let Rick tell him what had happened.
“Lindsey? Open the damn door.”
The air of command she’d previously classified as arrogant was suddenly appealing. Jace sounded furious. As if he were prepared to kick someone’s ass. And right now, that was exactly how she needed him to feel.
She slipped the chain out of the slot, then threw the deadbolt and turned the handle. The porch light verified her initial impression. Jace
was
furious.
“May I come in?”
“Of course.” She stepped back, allowing him to enter. Before she turned to face him, she secured the locks on the door. The process not only occupied her trembling hands, but it gave her a moment to get her act together.
When she’d seen him standing outside, she had wanted to throw herself into his arms. It was a feeling that made no sense. If anything, she should be angry at him for putting her in this situation. If he hadn’t singled her out, both at school and at the game…
Taking a steadying breath, she turned to face him. It was the first time she’d seen him in casual clothes.
The black T-shirt emphasized the muscles of his chest and upper arms, which had up until now been camouflaged by the suits he normally wore. The worn material of his faded jeans was almost as revealing as the knit shirt. And the five-o’clock shadow she’d noticed Friday night was much darker now, giving him a hard, almost sinister appearance.