THE WORD OF A CHILD Read online

  "Oh." Oh, dear, was more like it. Obviously he wasn't at the moment wearing one of those well-cut suits he favored. More likely, pajama bottoms sagged low on his hips, if he slept in anything at all. An image of Connor McLean bare-chested tried to form in her mind, but she refused to let it.

  "Eleven, then," he said. "Where do I find you?"

  She hesitated for the first time, hating the idea of him in here. But the teacher's lounge was obviously out, late October days, however sunny, were too chilly to sit outside, and short of borrowing another teacher's classroom—and how would she explain that?—Mariah couldn't think of another place as private as this.

  "I'm on the top floor of the A building. Room 411."

  "Can I bring you a take-out lunch?"

  Annoyed at his thoughtfulness, she was glad to be able to say, "Thank you, but I packed one this morning."

  "See you then."

  She pressed End on her phone and stashed it again in her tote. Her heart was drumming. Ridiculous.

  The door to the classroom rattled, and she glanced up to see a couple of blurred faces in the mottled glass. Startled, she saw that the clock had reached seven-fifteen without her noticing.

  She let in the eager beavers. Probably eager not for her brilliant instruction, but for the chance to slump into their seats and achieve a near-doze for a precious few minutes before she demanded their attention. Most did, however, drop last night's assignment into her in-box as they passed her desk.

  This ninth-grade crowd was reading Romeo and Juliet. She was big on Shakespeare. She'd let them watch the updated movie version last week, the one with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio and guns and swimming pools, which she personally detested as much for what it had left out as for the interpretation. But she'd found it effective with the kids, helping them to understand that the words were timeless. Now she was making them read the original, not cut to suit the constraints of moviemaking budgets and filmgoers' limited attention spans.

  Tracy wasn't in her seat for Beginning Drama. Was she too scared or embarrassed to come to school now that the cat was out of the bag? Or had her mom made her stay home? The principal might even have suggested she take a day or two while the police investigated.

  The class passed with Tracy's empty desk nagging at Mariah. The bell had rung and students were making their way into the hall traffic when Detective McLean's head appeared above theirs. Under other circumstances Mariah might have been amused as he tried to force his way upstream in a hall so packed, kids shuffled along in file with their backpacks protectively clutched tight. Stopping to visit with friends was impossible, the equivalent of an accident during rush hour on a Seattle freeway.

  His progress would have been even slower on one of the lower floors. This was the bottom of the bottle, so to speak, tipped up to empty. Students were fleeing it for the commons or the covered outdoor areas where they could hang out for the lunch hour.

  "God Almighty," the detective muttered when he finally stepped into her room. "What if there was a fire?"

  "That," Mariah said, "is our worst fear. There is a fire escape on each end of the building, which would help, but since going down that would be single file, evacuating all four floors would still take way too long."

  He looked back at the stragglers in the now-emptying hall and frowned. "The fire inspectors have been here between classes?"

  "What are they going to do? Condemn the building? Where would we go?"

  He growled something and closed the door on the hubbub. Mariah fought an instinctive desire to step back. Connor McLean was a very large man, easily six-two or six-three, with bulky shoulders to match. While she watched, he strolled around her classroom reading quotations, scrutinizing photos, smoothing a big hand over a desktop just as she'd done earlier.

  "Place hasn't changed at all."

  She raised her brows. "Since?"

  "I went here. Smells the same, even."

  "I like the smell." She was sorry immediately that she'd let herself get personal.

  He inhaled. "Yeah. Creates instant memories, doesn't it?"

  Yes. Yes, that was exactly it. Floor polish and books and chalk dust could release a kaleidoscope of memories of herself behind one of those student desks. The rustle of a note being passed, the wonder of the passage a teacher read with deep feeling, the stumbling recitation of a report before bored classmates, the glow of seeing a huge red A—good work!—on the top of her paper. Days and weeks and years spent in classrooms like this, the time happy enough that she had chosen teaching as a career. No wonder she loved the smell of school.

  "Yes," she said stiffly. "I suppose it does."

  He stood before the window for a moment, looking out. "This town doesn't change."

  "The strip malls and Target and Home Depot weren't here when you went to Port Dare Middle School."

  He gave himself a shake, as though ridding himself of memories she wasn't so sure were good. "No, or the developments in the outskirts. But the view from here hasn't changed an iota."

  "Unless we tear down all the Victorian houses or allow new development on the waterfront, it never will."

  Detective McLean turned abruptly, his gaze focusing intensely on her. "You didn't grow up in Port Dare, did you?"

  She wasn't sure what business it was of his, or why he cared, but answering seemed harmless. "No. I'm actually from California. Sacramento. I came to college up here, met my husband and stayed."

  "Where did you go?"

  Was he going to check her college transcripts? "Gonzaga, in Spokane. Then Washington State University for a masters degree."

  He made an interested sound as he strolled to the front of the room. "Why Port Dare?"

  She looked at him steadily. "Simon found work here."

  "You're still married?" He sounded casual, as if he didn't care. And why should he?

  "No." Acid corroded her voice and her heart. "You did manage to destroy my marriage. Is that what you wanted to know?"

  A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he didn't look away. "I hoped you were divorced. For your little girl's sake."

  Mariah tasted bile. "Now Zofie gets to spend weekends with her daddy. Without Mommy around at all."

  A frown gathered his brow. "He gets unsupervised visitation?"

  "Of course he does!" She stared at him with dislike. "You never even arrested Simon. You never proved a thing."

  "It's almost impossible when the victim is a child that young."

  She clutched the edge of the desk for support, listened to her voice shake. "Then what's the good of making accusations you can never substantiate? If there is no sperm, no witnesses, why start something you can't finish?"

  His mouth twisted. "How can we not? He might have given something away. You might have been able to prove your husband was never alone with the child and her identification of him was wrong. You and he had a right to know he had been named. Would you really have wanted to go on with your marriage in ignorance? Maybe have had more children with him?"

  The sound that came from her was nearly a sob. "I don't know! How can I even remember life before you came and spread doubts like … like salt in a field?" Mariah drew a shuddering breath and fought for composure. "I hate what you did to Simon and me and Zofie. I had to say that once. Now let's do what you came for and not talk about the past again."

  "It's my job." Did he sound hoarse?

  "We all choose how we spend our lives." She, in turn, was cold, unforgiving.

  "Someone has to stop child molesters and rapists."

  "Just know that you do bad along with the good."

  He gestured toward the rows of empty desks and said scathingly, "Don't you ever let down a student? Maybe not connect, because you don't want to change how you present your material? Could it be you're so sure everyone should appreciate Shakespeare, you ignore those kids who can't read well enough. Or, hell, maybe you don't listen, because you're too busy or you don't like that student anyway?" He stalked toward her, predator toward
prey. "Fail her on a test, when she needed you to understand that her mom walked out last week and she's cleaning house and doing the laundry and putting dinner on the table and taking care of her little brothers and crying when she should be sleeping? Maybe just failed to reach a kid, period, no matter how hard you tried? You've never done any of that?"

  She winced inside. What teacher didn't have regrets? Who was perfect? But she hadn't chosen a profession where she destroyed more often than she built.

  Chin high, face frozen, she asked, "Are you admitting that you 'failed' my family?"

  That betraying muscle beneath his eye jerked, but he said quietly, "If I failed anyone, it was Lily Thalberg."

  Now Mariah did flinch. Sometimes she almost forgot Zofie's small playmate, the child who had started so much when she whispered, "Zofie's daddy."

  "You believed her."

  "Yes."

  "Did you ever question her identification of my husband? I mean, seriously question it?"

  "Did I consider that she might be transferring the terror from her own daddy to someone else's? Is that what you're asking?"

  "I…" She swallowed. "Yes. Or from her grand-daddy, or…"

  "Or someone. Anyone but your husband."

  Her mouth worked. Put that way, she sounded childish. Blame anyone but Simon. "He didn't … he couldn't…"

  Harshly, Detective McLean said, "And yet, you left him."

  "Yes." Now she froze inside as well as out. "To my eternal shame."

  He let out a ragged breath. "Ms. Stavig…"

  "No." She straightened behind the desk. "It is far, far too late for recriminations." Not for guilt. Never for guilt. "I shouldn't have started this. I'm going to ask you to leave if this is what you came to talk about."

  He moved his shoulders as though to ease tension. "You know it isn't."

  "Then tell me what you need to know."

  "So you can ask me to leave?"

  "So that my students don't still find you here when they arrive for class in—" she glanced at the clock "—twenty-five minutes."

  His gaze followed hers to the clock and he muttered an incredulous oath. "That's not long enough."

  Although he would loom over her, Mariah pulled out her chair behind the large teacher's desk and sat. "I suggest you take advantage of that time," she said crisply.

  Frustration and something else showed in his gray eyes. "All right," he said abruptly. His tone took on an edge, a sneer. "Here's a question, Ms. Stavig. Why do you think, when Tracy Mitchell decided to tell her story, she chose you of all teachers to hear it?"

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Mariah Stavig's face was gently rounded, far from classically beautiful. She lacked the dramatic cheekbones or lush mouth that were currently in vogue. Her extraordinary eyes, gold and brown with flecks of green, framed by thick dark lashes, more than compensated, in Connor's opinion. She had delicate features, pale, creamy skin and thick, dark hair worn in a loose knot on her nape.

  Her face of all others had haunted him for years.

  Now she stared at him with the intense dislike he had seen in his dreams. "Precisely what does that mean?" she asked sharply.

  Still dogged with frustration and the bone-deep knowledge of wrongdoing, because he had played a part in destroying her marriage, Connor said, "It was a question. Nothing more. Why you?"

  "My students trust me," she said stiffly.

  He half sat on a student desk in front of hers, letting one leg swing. "Tracy Mitchell is a seventh-grader. Right? You've had her now for … what?" He pretended to think. "Seven, eight weeks? I gather she's not a top-notch student. How many students come through here a day? Be honest. How well can you even know the girl in that length of time?"

  "Not as well as I do some of my eighth- and ninth-graders, of course. But Tracy is … noticeable. She dresses and acts older than her age. She's smart but not a good student. She tends to talk back, speak out of turn, exchange loud comments with friends at inopportune moments. But sometimes there's also something a little … sad about her. Do I know her well?" Ms. Stavig tilted her head. "Not yet. Do I know why she's the way she is? No, but I can guess, having talked to her mother several times."

  "Already?" He hoped he didn't sound as surprised as he was. "She a real troublemaker?"

  "No. Simply an underachiever. I find it best to ride herd on kids from the beginning." Her mouth firmed. "Now tell me what you meant to imply. What possible bearing does Tracy's choice of me as the teacher to tell have on anything?"

  "I thought maybe rumor told her you had escaped marriage to a sexual molester. That she assumed you would be sympathetic and not question her motivations or the … details of her story."

  Emotions flashed across Mariah Stavig's expressive face before she narrowed her eyes. "But, you see, most people at school didn't know Simon. I have no reason whatsoever to think Tracy Mitchell was aware that my ex-husband was accused of sexual molestation. And if she did know, she would also know that I supported him when he said he was innocent."

  "Did you?"

  She ignored the question, although anger flared in her eyes.

  "In fact, she would know that I think this kind of accusation rather resembles a witch hunt. Too often, it's all emotion and little truth. If she were smart, she would have chosen another teacher. When I realized what she wanted to talk to me about, I almost asked her to do so."

  "And yet," he mused, "you did listen and you went to your principal."

  Her face became expressionless. "I am legally obligated to report Tracy's story."

  "If you weren't?" He leaned forward. "Would you have told her to forget it? Maybe suggested she just ask to change classes? Chalk up the sex to experience? How would you have handled it, Ms. Stavig?"

  She bent her head as if in rapt contemplation of her hands, flattened on her desk blotter. "Tracy's situation is … different." She spoke very quietly. "Of course I would have taken action."

  He didn't say, Just as I had to take action. He didn't have to. She looked up, shame staining her cheeks.

  "I do realize that you had to do your job." Now her hands knotted on the desk before she seemed to notice and moved them to her lap, out of sight. Her voice was low, halting. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. It's not your fault Lily accused Simon or that you couldn't prove either his guilt or innocence. I do know that."

  Now he felt like crud. This whole interview had been about him. He'd desperately wanted her to say just this, and manipulated her until she did. If he had never seen Mariah Stavig before, he would have approached her very differently.

  "No," he said abruptly. "I'm sorry. You have every reason to harbor … bitterness toward me. Probably I should have bowed out of this investigation because I knew that. Instead I've been making little jabs, just to see a reaction."

  She stared, her lower lip caught between her teeth. "Why?" she whispered finally.

  Connor closed his eyes for a moment. "Because I couldn't take the way you looked at me yesterday. As if I were another kind of monster."

  "Why did you care?"

  He could barely make himself meet her gaze. "Because I do have a conscience, believe it or not. I knew what I'd done to you, the decisions I'd left you to make. Every day I leave people to make those decisions. You were … symbolic, I suppose."

  "You wanted me to say it wasn't your fault."

  His grunt was meant to be a laugh. "Yes. How small we can be."

  "Yes," she said softly. "We can be, can't we? My decision to leave Simon was mine alone. But I wanted to blame somebody so I didn't have to take responsibility. The funny part is, I can hardly remember the social worker from CPS." She made a ragged sound. "Not even her name. That is funny. I chose you to hate."

  Brows together, Connor studied her in genuine perplexity. "Why?"

  Her gaze skittered from his. "I don't know. I didn't even realize…" Her breath escaped. "No, I do know. You dominated. Compared to you, she was a shadow. And
then there was the way you said it. 'Even in a whisper, Zofie's daddy, was clear as a bell.' You see, I remember that, word for word."

  He swore.

  Mariah gave a crooked, sad smile. "That's why I hated you. Because you were Lily's voice."

  "I'm sorry," he said again, inadequately.

  "No. You did what you had to do." Visibly composing herself, she glanced at the clock. "My next period students will start arriving in just a few minutes. I'm afraid we've wasted our time."

  He shook his head. "I don't think so. We had to get past this."

  She gave him a brief, almost vague smile. Class dismissed. "I'm going to eat my lunch, very quickly, if you don't mind."

  "No. Listen. Can I come back later? After your last class, maybe? Or do you have to pick up Zofie right away?"

  Pulling a sandwich out of her brown paper bag, Mariah shook her head. "I do have that planning period, remember."

  "Oh, right. One o'clock?"

  She agreed.

  He stood. "I'll get out of here, then, so I don't start whispers."

  Mariah looked surprised and as innocent as he suspected at heart she was. "Nobody is talking about Tracy yet."

  What he'd meant was that they might whisper about her. He didn't say so. "Good. I want to get to her friends before she can. Her mother promised she wouldn't let her call any of them until I say it's okay. I'll do some interviews here at school, others tonight in the kids' homes."

  Her brow creased. "I'm not sure I know who her best friends are. Her crowd, sure, but if she had a really close friend…"

  "I'm sticking around school today to talk to some of her other teachers, too."

  "Oh. Of course." She tried to smile. "Poor Gerald."

  "Maybe." Connor hadn't made up his mind yet.

  He left, then, to hit up the next teacher on his list.

  The consensus among the faculty, he found, was in agreement with Mariah's brief sketch of the girl. "A smart mouth," the math instructor said. All equivocated when asked about her academic potential. "She's got the ability," conceded the social studies teacher grudgingly. "If she'd ever pay attention."

  Several had also had meetings with her mother. They were guarded in their assessment, but having met Sandy Mitchell, Connor could read between the lines. She was apparently still married to the long-missing husband, which didn't stop her from replacing him with a rotating succession of men. She claimed to want the best for her daughter, but she let Tracy baby-sit until the wee hours on school nights, wrote excuses for skipped classes and apparently paid more attention to her current boyfriend than she did to whether her daughter had missed assignments or flunked tests.