“You’re a dead old man walking, Gramps. She’s going to be pissed,” Cole snickered as he walked up to us and threw a can of beans in my cart. “Saw the list in your hand and recognized it, but you didn’t have the beans for chili taco casserole. There you go.”
Then, both men walked off like nothing had happened.
“I wouldn’t worry, honey,” a woman called Evita, who I recognized as one of the parents who collected one of my eighth grade students, Cody, said softly as she walked past.
“I know for a fact that if anyone had complained like that, you’d have been hauled into Ross Teller’s office and had your ass handed to you. He’s one of my neighbors, you know. We’ve only been living next to each other for almost three months, but even he said he was impressed with how you got through to those kids.
“It scared the hell out of me when I heard about those two kids who tried to kill themselves. I’ve been lecturing Cody about not listening to crazy stuff online for years now, but short of changing the password to the internet, I had no clue how to get through to him.”
She looked like she was close to tears. “Thank you for getting through to my son. For that, I’ll never be able to thank you enough, but I’ll try. If Kirkwood even goes near your grandpa’s grave, I’ll smack over the head with Cody’s baseball bat. Alex will probably give me hell for even saying that, but I’d do it for you and your family in a heartbeat.”
Then, not giving me a chance to say anything, she walked away.
Pulling my phone back out, I rang my dad to warn him about the mayor's threats and ended up holding the phone far away from my ear while he ranted down it.
Because the alarm system was fixed, school was back tomorrow, but I wasn’t sure I could face it. I felt like I’d failed the kids and let down my family.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Dad yelled. “Put this phone back to your ear this instant, young lady.”
Doing as I was told, I stared blindly into my cart, preparing myself for a lecture like when I messed up as a kid.
Instead, he blew out a breath to settle himself. “I’m so angry right now, Bexley, that I’m struggling to find the willpower not to go over to Kirkwood’s and punch him in the face.
“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. You’ve got a gift with kids and teaching, one that you knew in your heart and went after. I don’t believe for one second that you described it in a way that made rape sound good or took away the power of how grotesque it was.”
My lower lip started shaking, but I was determined not to cry in the middle of the store.
“Now, Logan will be able to confirm this, but I know for a fact that Kirkwood’s in deep shit right now, so he’s trying to take everyone down with him. He’s hoping that if he upsets us, we’ll distract Logan away from his part into the investigation into him.”
Looking cautiously around me, I whispered, “What are you talking about?”
“Right, he can’t talk about it,” Dad murmured to himself. “But I guess I can. So, the Kirkwoods and Ingleston are in shit. Something about bribes, drugs, and shootings. He’s hoping to buy himself time to hide whatever they could find on him, so he’s trying to distract everyone. Well, how do you distract a young man from his job? You go after his woman.”
Holy shit. Drugs? Shootings?
“Is this about that man and woman on the news? The ones who were shot?” I hissed, looking around me again and relieved when I didn’t see anyone.
“Think so, they’re the only shootings I’ve heard about. Anyway, somehow it all leads back to the Kirkwoods, and now they’re saying Ingleston’s been in on it for years, too.”
“How do you know all of this?”
Clearing his throat with a cough, he rasped, “Never you mind—” My betting was that Hurst had told Logan’s grandfather, Bill, who’d then told Dad “—but I’m betting his goal was to distract Logan with you and us with Pops’ grave. Well, we’re too smart for that.”
“What if there were complaints against me?”
“You hear from Teller yet?”
“No?”
Dad sighed impatiently like I was being dense. Maybe I was, but I’d just been thrown into a situation that made no sense to me and scared the ever-loving God out of me.
“If he had complaints about something like that, trust me, you’d know by now. Ain’t no way he’d be letting you near the students tomorrow, and he’d have to tell you that and why. Now, no news is good news, so you get on with what you were doing and leave the rest to us.”
And then he hung up, just like that, leaving me open-mouthed in the middle of the store.
Somehow I managed to get everything else I needed—and a lot I didn’t need and didn’t remember putting in the cart—and got back to my car. My baby had arrived this morning along with the boxes of stuff I’d brought with me that were now neatly stacked in the last available spaces in the garage.
I’d only just turned the engine on when a shrieking noise sounded, scaring the shit out of me. The Bluetooth connection between my car and phone had synced automatically, meaning that my phone was ringing through it—and the volume on it was all the way at the top.
With my left hand, I hit blindly at the button to answer it on the steering wheel while lunging to lower the volume with my other hand.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Why do you sound like you just got caught doing something?” Logan’s deep voice asked, sounding amused.
Explaining what had happened, I managed to smile for the first time in ages as I listened to him laugh. I was going to have to ruin his
