by Kate Flora
He started for the door again. I said, “Jason. One more thing we need to be clear about.”
He froze.
“You don’t touch other people without their permission. Not your bosses, your co-workers, the interns, our clients. No one. We work for schools that serve a teenage population. Me Too is a big issue. Consent is a big issue. Maybe at college you developed a bro mentality that said touching people is okay. I don’t know. But if you’re going to work in a professional setting, you need to lose that behavior. Okay?”
He looked like I was speaking a foreign language.
“So you didn’t give Lindsay a casual pat on the butt?”
His red face said it all.
Suzanne said, “You are on awfully thin ice here, Jason. Do you think you can conform your behavior to the norms of an office and the work world?”
“It was just…”
“There is no ‘just,’ Jason,” I said. “Now get out. Go do some of our work before we change our minds.”
He left her office dazed.
“You’re a kinder person than I would have been,” I said.
“We take turns. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed or intolerant. Sometimes you are. And I hadn’t focused on the business with Lindsay.” Switching gears, she asked, “How did it go at the King School?”
“Pretty well. Lindsay had a rather brilliant idea, if she can pull it off.” I told her about the short video. Then I switched to the next matter on the table. “So. Marlene?”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to feel like a babysitter. Between his dumb dishonesty and her insecurities. Gad. Makes me feel like an old fogie to say this, but I’m worried about the next generation.”
I said. “You and I, we’re millennials. Behind us, it’s Gen Z. But Marlene is no kid.”
“Well, whatever the designation, do you think they take classes in how to lie creatively on their resumes? So Marlene? There’s hope, but I was expecting more. We need to have a chat with her. After you look at her work product.” She sighed. “I think I’m done nurturing employees for the day. I’ve got two more people to nurture when I get home, and we’ve got a faculty do tonight. By nine, my face will ache from smiling.”
“Don’t you owe us a full day’s work?”
“Stop. Just stop. Go back to your office and do something productive,” she said.
I went. Suzanne balanced work and motherhood with calm and grace, most of the time. I didn’t expect to do as well. I also didn’t expect one of our client schools would as readily produce a nanny for me as they had for her. But while I knew I was supposed to have detailed plans in place, I wasn’t ready to think about leaving MOC when I hadn’t even met the little creature yet.
As if in agreement, MOC gave me a few gentle “I’m right here, Mom,” kicks.
I went to my desk to look at Marlene’s questionnaire, and any feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment flew out the window.
Nineteen
My plans to leave work soon, or to grab a late lunch, disappeared as I dug in. I was elbow-deep in revisions and trying not to curse when Sarah brought me a handful of messages. “Sorry,” she said. “I got caught up in Lisa’s proposal and your draft honor code and forgot to give you these.”
“It’s okay,” I said, hoping there were no emergencies hiding in the thin pink stack. “Just don’t send me home again, all right?”
A compulsive spurt of work and some Braxton-Hicks contractions had seemingly scared my coworkers.. Actually, the contractions had scared me, too, even though my doctor had told me to expect them. I now knew not to let the people around me know if something was happening. I wanted to be here at my desk, not at home, where I could stare across at the cottage and worry about what had happened to Charity or the possibility of more unwanted visitors.
“You can stay as long as you don’t go into labor or give me more than a day’s worth of work,” Sarah conceded. “Are we clear?”
It was bad enough that Magda had us all terrorized. Now Sarah wanted to do it, too?
“We’re clear.”
I sorted through the messages. A small nudge from Eastern Shore about their honor code, which was puzzling since, as I remembered it, they were supposed to send their draft to me. I sent a quick email to clarify. Got back an almost instant “Oops” with their draft attached.
There was an invitation to speak at a conference far enough in the future that I could probably accept. A school that had ignored us for months was now anxious about when they’d get their crisis management plan. I’d need some details from them; otherwise, it was mostly boilerplate.
And there was another call from Jameson Jones. Not a client. I had no idea what he could be calling about. I picked up the phone, hoping he wasn’t in trouble again.
He answered on the first ring, that stunning, deep voice. “This is Jameson Jones.”
“It’s Thea Kozak,” I said. “You wanted me to call?”
His sigh wasn’t stunning. It was despair. “It’s Shonny,” he said. “Again.” His sister Shondra. Ace basketball player, difficult, chip-on-her-shoulder personality. “She’s supposed to start college in a week, full basketball scholarship, and she doesn’t want to go.”
I’d crossed paths with Shondra and Jameson when they got in trouble at their boarding school. The school didn’t believe she had a stalker, and his efforts to protect his sister got him arrested. We’d gotten it sorted, but it hadn’t left her with positive feeling about the school, though that was somewhat mitigated by her love of basketball and her loyalty to her team.
“Did she tell you why?”
“I think she’s afraid of more of the same.”
The same being a community suspicious of her since she was undeniably angry and Black. And an angry Black six-foot-three woman was hard to dismiss.
“I doubt that she’ll listen to me,” I said. “But I might know someone who can help. Let me give Jonetta Williamson a call. What’s Sondra’s number?”
“We don’t know her, do we?” Experience had taught him to be skeptical, but he should know I wasn’t one of those people who tried to hand off problems.
“Come on, Jameson. You know me, right? You called me for help, so if I offer help, you need to trust me, okay? She runs a school for underprivileged Black girls in New York City. She’s smart. She’s fierce. She’s tenacious. And she’s connected. She knows about talking insecure young women into trusting opportunity when it’s offered. Believe me, she’s the right person to talk to your sister.”
Ordinarily, I would have waded in myself. I did have a relationship with his sister. But I wasn’t going to New York to talk an angry and suspicious young woman into taking advantage of a great opportunity. If Jameson, and their grandmother who’d raised them, couldn’t do it, it was too hard a job for me, even if I am a chronic rescuer. I said goodbye to Jameson and called Jonetta.
“Hey, girl,” she said. “What you doing at work? You should be home getting ready for our baby. You even got a room for that child yet, or is the poor little thing gonna have to sleep in a box?”
Our baby. I was lucky to be bringing this child into a world where so many people waited to love it and help raise it. Jonetta was one of them. If Dom and Rosie were my surrogate parents, Jonetta was my righteous godmother. She was one of those rare people whose presence in the world made everything better.
“Relax. Yes, MOC has a room. And a crib. And a rocking chair. And a stack of adorable little clothes. And a kick that has us expecting a soccer star or a football player. Now I have a problem child for you,” I said.
“Oh, honey. I think I’ve got enough of them.”
“Well, you’re getting another one. I’ve told you about her—Sondra Jones, tall, angry teenage basketball player? She was in that mess I sorted out at the school in New Hampshire, where she had a stalker?”
“I remember. And what seems to be the problem now?”
“Her brother says she’s ready to give up on a full-ride college
basketball scholarship because she’s feeling uneasy about the school.” I told her what school and she laughed.
“Doesn’t that girl know almost the whole team is gonna be Black? She needs to talk to her coach.”
She launched into a whole set of questions I had no answers for. In the end, I gave her Shondra’s number and said she could call me if it didn’t work out, though what I could do if a miracle worker failed, I didn’t know.
As I put down the phone and leaned back in my chair, I realized what I was doing. I was avoiding the issues I’d face when I left here. Even with a police escort, the drive home would unnerve me, as would seeing Charity’s cottage. I wouldn’t be able to stop puzzling about her welfare, about why people were after her, and which side Malcolm Kinsman was on. It made no sense to me that he had gone to such elaborate lengths to ask me what I knew but hadn’t shown up at her house to find out for himself.
This wasn’t supposed to be my problem, but how could I ignore the plight of a pregnant woman who’d knocked on my door? How was I going to not worry about a pregnant woman who knew no one in the area who was being chased by people who were willing to kill to get to her? I would have felt a lot more comfortable about the possibility of a Plan B if Jessica Whitlow hadn’t been killed. If Nathaniel Davenport hadn’t found them both so easily. I wondered if anyone else in town had known Charity. If Jeannine, our librarian, knew more about Charity or had suggested she meet anyone else, another person Charity might have turned to for help. Did someone else in town have her stashed somewhere safe?
Maybe I should have wondered if Charity had killed Davenport and Whitlow before she fled, but I couldn’t see how she’d managed to hit someone as tall as Davenport over the head with a rock, and she didn’t seem like the type to shoot someone, never mind doing that in her baby’s room. Besides, Andre-the-expert hadn’t raised that possibility. I believed she was the victim here.
I reminded myself that Thea the Human Tow Truck had been retired. I wasn’t going to take chances. But another big thing loomed that made it impossible to forget about Charity. Like her, I had once loved a man named David. Loved him. Married him. And lost him. If I hadn’t been hooked before, knowing that she had a husband named David, who was in danger, that her flight was both to protect her unborn child and to protect him, I felt too many connections to Charity to let my worries go.
I scanned the remaining messages. All work-related. No mysterious government agents or private detectives were looking for me. I called the school that wanted its crisis plan done asap, gathered the necessary information, and carried my notes and some samples out to Marlene’s desk.
She cringed and dropped her eyes. I suppressed a sigh.
“Parker-Adams Academy wants a crisis management plan in place before school starts, which is in two weeks. It’s pretty much boilerplate, except for a few school-specific details, which are here.” I put down the sheet with my notes. “Here’s a sample. You can pull it up as a document and make the necessary changes. Then send it to me for review. I’d like it tomorrow by noon. Think you can handle that?”
Sarah could have handled that. I just wanted to try Marlene out on something very straightforward.
She hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m not sure…”
I faked a reassuring smile. “You can do it. It’s pretty ABC. Have it on my desk by noon.”
I left before she started offering excuses. Then I called Andre.
“I’m heading out in about twenty minutes. You going to be here to watch my back?”
He didn’t respond.
“You said…”
“Something came up. I’ve been trying to reach Norah. It’s only ten miles. If we can’t be there, just be careful, okay?”
Until he said that, I hadn’t realized how much I’d counted on having him watch my back, ironic since I’ve always been fiercely independent. MOC changes everything. Also ironic since I’ve never thought much of women who make everything about themselves and their pregnancies. I was still me. Still very capable of taking care of myself. Still furious that I let some guy in a black SUV rattle me like this.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just surprised to find myself being such a wimp.”
“You’re no wimp. Quite the opposite. You don’t know how to be a wimp even when you should be.”
I could hear commotion in the background, voices and radio chatter. He was definitely at a scene.
“Call me as soon as you are home,” he said. “I’ll let you know when I’ll be home. It won’t be for a while. Lights on. Lock the doors. You know the drill.”
Yup. I didn’t want to, but I knew the drill.
“I will.”
“Eat something,” he said, because he knows my habits so well.
I’d already loaded my briefcase. If I was going to be sitting home alone in a spooky old farmhouse, I would need work to distract me.
Funny how on a sunny summer day, the house seemed happy and safe, and when faced with the prospect of solitude and darkness, it seemed threatening. I was sure I would jump at every bump and creak, which, since it was an old house, it had in spades.
I said goodbye to my husband, reminded myself that I was Thea the Great and Terrible, and headed home. Well, headed out to my car. I didn’t head home until I’d checked inside the car, and under the car—that must have been hilarious to anyone watching—and scanned the lot for lurking black SUVs.
The coast seemed clear.
I put my briefcase in the back, checked my pockets for my phone, my pepper spray, and my alarm, and started home. No car seemed to be following me, and no one passed me except a hippie-looking guy in a rusted Volvo. In my experience, the bad guys never drive Volvos.
I was driving through the town center, past the common and the bandstand and the Civil War memorial, when I decided to detour to the grocery store for basics like bread, milk, and whoopee pies. Despite their lack of anything resembling nutrition, MOC and I are very fond of them. I wanted to go easy on all that pasta, so I also got a rotisserie chicken, a bag of green beans, and some fresh corn.
I was checking out with my nutritious and unnutritious finds, wondering if I could wait ‘til I got home before I tore into the chicken, when the man behind the counter, an avuncular fellow named Bob who always wore a crisp white shirt and jeans held up with suspenders, said, “You aren’t in some kind of trouble are you? Because there was a guy in earlier who looked and acted like a cop asking about you.”
“How could I get in trouble with Andre for a husband?” I asked.
“What I thought, too.”
He grinned at the basketball and said, “Anyways, looks like you’re already in trouble.”
We both had a laugh about that.
There was no one behind me, so I said, “The guy asking about me. What did he look like?”
“Tall. Got one of them military haircuts. Sharp features. And really blue eyes, kind you notice because they aren’t common. Wearing a goddamn suit in August. Pardon my language.”
Malcolm Kinsman.
“What did he want to know?”
“Did I know you. Where you live. Did I ever see you with another pregnant woman. Kind of strange questions. I figured he didn’t need to know your business, so I didn’t tell him anything except that you and your husband, who is state police, live somewhere here in town, but you’re new, so I don’t exactly know where.”
“Thanks, Bob. That’s perfect. He doesn’t sound like anyone we know. I wonder who he is?”
“Dunno,” he said, bagging my purchases, “but I seen him heading across the common to the library, so you might check with Jeannine. She’s a pretty good reader of people as well as books.”
I carried my goodies out to the car, then started across the common to check with Jeannine. Damn Charity Kinsman anyway. I’d already had one house ruined by a crime victim, and now, even if it was inadvertent, she was bringing more trouble into my life.
By the ti
me I’d passed the bandstand, I was feeling guilty about those thoughts. Whatever trouble I was having with nosy people snooping around, her situation was far worse.
Twenty
Jeannine was checking out a freckled, red-haired boy named Albie. Albie was twelve and wanted to be a detective just like Andre when he grew up. I’d met the boy when the chain came off his bike while he was out collecting returnable bottles and cans, and he’d come to the door for help. I gave him lemonade while Andre fixed the bike.
“Be with you in a sec, Thea,” she said.
Albie turned and said, “Hi, Miss Thea.”
It made me feel like a schoolteacher from the nineteen fifties. Unless it was the eighteen fifties.
“Hi, Albie.” I looked at the books he was taking out. One about detectives, a Harry Potter book, and a kids’ book about the FBI. “FBI, huh. Given up on the state police?”
His grin was adorable. “Just keeping my options open,” he said. “I saw a guy earlier today snooping around your house. He looked kind of official, and I wondered if he was from the FBI.”
“Out hunting bottles again?”
“Gotta buy a new bike,” he said. “I’m close.”
“Well, we’ve got a couple bags of returnables in the barn. I’ll drop them off at your house if you tell me where you live.”
“That would be great,” he said, and gave a careful description of the route from my house to his, including landmarks like Henry’s Farm Stand and the road into the girls’ camp out on the lake. It was such a Maine thing, giving directions this way. Andre says he was once directed to a crime scene by being told to “turn right at the refrigerator, and it’s just past the rusting red tractor.”
Such delight at a few bags of cans and bottles. I wished more of the people I dealt with were so enthusiastic. “Oh, and thanks for telling me about that man at my house. I don’t like the idea of anyone snooping around when I’m not home,” I told him. “Can you describe the man you saw?”
