Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  Who did this? Why? Why her?

  I needed to solve this, not so much for Sutherland and Gray Wolf, but for Jonnie. I couldn’t allow her to be in this sort of danger for the unforeseeable future. As long as those boys were out there, she was. I also couldn’t push her into telling me. I didn’t want to traumatize her more than they already had.

  “I think I want to fly to Austin to see my parents.”

  I rolled back onto my side and slipped my hand over her hip. “Okay.”

  “I think it’s important.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Veronica called and told me I could take a week off. I think I should do that.”

  “You should.”

  She turned her head so she could see my face. “You’re okay with that?”

  “I think it would be a good idea for you to be somewhere safe until we can find the boys who did this.”

  She shook her head even as she relaxed back against the pillows. “They won’t find them.”

  “You have so little faith in me.”

  “Not you. Just them.”

  I kissed her cheek lightly. “I’m going to find those boys.”

  She shook her head again. “I don’t want you to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…”

  She stopped, clearly conflicted. And that’s when I knew that she knew who the boys were that attacked her. I lay very still, trying not to give in to my instinct to yell at her. How could she know who they were and not tell the cops—or me—immediately?

  “Jonnie, these boys could have seriously hurt you.”

  “I know.”

  “They could have done more than just rough you up a little.”

  “Don’t you think I realize that?”

  “Then why would you protect them?”

  She was quiet for a long moment. “I only know who one of them was. And he pulled the other boy off me, forced him to stop. I don’t think he really wanted to hurt me.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  I touched a couple of the bruises that had formed on her ribs, bruises that were bright blue and black in the morning light coming through the bedroom windows. It made me sick to see them and remember the images on that security video that showed her lying prone and vulnerable on the ground. I wanted to kill those boys for what they’d done to her.

  And she was protecting them.

  “I know you feel a loyalty to these kids—”

  “It’s not just that. I feel like it’s my fault this kid felt like he needed to do this. He’s frightened because of the meeting I set up with his mother.”

  Those words fell like a stone between us. She rolled onto her back to look up at me, aware that she’d just given me the kid’s identity. I pulled back, untangling myself from her as I attempted to climb off the bed. She caught my arm, her nails pressing into my skin.

  “Hank, you can’t act on this information!”

  “He might be one of the boys who was committing those vandalisms, Jonnie! He might be responsible for everything that’s happened these last few months. I have to check it out!”

  “No!” She sat up and pressed her bare chest to my back, her arms coming around my shoulders. “Please, Hank. Justin is a good kid. He’s less than seven months from graduating high school with a half dozen scholarships in his pocket! He just wants to get out of his father’s home, get out from under his father’s alcoholic abuse! You can’t ruin that for him!”

  “He attacked you.” I glanced back at her, outraged at just the thought. “He could have left you permanently disabled!”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Come on, Jonnie! You were a mess last night. You couldn’t even let me touch you!”

  “I was rattled, but I’m okay now. The bruises will heal.”

  “But what he did… boys who can do that once will do it again. What about the next teacher who crosses him?”

  “It won’t happen.”

  “How do you know?”

  There was doubt in her eyes. But she continued to fight me.

  “Justin is a good student. He’s the only boy in my advanced class who actually pays attention, the only one who really reads the books and turns in insightful papers. He’s so smart, Hank! He’s the kind of student teachers want!”

  “The kind of student who attacks you outside the school and beats the crap out of you?”

  “That was one bad act!”

  “What if he’s one of the boys who broke into the tech room and stole those computers? What if he’s one of the boys who stole the trophies out of the glass display? What if he’s the one who’s been vandalizing the school for weeks?”

  “I can’t believe Justin would do that.”

  “And I’m sure you didn’t believe he would attack you.”

  “He apologized.”

  I climbed off the bed and snatched up my pants, pulling them on before asking her, “When? Has he called?”

  “No. He apologized during the attack. He said I needed to stay away from his mother and he was sorry for what he’d had to do.”

  “What else did he say?”

  She shook her head. “That was all.”

  “And the other boy?”

  “He never spoke. I don’t know who it was.”

  “But if he’s one of your students, too—”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t dismiss my feelings.”

  “I’m not. I’m just trying to point out how insane your request is.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, wincing a little as the movement jarred her sprained wrist. “Why is it so bad to ask you to spare the future of one of my students? You did the same thing for Bobby Jensen.”

  “That was different. Bobby didn’t beat the crap out of one of his teachers.”

  “But he destroyed more than a thousand dollars’ worth of school property.”

  “He was angry.”

  “So was Justin.”

  She was right. I knew she was right. But it wasn’t the same.

  I sat down in the kitchen chair I’d brought into the room last night, resting my elbows on my knees and pressing my fingers into my hair. I didn’t want to argue with her. I didn’t want to trivialize what had happened to her last night or her role as a teacher. Obviously, she cared deeply about these kids, and I admired that. But this boy hurt her, and I couldn’t just sit back and allow that to happen.

  “What if he is the vandal? What about Sutherland and Gray Wolf? I have an obligation to follow up on any lead.”

  She sat up a little straighter, meeting my eyes with a steady gaze. “I don’t think he is.”

  “What if I check into him, see what I can find out?”

  “And if you learn he is the vandal?”

  “You’re convinced he’s not.”

  She nodded. “Check into him. You’ll find out he’s a really good kid who’s just stuck in a bad situation.”

  “Okay.”

  “And when you learn the truth, you’ll keep this information to yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” She held her hand out to me. “Now come back to bed.”

  I stood and stripped off my jeans again. I curled up against her, drawing her head down on my chest.

  “I just want you to be safe, babe.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ve been together such a short time, but I really don’t want to go through what we went through last night again. Ever.”

  “Neither do I.”

  I kissed the top of her head. “Can’t we just settle down and have something of a normal relationship? You know, I take you out to dinner, take you to a movie, and maybe you cook for me once in a while.”

  “Ohhhh…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t really cook.”

  I groaned. “Then I guess we’re destined to starve because the only thing I can make is beans. And only if they come in a can.”

  She giggled. “I guess one of us should learn to cook
, or we’ll be eating out a lot.”

  “Yeah. One of us.”

  She smacked my shoulder. “One thing you should know about me? I’m not the kind of girl you can pigeonhole into gender specific roles.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  “You do that, cowboy.”

  I groaned, but she pulled back and began to laugh, amusement dancing over her beautiful face. I tugged her close and kissed her, and that laughter quickly turned into something sweeter. And then there was no laughter at all.

  Chapter 19

  Jonnie

  I stared out the window of the plane, my heart in my stomach. I’d left the sling at home, hiding the brace on my wrist under the long sleeve of a light sweater. They wouldn’t be able to see the bruises on my ribs, thank goodness. The last thing I wanted to give my parents was fuel to use in an argument against my chosen profession. If they knew what had happened, I would never hear the end of it.

  Hank drove me to the airport, his goodbye kisses the sweetest I’d ever experienced. I knew he was worried about me, and I loved it. I loved that he was so deeply invested so soon after our first meeting. I felt the same way, as though the two of us had known each other all our lives. There was a connection between us that had never existed between Paul and I. Just that alone told me Hank was more important to my life than anyone I’d ever known.

  I wished I’d thought to ask him to come on this trip with me. I wished he’d asked me not to go. I wished… I really didn’t want to do this. The closer the plane brought me to Austin, the less I wanted to get off it.

  I knew what would happen. My mother would criticize my dress and my hair and my lack of makeup the moment I stepped off the plane. Then my father would hug me and tell me not to listen to her, but then he would make subtle remarks disparaging my chosen career. Nothing I did ever pleased my parents. Most kids could do no wrong. I couldn’t do anything right. Even when I went along with the program, even when I tried to do what they wanted, I failed to meet their expectations.

  I didn’t need negativity in my life.

  The plane landed, and my heart fell to my feet. I was one of the last passengers off the plane. I took my time working my way down to the security gate. Most of the other passengers and anyone who was there to greet them was gone by the time I stepped through.

  I spotted my parents right away.

  My mother was beautiful, tall and almost regal looking. She wore a perfect pantsuit that hugged all the right curves and softened the bad ones. She had on a large pair of sunglasses and a tilted hat on her dark hair. My father, his ginger hair made brighter by the florescent lights, was in the suit he probably wore to the office that morning, a smile bigger than all of Texas showing off his perfectly white teeth. He stepped forward, holding out his arms to me.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  He pulled me close and sighed against my cheek. “I can’t tell you how pleased I was to get your email.”

  He held me longer than usual, his sigh turning into something like a sob just a second before he pulled back. My mother, the sunglasses in her hand for dramatic effect, took a long moment to look me over.

  “Paul’s right. You are glowing, love.”

  And then she hugged me, not a word of criticism falling from her lips.

  That continued on the long drive to my childhood home in the hills overlooking Austin. We talked of mutual acquaintances and things Paul had said about his brief visit to Midnight. They asked me about my students and my work. Asked about my coworkers.

  They even asked about Hank, something I imagined they would never do, except perhaps to criticize my choices. Dinner was pleasant, all my favorite foods prepared by the new cook. I couldn’t help but look at my parents and wonder who the hell they were.

  “It’s surreal,” I told Hank on the phone late that night. “It’s like that movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

  “Maybe they just missed you. Maybe they’ve come to finally realize you’re an adult now and have the right to make your own choices.”

  “They have never allowed me to make my own choices.”

  “Maybe your absence taught them how important those are.”

  “Maybe. Maybe this was a good thing. But is it weird that I miss my parents the way they were?”

  Hank just laughed.

  Chapter 20

  Hank

  “What did she tell you?”

  Kirkland wasn’t going to let it go. That was the third time he’d asked. I felt as though I were being interrogated rather than answering a few questions to my boss. I’d been in the house twenty minutes, and he grabbed me, pulling me into the study, demanding answers.

  “I told you, she didn’t see anything other than what we saw on the surveillance footage.”

  “They spoke to her.”

  “They just called her names.”

  “There was nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Let it go, Kirkland,” Sutherland said from her position behind her desk. “He clearly has nothing new to tell us.”

  “Jonnie had to have seen something. Or recognized the kid’s voice.”

  “It’s a small school, but that doesn’t mean she knows every single child’s voice.” Sutherland sat down the file she’d been studying. “Hank wouldn’t keep anything back if he had information.”

  That made me feel guilty, but I’d promised Jonnie.

  Kirkland studied me like he knew exactly what I was hiding. He stepped back and gestured for me to leave.

  “I guess we’ll just have to start from the beginning, hope we find something new on the surveillance footage the school sent over.”

  “If it helps, I think that the boys who attacked Jonnie are on the football team.”

  “What makes you think that?” Kirkland asked.

  “The way they knocked her down. It’s a move my football coach taught us for tackling the quarterback.”

  Kirkland seemed thoughtful for a second, then he dropped into a chair in front of the new computer system he’d hooked up and began searching through the electronic files that listed students’ names and extracurricular activities.

  “Everyone’s on the damn football team,” he said after a moment.

  I spotted Justin Karl’s name on the list. At least that hadn’t been a lie.

  I walked over to my room and changed, then left again, before heading into town to the library. They had a set of computers people could use for whatever purpose. I commandeered one to do a search on Justin Karl.

  He was the star of the football team here in Midnight. His name appeared in nearly every Saturday edition of the paper all through the season. And there was often mention of his father, how he cheered the boy incessantly from the stands every week. The tongue-in-cheek reporting put a nice spin on the man’s alcohol-fueled enthusiasm.

  I read until my vision began to blur, writing down everything I thought might be relevant. Dates. Locations. Wins and losses. Sometime a loss can push a young man into doing something stupid. I know I once drank too much at a party after losing to our cross-town rival. I ended up driving my dad’s truck into a tree on our own property. I wasn’t allowed to operate a motorized vehicle for three months after that one.

  Maybe Justin broke into the school after a loss. But… no, the dates didn’t correspond.

  I googled Justin’s name after I finished with the local paper. There were a few articles from other town’s papers, mentions of his performance on the field against rival teams. I was nearly through all of those when I noticed an article underneath the sports section in one paper that mentioned a break-in that took place the same night as the game. Someone broke into the school and took a dozen Apple iPads used as study devices by the students.

  That made me curious.

  I started looking for crime blotters in the other papers for similar crimes that took place the same nights as away games for the Midnight Warriors. I was a little shocked by how many I found.

  Ten. There we
re ten break-ins at rival schools that had taken place over the past year. Four during last year’s football season. Three during basketball season, which Justin also participated in. And three this football season. If you added in the three that had taken place at Midnight High School, there were thirteen break-ins altogether. Could that be a coincidence?

  Of course, there were twenty-five other players on the football team, six coaches, ten student managers, and members of the cheerleading squad and band who traveled with the team. It could be any number of them. But when you considered the fact that Justin attacked Jonnie—whether it was about his mother or not—statistics seemed to suggest that Justin was either a part of it, or knew who was. I would have put my money on Justin being the ring leader.

  I left the library, careful to wipe the computer of my activities just in case someone came up behind me, wondering what the hell I was up to. They say that football is taken too seriously in Texas, but the people around here, especially now with all the bankruptcies and the influx of outsiders, took their football very seriously. It was the highlight of most people’s week. No one would appreciate me accusing the star running back.

  Coach Parsons lived in a small duplex not far from the school. He was outside tossing a ball with his small son, laughing each time the toddler tried to catch the ball but missed. He hesitated when he saw me pull to the curb, his laughter dying quicker than a flea caught between a dog’s teeth.

  “What can I do for you, Hank Stratton?”

  “I wanted to ask you a few questions about one of your students.”

  “Just one? Your boss—what’s his name? Kirk… something—came by wanting to know which of my football players broke into the school and stole thousands of dollars of equipment. I told him I couldn’t help without a specific name.”

  “Mr. Parish is going on a limited amount of information.”

  “And you aren’t?”

  “I want to ask about one student. Justin Karl?”

  He turned away, waving a hand in my direction. “I’m not helping you hang one of the best players on the team.”

  “I don’t want to hurt him. I just need a little information.”