Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 1

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  Isaac cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Daniels, how are we supposed to do your practical application assignment? We live on campus.” Mina’s voice had a whiny, nasal tone.

  “I’ve worked that out with Pastor Barnes. He’ll charter a bus and take you all into Portland to work at some of the shelters. It will be much later in the term.”

  “Ew.” Mina rolled her eyes.

  “Jane….” Isaac cleared his voice again.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. It just came out.” Jane looked at her fingers again. Mina was her best guess as to who had turned them in for inappropriate behavior. There was a good chance Isaac would be called back to the office for another talking to.

  “No, not that.” He blushed a little. “I saw the funeral notice in the paper. I just wanted to let you know that my parents are going. I’m going too, so you might meet my family.”

  Jane bit her lip. “Oh?”

  Isaac lowered his voice. “I wanted you to know in advance. I haven’t said anything, I mean I may have mentioned that I met someone great, but I didn’t tell them who. If you don’t want me to introduce you, I won’t.”

  Did she? Didn’t she? She spun the thought around. She swallowed. “I’d love to meet them.” She counted back the days trying to remember how long ago she had met Isaac. Not long enough to be meeting his parents.

  “It’s just, they’re neighbors, you know? And friends. They wanted to go. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. You hardly know me.”

  Mina’s snickering carried over the low murmur of voices that filled the room.

  Jane turned toward the sound. Pastor Barnes stood in the doorway, his black brows pulled together, a deep crease cut between his eyes. He eyes bored into Jane. He caught her eye and nodded toward the door.

  She flipped her head back to Isaac, but he had turned and was talking to Sarah.

  Jane stood, her knees shaking. She joined the pastor in the hall. He closed the door to the classroom.

  “Jane, I am not just the Pastor of Harvest Church. I am the administrator of this school. I am responsible for the spiritual growth of the young men and women who come here.”

  Jane looked at her feet. Mina had worked fast.

  “I cannot have our rules flouted.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jane’s face burned with shame. She hadn’t just broken the rules, she had thought of herself as above them. Her stomach was sick with misery.

  “Every now and again, when I feel a student has the potential to be successful, I allow part time status. I allowed you part time status because I believed you were a serious student.”

  “I am. I swear I am.” She still couldn’t look up at him. Not with all of her recent thoughts on the value of the school racing through her brain. She had been a serious student. The school had changed, not her.

  “I have two choices, Jane. And I need you to help me decide the wisest course of action.”

  She nodded. She knew this was going to be one of those impossible choices that Christians like to pose. The right answer was always “Die to Self.”

  “If I suspend Mr. Daniels for his behavior eighty-five students will miss out, not only on this night class you are a part of, but also the other two classes he is teaching here this term.”

  Jane’s eyes filled with tears. She knew what was coming and she hated it.

  “If I suspend Mr. Daniels he is without a job for the term. He is without a reference from this school. You might not know this, Jane, but I report to his thesis advisor. If he is suspended for inappropriate behavior, they will know why.”

  “But he hasn’t acted inappropriately.” Jane lifted her head and stared at the Pastor. “It would be wrong to tell them he did.” Her voice rose.

  “I know about the fire, Jane.”

  “That wasn’t his fault. Or mine. He was tricked into coming out there.” Jane crossed her arms. Pastor Barnes struck her as a small man. Small in stature and small in grace.

  “You were seen, Jane. No one tricked him into behaving the way he did.”

  The warmth of his arm around her. The kiss. Her face flushed with the memory. “The alternative is to punish me in some way. I understand.” Despite the waves of shame that rolled over Jane, she didn’t turn away from Pastor Barnes’ stern face. “That’s what you had better do.” With great effort she kept her voice from quivering.

  “We’ve counted up your credits, Jane. We’ll allow you to collect your certificate with the rest of the students in May, but we can’t allow you to finish this course.” His black eyes flashed—with humor?

  Jane stopped, her mouth parted. Humor? She even detected a bit of a smile on his face. “Sir?” she said.

  “Isaac is a good teacher, Jane, but we have rules and until the board tells us otherwise, we have to abide by them, no matter how hard it is.” His face softened, the humor in his eyes mixed with a fatherly, gentle smile. “I think you understand me?”

  She thought she did as well. “Yes, sir.” She looked over her shoulder through the small rectangular window in the door to the classroom. Isaac was still sitting on her desk, but a crowd of students had gathered around him.

  “We’ll see you at graduation.” Pastor Barnes looked into the classroom. “I think it is best if you go home now.”

  “Can’t I say goodbye first?” Jane searched the room for Sarah.

  “Yes, of course.” Pastor Barnes looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get home. Leslie is waiting. He didn’t hurry away. “A Pastor needs a good wife, Jane. A man doesn’t meet the right one everyday.” Pastor smiled at her again, but didn’t wait for her to respond.

  Jane watched Isaac talk with the students for a while before she entered the room. She had just been expelled from Bible school, sort of. He had better be worth it.

  Jane kept the radio off as she drove home. Had her conversation with Pastor Barnes really just taken place? She rolled the words over and over again in her mind. What exactly had just occurred?

  She was being disciplined for inappropriate behavior. The school had chosen to discipline her, rather than Isaac, because it was inconvenient for them to find a new teacher.

  She was being allowed to collect her certificate with the other students, but did she want to? The idea of reaching across the pulpit to shake Pastor Barnes’ hand and collect her certificate repulsed her. If she read his underlying message correctly, she was being expelled from class because she could be a “good wife” for Isaac. Was this really, as past students were prone to say, “Harvest Bridal School”?

  Jane slammed her brakes at a four way stop light. She was alone at the intersection so she just sat there for a moment. Self-sacrifice was the ideal she held highest. Give up a university education to pursue a ministry education. Give up the comforts of a life and home in the States to serve overseas. Give up the intimate setting of dorm life at a small school so she could earn her own way through—owing nothing to no one.

  A pang shot through her. How stupidly proud and self-righteous it all sounded. She dropped her head and banged it on the steering wheel. She had always been very proud of her humility, but her humility had failed to get her what she was aiming for—perfection. One attractive male dropped into the mix, when the end was near, and she had been unable to keep up her defenses.

  She could say it was stress from the murders, stress from her housing situation, stress from living in the same house as Jake, but when it came down to brass tacks, she had decided she was above the rules at Harvest.

  As Pastor Barnes had made abundantly clear, she was not. The rules were being applied to her very directly.

  A car pulled up behind Jane at the light. As she crossed the intersection the car behind her flashed its lights. Then her phone bleeped that a text had come in. The road was dark and long—the nearest building in the long stretch of farmland was at least a mile up. She didn’t pull over to check her text.

  The car behind her kept close on her tail. It flashed its lights at her again. Jane gritted her
teeth. She gripped the wheel until her knuckles hurt. She pulled to the right so the impatient car could pass, but it didn’t.

  The car pulled up next to her, keeping pace. The dome light in the car next to her flicked on, catching her eye. It was Isaac. He waved at her and mouthed something. She frowned and mouthed back, “What?”

  He motioned to the side of the road.

  Jane pulled over. Her heart leapt to her throat. It was just Isaac. It wasn’t like Pam and Bob’s killer had just pulled her over.

  Isaac pulled over and parked. He walked up to the passenger side of her car and knocked.

  Jane kept her grip on the wheel. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed. She had choice words for Isaac, if she opened the door. Words she might live to regret, no matter how good they would feel right now.

  When her heart slowed down to almost-normal she reached across the seat and unlocked the door.

  Isaac climbed into the passenger seat. He didn’t say anything at first, just reached for her hand.

  She let him.

  “I am so sorry.”

  Jane bit back the words she was thinking. She wanted to hate him for getting her kicked out of school, but she knew it wasn’t entirely his fault.

  “Pastor Barnes talked to me after you left. I think they made a very bad decision.”

  Jane looked at her hand in his. “I broke the rules.”

  “So did I. Kicking you out of school was completely unfair, but he did say you would still get your certificate, so that’s good.”

  Jane shrugged. The piece of paper that Glenda the secretary had so recently revealed to be meaningless. “I don’t care about the piece of paper.”

  Isaac lifted his eyebrow and gave Jane a hopeful smile. “You know, now it’s not against the rules…”

  Jane pulled her hand away.

  “Sorry. Bad timing.” Isaac reached for the door handle. “It will be okay, Jane. You’ll still get to the mission field, even though you can’t finish this class.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about this right now.” Jane stared out the front window of her car.

  “Are you sure? I’ve got all night. Or we could go somewhere, Starbucks or wherever.”

  “I just got expelled from Bible school, Isaac. I was expelled for inappropriate behavior because it was more convenient for them than disciplining you would have been. I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Jane’s jaw was so tight that spitting the words out sent a spasm of pain to her head.

  “Okay. We won’t talk about it right now.” Isaac opened the car door. “But when you are ready, you know where to find me.”

  “Yes.” Jane turned to him. “You’ll still be teaching your class.” A little voice in the back of her mind told her she wasn’t being fair, but she squelched it.

  Isaac lingered in the door for a moment before he shut it. He kept close to her car the whole drive back to town.

  Back at the Crawfords’ house Jane slammed her car door shut. She let herself into the mudroom and slammed that door shut too. She stomped her way up the back stairs to the servants’ quarters she called home and slammed her bedroom door shut. Isaac was like a stalker, following her home, making her break the rules, getting her kicked out of school and being happy about it.

  Maybe he had killed the Crawfords. From the way Jake talked, Isaac had been an outsider in the neighborhood, a kid the other kids didn’t like. Jane kicked her shoes off. They landed by the closet with a thud. He was obsessed with religion. On the one hand this was a good thing, but it did tend to be a quality psychopaths had in common with regular old believers. He was awfully young to be in a PhD program, and high intellect seemed to be another quirk of the successful serial killer.

  Did he, or did he not like hamburgers? She couldn’t remember.

  He had access, since he had every reason to be in the neighborhood whenever he wanted to be. He had motive, what with being picked on—ooh! And Phoebe seemed to hold him in high regard. Maybe she had seduced him and convinced him to kill her parents for her.

  Jane flopped down on her bed.

  It could also be that Isaac was a really nice, really smart boy who loved Jesus, liked her, and honestly didn’t see the big deal about not having to take the last class at Harvest.

  Or he could be a killer.

  Jane rolled over. She squeezed her pillow to her chest. Of course, Pastor Barnes had taken time to personally remind her of the school rules, so whether Isaac was a killer or not, she had only gotten what was coming to her.

  She pressed the pillow against her face, biting at the side of her cheeks. Getting kicked out of Bible school for kissing the teacher was a sure sign that she wasn’t ready for the big time yet, no matter how badly she wished she was.

  Chapter 24

  A rustling noise woke Jane. She rolled over in her bed towards the noise and blinked her eyes to clear them.

  Jake was sitting on the floor, reading the newspaper. “Good morning.” He didn’t look up.

  Jane pulled the blanket over her head.

  “Have you read this article, the one by that putz Needles?” Jake shook the paper, making it rustle loudly again. “Well, of course you wouldn’t have, since it’s this morning’s paper and you are still in bed. Why are you still in bed, Jane?”

  Jane pulled her blanket down just far enough to read her clock. It said 6:30.

  “Aren’t you usually up way before this? I went downstairs and there wasn’t even any coffee yet.”

  Jane pulled the blanket back over her head again.

  “Needles thinks he’s done some sort of exposé. He’s got Phoebe’s time at the center in here, and that one time when I had to spend the night in juvee—which, by the way, was not at all my fault.”

  Jane slumped forward and stared at Jake. “Why are you in my room? Why?”

  “Why does Needles say ‘the Crawford Family Corporation which employs over a hundred people in the Portland area is on the cusp of bankruptcy’? It’s not true, for one thing, and it’s irritating for another. Do you think Rose of Sharon fed him lines? Because I do.”

  Jane pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Jake. Please leave my room.”

  “I think Rose of Sharon may have been behind my parents’ deaths, don’t you? Who else has as many reasons to destroy us?”

  “Jake—I just want some privacy to get dressed. Give me five minutes and I will be downstairs making your coffee and solving your problems, I promise.”

  Before Jake could respond, the sound of a motor filled the room.

  Jane dropped her head into her hands. Whatever it was it sounded like it was right outside her door, and that couldn’t be a good thing.

  “It’s the floor cleaners!” Jake shouted over the noise. “They called me last night so I set them up to come first thing.”

  The floors. Called Jake. Whatever. She tried to care, but the machine was already going so what did it matter? So long as they were done stripping and waxing the floors in time for the tables and chairs it didn’t matter to her.

  When she joined Jake in the kitchen the coffee pot was already brewing.

  “Aunty did it,” Jake said.

  He sat in his usual stool at the kitchen island. “Now that you have granted us the privilege of your company, do you care to share your opinion on the Needles article?”

  Jane found a mug and filled it with hot coffee. “You say he dragged up your sister’s medical history?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And your own history?” Jane took a drink. It burned her tongue.

  “Yes, and I’m deeply insulted by his insinuations. I was out after curfew. Period.”

  Jane nodded. It’s always the small infractions that come back to bite us. “And what does he say about the bankruptcy?”

  “Needles claims that our business is on the brink of ruin. Do you know what that could do to our upcoming sale thingy, Jane? Put the kibosh on it, that’s what.”

  “Help me see this straight.” Jan
e took the seat next to Jake. “Were your parents converting the restaurants, selling the restaurants, merging the restaurants or what?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “That’s not true, Jake. Every now and then you let slip that you are aware of what is going on and capable of understanding it.”

  Jake spun his coffee mug on the counter. “He was buying. He was buying the name Yo-Heaven and converting his restaurants. If we smell like failures, we won’t get the loans we need to make that happen.”

  “I knew you knew what was going on.” Jane drummed her fingers on her mug. It had to cool a little before she could drink more. “What does Needles have against the Crawford family?”

  “It’s about the newspaper sales and the awards from his peers. He wants to uncover something big so he can sell papers and win awards. We are the unlucky victims.”

  “You have to call your lawyer, I guess. Sue him for slandering your business.”

  “That would be stupid. I expect better of you, being Isaac’s girl.”

  Jane felt her face turn red. She moved away so he wouldn’t see her blush.

  “Trouble in paradise?”

  Jane opened the freezer. The blast of cold air cooled her cheeks. She pulled out a box of microwave breakfast sandwiches.

  “Always more fish in the sea. Hey, are those for me?”

  “Sure.” Jane put three sandwiches on a plate and tossed them in the microwave. “Do you want me to talk to Marjory about the lawyer?”

  “It’s kind of complicated. Look at it this way: If I sue Needles and win he has to retract his misstatements and stuff. But then the lawsuit would be news, and the retractment itself would repeat the items in question.”

  Jane watched the plate of sausage and egg biscuits spin. She was doing her best to care about what Jake was saying, but it was hard.

  “For Phoebe’s sake, if nothing else, I don’t want these things repeated. Can you imagine what would happen if it went viral and then someone overheard her say she hated mom? It could end in a murder trial.”

  “But if you don’t sue, he could just as well keep saying these things over and over again. At least if you sue you are defending yourself.”