grasped the steering wheel tightly and concentrated on the double yellow line in front of him. On the evergreens and granite boulders crowding the edges of the two-lane county road. On anything but her. She was an invasion.
“Put it away for this call,” he ground out. “Even under the best of circumstances, you’d have to get written releases to photograph the students. And these aren’t the best of circumstances.”
“But I’m photographing you—”
“Put it away.”
She sighed.
He refused to look at her again.
After several seconds he could hear her zip the camera into her backpack. “Why were you called to the school,” she asked, her words measured, “if your deputies already had the situation in hand?”
He took a deep breath. “This program’s the sheriff’s baby. Right now, I’m acting sheriff.”
“What program?”
He might as well tell her the whole story. She wasn’t going to let up until she got it. “Because of county-wide growth,” he began, “we had to build a third high school. Letting the seniors spend their last year at their two old schools—McEaster and North Colum—the board of ed pulled surplus juniors and underclassmen from the overcrowded schools to attend the new one—Harriman.”
“And if this area is anything like all the others in the South,” Chloe said, “high-school sports rule. They fuel small-town social life and loyalties.” She was quick to catch on.
“Yeah.” He ran his window down. Quick to catch on or not, she made the car’s interior feel too close for comfort. “The underclassmen have settled in fine, but the juniors have the hardest time forgetting. McEaster and North Colum used to be fierce rivals. Now the students from those two schools are expected to pull together for a brand-new school.”
“Deputy Breckinridge said someone pulled a knife this time. That’s extreme.” She had good ears, too.
“You have to understand. Not only are we dealing with the displacement of old school loyalties, but also with an influx of newcomers, mostly affluent families from the city. Plus immigrant workers who’ve come to service an expanding vacation sector. There’s cultural friction…and more. We may be rural, but we aren’t untouched by drugs. Meth has replaced moonshine.”
“And you can never minimize the pressure of teenage hormones.”
Caught off guard by the thoughtfulness in her tone of voice, he hazarded a sideways look at her. “You’ve got it.” Her eyes half closed, she was contemplating him. He snapped his head forward. “So…Sheriff McQuire established a program,” he said, retreating to his spiel. “A public-safety program that’s an offshoot of the Junior Deputy Program we run in the elementary schools. The sheriff put me in charge of the high school.”
“I can’t picture teenagers willingly participating in something called a Junior Deputy Program.”
The cruiser’s two-way radio crackled. As she reached out to adjust the volume, he put out his hand to stop her. Apparently, she wasn’t real good with boundaries.
“At the high-school level,” he explained, “we just call it The Program. And it’s as no-nonsense as its name. We deal with peer pressure, drugs, conflict resolution. All under the umbrella of public safety. We pull no punches in how we talk to the kids.”
Straining against her seat belt, she leaned forward to examine the controls on the dashboard. “Why did Sheriff McQuire put you in charge of it?”
Probably because Mack knew these kids inside out. He’d been one of them. Full of piss and vinegar, his grandmother used to say. But he wasn’t about to tell this to a stranger, a reporter, no less. “You’d have to ask the sheriff.”
He could feel her eyes on him, but he kept his own on the road. “Back to the kids,” she said, her tone level. Patient, even. When you didn’t look at her, she came off as mature. “Even with a realistic course for them, they still get in trouble?”
“They’re kids. Obviously you don’t have any.” Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her stiffen.
“N-no.” Her hesitation seemed out of character. “I’ve never been married. Are you married?” She lobbed that question as she might something dangerous she wanted to get rid of. “For the record.”
“Married to the job. But this article’s not about me, remember.”
Did he hear an oh, yeah? in the silence?
“So what’s the game plan when we reach the high school?” she finally asked.
“By the time we get there, the principal should have assembled the parents—even the working parents. Getting them involved in school altercations should cut down on more serious…incidents in the future. I’m essentially going to run a conflict-resolution session with these kids, their parents and the school counselors.”
“And me?”
With relief he saw the cell-phone tower above the trees of the high-school campus. The school itself couldn’t appear fast enough for him. He needed to get back to his duties. Clear-cut action to solve a specific problem. And away from all this hopscotch questioning.
“And you? You’re going to sit in the corner,” he replied, suspecting he might later regret this decision. “Out of the way. Where you’ll observe and take notes.”
“Why should I take notes? I thought when we got back to your office, you were going to call the Sun and get them to replace me.”
As if it required all his attention, he hit the directional signal as they neared the school entrance. Made himself listen to it click three times before answering her. “Let’s say you’re quick,” he admitted. “You catch on to what’s happening without me hammering it home. If you stay out of my way and let me do my job, maybe we can work something out.”
“Maybe? Am I, like, on parole?”
Was she trying to tick him off? He pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of the main entrance. With an irritated shove, he opened his door and got out.
CHLOE OBSERVED THE STUDENTS, their parents and school officials as they dispersed from the cafeteria. She’d been witness to Deputy Whittaker’s impressive display of self-control balanced by his uncanny understanding of human nature.
Surprise, surprise. The man had a non-prickly side to him.
It was good he’d been the focus of her story because, once inside the school, surrounded by teenagers, she’d remembered why she’d told her editor she’d never do the board of education beat. Claire would have been seventeen…
Fortunately the deputy interrupted her reverie as he walked across the big room to where she sat on a folding chair next to the emergency exit. He should be pleased he’d brought the intervention to such a positive end, yet he didn’t look it. His shoulders were stiff, his mouth was set in a severe line, and he carried himself with military bearing.
Automatically Chloe rose and retreated a step toward the emergency door. Why was it that in his presence she felt compelled to stand and salute?
“Ready to go?” His staccato words jolted her. Her backside hit the door’s push bar and the door opened. The alarm sounded. The other deputies, the principal, the school counselors, several remaining parents and their kids froze. The kids began to snicker.
Whittaker reached past her with a grimace that said she’d lost any Brownie points she’d scored during the meeting by staying out of the way. Wordlessly he disengaged the alarm, then closed the door.
“Reporter humor?” he asked.
When she chose to consider that a rhetorical question and remained silent, he grasped her by the elbow and propelled her out of