“Shannon told you that Detective Nolan thinks some of my kids might have had something to do with the church fires. I think this may have something to do with that.”
“Like what?”
“Nolan took me to dinner after the football game last week. He just wanted to pick my brain, but some of my students made a big deal out of seeing us together.”
“A ‘big deal’?”
“Like it was some kind of romantic relationship.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t even know the guy, Rick. After we ate, he took me out to Rohanna to show me the ruin.”
Rick’s mouth pursed. “To prove what?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe just to make me more aware of the destruction. He doesn’t think they’re through.”
“Whoever burned the churches?”
“He believes that since they can’t do that anymore, they’ll turn to something else. Maybe this is it.”
“You think this is what they’re doing because we’ve got patrols on the churches? Putting snakes in clothes hampers.”
Rick sounded amused, which she resented. “Not exactly.” She hesitated to put into words what she had been thinking. But since she’d started this…“I think when they saw me with Nolan, they thought I’d sold them out.”
“You know something about the fires you haven’t told us?”
“Of course not. Until Jace said it, I’d never had any reason to think about my students in connection with them.”
“Jace?”
“Nolan,” she amended, catching the look in Rick’s eyes. “I had dinner with the guy. During the course of the meal, we exchanged first names. It’s…” She shook her head, realizing she’d gotten off track. “Look, I probably wouldn’t have put any of this together except yesterday my seniors made such a thing about seeing me with him.”
“Give me some names, Lindsey.”
“I’m not saying there’s a correlation with the kids who brought it up. They were just the ones who saw us. But you know how things like that get talked about. And then tonight…Tonight, when every kid in that high school knows where I’m going to be and when I’m going to be there, I come home and find a rattler in my laundry basket. I can’t help thinking—”
The front door opened, and the deputies and the guy with the sack and the pole came out. Although she didn’t want to look at the bag, Lindsey could tell there was now something inside.
As the older man headed toward his pickup, one of the deputies started across the lawn to where she and Rick were standing. On the way, the deputy nodded to her neighbors, slowing to answer a question one of them asked, before he continued toward her. Neither she nor Rick said anything as they waited for his arrival.
“I don’t think you’ve got anything else to worry about, Ms. Sloan. We poked around in there pretty good.”
Despite the cringe factor inherent in having people look through her closets and less-than-orderly cabinets, she had pleaded with them to check out the rest of the house. While that wasn’t as reassuring a message as she’d hoped for, they’d probably done all they could tonight. Whether that made her comfortable enough to go back inside and crawl into bed…
“She thinks somebody put the snake into that hamper.” Rick raised his brows, shrugging slightly. “I don’t see how it could have got into a closed basket otherwise.”
In spite of her own conviction that that’s what had happened, hearing him put it into words created a sickness in the pit of Lindsey’s stomach. Never in her life had anyone deliberately tried to hurt her. To think that one of her students might be involved in this made her question every day of the ten years she’d spent in the classroom.
“You see any sign of forced entry?” Rick asked.
“No, but we weren’t looking for them, either. You got any idea who might have done something like that, Ms. Sloan?”
She remembered what Shannon had said. In a town like this even the suggestion of wrongdoing could taint a kid’s life.
“No.” She didn’t dare look at Rick.
“Lindsey.”
She turned her head, meeting his eyes. “I don’t. I told you I don’t have a name. Anything else is just speculation.”
“I’d say it’s a little more than that.”
“Not really. Besides, what I’m willing to tell you as a friend is very different from what I’m willing to put into a police report.” She looked back at the deputy who’d responded to her call. “Thanks for taking care of the snake and for searching the house. If I think of anything, I’ll call you.”
“You teach at the high school, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Think this could have been some of your students? Some version of the old puttin’ a frog in the teacher’s drawer.”
She should have expected the question, once the subject was broached. “I can’t think of a child I teach who’d do something like this.”
She heard Rick’s snort of disbelief, but she wasn’t being dishonest. Whether she bought into the idea that her students were involved in the fires or not, she couldn’t believe any of them harbored this kind of animosity toward her.
And toward Jace Nolan?
“Okay, then,” the deputy said, sounding relieved. “If you think of anything else or if you want us to check out the whereabouts of any of your students tonight, let us know.”
She knew where her kids would say they’d been. Either at school or at home, while she and their parents had been at the PTA meeting. And very few of them would be able to produce any witness who could verify their presence there.
“Ma’am.” The deputy touched the brim of his hat before he turned to join his partner who was waiting in the patrol car.
“You want me to come in with you?” Rick asked.
The idea was appealing, but Rick had obviously just finished his shift. He was probably tired and wanted to get home to his own bed. It must be nearly midnight by now. If the other deputies and the snake hunter hadn’t found anything…
“I’ll be okay. But thanks. I appreciate the offer. And thanks for coming by. I appreciate that, too.”
“You call me if you need me, Linds. I mean that.”
“I will.” She leaned forward and hugged him.
His arms closed around her, squeezing hard. When he released her, there was an awkward silence. Despite the number of times she’d been around Rick while he and Shannon dated, she’d never thought of him as a friend. He had been tonight.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he told her. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll do some looking around on my own. Talk to a few of the kids.”
“I don’t want to accuse my students and then find out I was wrong. Something like that can follow a kid for the rest of his life. Shannon will tell you that.”
“Maybe you and Shannon ought to be more concerned about yourselves. That wasn’t a frog in your hamper. You remember that.”
She nodded, unable to dispute his assertion. She was lucky she wasn’t at the emergency room being treated for snake bite. And she knew it. “Thanks again.”
“I meant what I said. Call me if you need me.”
“I will.”
“You