One Major Distraction

“A facial,” Flynn repeated in a low voice.

“Yeah. It’s the only way I could, you know…”

“Get into her pants?” Cal asked when Murphy faltered.

“No,” Murphy said. “She’s not that kind of girl. She’s very passionate about her English classes and this line of makeup and skin-care products she sells. Most of it’s all natural. The makeup, not the English classes. She gave me a sample of a skin cream for men. It smells pretty good.”

“You are a metrosexual,” Cal said.

Murphy muttered beneath his breath, “I still don’t know what that means.”

Dante arrived, to Flynn’s great relief, slightly red-faced and not his usual cool self.

“Where the hell have you been?” Flynn asked.

Dante walked into the room, but didn’t sit. Instead, he paced. “The math teacher is a freak.”

Cal and Murphy both leaned forward, unduly interested. “In what way?” Cal asked. “She has six toes on one foot? She used to work at a sideshow as the bearded lady? What?”

“Not a freak in a bad way,” Dante said. “She’s aggressive. She knows what she wants and she goes for it. Man, does she go for it. I thought math teachers were supposed to be shy and repressed, but not Serena Loomis. No, there’s nothing repressed about her. Man, I’m sorry I’m late, but I didn’t think she was going to let me go.”

“You’ve been in her room all this time?” Murphy asked.

Dante shook his head. “No. She was afraid one of the students would see me going to her room, or leaving. There’s a gardener’s shed out back, so we went there. If Austin is a man, it’s not Serena Loomis. She’s, uh, also not blond. Natural brunette.”

Flynn leaned back in his chair, on edge and impatient. “Murphy is a woman and Mangino got laid,” he said sharply. “Did we manage to gather any other useful information tonight?”

A breathless Dante nodded his head. “Maybe. Serena mentioned that there’s a parents’ weekend coming up in two weeks,” he said. “Considering how much it costs to attend this school, we have to look at every parent who’s going to be here that weekend as a potential target. Maybe what Austin wants to steal isn’t here, but will be. He took jewels before.”

“Killed for ’em,” Cal added.

Dante dismissed his momentous evening and turned his attention to the matter at hand. “We’re talking about a one-day event, which means anything of value will be in the possession of a parent. That means we’re looking at armed robbery, not simple theft.”

With that bit of information, the mood in the room changed. Back to business; they didn’t have time to spare.

Flynn nodded to Murphy. “I’ll need a list of all those parents. Dr. Barber will cooperate, I’m sure, but she has been less than thorough.” First Tess was left off the list of new employees, and now this. Surely she knew that the parents’ weekend would be of interest.

Then again, they hadn’t told her everything, either.

“I want to go outside the school for information, as well. I want everything.”

Murphy left the couch. “You got it.” Since their computer genius was a night owl, he’d probably have something substantial to report by morning. Cal promised to help, after he called his wife again, and Dante headed for his room, apparently for some well-deserved rest.

When they were all gone, Flynn went to the window to look over the campus. Crap. He wanted to be out of here ASAP, but this was a deadline he could do without. If he didn’t find Austin in the next two weeks, he’d have a campus brimming with potential victims. He could insist that the parents’ weekend be canceled, and Max could make it happen, but if they did that Austin would be spooked and might not resurface for years.

Besides, there was no guarantee that the target was among the parents. All they knew with any certainty was that Austin had been here.

He tried to imagine Tess Stafford planning to rob one or more of the parents, in between baking cookies and brewing coffee and giving the most inept of the girls a little extra smile and conversation. And he couldn’t make it work.

But he knew too well that didn’t mean Tess Stafford wasn’t the one he was looking for.

“Time for bed,” Truman said gently. “You need your sleep.”

Sadie looked away from the computer screen long enough to smile widely at her husband. He had always been overly protective, but now that she was pregnant he was downright possessive.

A part of her actually liked it.

“I think I found her.”

Truman cocked his head and smiled at her. Sometimes just looking at him still made her heart go thump. “She’ll still be there come morning.”

“Maybe,” Sadie muttered. Kelly Calhoun never stayed in one place very long, but she did have a tendency to come back to the South on a regular basis. “I don’t want to lose her again.”

Truman laid his hands on her shoulders and massaged lightly. “Are you going to call Cal and tell him?”

Sadie shook her head as she typed the last of the e-mail message to the private eye who’d found Kelly. Maybe. “No. I don’t want to get his hopes up and then come up empty-handed again. He’s been through that too many times.”

Her husband bent down and kissed her cheek. “You’re a good friend,” he said. “And a good wife,” His hand settled over her stomach. “And a good mother.”

Sadie smiled at the computer screen. Once she found Kelly for Cal, she was going to take some serious time off. Like maybe until the last of the kids started school. She’d never imagined she could feel this way.

“So,” Truman said, leaning against her and hanging on lightly. “Where is she this time?”

“Close,” she answered, then she finished her e-mail and glanced up. “Kelly’s back in Georgia.”

Chapter 3

Saturdays were nice on campus, even when it was cold. Peaceful. Quiet, in a way that touched the soul. On most Saturday mornings and many weekday afternoons, if it wasn’t too cold, Tess took a turn or two around the nature trail that wound through pine trees and old oaks and thick underbrush. The path itself, which circled around the soccer field and cleared the thick growth on the side nearest the parking lot, was kept clear of debris and poison ivy by the landscaping crew that came in once a week. The kids walked and ran on this trail, in their spare time or as part of their physical education class. And still, when she walked the path alone it felt as if no one else ever came here. The wild growth and the whisper of trees was miles away from the sparkling appliances of the massive kitchen.

Tess walked briskly around the path to stay warm, her eyes on the soccer field where one of the teams was practicing. It was the middle school team, she knew. The Ladybugs. Laura and Bev were on the team, though from what she’d seen in weeks past they didn’t get to play much. Neither of them was athletic enough to get a lot of playing time. Of course, the entire team was less than athletically stellar. Maybe they’d improve before the season started, but from what she’d heard that wasn’t likely. The soccer teams usually both finished last or near last in their divisions. Coach West had been very laid-back, and if his complacence had been a part of his coaching style she could see why the teams hadn’t done well.

Coach Calhoun wasn’t at all laid-back. He yelled at the girls when they made a mistake, and there had been one or two times when she’d been sure he was literally pulling out his hair. It was early in the soccer year, and some of the newer girls had a tendency to run in the wrong direction or use their hands when they shouldn’t. As one of the girls used a hand to deflect a ball, Calhoun ran across the field to yell at her, up close and personal.

Quinn Calhoun was as out of place at this all-girls’ school as Flynn Benning. Maybe he’d been fired from the same military school at which Flynn had once taught. Military certainly described them both, though neither Dante Mangino nor Sean Murphy fell into that category. And still…she was sometimes sure the four of them were up to something. Then again, her imagination had gotten the best of her in the past, and here she was again—imagining trouble.

She hadn’t come out here to think about Flynn! In fact, she was here in part to get him out of her mind. Tess turned her attention to the soccer field, as she took a turn in the path. Laura had her hair up in a curly ponytail this morning, and Bev’s was styled much the same, though her ponytail was straight and sleek. Those two stuck together, whenever they could. That was a good thing. Laura needed a good friend. She’d heard enough from Laura to know that her sorry excuse for a father hadn’t been much of a friend to her, and apparently that new stepmother of hers didn’t care to spend any more time with the kid than she had to. Still, Laura was thirteen, so it was possible her observations were colored by teenage angst. Tess wanted to see for herself what kind of father Jack Stokes was.

Tess had already begun to worry about the parents’ weekend coming up. Two weeks from today, the campus would be swarming with mothers and fathers anxious to explore the school and meet everyone. Would cafeteria personnel be included in that list? Would Jack even bother to come? And if he did, was it possible that he wouldn’t even recognize her after all this time? Thirteen years was such a long time, and she’d changed. She’d changed very much.

Tess walked briskly, keeping up the pretense of getting her morning exercise. But as often as she could, she watched her daughter.

Jack had stolen her baby from her, and if she could find a way to steal her daughter back without breaking the girl’s heart she would. She hadn’t been able to think of a way to reclaim Laura without turning the girl’s world upside down and inside out, so she watched when she could, and tried to be a friend, and cried herself to sleep at night when it seemed like she would never find a way to fix everything in her life that was broken….

“Hey, Red.”

Speaking of friends. “Good morning, Flynn,” she said as the big man moved into step beside her. “I’m surprised to see you up and about so early on a Saturday.” Especially since he’d missed breakfast. Dammit, she’d actually looked for him this morning, as she’d served up pancakes and sausage.

“I slept in, but I hate to waste the whole day in bed. Not that there’s anything wrong with spending the day in bed,” he added suggestively.

The caution she had set aside for a while Thursday night was fully in place this morning. What did Flynn want? If he was just looking for a friend, he could turn to any man or woman on campus. Why her? She wasn’t the prettiest, or the smartest, or the most influential woman on campus.

Did he think she’d be the easiest? Did he think that because her job was intellectually undemanding she’d be flattered that he was paying her this extra attention? So flattered that she’d fall on her back when he smiled at her and uttered a few kind words? If that was the case, he was in for a surprise.

Jack had taken advantage of her, making her believe that he cared about her. That he loved her. All along, he’d been using her, taking advantage of what she’d thought had been love. Well, she wasn’t eighteen anymore, and she hadn’t been easy about anything for a very long time.

“This is nice,” Flynn said, glancing into the woods on the right side of the track. Like her, he had dressed in jeans and a T-shirt for the morning’s exercise, though his clothes fit in a different way than hers did. His T-shirt was a little too tight. His jeans fit him almost too well.

Her jeans and T-shirt were both loose-fitting, easy to move in and chosen for comfort, not to make an impression on the opposite sex. So why was Flynn looking at her like he was impressed by what he saw? Sometimes just the way he looked at her made her anxious.

They left the wooded portion of the track behind and moved into sunlight. From here, it was a few minutes to the main building. She’d planned to walk the track a couple more times, but suddenly the peace of the morning turned tense and uncomfortable.

“Enjoy it,” she said, veering off the track and heading toward the parking lot. “It’s going to be a pretty day.”

There was a moment, she knew, when Flynn thought about following her. But after a moment’s consideration, he continued walking briskly around the track and allowed her to make her escape.

Maybe she did like him, but there was no room in her life for a man. All she cared about was getting her daughter back, and nothing, not even Flynn Benning, could distract her.

Laura Stokes had her hand up again. Great. “Yes?” Flynn said in a decidedly unfriendly tone of voice.

The girl’s hand drifted down. “How long are we going to spend on the American Revolution? Usually we just spend a week on each chapter. We’re getting behind. It’s Monday, so we should begin a new chapter.”

“We’re going to study the American Revolution until you get it,” Flynn said sharply.

“I get it,” she said in soft exasperation. A couple of girls near her agreed.

“Not to my satisfaction, you don’t.” It didn’t make any sense to him that the teacher who was currently sun-bathing in Florida had skipped from chapter to chapter as it suited him, not studying American history in chronological order. Moron.

His other classes were more well behaved than this one. At least, they did their work quietly and didn’t ask so many questions. He might growl at her, but he liked the fact that Laura Stokes had the guts to question him. The others didn’t, for the most part, though he had caught one brave high school girl trying to nap through European History.

Flynn was about to assign another paper when the students were saved by the ringing of his cell phone. Sadie came up on the caller ID. He stepped into the hallway, ignoring the whispered voice that informed him cell phones were not allowed in class. Laura again, he knew it.

“Benning,” he said as the door behind him closed.

“Is Cal with you?” Sadie asked.

“No. If you want Cal, call him. I’m not a freakin’ messenger service.”

“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Sadie said, a smile in her voice. “I asked about Cal because I don’t want him to know we spoke. Not yet.”

Flynn leaned against the wall beside his classroom door. “Kelly?”

“She was right here in Georgia, and I missed her by two days.”

Flynn uttered a softly spoken single word that would have Laura reporting him to Dr. Barber, if she heard him.

“But this time, she told someone where she was headed. A woman she worked with. I explained things as best I could, and she gave me an address. Truman and I are headed that way.”

“Where?”

“Colorado.”

“Great,” Flynn muttered. Every lead they found for Kelly Calhoun took them nowhere, and he didn’t have great hopes for this tip.

“I just wanted to let you know where I’d be. Don’t say anything to Cal until I come up with something solid.”

“Got it.”

“I’d drive straight through,” Sadie said, exasperation in her voice, “but Truman won’t allow it. He says I need my rest. For the baby,” she added, a touch of wonder and joy in her voice.

Flynn’s heart did a sick flip. “I can’t believe you’re letting any man besides me tell you what to do, but in this case McCain is right. Get your rest. Cal wouldn’t want you to make yourself sick.”

“Don’t mention sick to me,” Sadie said with a groan. “I’d heard about morning sickness, but—”

“I gotta go,” Flynn said abruptly, interrupting his one and only female agent. “I left a class of whiny little girls alone, and I hear ’em getting out of hand. Wanna trade jobs?”

Sadie laughed. “No thanks. Have fun.”

Flynn ended the call and dropped his cell phone into his pocket. He opened the door on a classroom full of well-behaved students, who waited for him with an unnatural patience. A few of them whispered to friends, but they weren’t anywhere near getting out of hand.

But that excuse was better than telling Sadie, or anyone else, that pregnant women were as tough for him to take as little girls.

Flynn Benning had obviously taken her abrupt flight from the walking trail as a rejection of some sort. He hadn’t done more than nod and say hello for the past four days. In a way Tess was relieved. In another way, she kinda missed talking to him.

Maybe she should make more of an effort to get to know the other teachers. It was possible that Flynn was right, and what she really needed was a friend. After all, if Laura was here next year, odds were Tess would be here, too. Might as well make things as pleasant as possible.

Tess carried a plate of brownies and clean mugs into the middle school teachers’ lounge. There was only one teacher present, Stephanie McCabe. That was a disappointment, since Tess was pretty sure she and the English teacher had nothing in common. Nothing at all.

But she might as well give it a shot.

“Hi,” Tess said as she laid out the brownies and arranged the coffee mugs. She turned around and leaned against the counter. “I love your skirt. It’s so…colorful.”

Stephanie smiled widely. “Thanks. I made it myself.”

“You did?” On purpose?

“I make a lot of my own clothes. It’s so hard to find just what I want in just the right size.” The English teacher wagged a finger. “You know, when you’re off duty you should wear more color. I know Dr. Barber probably insists that you wear that godawful uniform when you’re working, but even when you’re not you wear such dull colors. Hot pink. You should definitely wear lots of hot pink.”

“I like blues and greens,” Tess said, wondering if this wasn’t a really, really big mistake.

Stephanie pursed her lips in disapproval. “Turquoise, then.”

“Next time I go shopping, I’ll look for some.”

The woman smiled, as if she’d accomplished something great in convincing Tess to try a new color. Then she leaned slightly forward and lowered her voice. “Have you heard about Serena Loomis and the new janitor?”

She hadn’t heard anything, but she’d seen those two together enough to know that something was going on. “No, not really.”

“It’s shocking. Surely Dr. Barber has heard what’s going on. I’m surprised she hasn’t fired them both. If the students ever find out what they’re up to, she will.”

“They’re adults,” Tess said, trying not to sound too defensive. “As long as what they do after hours doesn’t interfere with their jobs here…”

“I suppose,” Stephanie said sharply, her smile gone.

Tess grabbed a couple of dirty mugs and headed for the door. Strike one. Not that she was surprised that she and Stephanie McCabe hadn’t hit it off right away.

But the awkward conversation had only made her miss Flynn more—and she’d never expected that.

Flynn backed off for a few days, because he knew if he didn’t Tess was likely to bolt. He’d scared her, somehow. So he smiled, and he complimented her on her cooking, but he didn’t go out of his way to spend time with her. He didn’t ask for seconds, and he didn’t hang around the dining hall after everyone else had left.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t keeping a close eye on her.

Lucky had her checked out, and from all appearances she was clean as a whistle. He’d lifted her prints last week, from a glass she’d left sitting on a dining hall table. They didn’t match Austin’s. He hadn’t taken a hair to check for a match to the one blond hair that had been found, but she had the coloring of a natural redhead, and he’d checked very closely for pale roots.

Social Security number was legit. Her real name was Teresa, but Tess was a common enough nickname. Stafford was her married name. A few years back she’d been married, for less than two years, to one Peter Stafford. Irreconcilable differences didn’t tell him squat as to why the marriage hadn’t worked. Didn’t matter. It just so happened that she’d been on her honeymoon in Florida when Austin had committed the crime in Texas.

Tess was hiding something, but she was exactly who she said she was…and she definitely wasn’t the killer he’d come here to catch.

They were making progress with the others, too, if you could call finding squat progress. Toller’s prints weren’t a match to Austin’s, and neither were Loomis’s. A dozen other teachers had also come out clean. They hadn’t gotten McCabe’s fingerprints—yet—and they hadn’t been able to get their hands on one of her blond hairs, either, which were always sprayed into submission and didn’t dare to fall out. The next step was to break into her room and have a go at her hairbrush.

Even though he no longer thought Tess might be Austin, something about the woman stunk to high heaven. Not literally. Literally she smelled amazingly sweet. Not perfumy, like some of the other teachers who apparently swam in cologne, but lightly fragrant, like woman combined with whatever she’d been baking that day.

Like he had time to notice how any woman smelled.

It was her college degree in computer science that stunk the most, figuratively speaking. Why was she working in the cafeteria, when she was as well educated as any employee in this school? Sure, the market for computer nerds had shrunk some in the past few years, but there was still plenty of work out there where she could use her skills, like teaching.

Flynn had survived more than a week of teaching history to girls who couldn’t care less about what had happened last year, much less hundreds of years ago. Some were studious and did the work in order to earn a good grade, others did what they had to in order to get by. Still others all but dared him to fail them. They did half the work, they didn’t study, their papers were sloppy and incomplete.

If he could’ve gotten away with it, he would have had half of them running laps after class, but he supposed that was Cal’s job, for now. Maybe he could have them do push-ups when they misbehaved. Girls or not, they needed discipline. And as far as he was concerned, they still didn’t get it where the American Revolution was concerned.

Since Tess had seemed more than happy to have him at a distance, he was surprised when, as she handed him a plate full of meatloaf and scalloped potatoes—it was Thursday evening, after all—she looked him in the eye and asked, “What are you doing after dinner?”

“Nothing,” he said as he placed his plate on the tray that already sported a small bowl of salad. Next would be the apple pie, laid out at the end of the line for the diners to snag as they passed, just like last Thursday. Dr. Barber insisted on structure, even in the dining hall. “Why do you ask?”

She screwed up her nose a little, as if she wasn’t sure about what she was about to do. “Stick around?” she asked softly.

There wasn’t time to ask why. A couple of giggling girls were coming up behind him. “Sure,” Flynn said as he moved toward the pie. “Why not?”

Tess didn’t want to do this, but who else could she turn to?

“Mind telling me what we’re doing here?” Flynn asked as she led him up the narrow stairs. “I’d like to think you just couldn’t stand it anymore and have been overcome with the need to jump my bones, but…”

She glanced over her shoulder and glared at him.

“But every now and then you look at me like that and I know I’m not going to be so lucky. So, what’s going on?”

In the second-story hallway, there was plenty of space for him to walk beside her, and he did. Mary Jo was downstairs, finishing up the last of the dishes. The older woman mistakenly thought that Tess’s meeting with Flynn was some sort of date, and since it pleased the older woman so much and was, after all, a plausible explanation, Tess had allowed Mary Jo to assume away.

“Mary Jo and I each have a room up here. The rooms aren’t anything to brag about, but they’re convenient and they come with the job.” She pointed down one short hallway. “We’re down this way, along with an old office where Dr. Barber sometimes comes when she wants to work uninterrupted. The other rooms up here,” she continued down the hallway, rather than making her usual turn, “are used mostly for storage. Books, records, old furniture, that sort of thing. Dr. Barber is paranoid about school property being stolen, so the rooms are always locked. Always,” she said again, with emphasis.