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Sometimes she whispered with friends or used her superdeluxe calculator to write notes
for them to read. But once in a while, she actually heard the magic in words,
saw the wonderful, subtle hues they conjured, and she would sit up straight and
listen with her head cocked to one side, or she would read her part in a play
with vivacity and passion if not great skill.
    Mariah stood, head bent, looking at the desk. Tracy had a spark. She had promise she would likely never fulfill, given her family
background and her tight skirts and her sidelong glances at boys. But it was
there, and teachers were sometimes wrong about who would succeed or fail. She
did not deserve to be blackmailed, to have her budding sexuality exploited, to
have to feel that this, of all things, was her fault.
    With another sigh, Mariah went to her desk and dug in her
tote for her cell phone. Apparently, despite the sunlight, warm for October, it
was really a cold day. A very, very cold day.
    Somewhere.
    She picked the wadded-up message from the otherwise empty
waste can, smoothed it out on the desk and dialed the number.
    "Detective McLean."
    "This is Mariah Stavig. You asked me to call."
    His voice was calm, easy, deep, and agonizingly familiar.
"I wondered when you have a break today so that we could talk."
    "I take lunch just after eleven. Or I have a planning
period toward the end of the school day."
    "Eleven?"
    "School starts at 7:20." Why did he think she was
returning his call so early?
    He made a heartfelt comment on the hour, with which she
privately agreed; students would learn better with another hour of sleep. But
Mariah said nothing except, "You must start work early, too."
    "Actually I just got up." He yawned as if to
punctuate his admission. "This is my cell phone number."
    "Oh." Oh, dear, was more like it. Obviously he
wasn't at the moment wearing one of those well-cut suits he favored. More
likely, pajama bottoms sagged low on his hips, if he slept in anything at all.
An image of Connor McLean bare-chested tried to form in her mind, but she
refused to let it.
    "Eleven, then," he said. "Where do I find
you?"
    She hesitated for the first time, hating the idea of him in
here. But the teacher's lounge was obviously out, late October days, however
sunny, were too chilly to sit outside, and short of borrowing another teacher's
classroom—and how would she explain that?—Mariah couldn't think of another
place as private as this.
    "I'm on the top floor of the A building. Room
411."
    "Can I bring you a take-out lunch?"
    Annoyed at his thoughtfulness, she was glad to be able to
say, "Thank you, but I packed one this morning."
    "See you then."
    She pressed End on her phone and stashed it again in her
tote. Her heart was drumming. Ridiculous.
    The door to the classroom rattled, and she glanced up to see
a couple of blurred faces in the mottled glass. Startled, she saw that the
clock had reached seven-fifteen without her noticing.
    She let in the eager beavers. Probably eager not for her
brilliant instruction, but for the chance to slump into their seats and achieve
a near-doze for a precious few minutes before she demanded their attention.
Most did, however, drop last night's assignment into her in-box as they passed
her desk.
    This ninth-grade crowd was reading Romeo and Juliet. She was
big on Shakespeare. She'd let them watch the updated movie version last week,
the one with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio and guns and swimming pools,
which she personally detested as much for what it had left out as for the
interpretation. But she'd found it effective with the kids, helping them to
understand that the words were timeless. Now she was making them read the
original, not cut to suit the constraints of moviemaking budgets and filmgoers'
limited attention spans.
    Tracy wasn't
in her seat for Beginning Drama. Was she too scared or embarrassed to come to
school now that the cat was out of the bag? Or had her mom made her stay home?
The principal might