Nobody Girl (25 page)

He grinned arrogantly and said, “Why Ms. Clark, if you want to be closer to me, we can arrange something for later.
Your place or mine?”
The entire class erupted into whistles and cat calls.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Mitchell. I like men, not children.” She slammed his paper on the desk and continued walking up the aisle.

At the end of class, everyone filed out except Chase. It was becoming customary for him to linger after class on the days he showed up.

“I’m sorry for my comment earlier, Delia. It was just something C.J. would say.” Chase said this as if he wasn’t responsible for the things C.J. did or said. As if he truly had a split personality. Delia ignored him and began arranging the test papers. “So, I hear, Sammy talked to you last night.”

“Uh, huh,” she said, continuing to pay him no mind.

Chase came up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder. She jumped, causing all the papers to fall off the desk. Chase scrambled to pick them up as Delia stood and walked away from her desk. She needed to put some distance between them.

When Chase finished arranging the papers on Delia’s desk he said, “What if I quit school? Then you won’t be my teacher anymore. We can be together.”

He approached her and caressed her cheek.

“You think I’m
gonna
let you quit school for me?” She swatted his hand away. “Chase, just drop it. Go to class.”

Chase slipped on his shades and left the classroom.

Delia had barely gotten through grading the first test when someone entered her room.

“Knock, knock,” Jason said as he poked his head through her classroom door.

Her mouth flew open, but no words formed. Delia was so shocked to see him she couldn’t respond.

“I know you’re probably surprised to see me considering our last encounter.” He entered the classroom slowly and approached her desk as she just stared at him in awe. “But I wanted to make sure you were okay. You are still my wife, after all.”

“Okay, with what?” For a moment, Delia forgot all about the attacks and thought he was talking about their façade of a marriage. Honestly, his treatment of her had hurt her more than being pushed down any flight of stairs.

“I know someone tried to kill you. Or kidnap you or whatever.
Again.”

“Did the police question you again? Is that why you’re here? You want me to tell them to leave you alone or something?”

Jason took a seat in one of the student desks and said, “I
was
questioned by the police again. I had to go down to the station, give a statement, provide an alibi, the whole nine yards. It was very
Law and Order
–
ish
.”

Delia didn’t appreciate how he seemed to be making light of the situation. She could have been killed and he was making jokes about television shows. But then again, it was Jason. What did she expect? He was just proving himself once again to be the most selfish man in the world.

“What do you want, Jason?”

“I want to offer you protection. I’ll buy you a personal bodyguard. I want to make sure you’re safe.”

“In exchange for what?”

“What makes you think I want something from you?”

She stared at him incredulously. Was he serious?

“What makes me think you want something? You always want something. It’s always about you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I want you out of my life. I can protect myself.”

Anger flashed in Jason’s eyes briefly. He hated being rejected. No one said no to him. He quickly recovered his composure and said, “Obviously, you
can’t
protect yourself. You’ve been almost killed twice.”

Just then Courtney walked into the classroom, “Ms. Clark, I … damn you are fine,” she said when she got a glimpse of Jason. “I mean … um … I forgot to turn in my homework, Ms. … um … has anyone ever told you, you look like a blond Johnny
Depp
?”

Jason smiled that winning smile that used to make Delia weak in the knees and now just made her sick to her stomach.  He reached out, took Courtney’s hand and kissed it. “You have the softest, sweetest hands I’ve ever encountered,” he said to her with lust in his eyes. “I’m Ms. Clark’s husband.”

“
Ex
- husband,” she corrected him, “and he was just leaving.” Delia approached where he was sitting and slapped his hand away from Courtney. “If you ever touch one of my students again, I’ll castrate you.”

Jason’s eyes expanded obviously surprised that his wife would use such a tone.

Courtney said, “Okay, well, on that note, I’m out,” before dashing out of the door.

“So, I take it you still insist on this divorce?” he said once Courtney left the room.

“
Ya
’ think?”

Jason stood up and towered over her. She took a step back. She felt a familiar tinge of fear and helplessness but was determined to overcome it.

“I can offer you anything you want. We can do this together. My father is a loon. He’ll never check up on us and see if the marriage is real. We can split the money.”

“You think I want to be stuck in a fake marriage with someone who doesn’t love me?”

 She had found some reservoir of strength and she wasn’t about to let Jason walk all over her again.

“What the hell does it matter? We’ll only be married on paper. You can continue screwing your students all you want.”

Delia slapped him.

An evil grin spread across his face.
“A little touchy about the subject, huh, Delia?”
He said as he rubbed the sting out of his cheek.  “Trust me, it gets easier.
Especially as they get younger.”

“Why you —” Delia lunged for him, scratching at him in the process. He grabbed her wrists and slammed her onto her desk, knocking over papers and files in the process. She flailed her arms, trying to free them from his grasp. She wanted to kill him.

He leaned over her and smiled as if he were about to take her right there on the desk. Delia continued struggling to free her arms and ended up scratching him on the cheek. That was enough to wipe the smile off of his face and get him to let her go. He couldn’t let his precious face get injured.

He backed away and stared at his wife.

“If you think I’m letting go of 16.5 million that easily, you’re out of your mind. I will get my money one way or another.”

Delia poured herself into grading papers. Once again, Angie, C.J., and Ian were at the top of the class. She laid their papers out in front of her and stared at them, waiting for a rational explanation to pop out at her.  Maybe she was over reacting. Maybe she was such a good teacher that they had actually learned something and earned these grades on their own merit. Then something on the paper jumped out at her. On those three papers, circumference was still misspelled.

They had taken the test she wrote last night and not the one she corrected this morning. How was that possible? And when could they have made the switch? She thought about what happened after class. Chase had knocked her papers off of her desk and rearranged them for her. The switch must have happened then. She thought about the other test days and realized that after every major assessment, C.J. somehow distracted her. After that first test when she noticed the grade disparity, she had to go to Principal Howard’s office. He could have easily made the switch them then. The next day when she gave the retest, she left her classroom for a moment to get a cup of coffee.

Now she knew for a fact, C.J. was involved and it pained her. Though everything pointed to him, a part of her still wanted to believe that he was innocent, that all of this was a misunderstanding and that one day in the future all of this could be forgotten and they could be together. But Delia was beginning to realize that wasn’t going to happen. Chase was a cheater and a part of Promise Stone, the organization that had gotten Lena killed.

Delia placed her head on her desk in an expression of despair.  What would she do now? Should she go to the police immediately with what she knew? But what did she know? Only that C.J. was involved and she had already hinted to that the night Lena died. The question still remained, how did he accomplish this? How did he get a copy of her test before she handed it out.

She was in the middle of teaching a class when the answer just came to her. Or, rather, it knocked on her door.

“Ms. Clark, sorry to interrupt, but I need to check your network cable to make sure it’s secure. The wireless connection has been down for a couple of hours.” Locke entered the room, sat behind Delia’s desk and got busy checking cables making sure they were tight enough.

Network.
The network.
If someone had the proper access codes, they could get into her system space where she kept all of her assignments. As soon as she made a test they could see it, print it out and have her test a day in advance. They could use whatever resources they needed to take the test,
then
use C.J. to make the switch after class. It was a complicated, yet brilliant plan. One she would have never figured out if she hadn’t noticed that misspelled word on her test.

Once again, guilt pointed in the direction of Principal Howard or Sam as he preferred to be called. He had been adamant about every new teacher making sure all their tests and quizzes were backed up on the network. And he definitely would have the authority to access each teacher’s personal network space. Then he could use his nephew to do the grunt work.

“All done, Ms. Clark.”
Locke stood and made his way to the door. Before he left, he stopped and said, “Tell, um, your sister I said hello.”

Delia scrambled out of the door after him. “Locke wait,” she said when she caught him in the hallway. “Donna Lee actually wanted me to ask you if you had
plans
tonight,” she lied. She just wanted to get him away from his computer again and this was the easiest method.

Locke’s face lit up.
“Really?
I didn’t think our first date went so well since it ended so abruptly and I hadn’t heard from her since. Tell her tonight will be different. She has my undivided attention. I’m
gonna
go make reservations for dinner right now. What kind of food does she like?”

“She’s not really picky, but we eat at P.F. Chang’s a lot.”

“That’s perfect. I
gotta
go. Tell her I’ll pick her up at 7.” Locke turned around and almost floated down the hallway on a cloud of glee.

“Do you need to know where she lives?” Delia called after him.

“Nope, I already know.”

***

“You told him what?” Donna Lee exclaimed when she learned of the plans Delia made for her. Delia had invited her over to her apartment under the pretense of catching up. “I will not go out with him again, Delia. That guy gives me the creeps. I think you should just go to the police with what you know.”