Teacher Beware (A Grace Ellery Romantic Suspense Book 1) (11 page)

I SIT ON my hotel bed, watching the cartoon channel on the TV. I don't watch any other channel because anytime there is a knife or the chance of someone being attacked, tension courses through me so intensely that I get stomach pains. There's an inordinate amount of violence in cartoons as well though, so I'm stuck watching the ones for preschoolers. This is why I don't own a TV.

There's a knock on the door. I jump up to answer it. Sam is on the other side, holding a pizza box. He gives me a sheepish smile.

"Hey," I say. "Come in. How's your dad?"

"Good," he says. "I mean, as good as he can be."

He sets the pizza box on the counter and turns around to face me. He runs his hand through his hair. "Grace, I just want you know I'm sorry for how I was rude before I left. There really isn't an excuse for how I acted."

"Sam, it's fine. You were stressed out. I would be, too, if one of my parents were at the hospital."

"It's still not a good excuse. He sits down on the bed. "I'm just terrible at communication. It must be something I get from my father."

"Maybe," I say, sitting down next to him. I lean against him and kiss the side of his neck. His fingers slide up my neck and into my hair. He kisses me, soft and slow. I smile. "So, how long are you back now?"

"He gets out of the hospital in a couple days," he says. "I'll probably go visit in a week. Maybe sooner. I tried to convince him to come move down here, but he's attached to Maryland." He glances over at the television. "Why are you watching cartoons?"

I grab the remote and shut the television off.

"I was bored. There was nothing else on."

He raises his eyebrow. "All right. Do you want to eat?"

"Yes, I'm starving. I've been eating out of vending machines."

He opens the pizza box, and then we both grab a slice. The hot sauce drips onto my hand. I lick it off. Sam watches me with an amused smile.

"I think you're great," he says.

I grin. "You're not so bad yourself."

We kiss. My heart flutters, but it's okay because I'm with a cardiologist.

~~~~~

When Sam drives me to work the next day, we both notice a crowd of people, cars, and policemen crowding a street. It's not until we get closer that we notice the remnants of a burned-down house.

Sam stops and parks his car on the side of the road.

"Do you think anyone was hurt?" I ask.

"I don't know." He opens his door and gets out, as I do the same. He walks up to a man in a firefighter uniform.

"Paul, what happened?" he asks.

"House burned down."

"I see that," Sam says. "Was there anyone in there? Was it a fireplace or a faulty heater?"

Paul shakes his head. "The fire moved way too fast. The chief thinks it might be foul play." He pauses. "There was a body. We had to send it to the city to have it examined. It's burned beyond recognition."

Sam glances toward the mailbox, which has the numbers 14266.

"Who lived here?" he asks.

"The principal," Paul says, "David Pattinson."

My stomach lurches. I didn't know Pattinson well, but he seemed like a good and reasonable man.

"Do you think the body was Pattinson?" Sam asks Paul.

"I don't know anything about identifying people by their charred bodies," he says.

Sam turns to me. "This is crazy. I treated Pattinson's father for heart disease. He was a soldier in the Army. I can't even imagine how he would die in a fire. He must have been asphyxiated or—"

"Nope," Paul interrupts. "He had a gunshot wound in the head."

Sam's eyes widen. "And you just
think
it's foul play?"

Paul shrugs. "He could have been shot and the fire was a natural occurrence. We don't jump to assumptions at the fire department."

"That's not an assumption," Sam says. "That's an obvious conclusion."

"Do you think it's the shooter?" I ask Sam.

"Why would he kill two people from car repair shops, try to kill you, and then try to kill the principal?" he asks.

"Maybe it is a student," I say.

Sam shakes his head. "This body was burned…it has to be more personal than that." He crosses his hands over his chest. "Somebody has to stop this. These are good people."

I take his hand…and he squeezes it.

"Come on," he says. "For all we know, the shooter is still here. You shouldn't be out here where he could try to take another shot."

~~~~~

I RETURN TO my apartment after work to collect my book on rare heart diseases. I think one of my patients has Eisenmenger Syndrome, but I needed to refresh my memory on the symptoms. As I take the book off my shelf, I stare at my hand. Where's my class ring? I try to remember the last time I had it on. I didn't have it on at the hospital—I can picture my hand reaching toward my father and there wasn't a ring on it. When did I lose it? Did I leave it at the office?

I take the book down. Everything has been so crazy lately. I'm sure it will pop up eventually. I must have taken it off after an appointment with one of my patients and left it in my office. I didn't wear it because I was overly proud of being a Maryland graduate—it was simply the last thing I had that connected to my family. My father and my brother attended the University of Maryland at one point and it felt good to be connected to them in one way when everything else felt disconnected. I should call my father.

As I scroll to my father's name in my cell phone, there's a knock on the door. I answer it. There's two uniformed police officers standing on the stone steps, which lead up to my front door.

"Dr. Meadows?" the one closest to me asks. He has red hair that seems plastered to his forehead.

"Yes?"

"I am Officer Linden," he says, flashing his badge. "Did you attend University of Maryland?"

I'm puzzled at how he knows this, but then I remember that my diplomas are in the patient's room at the office. Anybody who had been in there would know that.

"Yes," I say. "Did something happen there? I graduated from there over a decade ago. I went to Virginia Commonwealth University after that."

"No, sir, but we will need you to come down to the station." He puts his hand on my elbow. It's a bizarre action, but then I realize he thinks I might try to run away. And I don't understand why.

"You're not going to tell me what happened?" I ask.

He shakes his head. Both he and the other officer are eyeing me warily. This is bad.

Officer Linden leads me toward the police car. I can see one of my neighbors, Mrs. Cavoukian, watching from her yard. As I duck into the backseat of the car, I think about my class ring and the feeling of being disconnected. Officer Linden gets into the driver's seat while the other officer gets into the passenger side. As Linden drives down the street and I see all my neighbors' houses pass by, I realize I never really let myself feel connected to anyone, and even if I had, those bonds are certainly broken now.

~~~~~

I stare at the mirror in the interrogation room. Of course, I know it's not a mirror. There's probably someone staring back at me on the other side. Maybe there is no one there and the police are simply waiting for me to crack under the pressure.

Except I have no idea why I'm here, so the only pressure I feel is the plastic chair against my ass.

The door opens and a man in black pants and a white button-up shirt walks in. He barely glances at me as he sits down across from me. When he does look at me, his eyes are a cold, steel gray.

"Dr. Meadows, I am Detective Scott. I just have a few questions for you."

"Why am I here?" I ask. "I haven't done anything wrong.

"Did you know Mr. David Pattinson?" he asks, ignoring my questions.

"Uh, yes." I treated his father for heart disease. Is this about the fire? Because I didn't know him personally. There's no reason I would have been over at his house."

He pulls out an evidence bag with my class ring on it. The garnet clunks against the table as he sets it down.

"Is this yours?"

I pick it up. Examine it. Pretend that I had not noticed that it was missing.

"Yes," I say, thinking about each word that comes out of my mouth. "I didn't realize it was gone. Did Pattinson find it?"

Scott grimaces. "This ring was found in Mr. Pattinson's house. Do you know what happened to Scott's house?"

"It burned down." My mind is racing. Why would my ring be in Pattinson's house? Did he find it and take it home? That doesn't make sense to me. Where would he even find it? In all likelihood, I'm the only person who went to the University of Maryland in the general area, which I'm sure is how the police knew the ring was mine. If Pattinson had found it, why wouldn't he return it to me? Did he find it right before his house went up into flames?

"Yes, it did," he says. "Do you know what happened to Mr. Pattinson?"

"He was shot."

"He was murdered," Scott corrects me.

I stare at him. I'm not sure why
shot
and
murdered
needed to be differentiated. "What does that have to do with my ring?"

"Well, it's the only thing that was in the house that didn't belong to Mr. Pattinson," he says. "He graduated from Virginia State University."

"I don't know how it got there."

"So…to be clear…you're still denying that you've ever been to Mr. Pattinson's house?"

"I've never been there." I insist. "He must have picked up my ring and never had the time to give it back to me."

"Picked it up from where?"

"I have no idea. The only time I take it off is at my office and before I go to…sleep."

The hotel. The last time I had it was at the hotel. I had taken it off before I fell asleep next to Grace, but I hadn't put it back on. I had been distracted, basking in the afterglow of spending my night with a woman who set all of my emotions on fire.

Scott clasps his hands together on the table. "Did you just think about something?"

"I've been spending my nights with Grace Ellery," I say. "I don't know when the fire started, but there's a good chance I was either working or with her. And if I was with her, there's a police officer following her around because someone is trying to kill her. They could tell you if I was with her."

He raises an eyebrow. "I will go check that out."

He stands up and opens the door. He disappears, closing the door behind him.

I open the evidence bag and take out the class ring. I'm absolutely certain that I'm not supposed to be touching it, but it's the only familiar item in this place. I slide it on. It feels different than it used to. Maybe the fire distorted it or maybe I realized that an inanimate object can't bring me any sense of peace or connection.

~~~~~

HOW WELL CAN YOU really know a person? You can know their middle name, their favorite color, learn their secrets, and make an exact sketch of the way their nose crinkles up when they are amused. But how do you know when they tell you their deepest secret that it is truly their deepest secret? How do you know when they take off their mask that you're not simply looking at another mask?

Officer Larson leads me into the police department. As I follow, I keep watch of my feet. I'm wearing red flats with a tiny silk bow on the side. It makes me think of Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
. If I click my heels together, will I return home? Where is home? Because it's not where I was stabbed, it's not where I live in a basement with a family who hates me, and it's not in a hotel.

Officer Larson takes me past the desks, which are occupied by police officers who seem bored and disinterested in what they're working on. It's a bit disillusioning to see that nobody is solving murders or even has ambition to solve a murder. The policemen have the same exact expression as most students do in their classrooms.

Larson stops at one of the desks. A man in a white button-up shirt sits there and Sam sits beside the desk. The man is sipping coffee while Sam is staring at his hands.

"Steven, this is Grace Ellery," Larson says. The man glances at me before standing up. He offers his hand and I shake it.

"Miss Ellery, I'm Detective Scott," he says. "My apologies for dragging you down here, but it seems that we have a situation."

"I thought you already confirmed that Sam was with me while Pattinson was being killed."

"Yes, we did confirm that, but there is still the question of why the killer would try to frame Dr. Meadows, and you seem to be the sole connection for this whole thing," he says. "I heard that you had been attacked by a student in the past."

I send a withering glance at Sam. He avoids my gaze.

"I was attacked," I say. "But that was back in Ohio and my attacker is in prison."

"Yes, we know," he says. "But maybe…there's something you did or said that possibly triggered these men?"

"The first shooting was before my first day at the high school," I tell him. "So, I don't think I said anything to any of them."

"You didn't talk to any of your students before the first day of school?" he asks.

I shake my head. "None of them. Except the Schneider children."

He jots down the last name. "Do you know if either of them know how to shoot a gun?"

"I doubt it. They're the kind of kids that spend all day on their phones."

"Have you checked into what kids have a gun permit?" Sam asks Scott.

"Yes, we have," he says. "It still leaves about a quarter of the students she has been in contact with. We live in an area that is surrounded by woods. There's a lot of hunters."

Scott turns back to me. "You need to think hard, Miss Ellery. Dr. Meadows believes his ring was stolen from your hotel room. This killer is clearly focusing on you. Did you say anything to one of your students that would upset them?"

"No!" I say, angrier now. Angry that this detective would imply that I would anger one of my students—that it's
my
fault for getting stabbed after I spent a year in therapy trying to convince myself that it wasn't—and angry that Sam let this stranger know that he was in the hotel with me, and—implied by his ring—stayed the night. "All I do is what I'm told to teach. I barely interact with the students at all, except to tell them if they're doing something right or wrong."

"Well, did you tell a student he was wrong and embarrassed him in front of the class?" Scott asks.

As I open my mouth to lash out at him, Sam slams his fist against the desk.

"That's enough," Sam growls at Scott. "She has answered all of your questions. She doesn't know who is shooting at her or trying to frame me. It's not her fault that she can't do
your
job for you. Why don't you try figuring out who the murderer is before he kills someone else?"

Sam grabs my hand and pulls me up from the chair. I let him lead me out of the police station, and nobody tries to stop us. Once we are outside, Sam releases my hand, takes a deep breath, and turns around to face me.

"I hope that was okay. That guy was being an ass and I thought—"

"Why did you tell him about the attack?" I interrupt.

"What?"

"I told you about Tate attacking me in a private conversation," I say. "Why would you go and tell some detective I don't even know? Why would you tell anyone?"

"I thought he should know," Sam says, his shoulders dropping and his whole demeanor losing confidence. "He's solving a murder. He probably would have found out sooner or later if he took a second to look into you. He might have already known if he was watching the news…"

"That doesn't matter," I say. "I told you that in confidence. It wasn't your business to tell anyone."

"This is a
multiple homicide
case."

"You don't think I realize that? He wants to kill me, too!"

"Then why would you hold back information from the police?"

"Because it's none of their damn business!" I shout. Some pedestrians glance at us, the tension between us thick enough to tear apart the asphalt. "That was the worst moment of my life. Do you think I
want
other people to know about it? Do you want to know the real reason I moved here from Ohio? Because I wanted to get away from a town where everyone knew me as the 'girl who was attacked by her student.' I wanted to reinvent myself, disengage myself from my past. And now I can't do that. Now everyone is going to know me as this pitiful victim."

As I feel the tears building up, I spin around and walk away from him. I don't have a way to get home, but since I don't know where home is, it doesn't particularly matter.

~~~~~