“Jolie, we’re not trading snacks today,” Lissa said.
“But I don’t like nanners,” Jolie shrieked.
“Then, you don’t have to eat it. When you finish your raisins, you may go sit in the reading circle.”
“Then, I won’t have two snacks!” Jolie yelled, ready to cry again because her world was momentarily out of orbit.
“Use your inside voice, please,” Lissa said calmly as she continued passing out snacks.
Jolie scooted her chair back and forth just enough to make the wooden legs squeak against the tile flooring, but to Lissa’s relief, she stopped without further orders.
Lissa understood Jolie’s need to be pissed. She knew all too well how it felt to be rejected, but this was unacceptable behavior in her classroom.
When snack was over, they cleared their tables and hurried over to the reading circle.
Lissa eyed Jolie, who was now orchestrating who she wanted to sit with, and then glanced over at Roger Lee. He didn’t appear to care where he sat as long as it wasn’t by Jolie Wade.
This was the first time in her teaching career that she’d had a child as boy crazy as the little blonde. It wasn’t until after school when she was relating the drama to some of her fellow teachers that she found out why.
“Oh, I can tell you exactly why Jolie is boy crazy,” Margaret Lewis said. “She has two teenage sisters. It’s probably all she hears.”
Lissa chuckled. “Ah...that explains everything.”
Margaret began gathering up her things. “Need a ride home this evening?”
“No, I rented a car, but thanks for the offer,” Lissa said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She left the teachers’ lounge, headed for the exit and waved at Louis, who was emptying trash cans.
“Have a nice evening, Louis.”
“Yes, ma’am, you, too,” he said absently, as he rolled the trash bin toward the next room.
The sun was out, but it didn’t feel all that warm. The north wind was fairly stiff and had a chill to it, a reminder that winter would be here all too soon.
Lissa hurried to the car and got in, grateful to be out of that wind, then noticed the grocery list she’d left in the console this morning so she wouldn’t forget to go by the supermarket after school. As badly as she wanted to get home, this had to be done first.
She drove to the supermarket and parked, then grabbed the list as she exited the car. Her mind was already on the job ahead when she heard someone calling her name and turned around.
Well, great. Jessica. My nemesis in high school wants to continue her reign.
“Lissa! Oh, my dear!” Jessica York cried as she threw her arms around Lissa’s neck. “I heard about what happened at the garage. How awful! Was it really your car that killed Mr. Jackson?”
Lissa blinked, felt the blood rushing to her head as she unwound herself from Jessica’s grasp and headed back to her car.
Jessica kept calling out behind her, “What’s wrong? Where are you going? Was it something I said?”
Lissa laid the grocery list in the cup holder and started the car. She wouldn’t look at the bitch for fear the woman would be smiling. If she was, then she would have to get back out of the car and whip her ass, and that might get her fired. A teacher’s morals and behavior had to be above reproach.
So she wouldn’t have cream in her coffee and she wouldn’t eat cereal tomorrow morning, she thought as she drove to the exit. It wasn’t the end of the world.
The light turned green.
She drove through the intersection, suddenly anxious to get home. And then she thought of the stalker and her heart skipped a beat. Would he be back again, now that she’d called the police? The peace she’d found during the day with her students was coming undone.
Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? Dear God, what did I do wrong?
By the time she pulled into the driveway and parked, she was once again in tears. She was getting her things out of the passenger seat when she heard the sound of a car slowing down. She turned around just as Mack pulled into her driveway and parked behind her. She knew there were tears on her face, but her hands were full, and right now she didn’t much care what he thought.
* * *
Mack had been dreading this moment for a lot of reasons, but none of them had involved seeing those tears—at least not at first. The frightening thing was the urge he felt to hurt whoever had made her cry.
“I see I’ve come at a bad time. I should have called.”
Lissa rolled her eyes and headed for the door. He could follow or he could leave. Either way, she didn’t much care.
Her silence took Mack aback, and then he hurried forward and followed her up the steps. When she began fumbling with the key he took it from her trembling fingers and let her in, then stood aside.
Lissa walked past him, dumped the stuff she was carrying on the sofa and then turned around.
“What do you want, Mack?”
“I need to talk to you.”
That seemed like the last thing she wanted to endure.
“I don’t much want to talk to you,” she said. Then she shrugged. “I’m sure you understand.”
He wasn’t going to pretend that didn’t hurt, but she needed to know about the lift, so he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him.
Lissa rolled her eyes. “Oh, well! Do come in.”
Mack felt raw enough without getting into a fight and began to explain.
“This won’t take long, but you need to know that my dad’s death wasn’t an accident. There was nothing wrong with the lift. Someone killed him. Trey thinks it’s connected to Dick Phillips’ murder, too. I wanted you to know so you would stop blaming yourself.”
It was the last thing she’d expected to hear, and the relief that washed through her was immediately negated by the lost expression on his face.
“Oh, Mack! I... Uh, you...” She sighed and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “I’m so sorry I was rude, and while I am grateful for this news, it doesn’t change your loss. Forgive me.”
He shrugged. “As I said, you had nothing to do with it. You needed to know.”
“Thank you so much. As you can imagine, it’s a huge relief.”
He eyed the shadows beneath her eyes. He knew why she hadn’t been sleeping—because of her stalker—but he couldn’t let go of the tears on her face. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask.”
He got the message. Just because she agreed to listen didn’t mean she would answer.
“Why were you crying?”
She sighed. “It was stupid.” Her face was a mirror of what she was feeling as she threw up her hands and started talking.
“Jessica York. She’s the one person from our class who never grew out of being a bitch, and I obviously haven’t grown up enough to ignore her.”
Mack frowned. “Jessica York?”
“Oh, you know...Jessica Shayne. She married some guy from Savannah and lived there for years. She divorced and moved back to Mystic a month before Mom died. I saw her at the funeral.”
The skin crawled on the back of his neck, remembering Jessica was the one who’d inadvertently told him about the abortion. He couldn’t think of one thing to say that would be proper. Lissa was still talking, and it took all he had to focus on what she was saying.
“I shouldn’t let her get to me, but after all these years she still gets her kicks spreading gossip, most of which isn’t true. She even started that rumor years ago that I’d had an abortion, when her mother knew good and well about the miscarriage because it happened in the doctor’s office while she was there.”
There was a roaring in Mack’s ears, and for a couple of seconds he thought he was going to pass out. He could still see Lissa’s lips moving but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He was sick to his stomach, and his heart felt like it might burst.
What had he done?
What the hell had he done?
He staggered toward an easy chair and sat down hard.
Lissa knew by the look on his face that something was wrong and immediately attributed it to finding out his father had been murdered. She was ashamed of herself for not taking his feelings into consideration and moved toward him, intent on nothing more than offering a comforting word, but he clasped her hand, and before she could react he pulled her into his lap and hid his face in the curve of her neck.
At first she was too startled to move. Then she was on the verge of getting angry when she realized he was crying.
“Mack?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and held her tighter.
Now her heart was breaking for his sadness. She couldn’t imagine the horror of knowing someone you loved had been murdered.
“You don’t have to apologize for crying about your father being murdered. Anyone would be devastated.”
He took a deep breath and then lifted his head. He’d wronged her. She deserved the apology face-to-face.
“That’s not what’s wrong,” he said.
“Then, what?”
“I didn’t know about the miscarriage.”
An old ache tugged at her heart. “Yes, you did, remember? You came to the house and asked me if I was still pregnant, and I told you no. You freaked out. Yelled at me and stormed out. I never saw you again.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“Because I thought you’d had an abortion.”