Rafe clasped the older man’s hand. Sam had been one of his grandfather’s cronies. And while Rafe had been hoping to speak to Sam Junior, find out what he thought about Amanda Skinley’s connection with Brittney’s case, it was like old times to talk to Sam Senior. “Good to see you, too. What are you doing here?”
“Sam’s at a conference, and he’s got one vice principal out because his appendix decided to burst last night, and the other vice principal—” Sam Sr. checked his watch “—is probably just now hearing the words it’s a boy.”
Rafe laughed. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you.”
“And it’s as if I’ve never been gone.” Sam Senior led Rafe down the hallway. “I hear that one of our students might be in a bit of trouble....”
“Just one?” Rafe chuckled.
“I’m talking about Amanda Skinley.”
Rafe followed Sam Senior into the auditorium. Except for a janitor sweeping up something in a corner, it was empty. But the feeling of chaos—organized chaos—was in the air. Just as a high school should feel.
“Amanda here today?” Rafe asked. The thing about Sam Senior was that he claimed to be too old to care about student-confidentiality issues. He believed a community raised a child, and if a parent wanted to fight him because of something that happened in school, let the parent try and fight. Sam Junior was more a let’s-leave-the-office-door-open-so-we-have-a-witness principal....
“No, and we’ve been informed that she’ll not be finishing out the school year. You want to explain that? We send our brightest to that college for concurrent enrollment, and now one is missing, probably dead, and the other is about to have a nervous breakdown. She’ll not even be at graduation. Did you know that?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
It was past time to call the Skinleys again. Rafe had their new cell number.
“You just have the two seniors taking classes at the college?” Rafe asked.
“Five started,” Sam supplied. “Two dropped out and one moved out of state.”
“How does that work, high-school seniors taking college classes?”
“It’s a special program, fairly new,” Sam replied. “High-school seniors can take college classes, usually the core subjects like English, math and such, and if they pass, it counts for both high-school credits and college credits.”
“So mainly your college-bound students are interested in the program?”
“The top two percent, mainly those who are sure about what they want to do in the future,” Sam said. “Like you were.”
No one had been surprised when Rafe majored in criminal justice. He’d entered the police academy right out of college and was hired on in Scorpion Ridge at the ripe old age of twenty-two.
And his mother had cried.
Seven years later, at the tender age of twenty-nine, he’d successfully run for sheriff.
“Can the high schoolers take any class they want?”
“It’s not encouraged,” Sam answered. “There’s a block of six classes we prefer them to take. The students pretty much go in as a unit. The five we sent were considered a cohort. They had a counselor who guided them.”