LITMIR.BIZ

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      “No.” All four women’s heads turned at Jamie’s emphatic response. “Please. It’ll only embarrass her. Again, thank you. Really. It was so much fun. Another time . . .”

      She sketched them all a bright wave, then hurried out the door. She felt weird. Exhausted. Like she’d just escaped some dire fate by the skin of her teeth. Gulping air, she emitted a half-hysterical laugh. She’d been without friends for so long, it was like learning a foreign language to be accepted by a tight group. It was damn hard work.

      She drove back to the house, knowing Harley would never want to come home even a minute early. Sitting outside in her car, she rolled down a window and let the cool, almost cold, October air inside. A smashed pumpkin on the sidewalk and the earthy scent of a pile of red and gold and brown leaves slipped inside as well. A faint breeze sent leaves on the trees whispering.

      Jamie lay her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to go in yet. Emma would likely be in bed. She’d told Jamie she liked to be in bed by eight-thirty, no later. Mom’s shift was from seven to seven. She’d generally worked three-and-a-half, twelve-hour days a week, and she was back in the morning to take Emma to work. There was also just enough time to pick her up in the evening before starting another shift. It had worked well for both of them, and Mom and Theo scheduled it so that if Mom had to work a Saturday, Emma would be at the Thrift Shop that day as well, so that she wasn’t alone for hour upon hour. Even so, there were those times that Mom was sleeping and Emma was home, but Emma, understanding, was notably scrupulous about keeping the house quiet.

      Jamie knew all this from the brief communications she’d received from her mother over the years, along with the somewhat rambling accounts Emma would sometimes relate.

      Now, though, she didn’t want to go inside. She didn’t want to go to her bed in the storage closet. Instead she switched on her cell and scrolled through her contact list. Before she could chicken out, she phoned her old friend, Camryn. She hadn’t talked to her in a couple of years, maybe more. The last time Jamie had come home had been two Christmases ago. She and Harley had driven up, but it had been so tense with Mom that Jamie had cut the trip short, and they’d driven home with snow drifting down in the Siskiyous. They’d just gotten out ahead of a major snowstorm.

      “Jamie?” Camryn answered warmly. “I heard you were in town! I’ve been meaning to call you, but it’s crazy with work. You’ve got your daughter with you, right? What is she, a freshman? Oh, God. Is she at River Glen High?”

      “Sophomore. Yes,” Jamie said. She started to say something more, but was stopped by a thickness in her throat and a sudden sting of tears.

      Luckily, Camryn didn’t notice. “Wow. I should’ve had kids. I never found the right guy, though, and the thought of a sperm bank . . . I don’t know. Not for me.”

      Jamie, recovered enough to respond, said, “Harley started at River Glen today, and she’s at the fall mixer tonight.”

      “Oh my God! They still have those? Where are you? At your mom’s place?”

      “For now. I don’t really know what my long-term plans are.”

      “I mean right now. Are you free? Come over here! You know where my condo is? Off Fernwood?”

      “Well, yeah.”

      “Do you have time? When do you pick up Harley?”

      “She getting a ride back with . . . Cooper Haynes. He’s got a daughter, a stepdaughter, in Harley’s grade.”

      “Ah, Cooper, yes. He still looks good. Have you seen him?”

      “He and Marissa picked up Harley, too, and . . . I saw him earlier, at the school.”

      “He’s a cop. Can you believe it? And Robbie Padilla’s the phys ed teacher at the high school. God, get over here and let’s talk. What do you drink? Wine? I have some vodka . . . or coffee?”

      “Coffee,” Jamie said firmly.

      “Do you have a cold? You sound kind of stuffed up.”

      “Allergies,” she lied, swallowing back the tears that were damn near impossible to hold back.

      “They’re a bitch, aren’t they?” Camryn said knowingly.

      * * *

      “Maybe I should come in and tell your mom what happened,” Cooper said again as they drove into Harley’s driveway.

      “No. Please! No. I’ll tell her.” Harley had one hand on the door handle and was opening it the moment Cooper got the vehicle into Park.

      Marissa said, “Dad, don’t do that,” the same time Harley protested.

      Harley was already out of the car and dashing toward the back of the house. She’d said she knew where the key was, which alarmed Cooper some more. Was Jamie not home?

      “The lights are on,” Marissa said. She was seated in the front seat beside him. “Let’s go.”

      The truth was, Cooper was heading to the station to meet with, and hopefully pacify, some of the parents, Caroline being one of them. They wanted some sort of police action, pointing out that at least one of the boys had been “brandishing a weapon.” He’d been the one wearing the long, evil-looking Freddy Krueger finger knives, and though they were blunted metal, part of a costume, these parents wanted him arrested for terrorism. Cooper had tried to suggest letting the school take action first. The school had strict rules of their own. But he’d seen that wasn’t going to cut it, so he’d agreed to meet the angry parent posse at the department.

      “You’re not going to arrest Tyler, are you?” Marissa asked now. “You’re not going to listen to those crazies.”

      “They’re concerned parents and there are school rules,” he began.

      “It was just a joke!”

      Marissa had come a long way from being sanguine about the senior boys being expelled to out-and-out alarm. She’d fully adopted the general feeling of all her classmates: that the parents were crazy freak-outers just looking to jump off the deep end. Also, she had been particularly interested in several of the perpetrators: Tyler Stapleton, Troy Stillwell, and the kid who’d pushed Harley, Greer Douglas, Dug Douglas’s son.

      Earlier, Robbie had said of Greer, “Branch of the same tree.”

      Cooper didn’t know the boy himself, but he knew Dug, who’d taken over his dad’s auto and home insurance business, with satellite offices in River Glen and several other Portland bedroom communities. Dug and his wife, who lived in a sprawling home in Staffordshire Estates, had twice been reported for disturbances by the neighbors; they had a tendency to have screaming fights when they’d had too much to drink.

      Cooper took Marissa home, and Laura was already waiting outside. He could tell she wanted to talk, but he waved her off and went to the station. There was limited administrative staff after-hours, while two officers worked nights with others on call, if need be, so he was alone except for Howie and the small group of assembled upset parents looking for police action.

      Howie was on his feet as Cooper entered, ready to bolt. “You got this?” he said, and Cooper nodded somewhat tiredly. The posse of parents were furious that the boys had been released to their parents’ custody at the school.

      “They should all be in jail,” one woman declared. Edina Something. This had been her mantra from the beginning.

      He spent the next hour listening to Edina, Caroline, and a woman named Marty, and her husband, Hal, complain vociferously about the boys involved in the incident, the school’s lack of discipline, the deplorable state of the country’s youth, and the problem with lack of respect in the world as a whole. He wrote down notes about the boys and tried to look attentive. He didn’t offer any advice, and as the four of them wound down, Edina, short, sturdy, with a fierce look in her eye, who seemed to be the self-appointed head of their group, asked suspiciously, “You’re

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