Free Relative Danger by June Shaw Page A

started toward them, but the older cop stopped me with his stare, his gaze nailing me as though I had done something wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have opened that auditorium door. Police might still be checking out that room. Or classes might have started. Since I wasn’t in my room yet, my students could be rioting.
    What happened when a teacher or sub didn’t show up for class? Imagining the damage my worst students could inflict on a room or other students, I took off at a trot. My gaze skimmed halls, my breath catching in my throat. Suppose I couldn’t find room 111 from this direction? I angled down another hall, where Abby Jeansonne’s voice greeted me. She stood outside her door, angrily eyeing her room and mine. “I was afraid you had run out on us and were going to leave the afternoon groups all alone,” she said.
    A backward sweep of my hand dismissed the idea. “No way.” Not unless I could get away with it. Then I could pursue Kat. What was happening with her?
    I couldn’t just sneak away. I’d have to come back around these people for graduation. I hoped.
    Both of our classrooms were quiet. I glanced in Abby’s room. Colorful physics posters and framed pictures hung on her walls. Sunlight slanted across her quietly seated students. Slits of light fell on Sledge, his mean-eyed gaze freezing against mine.
    My returned stare told him “I know what you’re thinking.” At that moment, I really did believe he could kill someone. Me.
    “We can get to work now, class,” Abby said, her voice breaking the spell between Sledge and me. I rushed inside my room.
    Students looked like they’d been hit with a stun gun. What I surmised were three males and one female had cheeks down on their desks. “Wake up. Wake up,” I said, strolling down rows and tapping my fingers on desktops. A boy with a small mustache drew his head up and fixed his glassy eyes on me. Then like some great magnet pulled it, his head fell. He was snoring by the time I handed out papers.
    All but the sleeping boy started their tests. These students must be working on credits for graduation, but if naptime was more important to that fellow, so be it. He was old enough to make his own decisions about his final average.
    Just like Kat?
    I hated to think she might make an unwise choice now that she was so close to the end. But Kat had agreed to come to school today, and she was attending classes, preparing for finals. Surely she’d decide to take them to keep her grades up. I had planned on checking into what happened to that custodian, but now I didn’t have to. The police would determine what took place. And if Kat’s friend Miss Hernandez was involved, Kat would have to learn to live with that fact.
    I headed for the teacher’s chair when a girl waved to call me. I went to her, hoping she wouldn’t ask about building things. A glance at her paper told me her name was Roxy. She’d written no last name. The smell of stale smoke clung to Roxy’s stringy hair. “You called Kat,” she said, and I recognized her as one of girls who’d gone in and out of the restroom.
    “Yes,” I said, excited, hoping I’d found an ally, “she’s my grandchild.”
    “Your grandchild? Damn, how old are you anyway?”
    Faces throughout the room turned up. The sleeping boy let out a snort.
    If I’d been a person to get embarrassed, I would have now. A smart retort blasted to mind, but I stuffed it. I was too mature, but not too old, to trade quips with a student. Age doesn’t matter! Just don’t ask what mine is, or you’ll make me a liar , I might tell her. And almost as much as I hated depression, I abhorred telling untruths. But sometimes I needed to resort to telling them—with crossed fingers. “Young lady,” I said, ignoring other stares, “I won’t humor you with an answer. But I will tell you it’s not proper to address a person that way, especially an adult.”
    Roxy’s cheek tightened, pulling up an edge of her lip. Pencil-thin