Free Riding Tall by Kate Sherwood Page B

whatever Bowerman was leading up to. “Why’s she in your office?”
    “She’s drunk,” Bowerman said, his voice clipped. “She was seen in the company of several other people, but they left the area and she’s refusing to identify them. We believe that the group was responsible for some vandalism and theft in the kitchen storage room, as well.”
    “What kind of vandalism? What theft?”
    “They jimmied the lock on one of the freezers and stole and cooked and ate some french fries.”
    “Okay,” Joe said. French-fry theft. He tried not to wonder whether Lacey had consumed something more than just alcohol. “What’s the next step?”
    “Miss Walton needs to give me the names of the other students involved in this incident.”
    “You said she was refusing to do that, right? So what’s the next step after that?”
    “There is no next step after that. Until I have a full list of names, we don’t proceed any further.”
    Joe hadn’t fallen on his head, but it was beginning to ache anyway. He glared at Ally. If she’d known about any of this, she was going to have some serious explaining to do. But that was for later; right now, he needed to deal with Bowerman. “Well, obviously the world isn’t going to just stop spinning for us to just sit around and wait for Lacey to give you names.” He tried to lift his arm to look at his watch, but winced in pain and let it fall back into its sling. “What time is it?”
    “Almost three o’clock.”
    “Okay. She can’t take the bus home, right? If she’s drunk?”
    “And suspended.”
    “Okay. She’s suspended. That’s one of those next steps I was wondering about. How long is she suspended for?”
    “Mr. Sutton, I’m not sure you’re taking this seriously enough.”
    “I’m trying to, but you’re really not making it easy. Is there any chance you could be a bit less of a cartoon villain about all this? I mean, could you just pull the stick out of your ass and then—”
    Mackenzie was pretty quick when he wanted to be. He had the phone out of Joe’s hand and up to his own ear before Joe had time to register what was happening. “We’ll be in to pick her up,” he said. “About half an hour, probably. We can talk more then, but I should warn you… Joe was injured earlier today, part of his role as a volunteer fireman. You know how important they are to this community, and the work is quite dangerous. Anyway, he was injured during a daring rescue, and he’s been prescribed some painkillers. He won’t be driving, and I don’t think he needs to come inside, either. I’ll come in to pick up Lacey, and we can have a meeting about all this after the Christmas break, okay?”
    There was a pause while Bowerman said something, and then Mackenzie laughed. He sounded genuine, even as he rolled his eyes in Joe’s direction. “Oh, I’m sure it’s confusing, absolutely! But you can call Jean and review it with her. My name’s Scott Mackenzie. She knows the situation.” He made a face while he listened, but made sure he was smiling when he added, “I really want to thank you for all you’re doing for Lacey. I’m sure she’s a challenging student—so much has happened to her recently, and we think she’s doing a great job of coping with it all, but, of course, you must see a different perspective. It’s easier for us to be flexible when we only have a few kids in the house, instead of a few hundred!”
    Even without hearing Bowerman’s side of the conversation, Joe could tell that things were going much better since Mackenzie had taken over. Which only made sense. This was Mackenzie’s thing—he was social, good with people. Joe leaned his head back against the leather and wished the armchair was a few inches taller. He also wished Mackenzie was a few inches closer, and it sure would be excellent if they didn’t have to drive into town to pick up a drunk teenager who’d been suspended from school.
    He opened his eyes as Mackenzie ended the