Twelve #3
“Can we put up Christmas lights?”
“Pardon?”
“It’s a deal-breaker, Dane.”
“Of course you can put up Christmas lights. What kind of—”
“I just wanted to be sure.”
“If I live to be a thousand, I will never understand all the different places your mind goes.”
I was certain that was true.
We walked Kola to his room first, where Miss Taylor was now and not Mr. Michaels. Poor girl—I thought she was going to liquefy as she stood there, gazing at Dane. When he finally turned and smiled at her, she puddled, and I groaned.
As we walked Hannah to her room, she explained to her uncle about getting in trouble for the water gun.
“Never carry a big gun,” he cautioned her. “You just get a tiny spray bottle, like your father uses when he iron clothes. That way, you can test to see if you’ve got a witch without alerting them that you’re onto them.”
Her eyes got big, and she nodded.
“I’m sorry, my brain works oddly?” I said irritably.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dane charmed Miss Chun as well, the older woman simpering under his charcoal-gray eyes. And, yes, he was handsome, but it was more. I had always had the feeling that Dane was simply larger than life. I was so thankful that I had him in mine.
“I don’t tell you like I should,” I said as we were walking back down the hall toward the front door, “but I appreciate everything you do for me, and I love—”
“Yes, same. Good.” He was brusque as he patted my cheek before he turned and took the stairs down the front stoop, waved without looking back, and started across the parking lot.
I should have known better.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
Turning, I found Mrs. Petrovich.
“I’m sorry about my husband,” I told her. “He’s a yeller.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry for Mr. Michaels, who has been dismissed, and Mr. Parker, who has been barred from school grounds.”
“Okay.”
She reached out and took hold of my arm.
“You and your family have been part of ours for the past two years, Mr. Harcourt, since Kola started when he was in preschool, like Hannah is now. You didn’t think twice about enrolling her with us because he was doing so well here.
I don’t want that to change because of this incident, but mostly because I don’t want you to think we don’t care about your children.
All the kids mean the world to me—I wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case—but Kola is just a jewel, and Hannah …
” She started to smile. “I just don’t know what goes through that girl’s head sometimes, but I can’t wait to see her every day. ”
“Thank you.”
“So, I sincerely hope we can all get past this incident and back to how things were before. That is the first such occurrence we’ve had at this school, and I can assure you that it will most certainly be the last.”
I smiled at her. “You’re adding aides to all classes, aren’t you?”
She cleared her throat. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You’ve been pushing that for a while, but the board wouldn’t budge.” I nodded, grinning at her. “I read the newsletter, and that’s a very good way to prove your point.”
She took hold of my hand. “You know I would never have chosen to have—”
“I know; you didn’t want a child hurt to illustrate your concerns, but the point was certainly made, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, it was.” She exhaled, releasing my hand.
Such an attractive woman in her Donna Karan suit, short and stylish haircut, reading glasses hanging on a chain, pearls, makeup immaculately applied, and her dark blue eyes locked on my face. I had found her so polished the first time we met, and the perception had never changed.
I crossed my arms. “Did Rick Jenner scare the board?”
“Mr. Jenner terrified the board. Jenner Knox is a very well-known law firm here in Chicago.”
“But it’s not even a year old,” I said, making my eyes big for her, all innocence.
She cleared her throat. “Richard Jenner might have just started his new firm, Mr. Harcourt, but we all know he was the managing partner at his old firm for many years.”
I arched an eyebrow at her.
“He’s quite intimidating.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know.”
She squinted at me. “I must say, when you applied here, you and the marshal, I did not suspect that if there was ever a problem, a man like Richard Jenner would be who I would find in my office.”
“My brother, who you just saw—did you see him?”
“He would be hard to miss.”
“Yeah, well, he watches out for me. He’s the scary one, and—”
“Make no mistake, Mr. Harcourt, the scary one in this scenario has always been—and I suspect will always be—Supervisory Deputy Kage.”
I cleared my throat. “Again, sorry he yelled.”
“He had every right to.”
I reached out and squeezed her arm. “We’ll get past this.”
“Good,” she whispered. “We’ll see you after school.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I was smiling when I reached the minivan.
After pulling out of the parking lot, I took a left, and a car passed me and then cut in front of me sharply and came to a stop. I had to either slam on my brakes or ram into it. I hit the brakes.
The car door flew open, and the second I saw Mr. Parker get out with a baseball bat, I grabbed my phone and dialed 911.
As he yelled at me to get out of my faggot car and get my faggot ass out there, I talked to the operator.
When he started beating on the hood, the operator asked what that noise was. I explained that he was hitting my van.
“And it’s new,” I groaned because, really, I was safe as long as I didn’t get out.
She sounded more frantic than I was.
He hit the window, and by that time, I had the operator on speaker and my phone shooting video because there was nothing else to do—I was stuck until the police got there.
“Mr. Harcourt, did you call in an assault on an officer the other night?”
“Yeah.”
“That was wonderful, what you did. I just… we weren’t allowed to contact you or… any …”
“Which one?” I asked as Mr. Parker took out the passenger side mirror.
What was I going to tell Aaron?
“Detective Everman is my brother-in-law… we’re all very thankful.”
“Are they both all right?”
“Yes.” She sighed deeply. “The two of them will make a full recovery.”
“Good. I’m—shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
He had retreated to his car, and now he had an axe.
“Tell the officers coming that this guy has an axe now.”
“Will advise. Move away from the windows, Mr. Harcourt. ETA is one minute out.”
“Okay.” I took a breath, scrambling into the back seat as Mr. Parker charged the van and swung at the windshield.
I was really sick of hearing sirens, hearing the yelling, but the sea of blue uniforms was cool, and the way they held their guns on him until he dropped the axe was like a scene out of a movie.
He was on the ground, and it was overkill, in my opinion, but they had no way of knowing what the man was on, and he was big and strong. But there was a knee driven down between his shoulder blades, one in the small of his back, and the last guy sat on his legs. It could not have been comfortable.
They sort of hog-tied him with PlastiCuffs and carried him to the back of one of the police cars. Once there, they came for me. The street in the little suburban neighborhood was full of working families, so there was no one out on the sidewalk to witness any of the excitement.
I gave my statement to Officer Fields as more men in blue joined us, clustering around. They asked if I was okay, and I explained again that I had not gotten out of the van. It was picture-taking time after that. When my phone rang, I saw it was Sam and excused myself.
“Where are you?” he asked me.
“Where are you?”
“I’m finally home. I took a shower and—did you go to work? I want to talk to you about everything and just … I need to see you, so can you come home?”
I coughed. “I’m actually with the police.”
There was a brief silence.
“What?”
“Mr. Parker just attacked me after I dropped off Kola and B, but I’ll be home after I finish with the police and then call Aaron to figure out where to take the—”
“Attacked you?”
“Well”—I gestured at the poor Mercedes he couldn’t see—“yeah, I mean, the van, not me. No, technically me, but mostly the van. It would have been me if he could’ve reached me, but—”
“Jesus Christ, Jory! Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. Were you listening? I was in the minivan, and it just got beat to shit.”
“Where”—his voice cracked, bottomed out—“are you exactly?”
I read him the street sign I could see from where I was and told him to hold on because the policeman had to talk to me.
“Put him on the phone.”
“But, Sam, I—”
“Put him on the phone,” he growled.
“Fine. God, don’t make that noise,” I snapped, passing my iPhone 3GS to the officer.
He looked confused.
“Just”—I nodded, gesturing for him to put it to his ear—“talk to the federal marshal.”
Fun to watch the man’s eyes go all big and round, and he started answering questions that were being fired fast, judging from the brevity and quickness of the answers.
Apparently, Mr. Parker’s ex-wife was now suing for sole custody of their son based on the incident with Kola at the school. Until the custody got sorted out, Oliver was with his mother, and she had filed a restraining order against her ex-husband as well.
If Sam had not been a marshal and an ex–Chicago police detective, he would not have been given all that information, but as it was, the officer spilled it all and did a lot of yes, sir, no, sir, very good, sir until the phone came back to me.
“Don’t move. Sit your ass down on the curb and wait for me.”
“But what about the—”
“I’m sending a tow truck for the van. Just … sit.”