Love's Cruel Redemption (The Ghost Bird #12)(76)

Nathan seemed to hesitate, his blue eyes and grim expression telling me how tense he was.

I waved my hand to him, urging him to go on. We couldn’t talk about it here, anyway, but whatever was happening, no one would let me go in at this point unless it was absolutely okay to do so.

I trusted them.

My calm expression and urging seemed to motivate him to go through with it. He reached out to me, squeezing my hand gently once in an encouraging way. He turned away and walked into the right hallway.

I took the left.

The hall itself was full of people, some waiting outside of office doors. Most doors were open. The occasional policeman shuffled his way from room to room. Men and women in business suits walked around as well. I think they were lawyers. I didn’t recognize them as faculty here.

The principal’s office was at the end of the hall. The door was open.

Not wanting to interrupt, I approached slowly, staying out in the hallway and peeking in.

Mr. Blackbourne stood by the big desk. He held a notepad with a clipboard and appeared to be jotting down notes. Next to him, sitting in the principal’s chair, was the mayor of Goose Creek. He wore a light gray suit with a blue tie. His gray hair was thinning on top and along the temples. I’d forgotten his name in the moment of nervousness but he’d helped us out before. He was opening files, looking over notepads from Mr. Hendricks’s desk. Next to him was another man, wearing a dark blue suit and a short red tie. He was middle aged, with a trim beard. He pulled files from a cabinet.

With the three of them crowded behind the desk, it looked like they’d gotten into the flow of pulling apart everything in the office. There were stacks of files covering the desk. Floor space had been used for stuff that had been on the desk before. There was an empty space where the computer had been.

The mayor spotted me first and motioned to the chair. “Oh, yeah. There you are. Come in. Have a seat.”

Mr. Blackbourne looked up absently from his note taking, looking once in my direction. His face was unreadable, simply calm. Taking his example, I sat down in the seat across the desk, crossed my legs at the ankles and waited.

The mayor slid his fingers over a file he already had open. As he read, his lips moved a bit, forming shapes but not actual words. After a minute of this, he spoke. “Just one second. Don’t want to lose...” He flipped a page and then read from it. “Nothing in this one. Just notes about faculty meetings, but it all seems normal.”

Mr. Blackbourne made a note anyway.

The mayor flipped the folder closed and then set it on a stack of other folders nearby. He folded his fingers together, palm to palm and then leaned forward on the desk. “So, Miss Sorenson. You’re mentioned a lot in these notes. Do you want to talk about why Mr. Hendricks was so interested in you?”

My eyes drifted from him to Mr. Blackbourne.

He spoke without looking up from his note taking. “Mr. Hendricks was on to her about being one of mine from the start.” He looked up briefly. From behind his glasses, the gray eyes glinted steely. “She reported back to me often about his barrage of questioning. Some of it crossing the line of interest a principal should have.”

I nodded vigorously, taking his direction. He was telling me it was okay to admit what was going on. The mayor I had suspected might be Academy, but I couldn’t be absolutely sure. Who was the other man? “He threatened me a lot with failing grades and detentions and other things to tell him about what Mr. Blackbourne and the others were up to. Sometimes to talk about myself and where I was at times off school property. Sometimes he sent teachers to my house to watch me in their cars...”

The mayor bobbed his head up and down like he’d heard this one before. His eyes were kind and he kept a small smile on his face, like we were having a pleasant afternoon chat. “That’s all over, as of now. You’re not the only one telling me about his lording over the place like a tyrant.” He sighed and then sat back, putting a palm over his mouth shortly as he was thinking. He removed it and then put his palm to his cheek, shaking his head. “I don’t think we need to be here any longer.”

“We need to complete this. We started it,” said the man in the blue suit.

I looked at him shortly, and then returned my gaze to the mayor, who spoke. “Oh, did I not introduce him? This is Principal Graves. He’s in charge of the middle school. The one a few blocks away.” He waved in a direction although I wasn’t familiar with what he was talking about. “Thought he could be of some help over here given he’ll know the paperwork and set up a bit.”

Mr. Graves spoke without looking up from studying the files. “All the same paperwork, just in different places.” He paused, looking closer at another file and opening it to check the contents. “A few additions here and there.”

The mayor leaned forward again and put his elbows on the desk. He focused on me. “Between you and me, it’s a hell of a time to be doing this.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Despite the investigation, we’ve got to keep this school running,” he said. He waved over to Mr. Blackbourne. “Unless Mr. Hendricks is found and he has some sort of reasoning behind all of this chaos.”

“Doubt it,” Mr. Graves said. “After everything I’ve heard...”

The mayor continued. “I’ve no choice but replace a lot of the faculty.” He sighed heavily and looked over to Mr. Blackbourne. “I hate asking you to step up like this.”