Pretty Girls Dancing(17)
“Janie? David?” Claire gathered her robe around her and hurried down the stairway. “What are you two doing home?”
David glared at her as he ushered his daughter through the front door. “A better question would be, where the hell have you been? The dean of students tried calling you. I tried calling. I had to leave work to go to the high school. Have you been home all this time?”
His wife put a hand to her hair as she crossed the hall to them. “I was just about to get into the shower. I’ve been sick all day and sleeping. I must not have heard the phone.”
His gaze narrowed. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen his wife not immaculately groomed and attired by 8:00 a.m. She did look ill. Pale and a little shaky.
“What happened? Janie, are you sick?” She pressed her hand to their daughter’s forehead, only to have the girl duck away from her touch. Claire turned to David. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I’ll let Janie do that.” His daughter remained silent, and David suppressed a surge of impatience. He’d had to reschedule the creative-content meeting on the Bonner campaign. He put his hand on Janie’s shoulder and guided her into the family room. She tolerated his touch only slightly better than she had Claire’s, but then she rarely showed him the obstinate side that she sometimes displayed to his wife. Something about mother-daughter relationships he’d heard about but didn’t pretend to understand.
Janie shrugged out of her backpack and dropped into the tan-leather recliner that matched the couch. Claire stood before her uncertainly, swaying a little bit. David sent her another look, considering. Sick could look a lot like hungover, and the vodka she favored always seemed plentiful in the cupboard. But he took out the garbage, and he knew for a fact that there were only empty bottles in it after they’d entertained. He shook his head, banishing the half suspicion, and focused on his daughter again.
Claire reached out a hand to her, fingered the ugly scratch on the girl’s neck. “Janie, what happened here?”
Janie reached up to touch the mark where her mother’s fingers lay as if surprised by it. “I guess Heather must have scratched me. She was trying hard enough. Glad now that I bloodied her nose for her.”
“Janie Lyn!” Claire’s concern turned to shock. “You . . . hit her?”
“Not exactly,” David put in. “Sit down, Claire.” She looked like a stiff wind would blow her over. She walked unsteadily to perch on the edge of the nearby couch. He sat in a chair next to it. “I got a call because Janie got into an altercation with another girl at school.”
His wife looked baffled. “An altercation. Janie? At school?”
He couldn’t blame her for her disbelief. He’d reacted similarly when Templeton had called his office. Throughout Janie’s school career, the ongoing concern had been her lack of participation. Her anxiety with verbal communication. Never getting physical with another student. Voice dry, he answered. “Yes, to both questions. And after my meeting with the Millers and the school personnel, I do believe she was provoked.” He didn’t miss the grateful look his daughter sent him. By the time he’d finished dealing with Lucy and Hal Miller, he’d been feeling more than a little violent himself. He’d wanted to kick Hal’s ass, and it hadn’t been the first time.
Still looking stunned, Claire asked, “Who? Who did you hit, Janie?”
“Heather Miller. I didn’t exactly hit her, although I’m sure she told a completely different story.” Janie shrugged. “She pushed me down, so when she offered her hand to help me up, I pulled her down, too. She cracked her face on her laptop.” A look of satisfaction fluttered across her expression. “It was like a faucet pouring out blood.”
“Oh, Lord.” If anything, his wife went paler. “Not . . . not Lucy Miller’s daughter.”
Janie lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve never met her mother. If Lucy Miller covers mean-spirited bitchiness under a fake-sweet phony fa?ade, I’m guessing they’re related.”
David’s mouth twitched. “That’s enough, Janie.” The description fit Lucy Miller to a tee. His daughter’s situational-communication problems aside, she was perceptive as hell. Maybe it came from all the time she spent listening rather than talking. Sometimes he worried that she was a little too observant.
He sneaked a surreptitious look at his watch. The last thing he needed was to miss the rescheduled team meeting, too. “The girl is Lucy Miller’s daughter,” he affirmed. “Lucy and Hal Miller.” The man was West Bend’s chief of police now, but seven years ago, he’d been the lead investigator in Kelsey’s case. And yeah, he’d been shoved aside when the BCI had been called in, but he’d still been involved.
His inflection wasn’t lost on his wife. She slumped deeper into the couch, as if it had swallowed her up, and David knew in that moment that he was going to have to give Claire a carefully abbreviated account of the conference.
“Heather is using the whole Whitney DeVries thing to get in my head. Mrs. Rimble thinks she’s trying to get an edge in grades and scholarships.” Janie looked vaguely surprised at the idea. “I didn’t even figure Heather realized we were competing. Maybe she thought if she could provoke me, I’d do something bad enough to disqualify myself from honor society or teacher recommendations or something.”