Marie Ferrarella - In Broad Daylight

Shutting down the host of emotions bouncing wildly around inside of her, Brenda raised her head and looked him squarely in the eye. “Are you inferring that I had something to do with this?”

Dax took the opportunity to play along with the lead she gave him. “Did you?”

Thinking he suspected her was one thing, having him almost come out and say it was another. The reality of it cut through her like a saber, drawing blood and indignation.

“No! I would never—”

He raised his hand, silencing her with a single motion. He had no time for theatrics. For the time being, he’d buy into her innocence.

“Then let’s continue.” Dax turned toward Harwood. The man’s complexion was almost ashen. The headline Teacher Involved in Student’s Kidnapping had probably flashed through the headmaster’s mind, Dax mused. “And you’re sure she’s not around anywhere. Did someone check the other classrooms?”

Had his suspicions clogged his ears? “I already checked the other classrooms—” Brenda began. That was why the police had been called in to begin with.

“But not everywhere,” Nathan gently pointed out.

Dax thought of his own unruly elementary school experience. There were coat rooms and closets and a basement that probably ran the length of the school. A kid could hide anywhere. He had on more than one occasion. The sixth-grade coat room was where he’d stolen his first kiss from Amanda Jackson.

Brenda blew out a breath. “No, not everywhere,” she agreed.

“The students are all returning to their rooms,” Harwood pointed out. Had the door to his office been opened, the sound of shuffling feet would have been evident. “The teachers would notice someone who didn’t belong in their room. We keep the class sizes quite small.”

“Besides,” Brenda felt compelled to insist again, defending the little girl who couldn’t defend herself, “Annie wouldn’t do that. Annie was just beginning to come out of her shell, she wouldn’t deliberately run off or hide.”

“Shell?” Dax left the word hanging in the air, waiting for her to elaborate.

Oh Annie, I hope you’re not too scared. Brenda struggled not to let her empathy get the better of her. Annie had to be so frightened right now.

“Annie was—is,” she amended because the condition still held the little girl fast, “painfully shy, insecure. She’s an only child. Her father’s the film director Simon Tyler and her mother is an actress, or was. Rebecca Allen-Tyler. Supposedly, she’s retired now, but she’s still always off somewhere, away from Annie. They both usually are.” She knew that Simon was in Europe, directing a movie and Annie’s mother was somewhere in New York, on a shopping spree and visiting friends. Annie had shared that with her just this morning.

He wasn’t familiar with the woman’s name, but he did recognize the girl’s father. Dax didn’t know much about movies, leaving that to the film enthusiasts in the family. However, even he knew who Simon Tyler was. Anyone who ever walked into a blockbuster movie in the last ten years was familiar with Simon Tyler. His name appeared above only the highest moneymakers.

“So who takes care of her?” he asked Brenda, since she seemed to be the expert here.

An image of Annie, her eyes huge and sad, flashed through her mind. “The housekeeper for the most part,” Brenda told him.

Dax studied her again, trying to view her as an integral part of the scenario instead of quite possibly the most stunning woman he’d ever seen. “You seem to know a lot about her. You take that much of an interest in all your students?”

There it was again, that suspicion. She knew he was doing his job, but she didn’t have to like it. “Yes, I do. But Annie is special.”

“Special how?” Dax prodded.

“She’s very intelligent,” Harwood said. It was evident that he disliked being ignored.

Nathan flipped to yet another clean page. “Doogie Howser intelligent?”

Dax looked at his partner as if the latter had just lapsed into a foreign language. “Who?”

Nathan gave him a patronizing grin. TV trivia was the one area that he had covered while Dax wandered through it like a newborn babe. “I’ll explain it in the car,” Nathan promised.

“Gifted,” Brenda explained for his benefit. “And yes, I think she was.”

She didn’t add that she related to the little girl on almost all levels. Annie felt isolated from her parents and so had she. But in her own case, it was a physically and verbally abusive father who had caused the chasm that existed between she and her parents.

Until she left both of them, her mother had been no help, no buffer against her father’s volatile temper. Two days before her ninth birthday, she’d come home to find a note from her mother in the kitchen, addressed to her. The note said that she couldn’t take it any longer and that she was leaving in search of what she knew had to be a better life.

The memory shivered up and down her spine now, all these years later. Her father had beaten her when she’d told him the contents of the note.

At eighteen, she’d taken her mother’s cue and left home for good, marrying Wade York not because she was in love with him, but because she loved him for being everything her father was not. Eventually, she’d come to learn that loving someone for lack of certain qualities wasn’t enough. After seven years of trying, she and Wade had drifted apart.

In addition to the feeling of isolation, she’d related to the shy, withdrawn girl with the golden hair on another plane. Annie had been tested at near genius level, the same level that she herself had attained. In her case, there had been no one to push her; no one to help her make use of her potential; no teacher who had seen the spark. She’d been left on her own to discover it, finally enrolling in college while her husband, a marine, was shipped from one end of the globe to the other.

Brenda was determined that Annie was not going to fall by the wayside as she had.

But now Annie was missing. And it was her fault. She’d failed the girl.

Dax stepped back to open the door leading out of Harwood’s office. “Why don’t we go back to your classroom?”

“All right.” She squared her shoulders and pushing past him, she took the lead.

Once out in the hallway, Harwood was quick to catch up to her. “No one blames you for this, Brenda,” he said in a hushed tone.

Her anger, directed against both the brash detective and herself, softened slightly as she turned toward the man who had been nothing but kind to her. The man who, she knew if she’d give him a chance, would have been ready and eager to be more to her than just the man who signed her paychecks.

But despite the fact that he was a highly educated headmaster and Wade had been a marine who’d entered the service before he’d graduated high school, Matthew Harwood was too much like Wade for her. The fact that he was also her employer gave her an excuse to be tender to him, softening the blow. Harwood was sensitive and kind, but she wanted to make it on her own now.

If she wasn’t strong enough for one, how could she ever hope to be strong enough for two?

She paused before her classroom before turning the doorknob. Dax could see the tension skimming up and down her back. Apprehension? Guilt? It was still too soon to tell.

The classroom was empty.

The children who normally occupied it had temporarily been moved to the school library until the smell of smoke could be eradicated from the room.

As if of like mind, Dax and Nathan went straight to the wastepaper basket beside the desk.

Knowing they probably preferred to have her hang back, Brenda still joined them. Even looking at the basket, burnt and misshapen, the fact that the fire had started here still amazed her. She was so careful. How could this have happened? The metal container was completely blackened, as was the side of the desk closest to the basket.