Concealed Hearts (Hometown Jasper #4) - Nicky James Page 0,2
David Lee at the electronic store and have him order security cameras. Hopefully, it will put his mind at ease so he stops calling us every five seconds.”
“All right. Is Julie still dealing with the fender bender on the east end?”
“She is, which is why I thought you’d want to handle the high school incident.”
“I’ll head over right now.”
The Jasper Police Force was small. With a town population of five thousand, we kept only a handful of constables on duty during the daytime hours and had a rotating, on-call roster for nighttime.
The phone at the front desk rang, and Matthew scurried off to answer it.
Once he was gone, I tugged the little flip-style notepad from the front pocket of my shirt and jotted down Tomi’s email address for later. I hadn’t firmly decided to take action, yet I was sweating, and my heart was tripping over itself already.
I shut down my computer the proper way, grabbed my Stetson from the corner of my desk, and headed out.
* * *
Jasper High, like Jasper Elementary, bussed kids in from the surrounding countryside, giving them a robust population of students. It was an old, three-story brick building on the outskirts of town. The large field behind the school backed onto forested land that stretched to the base of the mountains in the far distance. The principal, Nadine Kilimanjaro, was working on her second year in the position. A transfer from Calgary. I’d met her a few times. She was a pleasant woman in her late forties.
Single—as I’d been informed by all the meddling hens in town who were determined to set me up with a nice woman.
Nadine met me at the front doors, a pinch in her brow and a frown on her face. Her appearance was professional to a fault, from her coiffed hair to her pencil-thin skirt and ironed blouse. Even in heels, I towered above her. As I approached, her impatience showed in the way she tapped her toe and skewered me from behind her horn-rimmed glasses.
If I was a teenager, I’d have pulled my shit together fast so as not to piss the woman off. She gave off a stern, no-nonsense edge.
“Chief Elkhart. I’m so sorry to have bothered you. I hope you can understand, calling the police to handle teenage hooligans isn’t my standard practice. Ordinarily, we take care of our own.”
“No bother at all. What seems to be the problem?”
“Follow me.”
Her heels clicked on the vinyl tile flooring, echoing off the walls as she took me through the school and down another corridor with lockers lining both sides of the hallway. It had been a long time since I’d been in the guts of my old school. It was nostalgic in a way and unearthed old memories of my days as a teenager in Jasper.
Raised voices sounded from the far end of the hallway and grew louder as we approached.
“We’ve been having trouble with a particular student lately. Like I said, normally, we handle these situations on our own, but he’s become violent and unruly. His actions are concerning. Today he’s taken his anger out on school property and muttered concerning threats. We can’t have that. He isn’t a small kid, and my staff are uncomfortable dealing with him when he gets like this. He has a history of violence.”
“Not a problem.”
The classroom at the end of the hall had been cleared. Two young boys and a few male teachers were present. The boys had been separated but were still in a yelling match. One of the windows along the side of the room had spider-web cracking in the middle, an impact wound I assumed was from the chair lying toppled on the ground a few feet away.
I performed a quick survey of the scene, determining the risks and tempers involved. It was evident one of the kids was far more geared for a fight than the other. A teacher had him cornered and was talking him down.
The other kid was seated and doing nothing more than stirring up his opponent with nasty comments and taunting words. His smirk told me he was enjoying himself.
I clapped my hands together. “Listen up.” My voice boomed loud enough, the whole room fell silent.
All heads turned in my direction.
I addressed Nadine. “Who do we have here?”
Nadine waved a hand at the boy in the corner who clenched and unclenched his fists, breathed heavily through flared nostrils, and looked ready for a round in the ring.