Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,52

your wife are? Becca. Not Mary? . . . I’m afraid so . . . Two days; we’re a little worried. Paul Baum got a text from her, or a partial text. . . .”

He listens for what seems to Paulie like a long time, then, “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions . . . I know, she’s not my daughter . . . Yes, sir. This afternoon, then? Sure, I’ll stay ’til you get here. And I’ll call if she shows this morning . . . Please let us know if you hear from her. Yes, sir, thank you.”

“She’s not with him,” Logs says. “There was an emergency in Mrs. Wells’s family. Mary stayed home to catch up on some work. He didn’t know she hadn’t been to school.” He shakes his head. “My God, Wells is pissed at her for causing him more problems. I’d be worried out of my head. Hell, now I am worried out of my head.” He slaps his hand flat on his desktop. “Listen, I’m going over to the office to talk with Dr. Johannsen; I’ll catch up with you in P-8.” And he is out the door.

“I can’t believe her dad left her alone,” Hannah says. She hesitates. “You think she’s back on whatever she was on the night I almost ran her over?”

“Oxys,” Paulie says. “I don’t think so; that freaked her out pretty bad.” He shakes his head. “But like Logs says, bring in drugs and all bets are off.”

Hannah moves closer, sits on the edge of the desk next to Paulie’s chair. He aches to reach out to touch her. It almost seems she would let him.

“So this is more than just Mary Wells getting into drugs?” she asks.

He nods. “It sure seems like it.”

Hannah touches his hand.

“Hey,” he says in barely a whisper. “Truce?”

“Yeah,” Hannah says. “For now.”

“In case your day’s starting slow, Mary Wells is missing again.”

“My God,” Dr. Johannsen says, sitting back in her chair. “Where did you hear that? Her father again?”

“Actually I told him,” Logs says. “Paulie had been hanging out with her right before she disappeared, and got a strange text message, one that worried him. He and his dad drove over, found no one home, and because of all the recent uproar, he came to me. I caught up with Mr. Wells this morning. He’s out of town with his wife and younger daughter, but Mary was supposed to stay home to catch up on all the work she missed. He’s coming back this afternoon. I thought you and I could meet with him.”

“Goodness, yes,” Dr. Johannsen says. “Let’s head this one off and see if we can get this year over without my having to stand in front of one more camera.”

Rachel Randolph, the front office receptionist and secretary, rushes into the office.

“What is it, Rachel?”

Rachel’s face radiates alarm. “Come look.”

Logs and Dr. Johannsen step into the empty outer office and see the TV monitor mounted above the entrance door, tuned to the local news. Police tape surrounds a modest house, still smoldering from what must have been an intense fire. Police cars, lights flashing, sit at the edge of the lawn and firemen roll in their hoses.

Logs can’t place the house, but the neighborhood looks vaguely familiar. “What is this?”

“Kylie Clinton’s house,” Rachel says. “She’s one of our students.”

Logs’s stomach leaps into his throat. He didn’t see her after her meltdown in Period 8. She said she was okay. He leans forward on the counter. “What are they saying? Was anyone hurt?” The video is obviously from last night. A girl with her face intentionally blurred is helped into the back of an ambulance by paramedics and a woman who must be her mother. The woman gets in behind her.

“The fire chief says there’s a gasoline smell everywhere,” Rachel says. “He didn’t come out and say it was arson because they have to do a formal investigation, but . . .”

“She had her hands over her face,” Logs says. “Do you think they blurred it because she was burned?”

“I don’t think so,” Dr. Johannsen says. “She would have been on a stretcher. They blurred it because she’s a juvenile.”

Logs hits his forehead. “Duh!”

They watch the scenario play out repeatedly, but no new information comes to light. “I will be so glad when this school year is over,” Dr. Johannsen says. “I swear I feel responsible for everything that happens to these kids nine months out of the year, whether the school