Page 21 of A Perfect Target

In the meantime, she had a class to teach, and after a week away, she was eager to see her students again. She had missed their shiny little faces.

As the students began to come into the classroom, they all greeted her with hugs and told her how much they had missed her.

“We didn’t like being in Mr. Boone’s class,” Tiffany Sandstone said, her hazel eyes filled with dismay. “He’s way meaner than you are.”

“Yeah, he made me sit in the time-out corner for talking out of turn,” Billy Devore said. “I was only telling Raymond Tills that my mom was gonna buy me some really cool cowboy boots, and that’s what got me in trouble. Do you really think a guy should get in trouble for that?”

Suzanna fought against a burst of laughter as she gazed at the two disgruntled children. Oh, she loved her kids. “I think you should talk to Raymond during lunchtime instead of talking in the classroom,” she replied. “Now, take your seats. It’s almost time for us to start our day.”

The two kids scampered to their desks, and Suzanna finished greeting the rest of the children as they arrived. Holly walked in wearing her superiority face. Suzanna mentally sighed.

Holly reached the side of her desk but didn’t sit down. “I heard there was a dead body in this room,” she announced, a satisfied smile lifting her lips as several of the other kids gasped.

“Is that true?” Susan Brighton’s eyes widened in horror.

“A dead body in here? You’re lying,” Marianne Reiser said to Holly. “You always say stupid stuff.”

“I am not lying. The dead person was a woman who looked like a scarecrow. Her mouth was sewed shut, and the killer had jabbed out her eyeballs,” Holly said. There were more gasps of shock from the other children.

“That’s enough,” Suzanna said to Holly. “Who told you all that?”

“My mother, and she doesn’t lie to me,” Holly replied with an upthrust of her chin. “The woman had been stabbed, and her body was in Mrs. Michaels’s chair.”

“I said that’s enough, Holly,” Suzanna said firmly.

Several of the students had left their seats, and two of the girls had begun to cry. “Everyone back to your desks,” Suzanna said. What on earth was Eva Dayton thinking, sharing the horrific details of a heinous murder with her eight-year-old daughter? The woman had to be out of her mind.

Suzanna finally got all the students seated once again, and the girls who had been openly crying were now reduced to occasional sniffles. Suzanna now knew she had to address the elephant in the room.

“How many of you have had somebody in your family die? Maybe a grandparent?” Suzanna asked.

Carol Cryton raised her hand. “My great-granddaddy died last year. We were all really, really sad, but he went straight to Heaven because he was a good man.”

“My grandma died,” Jeffrey Koch added. “But I didn’t know her. She lived far away in Montana, and I never met her in person. But my mom cried a lot when it happened.”

For the next few minutes, the students talked about their loved ones who had passed. Thankfully there was no more discussion about the dead woman in the classroom, and the day returned to the normal business of teaching and learning.

Once school was over, she went home and changed into more casual clothes, ate a chicken salad sandwich and then went over her lesson plans for the next day.

At quarter till five she left her house to head to Seth’s place for her tutoring with Sammy. The little boy had soaked up the lessons in the tutoring sessions, and he was now working at grade level and had caught up to his peers. So tonight was going to be her last night of tutoring, although she hadn’t yet told that to Seth or Sammy.

There was a bit of disappointment that this would be the final night to share coffee and conversation with Seth. There was no question that the evenings she’d shared with him had filled up some of the lonely hours of her life.

She didn’t want to examine the intense sexual energy that existed between them or the depth of the friendship they had built over these nights spent together.

After tonight Seth would go back to being a parent of one of her students, a friend and nothing else. And that thought depressed her more than she expected.

When she pulled up in front of Seth’s place and got out of her car, she could smell the woodsmoke in the air that indicated he’d made a fire in his fireplace. It was a good night for it. A chill wind blew straight from the north, and the temperature hovered right below the freezing mark.

Seth greeted her with his wide smile and ushered her quickly through the front door. “Get in here before you freeze to death,” he said with a laugh.

“Thanks, it is cold out.” His living room exuded a warmth and coziness. A small fire crackled happily in the fireplace, and Sammy was on the sofa with a mug of what appeared to be hot chocolate in his hand. Seth looked quite hot in his jeans and a blue checkered flannel shirt. Drat the man for being so handsome.

Sammy greeted her with a bright smile. “Look, Mrs. Michaels, we have a fire in the fireplace. Isn’t it pretty?”

“It’s very nice,” she replied.

“Do you want some hot cocoa?” he asked. “We have little marshmallows and everything.”