Until You

"I take it Miranda wasn't happy to pose for you," he said.

Hoyt laughed. "An understatement, if ever I heard one, but what tells you that?"

"Well, the look on her face. That sad smile."

"Sad?" Hoyt frowned and took the picture frame out of Conor's hands and put it back on the desk. "Seems to me she was in one of her rare good moods the day I took this. In fact, she looks quite happy to me, Mr. O'Neil—but then, if you'd ever met my stepdaughter, she'd probably confuse you, too. Miranda wasn't one to give away how she was feeling," he said, shoving back his chair and rising to his feet. "And now, if you'll forgive me, I've a meeting in a few minutes."

"Of course." Conor put out his hand. "Thank you for your time."

"Thank you for handling this matter so promptly and with such discretion." Winthrop clapped Conor lightly on the back and strolled with him to the door. "It's just pitiful that Miranda would stoop to sending upsetting notes to her mother."

"That's if she's the person who sent it."

"Well, of course, but now that you've suggested it, it makes perfect sense. It's just the sort of childishly sly thing she'd do. But I must admit, I'm relieved." He paused, his hand on the doorknob. "At least it means we can forget about the note, can't we?"

"I'm almost certain you can, sir."

"Almost," Hoyt said, and smiled. "What will it take to convince you?"

* * *

A couple of hours later, Conor slammed the door of his rental car and looked up at the rambling stone buildings of Miss Cooper's School for Young Ladies.

This was what it would take, he thought as he followed a sign towards the administrative offices, a visit to the school Miranda Beckman had attended, though he wasn't quite certain what he expected to find here. Closure of some sort, enough to satisfy Harry Thurston and himself that the note was nothing but a tasteless joke.

The headmistress's office was on the first floor. It was a cold place, smelling of chalk dust, mice, and, Conor thought, childish despair.

Agnes Foster was a stereotypical old-maid schoolteacher if ever he had seen one. She shook his hand, seated him in a chair almost as angular as herself, listened politely as he flashed her his most charming smile and explained that he was trying to get some information about a former student named Miranda Beckman. The name made her thin lips compress into an even thinner line but she smiled frostily and assured him that it was her policy never to discuss students, past or present, with anyone.

So much for charm, Conor thought. He turned off the smile, replaced it with what he thought of as a Washington face, and dug into his pocket for the leather case with the gold-plated shield and the picture ID that bore the initials of a government agency that had never existed.

"Perhaps I should have said that I'm here on official business."

It worked like a charm, as it always did with people like Agnes Foster. She looked at the shield, the official-looking seal and his photo and turned into a cooperative citizen.

"Of course," she said. She came out from behind her desk, carefully shut her office door, and pulled open the bottom drawer of a battered metal file cabinet. "Beckman," she muttered, as she leafed through the contents, "Beckman... Yes, here is the girl's record." She tossed a file folder on the desk in front of Conor and sat down opposite him again. "Not that I've forgotten anything in that file, sir. One does not forget the Mirandas of this world."

"Was she a problem student, Miss Foster?"

The headmistress smiled pityingly. "All our girls," she said, making it sound like gels, "are behaviorally challenged, Mr. O'Neil."

He nodded and concentrated on keeping his expression neutral.

"Do you recall in what particular way Miranda was, ah, behaviorally challenged?"

Miss Foster pursed her lips. "It would be simpler to tell you in what ways she was not." She reached across her desk, opened the file, and pulled out the top page. "By the time she came to us, she had been expelled from three other boarding schools for everything from being intoxicated to inappropriate sexual behavior."

"Inappropriate sexual... Could you be more specific, Miss Foster?"

Agnes Foster fixed him with a cold eye. "I see no reason to, Mr. O'Neil. I think the term speaks for itself."

It probably did. And it didn't really matter if the phrase meant Miranda had been caught behind a dorm with a local lad or if she'd been found in bed with the entire football team from a neighboring boys' school. He didn't need the information.

Not officially.

Conor frowned and shifted in the uncomfortable chair.

"I understand she ran away from here," he said. "Is that right?"