A Child's Wish

“In the past couple of weeks they’ve gotten much more consistent—and stronger. She’s in trouble, Mark, I’d bet my life on it.”

“And your job, too?” His gaze swung back to her, steely now. “Would you be willing to lose your job over it?”

“Absolutely.”

That seemed to give him pause. For a minute. “You don’t think I mean it—about your job.”

“I know you do,” she said quietly, feeling more calm than she had in a long time. She was doing the right thing. She knew that now. “I also know that Kelsey’s involved in something dangerous. She doesn’t want to be, but she’s not capable of stopping.”

He stood up. “I’m not going to listen to this.” Hands on his hips, he swung around to face her. “I watch my daughter like a hawk. I have dinner with her every night. Spend every evening at home. I see her at school. And after school I have her being cared for by a mother I know would tell me if she suspected anything was

amiss, if she didn’t know where Kelsey was. Let me repeat, I know where my daughter is every second of every day.”

She stood up, too. “Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

She’d never seen him this angry—his voice vibrated with it.

And then it struck her. He was afraid. Of the possibility that she might be right. Of her.

She looked him straight in the eye. “You’re wrong.”

Meredith didn’t stick around to hear his reply.

“MARK, LET ME GET right to the point,” Superintendent Daniels said as he took a seat in the armchair opposite Mark in his office Wednesday afternoon. He pulled up the sleeve of his gray suit jacket and glanced at his watch.

“The board would like to offer you the head principal’s job at Harris Junior High. Chris Blakely has decided to take early retirement.”

Mark let out a slow breath, switching mental gears completely. He wished now that he’d accepted the cup of coffee Daniel’s secretary had offered him when he’d arrived.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve been over there, but we’ve made a lot of renovations,” Daniels was saying.

Harris Junior High was a good twenty-minute drive from home. Twenty-five minutes from Lincoln. From Kelsey.

Head principal at a junior high was a promotion.

“…bought the lot next door and have added—” Daniels went on to give him enrollment statistics that were impressive. And a salary increase that was substantial.

“So what do you think?” Daniels asked, smiling as he sat back, one ankle resting on his knee.

“Why now?”

Daniels threw out an arm. “I told you, Blakely’s retiring.”

“Then I guess I should have said, why me?”

“You’ve got a great career ahead of you with us,” Warren Daniels said, his expression growing more serious. “Junior high is the next logical step.”

It was. But generally for someone who was a little older than Mark—a little more experienced.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about the possibility.”

“I had,” Mark said. “Of course. But I was thinking more along the lines of moving when Kelsey did.”