The front doors were all still propped open from the mass exodus of students, so I headed inside. It smelled like floor polish and disinfectant. It was only the first week of school, but the bulletin boards outside the sixth-grade classrooms were already full of artwork. Except for Room 303. The board was empty except for a calendar with a countdown on it and a piece of paper with the name Mrs. Felch.
I hadn’t met her at Back to School Night. She’d been out sick, and I’d spent most of the hour gently reminding parents and school staff that I wasn’t my sister. I kicked myself for not making more of an effort to meet her before leaving her in charge of my niece.
I spied a woman sitting behind the desk at the front of the classroom. Best guess put her in her early fifties. Her silver-streaked hair was pulled back in a bun so tight I bet she got
headaches from it. She was dressed in head-to-toe shades of beige, and her lips were pursed in a thin line as she scrolled through something on her phone. She gave off the air of someone who was disappointed in just about everything life had to offer.
I gave a cursory knock and walked into the room. “Mrs. Felch, you don’t know me, but—”
The woman looked up and bobbled her phone, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. “Don’t play games with me. I know who you are.”
Good lord. Hadn’t the dang grapevine caught up to the teaching staff yet?
“I’m not Tina. I’m Naomi Witt. My niece, Waylay, is in your class, and I’d like to talk to you about how you’ve been treating her.”
I’d never been good at confrontations. Hell, I’d squeezed my ass out of a church basement window to run away from a wedding rather than tell the groom I wasn’t going to marry him.
But in that moment, I felt a fire burning in my belly. Backing down wasn’t an option. Neither was retreat.
“How I’ve been treating her? I’ve been treating her the way she deserves to be treated,” Mrs. Felch snarled. The lines on her face carved deeper. “I treat her the way the daughter of a whore deserves to be treated.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I realized that I had a much bigger problem than a horrible sixth-grade teacher.
TWENTY-SEVEN
FIELD MICE REVENGE
Knox
I walked into Honky Tonk through the kitchen, twirling my keys around my finger and whistling.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” Milford, the line cook, observed.
I wondered exactly how big of a dick I usually was that made my good mood breaking news, then decided I didn’t really give a shit.
Making sure to school my expression into my normal scowl, I headed into the bar. There were about a half dozen early birds scattered around the place. Max and Silver were eating brownies behind the bar and clutching their mid-sections.
Fi came out of the bathroom with her hands on her low back. “God. Why do I have to pee 147 times a day when I’m riding the cotton pony?” She groaned when she spotted me. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s Period Night.”
“I own the place,” I reminded her, scanning the bar.
“Yeah. And you’re also smart enough not to show up when you have three menstruating women on shift.”
“Where’s Naomi?” I asked.
“Don’t you take that tone with me today, Knoxy. I will break your face.”
I had taken no tone with her, but I knew better than to point that out. “I brought you brownies.”
“You brought us brownies so we don’t cry in the kitchen.”
She had a point. Fi knew my secret. Tears were my kryptonite. I couldn’t handle a woman crying. It made me feel desperate and helpless and pissed off.
“Where’s Naomi?” I asked again, trying to modulate my tone.