Читать книгу Murder at the PTA - Lee Hollis - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

Sandra stumbled out of the building and directly into the large, sprawling high school parking lot. It was dusk with limited visibility as the sun dipped and disappeared in the west. She squinted at the rows and rows of cars parked all around her and couldn’t immediately spot her silver Audi A6 sedan. Sandra frantically rummaged through her purse for her car keys, finally managing to extract them and press down on the remote to unlock her car. She heard a chirp just a few rows away and followed the sound till she mercifully saw the flashing red lights on her Audi as she pressed down on the remote again a few more times with her thumb.

Her head was still spinning from the shock of the lurid Dirty Laundry headline, and she felt dizzy, but she fought to remain calm in order to get herself home and out of public view. She was a U.S. senator’s wife. It was critical she maintain her dignity and not collapse to the ground, weeping uncontrollably. It was exactly what she wanted to do at the moment, but alas, that was just not an option.

As she reached for the car door handle, she suddenly stopped. Behind her, she heard shouting. She spun around to see the assistant principal, Maisie Portman, having a loud argument with another woman. Maisie was small in stature, a real spitfire, and her round freckled face always seemed to be on the verge of anger no matter what the topic she happened to be discussing at the time. Her abundance of black curls always seemed to be bobbing up and down as she spoke. If anything, Maisie was a loyal soldier to her boss, Principal Hicks, which was why Sandra was surprised Maisie wasn’t inside the school at the moment, by his side, ready to jump to his defense if need be.

No, she was outside, yelling at a woman Sandra didn’t recognize. Perhaps she did know her, but it was almost completely dark now with the sun already below the horizon, so it was a miracle Sandra could even make out Maisie. Sandra watched the two women going at it for a few seconds, not quite sure if she should make her presence known, but then the unidentified woman violently shoved Maisie up against the side of a parked van, and her hands wrapped around Maisie’s throat. Maisie struggled to push the woman away, but she was too tiny; the woman was about a foot and a half taller than she was.

Sandra rushed forward. “Stop it! Let her go!”

The instant the woman heard Sandra, she released her grip on Maisie. Maisie, embarrassed, glanced over at Sandra, who was fast approaching them, and quickly exchanged a look with her assailant. Maisie stepped forward, in front of the other woman, and her mouth broke into a friendly smile.

“Good evening, Mrs. Wallage. So nice to see you,” Maisie said in a calm, reassuring tone.

“Is everything all right, Maisie?” Sandra asked, suspiciously eyeing the woman behind Maisie, who was trying to slink away and disappear into the darkness.

“Oh, yes, everything’s fine. No problem at all. We just got into a heated discussion about something silly really, nothing important.”

Sandra stepped closer toward them, trying to get a good look at the woman. “Hello, I’m Sandra Wallage.”

“Nice to meet you,” the woman muttered. “I better go. I’ll see you later, Maisie.”

And then she scurried away without introducing herself.

“Who was that?” Sandra asked, turning back to Maisie.

“You don’t know her. I better get back inside in case John needs me,” Maisie said, running off, her black curls bobbing.

Sandra considered chasing after her in order to find out exactly why that woman had her hands around Maisie’s throat, but then she caught sight of dozens of parents pouring out of the school and into the parking lot. The PTA meeting had officially been adjourned, and she was about to be surrounded by curious busybodies all eager to hear what she had to say about the latest Dirty Laundry claim.

Sandra dashed back to her car, jumped in, and roared away. When she was safely off school property, she pulled into a vacant lot next to a closed warehouse where she could have some privacy and shifted the gear into park. She grabbed her phone off the passenger seat and scrolled down the Dirty Laundry article about her husband’s alleged sexual harassment scandal. As she suspected, it was short on facts and long on gossipy innuendo and unsubstantiated speculation. Still, the fact that the mere suggestion was out there was not good. She decided it was time to call her husband, who she knew was in Washington, DC, probably in the senate chamber at the moment.

After a few rings, she heard a man answer gruffly. “Yes?”

It wasn’t Stephen.

It was his young aide Preston Lambert.

Sandra couldn’t stand the kid. He was smug, overly ambitious, and as her kids liked to call him, “A real slimeball.” But for some reason, he was indispensable to Stephen, who refused to fire him despite his off-putting and cloying personality. What Sandra hated about him the most, however, was just how irritatingly patronizing he was to her.

“Hi, Preston, it’s Sandra. I need to speak to Stephen right away.”

“Well, hello, Mrs. Wallage. It’s so nice to hear your sweet, friendly voice this evening.”

Liar.

He knew damn well Sandra wasn’t sweet or friendly when it came to him.

She hated him.

“It’s an emergency,” Sandra said coldly.

“What kind of emergency?” Preston gasped, playing along.

“I’d really rather discuss it with Stephen, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course. I understand,” he said.

She could picture him sneering on the other end of the line.

“The only problem is,” Preston drawled, trying his damnedest to be sympathetic and understanding but failing miserably. “He’s down the hall just a few seconds away from being interviewed by CNN on the floor vote.”

“I don’t care, Preston. I need to speak to him right now. Put him on,” Sandra demanded.

“Oops, there he goes. He’s on live right now with Anderson Cooper. You don’t want me to interrupt him while he’s talking to Anderson Cooper, do you?”

Sandra sighed. “How long is it going to take?”

“Shouldn’t be more than five minutes. They have to cut to a commercial at some point, right? Just hold on. We’ll wait together.”

Preston let a few moments go by before attempting a little small talk. “How are the boys?”

“They’re fine,” Sandra said, refusing to offer any more.

“Stephen showed me pictures. I can’t believe how much they’ve grown! They’re young men now!”

“Yes,” Sandra said through gritted teeth.

Preston finally got the message and stopped trying to engage her in a conversation. After a few more minutes of awkward silence, Preston said cheerily, “He just wrapped up. Sit tight. I’ll put him on.”

Sandra waited just a few seconds before she heard the laconic, soothing voice of her husband, Stephen.

“Hey, honey, what’s up?”

“Have you heard about what Dirty Laundry is saying about you?”

“Wait . . . hold up. Dirty what?”

“Dirty Laundry . . . I told you about it when you were home a couple of weekends ago. It’s that awful site that targets people connected to the high school, putting out clickbait by drumming up scandals and headlines, some true, some fake.”

“Right. I remember. So what are they saying?”

Sandra clicked over to the site and read her husband the headline.

There was a long silence.

“Are you still there?” Sandra asked.

He let loose with a hearty laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me . . .”

“No, I’m not. It says so right here in front of me.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. There is not a shred of truth to it.”

Sandra believed him.

She had to believe him.

Otherwise, then where would she be?

“It came out while I was delivering my welcome speech as the new PTA president. It really threw me. I didn’t know what to say, so I got out of there. I’m sure Principal Hicks is furious with me for bailing, but I just had to talk to you and get your reaction.”

“And you got it. Don’t sweat it, babe. Even if the mainstream media somehow picks it up, once people figure out it’s all lies, they’ll move on to something else. It won’t even last a full news cycle.”

“Well, is there some sort of recourse we can take? Get whomever posted it to take it down?”

“Don’t waste your energy,” Stephen said. “Like you said, most of what pops up on that site is fake news, so I don’t expect too many people to take it seriously, okay?”

“Okay,” Sandra said.

“Now, I have to get back inside. They’re about to take a vote,” Stephen said. “Stop worrying, Sandra.”

“I will,” Sandra promised.

“No, you won’t. I know you. This is nothing, believe me.”

“I love you,” Sandra whispered.

“I love you too, sweetheart. I’ll call you to say good night when I get back to my apartment later.”

And then he hung up.

Sandra felt better.

That’s what Stephen was so good at.

Making people feel better.

Which was why he was a two-term senator who sailed to victory in his last election by a whopping twenty-two points.

Sandra pushed the gear of her Audi into drive and drove home to her upscale residential neighborhood and her nineteenth-century New England–style colonial house that she and Stephen had recently restored to its original glory. As she rounded the corner, she instinctively slammed on the brakes, screeching to a stop in the middle of the road. Just ahead, camped out on her front lawn, was a swarm of reporters and cameras and harsh lights and a long line of news vans parked all the way down the street. And one thing was crystal clear in her mind. They were all waiting for her.