Читать книгу One Major Distraction - Linda Winstead Jones - Страница 7

Flynn Benning had been shot at a number of times, and he’d been stabbed, once. He’d staked out bad guys in freezing rain and hundred degree heat. He’d crawled through a swamp on his belly and swallowed more sand than he cared to remember. And this…this was the worst assignment he had ever taken, bar none.

Laura Stokes had her hand up again. That hand wasn’t just lifted into the air, it waved and wiggled and the fingers danced. “Mr. Benning, Mr. Benning, Mr. Benning,” she chirped when he didn’t immediately acknowledge her raised hand. “This isn’t the way Mr. Hill did it. Today is Thursday, so we should have a review of the vocabulary, and tomorrow we’ll have the vocabulary test. That’s the way he always did it.”

Flynn glared, and the hand slowly drifted down. Laura Stokes was thirteen years old, redheaded, and wore glasses and braces. She was entering her gangly phase, and her voice was often whiny. Like now. He would feel sorry for her if she wasn’t getting on his last nerve. Again.

Laura’s more sedate schoolmate, Bev Martin, sat behind her and did her best to hide from Flynn and everyone else in the room. Bev leaned forward and whispered to Laura, no doubt advising her friend to back off before she got the entire class in trouble. Bev looked very much like Laura, in many ways. Her hair was a pale blond and she was taller, but they dressed the same and even wore similar small, gold-rimmed eyeglasses.

“I’m not Mr. Hill,” Flynn said as he leaned casually against the desk he had been calling his own for two very long days. He raked his gaze quickly across the room, taking in the fourteen teenage girls who were enrolled in this history class. Many were more confident and poised than Laura and Bev, and a couple of the others always looked a little bit lost. For the duration of the current assignment he’d be teaching this class and three others. “Until Mr. Hill returns, we’ll be doing things my way.”

A twisted trail had brought Flynn and his team to this exclusive all-girls school in rural Georgia. In the past two weeks the headmistress, one sour Dr. Harriet Barber, had reported not one but two break-ins to the local sheriff’s department. On the first occasion she’d found the window to her office open, when she was positive she’d locked it before retiring for the evening. The investigators had not taken that crime seriously, especially since nothing had been stolen. The second invasion had taken place in the same building. A window had been broken. Again, nothing was taken, but by this time Dr. Barber was livid. She’d insisted that a full investigation take place, including taking fingerprints. Since she was tougher than the sheriff’s investigators, she got what she wanted.

More than one set of prints had been found, of course, but after those who had access to the room were cleared one set of fingerprints remained. They were entered into a database, searching for a match.

On Monday morning, a mere three days ago, a match had been made. The fingerprints found on the windowsill matched those found at the scene of a crime that had taken place five years earlier, in Austin, Texas. A robbery gone bad had left the man who’d surprised the thief dead. All they had collected by way of evidence were the fingerprints and one blond hair. The hair was from a female, and there was no way to be sure if it had come from the thief or one of the victim’s many female friends. Just because they’d never been able to match the hair to any known acquaintances didn’t mean it hadn’t come from an innocent bystander, so to speak.

The man who’d been killed had been very influential. Rumor was he had connections to the government. Connections of the covert kind. The man had also been a friend of Max Larkin’s, and he was taking this personally. If the thief who’d killed Max’s friend was here, searching these old buildings for a treasure of some sort, Max wanted him caught.

Max Larkin worked in a consulting capacity for a government agency, and the Frances Teague Academy, an elite school for girls of middle and high school age, could be swarming with feds right now. Instead Max had hired the Benning Agency to get the job done. Max had hired the agency in the past, on more than one occasion. Their headquarters were tucked in back of a ratty old gas station in rural Alabama, but that didn’t mean they weren’t the best at what they did. Security, investigation, retrieval.

Hiring Flynn’s agency gave Larkin some control over the situation. More than he would have had if this investigation became official. At the present time there wasn’t enough evidence to interest the FBI—there was just enough to give Max hope that his friend’s killer might be caught.

Max was too close to the situation to be involved. He hadn’t taken it well when Flynn had told him he wasn’t welcome here until the job was done.

Four members of the Benning team had arrived at the school Tuesday night, after dark. They had moved in as quietly and seamlessly as possible, and Dr. Barber was the only staff member who knew the reason for the intrusion.

Quinn Calhoun was now a soccer coach, Dante Mangino was a janitor and Sean Murphy had taken on the position of computer teacher. His boyish good looks had the older girls all agog. Flynn was teaching history. They had taken the places of four employees Max had been able to quickly clear of suspicion by comparing their fingerprints to those taken at the scene of the crime. In order to explain away the departure of four male staff members at the same time, they’d concocted a viral disease that would be laying the missing teachers, coach and janitor low for at least a few weeks. In truth, they were all relaxing quite comfortably in a safe house in South Florida, courtesy of Max Larkin. Not that they cared. South Florida in February was not a bad place to be. It beat a cold Georgia school filled with curious girls any day of the week.

Flynn’s first instinct was to line up every employee on the grounds and take their fingerprints—along with a strand of hair from all the female employees, just in case. Max had nixed that idea at the outset. If the thief was watching, he’d be spooked by such an obvious inquiry, and that would never do.

Class was dismissed, the assignment for reading a chapter and writing a paper on the American Revolution made—even though, apparently, Mr. Hill would never do such a thing. Flynn would give the students a couple of days to work on their paper in class, which would save him from actually having to teach, at least for a while. After tomorrow, he’d have the weekend free. With any luck, they’d have Austin—the nickname they’d given the murdering thief—in custody by Monday. Not likely, but he could hope. Maybe Max would send him to Florida as a reward for a job so quickly and well done.

Not likely.

Flynn headed down the hall to the teachers’ lounge. He had fifteen minutes between classes. If Austin was watching, he had to look like one of the guys. If Austin was already here, he needed to find the bastard before someone else got themselves killed. It was possible the thief had come and gone, but Max was willing to bet otherwise.

The Frances Teague Academy was situated on well-manicured grounds, with a number of ancient oak trees growing here and there. The place screamed of old money. It had once been a small private college, and that’s what it looked like. For a period of several years, the place had stood empty. Had something of value been hidden here at that time? Maybe. Flynn hadn’t been able to think of any other reason for Austin to be there.

Six redbrick buildings, all of them square and massive and studious-looking, made up the bulk of the campus. There was even ivy growing on the old walls. Two buildings were used for classes—one for girls of middle school age, one for high school. Two buildings were dormitories, for the girls who lived on campus and the female teachers. One, the smallest building, was housing for the male teachers and employees who opted not to live in town. The downstairs of that building sported a lounge of sorts, with an old television and a few mismatched chairs. Upstairs there were four small apartments, which were now occupied by the Benning agents.

The main building at the center of it all was where the administrative offices, the cafeteria and the gym were located. It was also the site of both break-ins.

The school’s only security to this point had been a service from the small town nearby—two men who drove through slowly a few times a day. While it was tempting to ratchet up security, such a move would surely scare Austin away, if he was watching. Best to keep things as low-key as possible, until they had something concrete to work with.

The old buildings had been well maintained, but they were still old, and showed their age here and there. The room Flynn stepped into looked like teachers’ lounges everywhere. There was a sagging couch someone had decided they no longer wanted, a round table with one leg that was slightly shorter than the others, a few mismatched chairs, a battered counter with a coffeepot and all the fixings, a narrow window that looked out over the grounds, and, of course, a few teachers.

A few suspects? Flynn didn’t even know with any certainty that they were looking for a man. They had assumed the thief and killer was a man, they referred to Austin as “he.” But that wasn’t necessarily the case. For all they knew, the blond hair had come from Austin. Was she here right now, searching for some sort of valuable hidden in the main building? Something worth spending months here to find? There were a handful of teachers who were new to the school this year, who could have come in for the express purpose of gaining access to the school. Two of them were in this room.

Serena Loomis was a math teacher, and she looked the part. Her dark hair was very short, her glasses were small and black-rimmed and she was always dressed very precisely, in tailored shirts and neatly pressed slacks. The woman looked like she didn’t ever wrinkle. Or smile. Her records said she was thirty-six, and she looked to be that age, or close to it.

Stephanie McCabe was a polar opposite from the math teacher. She taught English and was irritatingly bubbly. According to her file she was twenty-nine. She was pretty, blond and wore froufrou dresses and too much makeup. She also sold makeup, as a sideline, and had already tried to sell Flynn skin care products made especially for men. She hadn’t taken kindly to his response that where he was from skin care products for men were called soap.

Both women were new faculty members, which had moved them to the top of Flynn’s short list of suspects. Even though Loomis looked tough, neither of them actually looked like they were capable of murder, but you could never tell. Getting prints from Loomis and McCabe should be easy enough, but the move had to be subtle. No one had ever accused Flynn Benning of being subtle. He eyed their coffee mugs and wondered if it would be possible to scoop them up and retrieve usable prints.

As he crossed to room, Loomis nodded to him. McCabe’s smile died, and she made a dismissive huffing noise. Harry Kaylor, biology teacher, hovered over the almost empty coffeepot. His greeting was even less enthusiastic than McCabe’s. Kaylor was not one of Flynn’s prime suspects. He was getting close to retirement—had in fact passed retirement age—and had been at this school for more than twelve years. Unfortunately, none of the handful of male employees had been here less than four years, which all but eliminated them from suspicion.

It was just as possible, perhaps more likely, that Austin was living in town, watching and waiting for the right opportunity to break into the main building once again. All Flynn had to do was find out what he was searching for. And wait.

The door behind Flynn swung open, and a woman bearing a tray of cookies stormed in. She wore a shapeless white uniform, comfortable shoes and no makeup, and still she caught Flynn’s eye. There was something very pretty about the curve of her cheek and the color of her skin. Auburn hair, thick and wavy, had been caught in a ponytail, and something about it just begged to be set free. Made Flynn’s fingers itch.

“I baked more cookies than we need for lunch,” she said, her Southern accent soft but unmistakable, “and I thought y’all might like to help me finish them off.”

The response she received was much warmer than the one Flynn had gotten when he’d walked in. Of course, he hadn’t brought cookies. He also wasn’t nearly so pretty. The woman skirted past Flynn and headed for the counter by the coffeepot, where she deposited the sweets. Without asking, she took out the old filter and wet grounds and began to make a fresh pot.

“Bless you,” Kaylor said. “Your coffee is always so much better than mine. I’m not sure why.”

“I have the magic touch,” the woman teased.

She glanced over her shoulder to Flynn, and her smile dimmed. They hadn’t officially met, but he had noticed her in the cafeteria last night, dishing up grilled chicken breasts and steamed broccoli and rice. Last night her auburn hair had been caught in a hairnet that had not been particularly flattering. He liked the ponytail better.

When Dr. Barber had presented Flynn with a roster of the employees who had arrived in the fall, there hadn’t been any cafeteria personnel listed. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be thorough.

He stepped forward and offered his hand. “Flynn Benning. I just started teaching here yesterday. History.”

She continued to make coffee, ignoring his offered hand. “Tess Stafford.”

“Tess works in the dining hall,” Kaylor said unnecessarily, when it became clear that Tess didn’t intend to offer any more information about herself. “She takes good care of us, and brings us cookies and brownies and such, now and then.”

Flynn glanced down at the heart-shaped cookies on the platter by the coffeepot. Kaylor had already grabbed one, and Loomis and McCabe were both headed this way. “Hearts?”

“It is Valentine’s Day,” Stephanie McCabe said as she reached past Tess Stafford and grabbed one of the pink-iced cookies.

“Is it?” Flynn asked. “I hadn’t realized.”

Loomis snorted as she reclaimed her seat. “Don’t you watch television, Mr. Benning? Or listen to the radio? Or read the newspaper?”

“I don’t watch much television,” he admitted. And when it came to the newspaper, he usually read the first page and skimmed the rest.

Stephanie remained near the counter, standing right next to Tess Stafford. “When are you going to let me give you that makeover?” she asked, her eyes on the cafeteria lady’s face. “You have such good bone structure and such excellent skin tone, if you’d just get started with a good, daily skin care regimen…”

“I really don’t have time,” Stafford said as she finished with the coffeemaker and backed away. She came inches from running into Flynn. He did a quick recon. Age: probably mid-thirties. Height: five foot five inches, or thereabouts. Physical condition: above average. There were nicely sculpted muscles in her upper arms, and underneath that baggy white uniform she looked to be in excellent shape. Socially: awkward, cautious. She definitely hadn’t been eager to make friends with him.

Stafford scooped up the dirty mugs, much to Flynn’s dismay, and left the lounge with an awkward wave for the other teachers and the instruction to make do with the foam cups until she got the mugs washed and returned to the lounge. Tempted as Flynn was to tackle her and snag the fingerprinted crockery, he dismissed the idea. There would be other chances.

He headed for the coffeepot and the cookies. “She seems to know her way around the school pretty well. How long has she been here?”

“This is her first full year,” Kaylor said. “She settled in real nice, though, so it seems like she’s been here a lot longer.”

“Does she live on campus?” Some teachers and other personnel did. Others didn’t.

“She and another cafeteria worker have rooms on the second floor of the main building. The part-timers live in town, but Tess and Mary Jo have to start so early and work so late, it just makes sense for them to be close by the dining hall.”

“Makes sense.” Flynn took a bite of the Valentines’ Day cookie. His instincts where people were concerned were highly tuned, and he always listened to them. Tess Stafford had the look of a woman who was hiding something. Something big, something she didn’t want him to uncover. She put his senses on alert in a way the other women—who made more viable suspects—didn’t.

In preparing for this job, Flynn had seen crime scene photos of the murder in Austin. He wanted to believe it was unlikely a woman could commit such a brutal and bloody murder, but he had learned never to be surprised. Accepting that lesson had made life so much easier.

Tess had a good grip on the mugs, grasping them all by the handles as she hurried toward the main building. She thought, more than once, that she should’ve grabbed her sweater before heading out to deliver cookies. Some days the cold weather took her by surprise. In just a few weeks, the spring warmth would move in and everything would change. For now, there were cold days and colder nights.

The new history teacher set her teeth on edge, and she wasn’t sure why. He was extremely nice-looking, with very short blond hair, a chiseled jaw and a fit body. He had to be six foot two, at least, with wide shoulders and long legs and more than his share of muscle. He was old enough to be interesting, but was young enough to be, well, interesting. Late thirties maybe, judging by the lines around his eyes. He didn’t exactly look uncomfortable in his khakis and button-up shirt, so why did she get the feeling that the casual but professional outfit was not his usual garb? Maybe because he wasn’t built anything like the other male teachers around here. He didn’t look like any teacher she had ever known, here or in her own academic years.

Looks aside, he was undoubtedly one of those guys—those macho men who thought they could do anything and everything better than anyone else, who always felt compelled to fix everything that was broken, who expected women to fall at their feet if they smiled at them, who expected that everything in life would always go their way.

She’d had her fill of those guys.

In addition to his size and his build and his chiseled jaw, Benning also had great blue eyes that were too curious for Tess’s liking. She didn’t need curious at this point in her life. If anyone found out who she was and why she was here…

Before she reached the main building, something caught Tess’s eye and she stopped. Out by the soccer field, the new coach was talking with great animation to the new janitor. The back of her neck prickled, and it had nothing to do with the cool weather. Neither of them were quite right for their new jobs. Coach Calhoun was tough as old leather, even though he was years younger than Benning. His eyes were too sharp for a girls’ soccer coach, and he moved too quickly and precisely. He could be an athlete himself. A job as coach at a small all-girls’ school shouldn’t attract this type of man, and yet here he was.

The new janitor was definitely out of place here. He had long, thick dark hair, intelligent dark eyes and a body that would not quit. He also had a number of tattoos on his person, most of which she could only see a corner or an edge of. One just barely peeking over his collar, another on his forearm. Both were mostly hidden by an unflattering gray uniform. From what Tess knew of Dr. Barber, the woman would rather clean the place herself than hire a man who looked like this one. Didn’t make any sense at all.

Sean Murphy had come to work here at the same time as the other three. If not for that fact, she might not think him at all out of place. He was almost pretty, and did not have the toughness of the other three. He smiled often, unlike the others, and he actually looked like a computer nerd. A pretty computer nerd, but still…a nerd. But the fact that he had come in at the same time, combined with the fact that she’d seen Murphy talking to Benning last night after supper, raised her suspicions.

Something was up. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, but she didn’t like it. First the break-ins, where nothing was taken, and now this testosterone invasion.

From the soccer field, two heads lifted at once and turned her way. The two men were too far for her to see those eyes to know if they were really looking at her, and still she felt a chill. She rubbed her arms and started walking toward the main building once again.

As long as they weren’t here for her—and how could they be?—she didn’t care what they were up to.

Benning and his team were closed up in one small apartment—his—for the moment. No wonder Kaylor and most of the other teachers opted to live in town. These rooms assigned to the teachers were small—one-bedroom apartments with a sad little kitchenette in the main room and a very small bedroom attached. The bathroom was the size of a postage stamp.

“We need to gather as much info as we can as quickly as possible so we can finish this up and get out of here. We don’t know anything concrete about Austin, so we’re taking nothing for granted. Not even the supposition that he’s a man.”

“Do you know something we don’t?” Cal asked sharply. Cal would prefer to be searching for his sister Kelly. For the moment he was allowing the newly married Sadie Harlow, Flynn’s only female agent, to work that cold and frustrating case.

“No, and that’s just the point. We don’t have nearly enough information about Austin. Take nothing for granted. It’s possible the person we’re looking for—male or female—is right here searching for something. We need to accomplish two things right off the bat. We need to fit in as if we’ve been here a long while, so as not to raise any suspicions. If Austin has been watching from a distance, maybe he won’t notice that some of the faces have changed. If we moved in here with an openly armed team, he’d see and we’d lose him for sure. Make friends, do your jobs and keep your eyes open.”

“Number two?” Dante prompted.

“There’s something here Austin wants. Something valuable. If he hasn’t already found what he came here for, then we need to find it first. We get started with the who. Who doesn’t belong here? Who’s not quite right? Murphy,” Flynn snapped, “you take McCabe.”

Murphy groaned, saying nothing until Cal nudged him with an elbow. Then he laughed and said, “She says I’m a metrosexual. I don’t know what that is, but even though it has “sexual” in it, I don’t think it’s a good thing,”

“It means you’ll let her give you a facial,” Dante said with a laugh.

Flynn turned to Dante. “You get Loomis.”

The laugh died quickly. “The math teacher?”

“Yeah.”

“But…”

“But what?”

“She’s not blond, she’s flat-chested and I’m not a hundred percent certain she’s, you know, playing for the right team.”

“I caught her staring at your ass this afternoon when you were mopping the hallway so I don’t think you have to worry about what team she plays on.”

Dante grumbled, but not much.

“I’m not asking you to sleep with her,” Flynn said with a snort. “Just get friendly. Suck it up and do your job.” He turned to Cal while Dante mumbled. “You get Tess Stafford. I don’t have a lot of information on her yet. Dr. Barber apparently didn’t think to include her in the original list, since she lives in the main building and has no need to break in. Lucky is digging up what he can on her. She works in the cafeteria and—”

“No way,” Cal said, lifting his left hand to wag the ring finger and the attached gold band.

“This is work, Calhoun,” Flynn said sharply. “I’m not asking you to marry the woman. Just make friends. What’s the matter with you guys?” He looked from one agent to the next. It was bad enough that Lucky Santana had all but refused to participate in the undercover element of this operation. Not that Lucky would fit in here. He didn’t have the qualifications to be a substitute teacher, like Flynn and Murphy did, and he’d never pass for a janitor or a soccer coach. Besides, Lucky was still ticked off about losing his partner Sadie to marriage, and he was a bear to work with these days. He was at the home office in Alabama, handling research and moping.

This was a tough job for Flynn, for reasons he chose not to share with his employees, but from their standpoint this should be a walk in the park. “This is the easiest freakin’ job you’ve ever had and you’re whining like a bunch of pansies.”

“Okay,” Cal said in a calm voice. “You call Livvie and tell her what I’m doing on this job besides coaching soccer, and we’ll see how it goes.”

“I’m not afraid of your wife,” Flynn said darkly.

“What about her uncle, who seems determined that her every wish should be granted?”

True, Max Larkin could be trouble. “Fine,” Flynn growled. “You coach soccer and call your wife every night like a good boy, and I’ll take Stafford.”

Which wouldn’t exactly be a chore, as long as she didn’t turn out to be a cold-blooded killer.

Flynn smiled at Cal. “You can take Leon Toller.”

“The weirdo art teacher who likes to walk around talking to himself?”

“You prove Toller’s not Austin, and I’ll charm the cafeteria lady.”

Words he’d never thought to speak, or even to imagine.

“Yes, Major,” Cal said without emotion.

“I’m not a major anymore, Calhoun,” Flynn replied. Cal knew that. They all did. He’d been retired from the Marines for years.

This job was unlike any other he had ever participated in. He and his team usually went in with guns blazing. They didn’t pretend; they didn’t finesse. And yet here they were, undercover in a sea of little girls and academics, at Max Larkin’s request.

No doubt about it; he’d rather face a firefight any day.

Patience was not Dale’s strong suit, but that’s what this job called for. Patience. There was some pride in being adaptable to each situation, and that was soothing, in an odd sort of way.

At night this all-girl’s school possessed an unexpected serenity. The bustling of the day was over, the students and the teachers had retired for the evening and the grounds were silent. Warm light spilled through dormitory windows, while others remained dark. The thick Georgia air spread over the campus like a blanket. Even in the wintertime, it was humid here. The cold cut to the bone, some nights.

Fortunately these nighttime excursions were an infrequent requirement. Serenity aside, the cold was something jarring. Cancún was much nicer this time of year, and as soon as this job was finished that destination would call. This assignment paid nicely, enough to hide away quietly for a long time to come. Thinking of warm beaches almost took away the winter chill. Almost.

Weather was a small quandary, comparatively speaking. There had been a few strange faces on the campus today. After months of routine and monotony, strange was startling and unwelcomed. There was, perhaps, a logical explanation, but still, it was disturbing. Dale had never cared for being disturbed. Routine was much more soothing.

Eyes closed, Dale thought of Cancún and took a deep breath of the cold, humid air. In that cold air was a new scent, a touch of spring. And with the coming of spring came the end of this well-planned job. Not tonight, not tomorrow…but soon.