PROLOGUE
The stern-faced woman stared down her nose at me, her solid black smock dress and crisp white collar framed by the regal arms of her leather chair. The fingers of her left hand closed around a fancy Montblanc pen. Her right fist rested on my open file like a gavel, each letter of my last name printed sideways on the tab. “Do you have anything to say, Ms. Donovan?” Her narrowed eyes pinned me to my seat, reading me like a rap sheet across her wide mahogany desk.
He had it comingwas probably not the answer she was looking for. “This entire situation has been blown out of proportion,” I said as she took notes with harsh strokes of her pen. It was impossible to come off like a badass while I was down here and she was up there.
“The evidence speaks for itself.”
“What evidence?” I inched higher in my chair, trying to read her terse scribbles from my disadvantaged position.
“We have two witnesses to the assault.”
“Assault?” I held up a finger (not the one I wanted to raise), cutting her off. If she was going to conduct a trial and lay down asentence, I’d be damned if I’d let her do it without putting on a defense. “That’s a very serious accusation to level at a person.”
“The victim suffered injuries that required treatment by a physician.”
“It was only a few stitches.”
“And two bruised ribs,” she added without looking up.
“I already said I’d be willing to cover his medical costs.”
“You can’t just buy your way out of this, Ms. Donovan. You said it yourself, assault is a serious accusation. If I were to let this go with a warning, I’d be setting a dangerous precedent.”
“But this wasn’t an assault! It was self-defense,” I insisted, fighting the urge to demonstrate the difference. “Whatever the outcome, Cooper provoked it. The situation clearly called for a response, and he got one. Unwanted touching isalsoan assault,” I pointed out.
Her eyes lifted from the file, meeting mine over the rims of her glasses. “Thatwould be blowing the situation out of proportion.”
I put my hands on my hips. Or rather I would have, if the arms of my chair had allowed me to. “If you were in the same shoes, what would you have done?”
“I would have reported it to someone with the authority to handle the situation.”
“Handle it how? With another slap on the wrist? He’s a repeat offender!”
“Violence is never the answer, Ms. Donovan. Please sit down.” She pointed a sharp finger at the small wooden chair I’d been relegated to.
I glanced down at myself, surprised to find I was indeed standing up.
I folded myself back into my seat.
The woman took off her glasses. She set them on her desk withan aggrieved sigh. Her weary lids made slow blinks, as if she hoped I might disappear between them. “Rules are rules, Ms. Donovan, and it’s my job to enforce them. I’ve spoken with Cooper’s mother about his behavior on the playground, and she has assured me the hair pulling will not continue.”
I glanced sideways at Delia. Her head hung between her hunched shoulders, the short, downy ends of her blond pigtails still noticeably uneven after she’d cut her own hair a few short months ago, mussed where Cooper had, according to Delia, repeatedly grabbed them. Her hands were tucked shamefully under her thighs, her tiny legs dangling from the edge of the chair she’d been perched on while she’d waited for me to pick her up after the principal had called me.
“Fine,” I said, ready to put the entire ordeal behind us. “I’ll have a similar talk with Delia about her behavior when we get home.”
Mrs. Carmichael, the preschool principal, gave a stern nod. “I expect you will. Cooper’s mother has filed a formal complaint. Given the extent of her son’s injuries, she’s expecting the school to take a hard stance. I’m going to have to ask you to keep Delia home for the next two weeks.”
I leapt up again, the child-size chair clinging stubbornly to my hips. “You’re suspending her!”
“Would you rather she be expelled?”
We both turned as her office door flew open behind me. My children’s nanny burst in, her lungs heaving as if she’d run the full five miles from my house to get here. Her hair was wild where it had come loose from her long ponytail, and her cheeks were red with exertion. She clutched my naked two-year-old son to her side, his dimpled butt hanging over her arm. “Thank god,” she said when she spotted Delia sitting penitently beside me.
The principal scowled at Vero. “Who are you?”
“This is Veronica Ruiz, my nanny,” I explained.
“I came as soon as I got the message,” Vero said, ignoring the principal’s disapproving look. “Is Delia okay? I was in the bathroom with Zach when the school called. All they said is that someone was hurt.” She rushed to Delia’s side and sank down on her haunches until she was eye level with both of us, checking my daughter for injuries.
