Rachel held both girls’ hands as they crossed the one-way drive to the parking area, though there were no cars approaching them. She hoped that they couldn’t feel the vibration since she still couldn’t stop shaking. Though she sensed that the women in the front office were still watching her and the girls through the window, she forced herself not to look back. Whether or not they believed her story, they would be extra vigilant now in protecting the twins’ safety.
Something she’d failed to do.
Had she really thought she could shield her daughters when she still had no idea who was targeting her family? To make a bad situation worse, she realized now that whoever had pretended to be Riley on the phone was just toying with her. Letting her know he held the whole deck of cards, while she carried an empty box.
“Why did you tell the school you would be late, Mom?” Carissa asked as Rachel slid open the van’s side door. “Mrs. Z. and Mrs. Sumpter get mad when parents come late. I heard them say so.”
“But you weren’t late, were you, Mom?” Carly asked.
She helped the girls into their seats and secured their seat belts, at least protecting them in that one obvious way. “There was just a mix-up.”
Her daughters had probably overheard more than a few choice words from the women who got stuck caring for the children of irresponsible parents. But it was easier to let the girls believe she was one of those than to admit she’d allowed players in a game she didn’t fully understand to use them as pawns.
She hadn’t given the principal a complete picture of what had just taken place, either. How could she when she still wasn’t sure? She’d provided Tyler Lawton’s name when Mrs. Sumpter asked about him again, but Rachel had clarified that the man wasn’t on the twins’ birth certificates. Some theories were hard to abandon, and she would give the woman hers.
As Rachel pulled into traffic, Carissa waved to her in the rearview mirror. “Can Mr. Mick come to dinner again tonight?”
Carissa’s eyes widened, and she clamped her hands over her mouth. “Oops, I’m not supposed to tell the secret.”
“It’s not a secret with just us, but neither of you shared it at school, did you?”
“No, Mom,” Carly assured her.
She twisted her mirror so she could catch both of them shaking their heads.
“It was hard, too, since Mallory was talking about all the fires.” Carissa deposited the proper amount of distaste on the name of their fellow first-grader who’d worked hard to be a nemesis to both of them since the first day of school. “She said someone started all them on purpose. And Mr. Mick would have told her she was dumb.”
Rachel cleared her throat to cover her chuckle. “I don’t think he would have said that, but how about we let the police deal with those things.”
She could have followed that advice herself.
“Do you think someone will put our house on fire, too?” Carly wanted to know.
“Of course not,” she said, surprised to be able to get any words out at all. “Why would you think that?”
Rachel hated that her children’s monster in the closet was less a product of their imaginations now and more a true possibility. If anyone in town was more in the line of matches than her family was, she couldn’t produce a name. Even Mick couldn’t guarantee that the trucks of Station 1 wouldn’t be paying their tinderbox of a house a visit sometime soon.
She shivered at the thought of it and then straightened her shoulders as the answer to an earlier question cemented in her thoughts. “Maybe we can have dinner with Mr. Mick, after all. He even asked us if we want to spend a few days in a hotel. Like camping.”
“Camping?” Carissa bounced, her legs kicking the back of Rachel’s seat.
“I love camping,” Carly agreed.
Rachel grinned at the road ahead of them, glad to at least give the girls something they could look forward to, while finding a way to keep them safe.
“Can we go swimming at the hotel?” Carly asked.
“Yay! Swimming!”
As she pictured the hotel pool with steamy windows where just about anyone could have been watching them from outside, Rachel shivered. “Sorry, girls. I don’t think that one will work out this time. You’ve both outgrown your swimsuits, and there’s just nowhere to buy them right now.”
Unless they visited any store where spring break clothes were on the center aisle. Sometimes a little mom lie was an absolute necessity.
She challenged her daughters’ chorus ofaws with some other suggestions. “We can watch TV in bed after homework and eveneatpizza on top of the covers if you girls agree to be careful.”
Swimming pools forgotten, the twins bounced in their seats, excited to get home to pack the matching lime-green overnight bags with their names on the sides.
“Will there be two beds in the hotel room?” Carly asked.
