The Suicide Club Read Free Page A

pulled a face at the bitterness.
    “How can you tell?” Lindsey asked with a laugh.
    “Tastes like third period.” Shannon walked over to one of the couches. She sat, tucking long, boot-clad legs under her. Her colorful skirt spilled around her, almost touching the floor. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I hate the beginning of school. I’m so frigging tired.”
    “You’re a twelve-month employee. You’re supposed to be used to working.” Counselors didn’t get the nearly three-month summer break teachers did.
    “It ain’t work if the little darlings aren’t here.”
    Lindsey laughed. Shannon loved interacting with their students more than almost anyone else on the faculty, but she was right. It was dealing with teenagers and their raging hormones that put the stress in all their lives. Shannon dealt with them on a much more personal, one-on-one basis, unlike the relationship in the classrooms.
    “Who’s giving you grief now?”
    “No one in particular.” Shannon raised her head from the back of the couch to take another swallow of her coffee. “Little darlings en masse, ” she said, giving the words their correct French pronunciation. “‘Can you change my schedule, Ms. Anderson. I didn’t mean to sign up for Algebra II.’ Translation, I did, but now I don’t want crazy old Ms. Brock.”
    “Can you blame them?”
    “Well, no, but somebody’s got to be in her class.”
    “She needs to retire. She was here when I was in school.” Fourteen years ago, which wasn’t quite as long as she’d just made it out to be. “We called her old Ms. Brock then, too.”
    “Was she as bad as she is now?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t have her. I don’t remember that kids talked about her the way these do. But, I don’t remember kids talking all that bad about any teacher back then.”
    “You hung with the wrong crowd.”
    “Or the right one.”
    They drank their coffee, the silence that had fallen companionable and unstrained. Shannon leaned her head back, her fingers making that habitual rearrangement of her hair.
    “Something weird happened this morning,” Lindsey began.
    Shannon straightened, her eyes interested. “In class?”
    “Before. Melanie told me when I signed in that Dave wanted to see me. Some detective with the sheriff’s department was in his office. He said the FBI has developed a profile of the arsonists in the church fires.” She hesitated, wanting to see if Shannon reached the same conclusion she had.
    “And they wanted to talk to you? They think your kids are involved?”
    “Apparently. I’ve been thinking about it all day, getting more and more pissed.”
    Shannon didn’t respond, but Lindsey could almost track the thoughts moving behind her green eyes. She knew the counselor was running through the individuals in the gifted program, just as Lindsey had been all day. The fact that she had been was a large part of her building anger.
    “He give you any idea who?”
    “He wanted me to give him ideas.”
    “Well, that sucks. You think…?”
    Lindsey shook her head. “But I admit it ate at me. I kept trying to think of anyone who might be involved, but…You know them. Who the hell would do something like that?”
    “I told you. Little darlings. They aren’t any different from the others except they’re probably smart enough not to get caught.”
    That, too, was a thought that had occurred to Lindsey at some point. She had wondered if that’s why the profilers had zeroed in on the students in her gifted program—simply because of the lack of evidence, something law enforcement officials had openly acknowledged.
    “I think that might be exactly what they’re thinking.”
    “That they must be geniuses because the cops can’t catch ’em?” Shannon asked. “Isn’t that convenient.”
    “They can’t admit that some dumb, redneck yahoo can outsmart them, burn three black churches, and get away with it. So, stands to reason, this has got to be