Murder of a Royal Pain

She hadn’t been in one since she was six years old, when her brother, Vince, who was ten at the time, abandoned her to go play with his friends. She had wandered around lost and crying until some adult finally noticed her and led her to an exit.

Skye shuddered at the memory, quickened her steps, and nearly ran toward the safety of her own office. A few weeks later, when she stood over the dead body of someone who had been vibrant and alive just a few minutes before, she thought back to this instant and realized how silly her fears had been. Because no make-believe monster could possibly inspire the terror she felt in that moment, knowing that a real murderer was somewhere very near.

CHAPTER 2

From This Moment On

As Skye slid into her desk chair, panting, she noticed the phone’s message light flashing. The bell would ring in five minutes. Three minutes later, Brady Russell would show up at her door expecting to be tested. Did she have time to listen to her voice mail and get set up for him as well?

Cradling the receiver between her neck and shoulder, Skye punched in her password—she knew she couldn’t concentrate with that little red light blinking. While she waited for her code to be approved, she grabbed Brady’s file and reread the note his mother had written her.Dear Ms. Denison,Brady did not fail English last year. He is just passing impaired. Please find out why and fix him.Sincerely,Dodie Russell

Skye vowed to try her darnedest to comply with Mrs. Russell’s request, and started to fill out the identifying data on the IQ protocol. She was figuring out his exact age—the current date minus his birthday—when the mechanical voice said, “You have three messages.”

Shoot. She’d been hoping for hang-ups, but nothing was ever quick and easy in this job.

“Message number one, left Monday, September thirteenth, at eight fifteen.”

There was a slight pause; then Homer’s voice boomed from the receiver: “Where in blue blazes are you? Come to my office immediately.”

The next one, left at eight twenty-five was also from the principal, but the volume of his voice had risen considerably. “Opal said you signed in at seven thirty. Are you ignoring me?”

By the time the last message was recorded, ten minutes ago, his irritated baritone blasted in her ear: “Get your butt down here ASAP. I don’t have all day to babysit this woman.”

Apparently the first crisis of the day had materialized. Skye reluctantly locked Brady’s file in her drawer, taped a note to the door telling him to go back to class, and hurried to the principal’s office.

Behind the counter, Opal Hill, the school secretary, said, “Thank goodness you’re here. Mr. Knapik has been looking all over for you.”

“Why didn’t he have you call me over the PA system?” Skye asked.

“It’s broken, as is the furnace, again.” Opal’s watery brown eyes made her look as if she were about to burst into tears.

“So I take it Homer is in a foul mood.”

“Oh, my, yes.” Opal’s pink nose twitched. “You’d better go right in.”

Skye took a few steps down a dark, narrow hall, knocked on the principal’s closed door, then opened it a crack. “You wanted to see me?”

A gruff voice yelled from behind a massive desk, “It’s about time. Why are you standing in the hall? Get your rear end in here.”

Skye took a calming breath. Homer was Homer, and she couldn’t change him at this stage in his life, which, metaphorically speaking, was about five minutes before he signed his retirement papers. Putting a pleasant expression on her face, she entered the office. A plump woman in her thirties with long reddish brown hair was seated on one of the visitors’ chairs.

Homer waved toward the woman and said, “This is our new social worker, Jacqueline Jennings. She completed her internship a year ago, and before that taught for eight years in New York. Due to an illness in her family last fall, this is her first job as a school social worker, but she has very impressive letters of recommendation.”

Skye’s first thought was, Wow! She sounds almost too good to be true. Her second was, Why didn’t anyone tell me that the district finally hired a social worker? Bad enough that none of the principals mentioned it to me, but for crying out loud, my own godfather is the president of the school board.

Realizing her silence could be taken as rudeness, Skye smiled at the woman and held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Jacqueline. I’m Skye Denison, the psychologist.”

“Call me Jackie.” The woman’s grip was firm and dry. “Mr. Knapik has been telling me all about you.”

“Not all bad, I hope.” Skye glanced at Homer.