My Private Detective. Rebecca Winters

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СКАЧАТЬ of nannies until he started junior high. Then there’d been a string of baby-sitters.

      That was the problem.

      According to Gideon’s attorney, Kevin was now old enough to choose which parent he wanted to live with. But Fay would be impossible if Kevin moved in with Gideon. She would heap enough guilt on their son to traumatize him.

      In the long run Gideon felt it was better to leave things as they were.

      Gideon had explained all this to Kevin, who’d cried quietly, then clung to him, vowing that the day he turned eighteen he was going to come and live with his father.

      They were father and son, no matter that Kevin’s biological father was some high-powered stockbroker from New York who had no idea he had a child.

      Unbeknownst to Gideon, Fay had slept with her boss while she was engaged to Gideon. Afraid to tell him the truth, she’d passed the baby off as Gideon’s. After almost four years of marriage, she got involved with another stockbroker in San Diego and then asked Gideon for a divorce.

      Though he’d known his wife was always striving for something he couldn’t seem to give her, he hadn’t realized she’d gone as far as to have an affair.

      Shocked by her refusal to try to keep their marriage together through counseling, he sued for custody of Kevin. That was when he learned about her previous affair. A DNA test confirmed that Kevin wasn’t Gideon’s son.

      When the judge heard the case, he decreed that Gideon was Kevin’s father in all the ways that mattered and granted him the most liberal visitation rights under the law.

      Unless Fay softened, which would probably never happen, there was nothing to do but go on making the best of a situation Gideon would never have wished on an innocent child. He certainly wasn’t about to tell his son he was another man’s child. It wasn’t information Kevin needed to know. Gideon had consulted several counselors at the time of the divorce, and they all agreed.

      There was a bright side to Daniel’s request for help. Gideon would take his suggestion and bring Kevin to class on the visitation nights. His son had always been curious about Gideon’s work. He could do his homework and listen at the same time. They’d have dinner either before class or after and make a special night of it.

      Once school was out at the end of May, Kevin would be spending the first half of the summer with Gideon. This year they were going to vacation in Alaska for a couple of weeks and do some salmon fishing with Max and his wife, Gaby.

      Since his marriage, Max had resigned from the FBI and was now a detective in the same division of the San Diego Police Department as Gideon. It was a little like the old days, when the two of them had been rookie cops together in New York. Only this was much better because those dark days of pain and lies were behind them both.

      Fortunately Kevin had always been crazy about Max. Now he was equally crazy about Gaby, who was expecting a child in August. Already Gideon’s son had volunteered to baby-sit. Kevin’s happiness was all that mattered to Gideon these days.

      BY FRIDAY MORNING Heidi had reached an all-time low. Mr. Cobb’s office had indicated that he was out of the country and wouldn’t return before Sunday night. On Thursday she’d taken a personal-leave day from school to spend time with her parents while they discussed what to do about Dana’s situation.

      After much soul-searching, Heidi decided she’d have to wait until she could talk to Mr. Cobb before she asked her father to get hold of that other attorney. It was the only honorable thing to do. But it was hard to wait when she knew a week with no news was like a year to Dana.

      When Heidi arrived at school on Friday morning, she felt emotionally exhausted. Without much enthusiasm, she went through the stack of mail and flyers that had accumulated in her teacher’s box over two days. After scanning each piece, she tossed most of them in the wastebasket, then hurried out of the main office to her room at the end of the west hall.

      The first bell at Mesa Junior High in Mission Beach wouldn’t ring for half an hour. She breathed a sigh of relief to know she had thirty more minutes to get the room ready for class.

      Six years of teaching had taught her to present new geography units to her ninth-graders on Thursdays. That way, the kids who thought the weekend started on Friday morning couldn’t use the excuse that they’d missed the initial presentation. But she’d had to make an exception and stay home yesterday because Dana’s problems had superceded anything else.

      Now that fourth term of the school year had started, it was time to cover the Middle East, an area so foreign to most of her students they had no clue it wasn’t another neighborhood in San Diego.

      Her classes included a pretty-equal mix of Asian, African-American, Hispanic and white students. Her goal was that by the time school was out, they could each, on a map of the world, place the oceans, continents, countries and major cities.

      After she’d unlocked the door to her room, the first thing she noticed was the writing on the front board.

      Rule 1. Never assume anything!

      She frowned. The information she’d put on the board for the substitute had been erased. Why?

      She glanced at her books and papers, which had been rearranged on top of her desk. That was odd. All the substitutes who’d ever taught for her had always left everything exactly as they’d found it.

      Wondering what was going on, she rang the office, using the switch on the wall behind her desk. One of the secretaries answered.

      “This is Sheila. What can I do for you?”

      “Hi, Sheila. It’s Heidi. You wouldn’t happen to know who subbed for me yesterday, would you?”

      “Yes. That huge teachers’ seminar in the district drained all the subs, so different teachers from our building took your classes on their free periods and let the kids do any homework they wanted. Is there a problem?”

      “No, I was just surprised that my lesson plan was erased from the board.”

      “That’s probably because the community school just started their adult classes. Mr. Johnson arranged the schedule. He’s put someone in your room on Wednesday and Friday nights from seven to eight-thirty. Just a sec and I’ll see who it is.

      “Okay—found it. The teacher’s name is Mcfarlane. According to this, the class is an introduction to criminology.”

      Criminology?

      Her heart gave a strange thud.

      “If you don’t want him in there, I’ll ask another teacher.”

      “No! No—don’t do that!” Please, don’t do that. Maybe this is the answer to my prayers. “I’d forgotten about community school.” All the teachers had to take turns sharing their rooms.

      “You’re sure it’s okay?”

      “Positive.”

      “Mr. Johnson says that if any of you have complaints, you should put a note in his box and he’ll talk to the person. They’ve been told to leave the rooms exactly as they find them. If you’re missing anything, I’ll send a student aide with the supplies you need.”

      “Thanks, СКАЧАТЬ