Page 58 of From the Darkness

The room remained silent, and she stood for a moment, listening with her ears and her other senses. Since Troy had abandoned her in his bed last night, she couldn’t shake the notion that he was keeping tabs on her. And apparently, she couldn’t stop addressing him as if he were in the room.

“What—you don’t want to get involved?” she challenged.

She got an immediate answer, but not from the unseen man she was addressing.

“Who are you talking to?” a small voice asked. It was Dinah, who had chosen that moment to walk into the room.

Bree felt her cheeks heat. After waiting a beat, she turned. “Probably it sounds silly, but I’ve gotten into the habit of talking to your dad. Even when I’m not sure he’s really around.”

“It doesn’t sound silly. Sometimes I do it,” the girl said. “It makes me feel better. But I only started after he came in the night and talked to me.”

“Just now, I was asking him where to find the curriculum, but he didn’t answer me. Do you happen to know where it is?” Bree asked.

“On the bottom shelf. Right over there,” the child pointed. “I remember when Miss Carpenter put it away.”

As Bree took a quick look at the material, she felt a surge of relief. Then she looked back at Dinah.

“Thank you. This is just what I need. Now I’d better go over this stuff before I have to see Mr. Hirsch.”

After setting up Dinah with some exercises from her reading workbook, she paged through the curriculum, comparing it to the work that had been assigned and to upcoming lessons. To her relief, it looked like they were in compliance.

She gathered up some of Dinah’s previous exercises and had just put them in a folder with upcoming lesson plans when Mrs. Martindale appeared in the doorway, looking flustered.

“He’s here. Early.”

Bree took in the housekeeper’s anxious visage. Obviously, she was worried about passing inspection. But why?

“So—is he pretty strict about following the rules?” she asked.

Mrs. Martindale lowered her voice. “He had some complaints—when I was supervising Dinah’s education.”

“It’s not exactly your field,” Bree assured her.

“But he wants to make sure everything is back on the right track.”

“Well, let’s go down and reassure him,” Bree answered with all the confidence she could muster, considering that she wasn’t sure how the interview was going to come off. For a moment she hesitated, then she turned to Dinah. “Do you want to come with us?”

The child considered the question. “I guess I’d like to stay up here.”

“That’s fine.” Bree looked at the sheets of paper on the desk. “Probably you should keep working on your lessons, in case he wants to see what you’re doing during school hours today.”

Dinah nodded, then bent to her work again.

Bree followed Mrs. Martindale to the sitting room, thinking that she might have been handed an opportunity to get out a message.

But when she reached the meeting place, her hopes dimmed. She found Nola waiting—with a small, gray-haired man who was sipping from a cup of tea. On the plate in front of him was a selection of cookies that the housekeeper had apparently assembled in his honor.

He looked up, and she saw a round face and piercing blue eyes that stopped her in her tracks.

“Mr. Hirsch, this is Miss Brennan, the new teacher who’s been engaged for Dinah.”

Bree crossed the room and shook his hand, noting that his palm was damp. Having decided that she should seem confident, even if her insides were quivering, she said, “I’ve brought you some of Dinah’s recent work—and lesson plans for the next few months.”

After handing over the folder, she took a chair across the coffee table from Hirsch and sat with her hands folded in her lap, a strategy that kept her audience from seeing them tremble. She noticed that Nola didn’t offer her tea, although there was an extra cup on the tray.

Hirsch picked up a cookie, chomping appreciatively as he began to page through the materials she’d given him.

Bree held her breath, waiting for his verdict and wondering what she was going to do if he didn’t approve of the current situation.

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