Andre hovered behind me, a big, reassuring bulk. Not quite touching me, but close enough to keep me from running away. If he hadn’t been there, I would have set the square, ugly weapon he’d loaded down on the counter, very carefully, and run like a gazelle out of this basement room, darkened with the lead and powder of thousands of explosions, out of the chilly air heavy with the brimstone scent of exploded gunpowder, and into the glorious brightness of a September day.

Andre was right. I had to push myself through this. This was part of my recovery. Last summer, I’d pointed a gun at a fellow human being and pulled the trigger. I hadn’t touched a gun since. He said it was like remounting after falling off a horse, but I’d fallen off horses before. Falling off a horse isn’t premeditated. It happens so fast you’re on the ground before you know what’s hit you and you have to get right back on or you walk home. I’ve never heard of anyone with recurring nightmares from falling off a horse. Shooting someone, even when it’s necessary, is different. You have to bring the gun. Load the gun. Release the safety. Point, aim, squeeze, and watch the other guy fall. When you put the gun down, you never want to see it again.

But I was Thea Kozak, recovering nice girl. Someone who genuinely believed that when the going got tough, the tough got going and that if I backed down, the girls and women coming behind me also lost ground. Enough, Kozak. Time to get down to it.

I had ear protection. Safety glasses. I had Andre only inches away. His voice was soft. “Relax, Thea. Breathe in. Breathe out. And squeeze.” He straightened my body, turning me slightly. Okay, I thought. I can do this. I have to do this. Sensing my determination with that uncanny ability to read body language that some cops have, Andre stepped back.

I breathed in, breathed out, sited down the barrel, and then I wasn’t looking at a shmoo. I was watching two men struggling to carry a third across a dark field while a forth man they couldn’t see raised his gun and aimed at them.

“No way,” I muttered. “No way.”

I steadied my gun.

Always aim for center mass. I breathed in, breathed out, slowly increased the pressure on the trigger, and shot the shmoo, eight times, right in its generous little chest. Then I put the gun on the counter and walked out.

Driving home, Andre said, “I know that was hard for you. You were great.” He slid one hand off the wheel onto my thigh. “I was thinking of a cheeseburger, but how about a hat trick?”

A hat trick was one of those sports concepts I’d never grasped. All I knew was it was fun. Dash in the front door, shed our clothes, and make love on the soft living room rug. Move to the bedroom for round two. Then once more in the shower. This was my reward for being brave at the shooting range. We’d finished round two and were lying side-by-side, staring up at the patterns of light on the ceiling, his strong thigh against mine, when the phone rang.

“Don’t answer it,” Andre said. “You’re busy.”

But it was fall, the beginning of the most intense part of my working year. I’m a partner in an educational consulting firm, EDGE Consulting, and when the independent schools which are our bread and butter geared up for the fall term, so did we. Weekends were a big time for problems, and problems were my specialty. I grabbed the receiver.

“Sorry. I was in the office when the phone rang. St. Matthews has a problem…” My partner, Suzanne. Her voice was light, but I read overtones of seriousness. Like me, and despite a husband and small child, Suzanne was a workaholic. “How’d it go today?” she asked. “Shoot off any toes?” “Still got nine. That should be enough.”

“Seriously. You got through it okay?”

“Tough as a bowl of Jell-o.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. Sometimes that guy pushes you too hard.”

Andre pushed himself up on the pillows. “Suzanne?” I nodded. “Tell her you’re busy.”

“Andre says to tell you I’m busy.”

“Oh.” Her voice dropped a register. “Am I getting you at a bad time?”

She knew our penchant for midday quickies too well. “A good time, actually. We’re between rounds. What’s up?”

I couldn’t tell whether her sigh was prompted by St. Matthews or me. Lately, she’d been sighing a lot. “St. Matthews has a problem student. Or student problem, depending on how the facts turn out. The kind of thing that could blow up in their faces if it’s not handled right. What’s your Monday look like?” It was the application season. No time for a headline-grabbing scandal if St. Matthews was to attract the applicants they wanted. “Hold on.” I crossed to my briefcase and fished out my PDA. PDAs and cell phones. Two disagreeable accessories that had become necessities. My latest “get rich quick” fantasy was a line of colorful cowgirl belts like little girls wore in the 50’s, with dual holsters for PDAs and cell phones. Instead of rows of little wooden bullets, the belts could have batteries. I’d make ‘em in purple leather and faux cowhide and glittering plastic, become a hot product millionairess and retire. I checked my schedule. “I’m chained to my desk, writing proposals.”

“Not any more, you aren’t.” Her firm voice reminded me I was too busy for get rich quick. Still caught up in get rich slow. “You’re going on a road trip….”

I looked over at Andre. I’ve always been a slave of duty and a glutton for work. Six months ago, if a school had called, I would have been out the door in a flash, pleased that I’d become well-enough established as a trouble shooter in the private school world to be the one they called. Now I hesitated. If St. Matthews’ problem was big, it could mean an overnight. I hadn’t spent a night away from Andre since the wedding. Having come so close to losing him, I didn’t like Andre more than an arm’s length away, and I hated being alone with my dreams.

“They give you a rundown?”

She made an affirmative noise. “It’s bad, Thea. Classic case where they should have called us sooner. You know the headmaster, Todd Chambers. He’s neither an incompetent nor a nincompoop. In this case, it sounds like he’s being a bit of both. In danger of really putting his foot in it….” Chambers was young for a headmaster, only early forties, but his preppie veneer and stuffy manner were from an earlier generation. He was so clearly born to the private school world I could picture him as an infant in diaper and tweed sports jacket, pacifier and horn-rimmed glasses, drooling onto his bow tie as he waved a Princeton pennant from his perambulator. In fact, he was born to the private school world. His father had been a legendary headmaster who, over a twenty-five year stewardship, had taken a second-rate school and made it one of the best in the country.

Chambers had been the trustees’ pick to replace a headmaster who’d been way too liberal, his mission to put a very traditional New England boarding school that had been slipping towards progressive back on a more conservative track. Reportedly he was doing a good job, but the student body, having grown accustomed to laxity about dress code and other regulations, was testy and resentful. Some of the younger faculty had also resisted returning to a more authoritarian regime. Jackets and ties and all they signified were harder to phase in than out.

I pulled out a small reporter’s notebook and a pen. Andre, giving up, folded his hands under his head and closed his eyes. He knew all about the call of duty. Just let the Maine State Police call for his services and he’d be gone before I could say SOP, his parting words some version of “Don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll call you.” It might be one hour, or ten, or twenty-four, before I heard from him again. He wasn’t plain old Andre Lemieux, the man of my dreams. He was Detective Andre Lemieux, a Maine State trooper, the man in the white hat. Although, of course, his hat wasn’t white. Too good a target, white hats.

I shuddered and tried to concentrate on Suzanne. “You got his number?”

“I’m afraid so. Problem number 2002. Man about to have foot stuck in mouth.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“It’s all waiting on your desk, partner. My succinct notes on the nature of his problem. Minority scholarship student, athlete, loner, claims she’s being stalked and has the whole community in a twitter. He says she’s making it up. Doing it for attention. Or revenge.”

She gave me a New Hampshire phone number. “He has a letter explaining the situation he wants to send to the parents. As a last minute thing, he wanted to run it by us. By me, actually, but I told him you were our crisis person. I didn’t tell him I had to do a tea party.”

She paused. “My psychic bones sense something fishy. Maybe a worried trustee in the background or more than he’s telling. He’s waiting for your call.”

I pictured Chambers, done up in tweed, sitting in a prim wing chair beside a shiny black phone, the dignity of his posture marred by the twisted leg, the toe of a polished brown wing-tip stuck between his lips. “If we’ve got the draft letter, then shouldn’t a phone call should do it?” I was already pushing away thoughts of leaving.

“I think this needs the personal touch.”

“You mean hand-holding? Is he nervous about this?”

“I was thinking more along of the lines of your having to sit on him,” Suzanne said. “When you see the letter, you’ll understand.” There was a howl in the background, and a man’s soothing voice. Her husband Paul comforting their son. “Call him, Thea. He’s waiting….”

“It’s Sunday. Doesn’t he have a life?”

“You’re a fine one to talk. You’ve worked plenty of weekends. This is boarding school, which is a seven-day-a-week operation, as you well know. Besides, he’s young and ambitious, not like anyone we know, right? The school is his life…..”

“Phooey,” I muttered. “All right. I’ll call him. But I hope he’s not really sitting by the phone, ‘cuz it’s going to be a while.” I looked at Andre and lowered one eye-lid in a lurid wink. “I’ve got some things I have to do first.”

“Spare me the details,” she said dryly, “I’ve got other things to do, too. Like mucking out the downstairs, removing one ton of baby detritus, and making things genteel and serene for an afternoon tea. New faculty today…..”

“I may only have nine toes now, but I am not green with envy…..”

“I didn’t expect you would be.”

She didn’t sound mellow. Lately she rarely did. “This being a wife business is awfully demanding sometimes. You’ll see.”

Suzanne was very happily married but Paul’s new job as headmaster had added the social obligations of being headmaster’s wife to her already hectic life. We’d moved our business to Maine to accommodate her, but she was finding there were a lot of other accommodations she had to make as well. Like fitting tea parties into her schedule. It was a good thing the female brain was adept at multi-tasking. A legacy of keeping the baby from falling in the fire while sweeping the cave while watching out for the saber-toothed tiger.

“Becoming Mrs. Detective Lemieux was the achievement of a lifelong dream,” I said. “Luckily, policemen don’t have tea parties. They have balls.” Suzanne made an exasperated sound. Andre grinned at me, tossed off the sheet, and headed for the bathroom. “I’ve gotta go. Mr. Detective is getting restless.”

“That’s what you get for choosing a man with appetites.”

“Is there another kind?” I spoke to an empty line. Suzanne had hung up and gone to police the parlor. I pushed the buttons that would connect me with Todd Chambers. He answered so quickly it looked like he had been sitting by the phone. “Todd? It’s Thea Kozak, from EDGE. Suzanne Merritt says you have a problem?”

“Thanks for returning my call.” He expelled his breath with a sigh. “I’m afraid we do. I was hoping we could get together this evening. Don’t want to let any more time slip by on this one.” There was a faint rustle as he raised a sleeve and checked his watch. I’m such a fine detective I can sort rustles into categories. Sniffs and snorts, too. “I figure what, two and a quarter, two and a half hours you could be here. Five-thirtyish?”

It was precisely that peremptory confidence which had made the trustees select him, but I didn’t have to jump when he said jump. I would jump when I was ready. “I could meet with you at 7:30.” He didn’t need to know what else was on my agenda. The fact that I wanted to get up close and personal with Andre and off-load some of the emotional baggage I’d acquired during my session at the range was my business. “Seven-thirty?” His tone was on the cusp of protest, but he held back. “That would be fine. I’ve faxed some background documents,” he said. “We’ve got a student who claims she’s been harassed. Stalked by someone leaving obscene pictures in her room. Our internal investigation says she’s doing it herself. Maybe for attention, maybe revenge. She hasn’t been happy here. Now she’s got other students stirred up, and that concern has spread to the parents. I need to put their minds at rest….I faxed a letter I want you to review.”

“Yes. Suzanne said it was at the office. I’ll go by and take a look at it. Maybe we can do this by phone.”

“I’d rather do this face-to-face, put you in the picture, maybe even have you speak with this girl… see if you can straighten her out…She needs to understand….” He stopped without finishing.

Straighten her out? I didn’t want to talk myself out of a job, but this wasn’t up my alley. The letter and related communication strategies, yes. Counseling a troubled student, no. “Isn’t that something one of your counselors should do? Or her advisor?”

“Well, you know adolescents. She’s blown this way out of proportion, says she doesn’t trust anyone here. I thought you might… that she might relate to you….I’m afraid we’ve… well, I’m afraid she feels alienated. We’re having trouble reaching her. We thought someone from the outside might help….”

As if my job were psychology and not PR. Troubleshooting. Admissions advice. Image counseling. I guess it all did involve psychology. Whatever the story was, it sounded like I could be walking into a nasty mess. A school community is like a small town. News travels fast and rumors get exploded like an enormous game of gossip. The parent community can be even deadlier. Once word of trouble gets out to them, it can spread coast-to-coast in a matter of hours. We live in an instant messaging world. So probably he was right. I’d have to see the documents and get put in the picture. And we’d have to do this face-to-face. I need to see his reactions to my suggestions, to get a read on him and the situation. When I got there, we could identify the best person to deal with an irate student. If she’d gotten to the point where she’d inflamed the campus, then they hadn’t handled this girl well, nor, by extension, the rest of the students, especially the female half.

I was about to hang up when it occurred to me that a stalking complaint could have legal implications. “Have you run this by your lawyers?”

“Yes. They didn’t see a problem.”

That was good news. Many times, schools put their heads in the sand and refused to take the obvious steps. “Seven-thirty, then,” I said, and wrote down his directions.

Andre was already in the shower, singing a ridiculous song to which he didn’t know the words, bellowing snatches of song interspersed with bits of humming. I opened the door and stepped in. “I’ve got to go to New Hampshire tonight.”

He twirled an imaginary mustache. “Not before I can work my way wiz you….”

I twirled my own mustache right back. “I thought I’d work my way with you…..”

“Sounds like a plan.” He dropped a hand on my thigh, worked its way up until it nestled against my body, and made a deep sound in his chest, somewhere between hunger and contentment.

Even as I savored the warmth, smiling with anticipation, another part of my mind was already racing ahead, working on the problem at St. Matthews.

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