The Neighbor - Lisa Gardner [73]
Elizabeth didn’t say anything, merely continued to regard him coolly.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” he said hastily. “If she needs time to breathe, hell, even if she’s found someone else … I can deal with that, Elizabeth. I will have to deal with that. I just want her back. If not for me, then at least for Ree.”
“You think she met someone,” Elizabeth said bluntly. “And you think she told me about it.”
He went with the helpless shrug. “Women talk.”
“Not your wife,” she informed him sharply. “And not with me.”
“Then with whom? Last I knew, you were her closest friend.”
Elizabeth sighed again, breaking off eye contact to glance instead at the clock. He found himself clenching his stomach, as if steeling for a blow. She would only look away for one reason—because she had something to say.
“Look, I respected Sandy a great deal,” Elizabeth began. “She’s an excellent teacher. Patient with the children, but also … steady. You don’t see a lot of that in young teachers these days. Especially the females. They bring their personal dramas to work, and maybe that gives them a certain cachet with the students, but it doesn’t buy them brownie points with the staff. Sandy was different. She was always composed, always reliable. I can’t picture her sitting around and gossiping with anyone, including me. Besides, when would she have the time?”
Jason nodded, dealing with that stumbling block himself. The simplest explanation for Sandy’s disappearance, of course, was another man. She’d run off with a lover, or she’d taken a lover who’d suffered a change of heart.
“Don’t do this. I still love you. Please …”
But Jason didn’t know how such a thing could’ve happened. So his wife took a “spa” break every six to nine months? He understood he did not meet all of her needs as a husband. But it was only a couple of nights a year. Surely, even a woman as attractive as Sandy couldn’t forge a relationship out of two nights a year.
“After school?” he murmured.
Elizabeth shook her head. “Sandy lingered only for staff meetings. Then she was out the door to pick up Ree, with whom I presume she spent most of her nights.”
Jason nodded. Aside from Sandy’s spa breaks, her afternoons and evenings were dominated by caring for Ree. And as he could attest from the past forty-eight hours, a four-year-old made an excellent chaperone.
“Lunch?” he tried.
“It would only work if the other man was a fellow teacher, and they found a broom closet,” Elizabeth said dubiously.
“What about the male teachers?”
“I never noticed her fraternizing with anyone in particular, male or female. When Sandy was here, she was about her students.”
“Free period, open period, what do they call it these days?”
“Every teacher has one free period,” she explained for him. “Most of us spend it grading papers, or preparing ourselves for later classes, though there’s nothing that says Sandy couldn’t have left the grounds. Though, now that I think about it …”
She hesitated, eyed him again.
“Starting in September, Sandy took on a special project. She was working with one of the eighth-graders, Ethan Hastings, on a teaching module.”
“A teaching module?”
“For his computer science class, Ethan was supposed to design a beginner’s guide to the Internet, which would be tested out on the sixth grade social studies class. Hence, Sandy’s involvement. The project ended months ago, but I still see the two of them huddled together in the computer lab. I had the impression from Sandy that Ethan is now working on something bigger and she was continuing to help him out.”
“Sandy … and a student?” Jason couldn’t wrap his brain around it. It was inconceivable.
Elizabeth arched a brow. “No,” she said firmly. “One, because young and pretty or not, I would never assume such a lack of professionalism from Sandy Jones. And two, well, if you saw Ethan Hastings, you’d understand point two. What I’m trying to tell you is that Sandy had only one free period each day, and hers was occupied.”
Jason nodded slowly, looking down at the floor, scuffing his toe. There was something here, though. He had to