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“I’ll be your fake girlfriend, Kam.” Using the nickname meant something, but Elia wasn’t quite sure what it was just yet. “You help me get an interview. Deal or no deal?”

“Elia, there are other ways around this.”

“Times up, the kids are here. Deal or no deal?”

“Deal,” Kamryn whispered, looking directly into Elia’s eyes.

“Good.” The smile bloomed on Elia’s lips and face, warming her. She was enjoying this far too much. “We’ll get together next week to discuss details. Over dinner?”

“S-sure.”

Elia stepped back just as the first student entered the room with a loud, “It’s time to rock and roll!”

Kamryn still kept staring at her, but Elia had to move away to put some distance between them. She didn’t want the kids to get the wrong idea, especially after everything she had been throughbefore. That would be her number one rule with Kamryn. They would keep everything as separate as possible.

“I hope you had a good summer, Ethan.”

“The best!” Ethan said loudly, dropping his bag into one of the chairs. He stared up at the white board and groaned. “Devil’s Advocate? Really? Do we have to start warm-ups with that?”

“Yes,” Elia responded, shooting Kamryn a look of amusement. “You shouldn’t like every single practice lesson that we do. It’s good to expand your skills.”

“Yeah, but starting withthatone?”

Elia couldn’t stop herself from finding joy in this interaction. She’d waited all summer for Speech and Debate to start back up again. It was her favorite extracurricular to teach. “Yes, we’re starting with that one. Maybe you all can stump the new Head of School.” Elia waved at Kamryn. “She used to be one of my star Speech students back in her heyday. We’ll have to see how many lessons she remembers.”

“Remembers?” Kamryn stood up sharply. “Oh, I remember them all, Dr. Sharpe.”

“We’ll see,” Elia answered, ready for the lessons to start.

nine

Kamryn checked her calendar and frowned at it. When had that additional Speech team meet been scheduled? She barely had time to get there with the ethics meeting that was starting in three minutes. Those few minutes of respite that Kamryn had managed to find right before the last Speech meeting were the first ones she’d found in weeks.

Her head was spinning with all the responsibility.

Grabbing her notebook and pen, Kamryn walked directly to the conference room. Heather was already in there with Susy Butkis, the board chair. Heather was bent over the table, talking quietly in hushed tones. The tension in the room skyrocketed as soon as Kamryn walked in.

There was no mistaking that. As soon as Heather eyed her, she immediately stopped talking. Something about this didn’t feel right.

“Afternoon,” Kamryn said, sitting down next to Susy, hoping to keep some space between her and Heather. What were they doing here? This might be the hardest thing she had done so far since taking on this job. It felt that ominous.

Like an ambush.

“How have you been?” Kamryn asked, trying to make small talk in order to ease the tension that was growing in her chest.

“Good,” Heather answered quickly.

Kamryn had forgotten how she’d always seemed to have a permanent sneer on her face, her bleached blonde hair just adding to the look, especially when she pulled it back so tight and slicked it to make it look like a helmet.

Susy put her hand on top of a stack of folders and looked each of them over.

“We need to rebuild the ethics team. We’ve been remiss in getting it together and keeping it functioning, but one of the goals for this school year was to rebuild it—from scratch up if we had to.”

Kamryn kept her mouth shut. She agreed that the board needed an ethics review committee, not only to make sure that everyone working on campus was up to date in their background checks and certifications and continuing education, but also for when there were issues. And as much as she would like to believe that there wouldn’t be issues, she wasn’t an idiot. There were always problems somewhere.

“I thought we’d start with reviewing past cases to see if they areup to snuff.”

Kamryn managed to hold back any facial reactions, keeping her surprise from the room. “Wouldn’t it be a better idea to review the processes and procedures that we already have in place and see where they need improvement, while also trying to maintain and work toward resolution of open issues?”