Page 1 of Delay of Game (Norwalk Breakers #4)

ONE

GRACIE

The mile-long dirt driveway gave me plenty of time to stop crying. When I pulled up to the simple two-story farmhouse, I parked on the far side of the horseshoe driveway and checked the mirror.

Thank god I hadn’t bothered to put on mascara that morning.

The only thing more frightening to a six-year-old on the precipice of kindergarten was their teacher showing up two weeks before school starts with black mascara dripping down her face and a red nose.

Thankfully, the utter mess in the mirror cleared my tears.

How long was too long to grieve someone who wasn’t dead?

At three weeks, at least I didn’t burst into tears anymore.

No, I’d suppressed my tears, only letting them out in the shower and in the car.

Contained places. Places where I could sob without raised eyebrows and worried looks.

Certainly not in the presence of my newest students.

I wiped my tears, patted my cheeks, and applied a light dusting of peach powder to blot out the redness on my face. Then I grabbed the folder in the seat next to me.

Mila Grant: six, lives with her father, Robert, only child.

Two years out of college and I prided myself on calm, collected classrooms. Well, not completely calm and collected, but for five- and six-year-olds? Fairly calm. And I credited my summer “meet the teacher” meetings as one way I prepared my students to enter elementary school.

Of course, with twenty kids in my class, I couldn’t visit everybody.

Thankfully, my co-teacher, Lily, shared the responsibility with me.

We’d split the pile of student names up by address, her taking the students closer to downtown while I took the more rural addresses.

We’d visit the students once in their homes and then again at the school before classes started.

Mila was the last student from those first round of meetings.

I shut the folder and picked up the bag on the passenger side floor. Inside were books and coloring supplies and a personalized “Welcome to Kindergarten” letter.

I walked up the driveway, surprised by the ample acreage.

None of the fields looked like they were plowed, and other than a giant barn that looked more suited to fancy “country style” weddings, nothing showed that the land was used for anything besides space.

A novelty in this suburb of Norwalk, where uncultivated land was gobbled up by developers who planted gated communities with row after row of identical two-story houses, affordable only by the elderly and the rich.

Either Mila Grant’s family had been living in Norwalk for generations or her father made more money than Croesus.

I knocked on the front door, straightening my back and putting on my biggest smile. An older woman opened the door, her face lighting up in recognition.

“Gloria?” I asked, surprised.

“Gracie!?” She beamed at me as she threw open the door and pulled me into a hug that smelled like chamomile and lemon and felt so comforting that I nearly started crying again. “Rob just said Mila’s teacher’s name was Mrs. Evans. I didn’t think for a minute you’d show up!”

She pulled away. “Tell me, how’s Mercy? We missed her at last month’s get together.”

The monthly women’s Bunco club had been meeting for decades, long before I moved to Virginia. I’d attended only a few times, when Aunt Mercy was sick or they needed another player.

Tears sprung to the corner of my eyes, and I cleared my throat. “Good. She’s settling in.”

Gloria’s lips turned down into a frown, her brow furrowing. “We talked about stopping by for a visit, but we didn’t want to overwhelm her. She doesn’t think we’ve forgotten her?”

I bit back a reflexive laugh. Aunt Mercy’s steady mental decline wasn’t funny. The diagnosis wasn’t funny. But unexpectedly running into Gloria short circuited the careful walls I’d built to keep school and home separate.

“Oh, I phrased that poorly.” Gloria pressed a finger to her mouth, face collapsing into a frown. “That’s not why you’re here. You’re here to meet Mila, aren’t you?”

A pair of pigtails appeared and disappeared behind Gloria’s arm. “Is that my teacher?”

Gloria stepped aside, and Mila wasted no time slipping under her grandmother’s arm. A little girl, clad in a voluminous pink princess costume complete with crown, stared up at me with big brown eyes.

“You must be my newest student,” I said, sinking down to her level. “I’m Ms. Evans.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, sinking into a low curtsey. “But I’m not sure I want to go to kindergarten.”

“Really? I thought it might be fun.”

She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay,” I said, shaking off any residual sadness that crept through. “Well, I brought some things to play with. Would it be okay if we just played together for a bit?”

Mila reluctantly nodded her head. We played two games of memory and a counting game before we turned to the stack of books tucked into my bag.

We sat on her living room couch, Mila pressed to my side as I read through “The Pigeon Has to Go to School.” She sat through the entire story, eyes following the words as I pointed them out, only speaking when I asked a question.

A remarkable feat, considering her newest classmate, a five-year-old boy named Harvey, couldn’t get through the title without interruption.

“Do I really have to go to school?” Mila asked as I closed the book. She tugged at the hem of her princess dress. Her soft brown eyes skittered to the kitchen, where Gloria had retreated to start dinner.

I nodded. “You do. And I know school feels scary right now because you’ve never been, but I promise, we’re going to have so much fun.”

She pursed her lips, averting her eyes. “But what if the other kids don’t like me?”

My heart wrenched, even though I’d had this conversation dozens of times before.

I shifted on the couch, meeting her eyes.

“The other kids are just as nervous as you are. And they’re worried they won’t make friends either.

So, I want to make you a promise. If you can’t find a friend by the end of the first week, I’ll help you.

But I bet you’re going to have more friends than you know what to do with by the end of the first day. ”

The worry didn’t completely extinguish from her eyes, but she nodded, eyes steely and determined. “Okay.”

“Well, Mila,” I said, putting away my book. “It has been so nice meeting you today. I’m really looking forward to showing you around the school next week. Would that be okay?”

Mila nodded, brown curls bouncing.

“Great,” I said, standing. “I’m going to talk to your grandmother for a few minutes before I leave, but thank you for having me over.”

“Thank you,” Mila said, scrambling up for a quick curtsey before launching off toward the stairs.

“Gloria?” I called, following the sound of sizzling meat and the smell of rosemary. I poked my head into the kitchen and found her preparing dinner. “I finished reading with Mila.”

Gloria wore a frilly apron, silver hair collected in a low bun. She set down a spatula and faced me. “How did it go?”

“Mila’s a great kid,” I said truthfully. “She’s a good listener and very polite. I really enjoyed meeting her.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I’m surprised you haven’t met her before. She’s my little shadow.” She crooked her finger back to the oven, and I followed her as she checked on dinner.

“Maybe because you haven’t dragged her to a bunco night yet,” I laughed, remembering the first time I’d attended. Aunt Mercy had traveled out of the country, Tahiti or Japan, and asked me to go in her place.

I expected a quiet, boring night of board games, but instead, I’d witnessed absolute debauchery.

Despite the average age hovering around seventy-five, all the players drank too much, cheated every chance they got, and shit-talked like it was their job.

I’d had a blast, but it wasn’t exactly child-friendly.

“And let Mila find out that her sweet grandmother is really a wine-swilling, trash-talking dice fiend? Never.” Gloria tipped her head back with a smile. “I am going to miss her when she’s in school, though. That girl has been my shadow for the past six years. I’m not sure what I’ll do without her.”

“And her father…” I grappled for the name of her son. “Robert, right?”

“Rob.”

“He’s…” I glanced around the kitchen as if he lurked in a corner.

“At work. They keep him at all hours this time of year, or I’m sure he would have cleared his schedule.”

All the information I’d gathered about Gloria’s son came secondhand. The snippets of conversation I’d gathered from Aunt Mercy swirled and muddled in my head without an actual face to attach them to. Someone’s son was a lawyer. Someone else’s a doctor.

But at least Gloria had hinted at him being an involved parent.

“And Mila’s mother?”

Gloria’s back stiffened. “She’s…not involved in Mila’s day-to-day life. Rob has custody and full parental rights. I’m sure he’d be happy to provide that paperwork.”

I held up a hand. “No, of course not. I’m sure the school has whatever paperwork is necessary. I just didn’t know.”

She relaxed, blinking her eyes and shaking her head. “Right. Of course. For Mila. Sorry.”

The tension behind the innocent question piqued my attention, but I batted it back down again.

“I have the school handbook here,” I said, rifling through my bag for the folder labeled “Grant.” “And I wrote some notes on how to go about signing her up to ride the bus and pay for meals at the cafeteria.”

Gloria wiped her hands on her apron and rounded the kitchen island, picking up the folder and flipping through the pages. “Things sure are more complicated than when my Rob went to school. I just waved down a passing bus and sent him off.”

I laughed. “Unfortunately, it’s a little more involved these days. All easy enough, though. We’ll make sure Mila gets exactly what she needs.”

“Well, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your summer to come meet her.” She paused, pressing two fingers to her mouth. “Oh, how rude of me. It’s getting late. Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

The faint scent of bread wafting out of the oven made my mouth water. The only thing I had waiting for me at home was a microwave dinner and a dying monstera which made the offer of dinner and company tempting. Unbelievably tempting.

“That’s so nice, but I couldn’t,” I said with a demure smile.

Even if Aunt Mercy didn’t remember my evening phone call, I still made it each and every night. And I spent the hour after that call curled up on the couch, wondering whether sending her to a memory care facility was really the right thing to do, or just the easy thing.

Unsure if I could turn down Gloria’s offer a second time, I plowed ahead.

“Next Thursday at nine A.M., we’ll have an informal school tour for all the kindergarteners.

Mila can meet her classmates and get acclimated to the layout of the school before all the other kids get there. I hope I’ll see you then?”

“Sure thing,” Gloria said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Let me walk you out.”

I eyed the bubbling sauce on the oven. “No worries, I remember the way. Good night.”

I turned and threaded my way through the kitchen, living room, and hallway, relieved. I had made it through the meeting. Seeing Gloria had stirred up a host of memories about Aunt Mercy, memories from before she became fearful at sunset and saw people who weren’t there.

My social battery spent, I reached for the doorknob, but it turned beneath my loose grip. I stepped back, confused, as the door opened.

The setting sun backlit a man who filled most of the doorway.

His broad shoulders nearly brushed against the door frame.

He peered down at me with a sneer and steely brown eyes reminiscent of the little girl in a princess costume upstairs.

His brown hair was wet, clinging to his forehead in the humid late-summer air.

He would have been wildly handsome if he wasn’t so intimidating.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, voice booming, the low pitch gripping my chest.

And then I had the same reaction to everything I’d had ever since I moved Aunt Mercy out of her home.

I burst into tears.