Page 29

TWENTY-EIGHT

The following workday moves excruciatingly slow, each hour seeming to stretch even longer into the next. Everyone is moving forward, trying to act like it’s a normal school day. For my part, I try to interact with my students as little as possible, allowing them to have free rein of the gym during my P.E. classes.

I can’t stop thinking about everything that’s transpired since Friday night.

Evie’s disappearance.

My confrontations with Nadia.

The visit from Detective Fields, and Connor’s lie.

Why would Connor insist he was home all night on Friday? His visit to the school lasted a mere ten minutes, hours before Evie’s abduction. Why not be upfront about it?

The glass on my office door rattles. I’ve just sat down at my desk for my planning period, and the noise startles me. I’d been looking forward to a few minutes alone, even if that only means more time with my thoughts.

The door opens and Kelly pokes her head inside. “Cass, you have a minute?”

“Sure,” I say, sitting behind my desk. “The day is almost over.”

“Has it been as long for you as it has been for me?” she asks, plopping into the worn armchair across from me.

“Longer,” I say. I force myself to smile, to appear friendly.

That’s why I’m surprised when she says, “I want to talk about the team.”

“What about them?” I ask, noting the way she phrases the statement is odd. In the past few days, all anyone wants to talk about is Evie. Where did she go? Who is she with? What can we do to help find her?

The other girls on the team have been an afterthought.

“I know we’re all worried sick over Evie,” she says. “I still can’t believe it, and the more time that passes, the more anxious I feel. How do you think the girls have been holding up?”

Ah, there it is. Kelly is a compassionate teacher, always in tune with her students’ emotions. As difficult as Evie’s disappearance has been on the adults in her life, I can’t imagine how alarming it must be to her peers.

“I’ve spoken with some of them more than others,” I say. “They seem to be holding up as best as they can, given the circumstances.”

Kelly leans forward, lowering her voice, even though we’re the only two in the room. “Rumor is the family is off the suspect list.”

I nod. “The mother and boyfriend have a solid alibi for Friday night. Evie’s home life has its risks, but the police don’t think it’s anything tied to her disappearance.”

“If it’s not them, who could it be?” Kelly leans back again, almost as though she’s disappointed with that response. “Tell me. How were the girls treating Evie on the night of the lock-in?”

Again, the way she phrases her question strikes me. I sit up straighter, recalling, for what must be the dozenth time, everything I remember from that night.

“It was a normal night,” I say. “As far as their interactions went.”

“Evie didn’t seem bothered? They weren’t ganging up on her?”

I think back to the night in question, but all I feel is frustration. I shake my head. “Kelly, I’m not following what you’re getting at.”

“I take it Mr. Lake never came to you with my concerns,” she says, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

“Concerns about what?”

She raises her head and locks eyes with me. “Some of the girls on your team were bullying Evie. They have been for weeks.”

“Bullying?”

It’s not a word that’s thrown around as flippantly as it was during my youth, especially in the educational setting. In years past, there have been situations where students have been expelled from school for targeting a particular student. Kelly—an English teacher—is careful with her words, and her tone conveys an added layer of seriousness.

“I went to him about it weeks ago,” she says. “It’s been constant and consistent. Their other teachers have noticed, too. You hadn’t picked up anything?”

“There’s always banter back and forth during practices,” I say, “but it’s harmless. Part of the game. I’ve never seen any behavior I’d consider cruel.”

“It doesn’t surprise me they temper their behavior around you,” she says. “If they get in trouble in the classroom, they receive a modest punishment. Maybe a phone call home. If they get in trouble with you, they lose playing time.”

Kelly’s right, and it strikes me how manipulative these girls can be, even at their young ages. “Which girls was it?”

“Tara, Amber and Beatrice,” she says. “The three of them would get together and target Evie the entirety of my class, if I allowed it. I imagine it starts from the moment they arrive at school.”

“What do they do?”

“Sometimes they’ll take her binder or her backpack and move it around the room. Or they’ll break her pencils. Anything to get her flustered before class,” she says. “They call her names and have these inside jokes that seem to really bother her.”

“Like what?”

“They call her Coach’s Pet because she’s your favorite.” She pauses. “And SoEd.”

“I’ve heard them say that before,” I say. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“It’s an acronym. It stands for Same Outfit Every Day.”

My stomach clenches and writhes like there’s something inside it, a living embodiment of my anger. I think of Evie, coming to school every day in the same forest-green hoodie. She doesn’t have her pick of name-brand ensembles like the rest of her classmates, and even though that’s obvious, I can’t believe her peers would be so cruel as to bring it up. Her teammates.

“And it’s always the same three girls?” I say, my words clipped as I try and fail to hold back my anger.

“From what I’ve seen, yes,” Kelly says. “One day at the beginning of the month, Evie was so upset I had to excuse her to the nurse’s office for the remainder of my class.”

I imagine Evie. Splotchy face, balled up inside herself. The weight of carrying those insults all on her own. If Beatrice, Tara and Amber are targeting her this harshly, she must have felt like there was no escape. Between the basketball schedule and her classes, she’s always around at least one of them.

Tara was the one who first came to me and suggested Crystal’s boyfriend made Evie feel uncomfortable. It’s hard to believe Evie would confide in her bully. Maybe Tara only told me that because she wanted me—and the police—to look in a different direction.

“You should have come to me,” I say to Kelly, stretching my fingers to stop myself from making a fist. “If I’d known what the girls were doing, I would have done something about it.”

“I know,” she says. “I was told not to mention it to you.”

“By whom?”

“Mr. Lake. I told you I brought all this to his attention weeks ago, but it was as the team was nearing the tournament, and he thought addressing it before then would cause more harm than good.” She looks into her lap. “Doesn’t really seem to matter now that Evie is gone. I’m worried that things were worse between the girls than anyone knew.”

My body itches with fury. I stand, trying to shift the energy inside my chest. “Thanks for telling me. I can’t address these things if I don’t know about them.”

“I only wish I would have come to you sooner,” she says, also standing. “If I’d known…”

Her words trail away. None of us could have predicted Evie’s disappearance, but if we want to find out what happened, we must reexamine everything we knew, or thought we knew, about her life. That includes her relationship with the girls on the team.

I’d seen some irritation between the girls on the basketball court, but that’s normal. In some ways, even healthy. The girls challenge each other to be better and improve their own skills in the process. They might banter back and forth, but they also give each other hugs and cheer each other on when we score the championship prize.

Kelly’s description of the girls’ behavior goes far beyond rival sportsmanship. At least three of the girls on my team were actively targeting Evie, and they were smart enough to do it when I wasn’t around. Could the girls have planned something at the lock-in I didn’t know about? Could they have taken their bullying to the next level after I fell asleep? Is this what Evie wanted to tell me?

I’m determined to find the answers to those questions, but first I need to talk to Mr. Lake.