Between the Lines (5 page)

I open my
notes and read from the beginning, so I can jot down any additional questions I
may be able to ask Gabe.

Baxter
first came to my attention while I was sitting in the ER at Bellevue last
November after the cab I was in was rear-ended. I wasn’t exactly hurt, thank
goodness, just being checked out because we had been slammed pretty good. I was
about to leave, out of patience for having to wait so long when they put a young
woman in the room next to mine. They may have walls and glass doors, but I
would have been able to hear her through cement. Luckily I had my recorder with
me and taped everything that was said. It was wrong, and probably illegal, but
it isn’t like I’m going to publish the transcript. This was simply for research
purposes. 

I click
on the file and read it once again.

“It
says here you graduated from Baxter Academy of Arts last summer,” a social worker
is saying.

“A
hell of a lot of good that did. And, I didn’t fucking graduate. They kicked me
out because I wouldn’t get with the program.”

“What
happened?”

“I was
the best fucking artist they had. The rest are just little robots playing at
art.”

“Okay.”

“Taking
their drugs like good little kids.”

“And
you didn’t?”

“Hell
no. I’m not going to become one of their robots to be controlled.”

“I
don’t think it was about control.”

“What
the fuck do you know about it? That place is fucking messed up. Drugs and
punishments. Nobody tells you about that, ever.”

“What
kind of punishments?” the social worker asks with concern.

The
girl snorts. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yes,
I do.”

“Why,”
she screams. “You wouldn’t believe me. Nobody does. They just want everyone to
believe the school is for gifted artists and that’s it. The place is fucked up.
They aren’t helping a damn person. They’re fucking them up. Do you understand?”

“How?”

“How?”
the girl screeches. “The drugs, the meals, if that’s that you want to call it,
rooms that are no more than cells. It’s like being in prison.”

“Is
there any specific person you hold responsible at Baxter?”

“The
nurse.”

“School
nurse?”

“She’s
the most evil of them all.”

“What
about the teachers?”

“Not
so bad, they weren’t the ones messing with our heads and other stuff. Hell, I
don’t think they have a clue what was happening after they left for the day.”

The
recording ended there because a tech came to get me for x-ray. When I came
back, the girl was gone. I don’t know where she went and I couldn’t learn who
she was to find out more.

And I
just made out with a teacher from Baxter. What the hell was I thinking?

I know
it’s only one person’s accusations, but that is all I need. Sometimes there is
only one who is willing to speak out and I owe it to that anonymous girl to
figure out if there are evils at Baxter. If it means I need to get close to
Gabe, I will. I just hope he isn’t guilty of the abuse

My gut is
telling me that he’s innocent and my gut is never wrong. But, he has to know
something and I intend to find out.

Gabe –
5

“Did you
see this?” Mateo tosses me the newspaper as I come from my bedroom.

“I just
woke up.” It took me forever to get to sleep because of my raging hard on and
thinking about what I wanted to do with Ellen. I grab a cup from the cupboard
and pour myself some coffee, not even looking at the paper.

“Look at
it,” Mateo says with disgust before shoving another spoon of cereal in his
mouth.

“Fine!” I
sit on the opposite side of the counter and start reading the headlines. “What
am I looking for?” I’m not even sure my brain is awake. Why can’t he just tell
me what has him so pissed?

“Just
keep reading. You’ll know it when you see it.”

I’m not
in the mood, but I do what he wants and read page after page of headlines. I’m
not seeing anything that would put him in this mood. That is, until I get to
the bottom of page seven, in small print. “Babysitter Recants. Charges
dropped.” There are barely two paragraphs explaining that the girl had lied.

“They
couldn’t wait to get it on the front page on Sunday. It barely made print
today.”

“Fucking
reporters!” At least they never named Jesse. That’s about the only thing they
did right.

There was
a time I loved reporters and didn’t mind when the flash of their cameras nearly
blinded me. But that was in high school and college, when I was all-star and
had my pick of what college I wanted to play for. Hell, I didn’t even mind when
they were reporting on my career ending injury. But, they became nasty after
the incident at the middle school I taught at for a short time. Investigating
me, as if it was my fault the kid got hurt and nothing was further from the
truth. That’s when I started seeing reporters for what they really were. Too
often responsibility in reporting takes a back seat to the agendas of the
networks, and that facts are sometimes distorted, even omitted, if they’re even
checked at all, the minute they learn of a potential scandalous or
scintillating story. It’s all about selling papers or magazines, getting more
readers online and having the most viewed newscast. The competition to be on
top seems to be more important than the complete unbiased truth at times.

Is that
one of the reasons Ellen doesn’t want to work for a paper? I know she said she
wanted to report on what she picked and I can only hope she has higher ethics
than the ones I’ve encountered recently.

“Speaking
of reporters.” Mateo is grinning at me. “Are you seeing Ellen today?”

“Yep.”

“Can you
do me a favor and put something like a sock on the door to warn me away. Or
better yet, use your bedroom.”

“Shove
it!” I
growl
and get up. Neither one of us have had a girl in the place
the entire time we’ve lived here. This is a new situation for both of us. “I
won’t be sleeping with her.”

He
coughs. “That’s not what it looked like to me.”

I go to
the fridge, not certain what I’m going to make for breakfast.

“Unless
you don’t realize that’s what you were about to do. I’ve got books that can
explain. You know, the birds and the bees and that shit.”

I glare
at him over my shoulder before I grab the milk. Then stop. We never ate our
dessert. I ignore Mateo, grab my cup of coffee, and go to my room. I know
exactly what we’re having for breakfast and my roommate isn’t invited.

Ellen

I jerk
awake at the pounding on my door and glance around. I can’t believe I slept on
the couch last night. I just wanted to rest my eyes for a bit after all the
research, not that I was able to learn much more because despite my best
efforts, I couldn’t concentrate. I just knew I couldn’t go into the bedroom, at
the back of the apartment where I could be trapped.

I can’t
believe Krestyanov is getting a new trial. I thought it was all behind me. The
phones were just a precaution. They weren’t supposed to ever ring again.

Whoever
it is knocks again and I pull myself from the couch and look through the
peephole. I blow out the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding when I see Gabe
and open the door. “What time is it?”

“Almost
nine.”

“Nine!” I
wanted to be out of here a lot earlier, and on a train to New York, where I
could dump the phone. I can’t lose it here. The town is too small. If it’s
tracked, not that it should be, but my paranoia goes in to high gear where
Krestyanov is concerned and I want to get rid of it in a place where it’s nearly
impossible to find.

“I didn’t
think you had plans.”

“I
didn’t, but I do now.”

The smile
slips from his face and I notice he’s holding one of the containers from last
night.

“What’s
that?”

“Breakfast.”

My
stomach revolts. I so cannot eat chicken parmesan for breakfast. “Leftovers?”

“Dessert.”
He grins.

I had
forgotten about the tiramisu. “As delicious as it sounds, I can’t eat that
first thing.”

“Okay,”
he says and walks into my kitchen putting it away. “I’ll check in with you
later, to see if you want to do anything.”

Later. I
don’t know when that will even be. It takes over an hour to get into the city.
Then I have to find a place to lose the phone and then come back here.

I look up
into his light blue eyes. Nobody says I need to go alone.  “Why don’t you come
with me?”

He lifts
and eyebrow. “Where?”

“I’m
going into the city.”

“Why?”

Shit! I
can’t tell him the truth. “To see a musical,” I blurt out the first thing that
comes to me. “I decided last night after seeing what’s playing.” Damn, I hate
lying.

“Which
one?”

I’m
trying to think of what I wanted to see when I went back. “Gigi! It opened on
April 8th.”

“I’ve
never heard of it.”

Dumbfounded,
all I can do is stare at him. “Not even the movie with Leslie Caron?”

Gabe
shrugs. “I’m a dumb jock, remember.”

There is
nothing about Gabe that is dumb and I laugh. “Have you read Collette?”

“Of
course,” he answers as if affront and then his eyes widen. “
That
Gigi?”

I roll my
eyes at him. Maybe his brain is a little thick. “Yes, it’s based on the book.”

“What time?”
He seems a lot more interested than he was at first.

I slide
my fingers across the mouse, waking up my laptop. The Baxter website pops up
and I quickly close it and search for tickets. Hopefully, Gabe didn’t notice.
“They don’t have a matinee. It starts at eight.”

“That’s
not a problem,” he says, sitting on the couch. “We can stay in the city or
drive back late.”

“I’m
taking the train.”

“Then,
we’ll stay.”

I bite my
lip. What if he wants to share a room? I’m not sure I’m ready for intimacy. Of
course, twelve hours ago I would have stripped in an instant, but in the light
of day, I realize how foolish that would have been. I don’t even know him and
learned no more last night about him or Baxter.  “We can stay at my apartment.
Actually, my friend, Paige owns it, but we’ve been roommates since junior
year.” The living arrangements are perfect. It’s close to Columbia, my name
isn’t on a lease or mortgage anywhere, and she’s glad to have someone living
there while she’s on tour. “Paige’s gone right now, not that she’d mind
anyway.” 

“Great.
When do you want to leave?”

“In an
hour. After I shower?”

His jaw
drops. “That show isn’t for hours.”

And I
need to get there sooner than later. “We can make a day of it.” I smile and
head down the hall. This is the perfect opportunity to get to know him better
and to find out what I can about Baxter. Not that I can really concentrate on
the school right now. I’ve got a phone to ditch and bad guys to avoid. Besides,
that girl said that the teachers probably weren’t even aware of what was really
happening so maybe Gabe is clueless. And, he wasn’t even employed by Baxter
when the girl left, so he might not have any idea what was going on when she
was a student.

Gabe – 6

What
isn’t Ellen telling me and why was she looking at Baxter’s website? I glance
over at her. We’re seated side by side on the train and she’s reading a
magazine. It’s hard to talk privately on the crowded train, not that we’d
discuss anything that we wouldn’t want anyone to overhear. We don’t know each other
well enough to have private conversations and the reason I’m having so many
questions.

She’s not
being honest, that’s for sure. Not that I’ve caught her in a lie, but I could
swear she was making the whole plan up about seeing
Gigi
while I was
standing in her apartment.

Was she
going to sneak out so she wouldn’t have to face me after last night, but I
showed up on her doorstep? Was she regretting what we’d done? Not that we’d
done all that much, but maybe she didn’t like it?

That
isn’t it. She wanted me as much as I wanted her and if Mateo hadn’t walked in
on us, I’m sure we would have been waking up with each other. So, what’s going
on with Ellen?

Why is
she researching Baxter? Was it simple curiosity because Mateo and I work there
or more?

I could
ask her, but after the way she danced around going to the theatre, I’m not
certain I’d get a straight answer.

And, she
is a reporter.

Shit!

Did she
read about Jesse in the newspaper or see it on television?  Even though his
name was never mentioned and the only link to his identity was “an art teacher,
who owns a studio in town, and had a child, was being investigated. Did she
figure it out and is here to snoop around?

But, she
moved into the apartment before the news broke. Maybe even before the
accusations and arrest, so, it isn’t Jesse, but it’s something.

“Why were
you looking up Baxter?”

She
blinks up at me, her brown eyes innocent. Or are they? “You and Mateo work
there. I was curious.”

I nod. I
shouldn’t mistrust her just because she’s a journalist. I certainly wasn’t
mistrusting her yesterday when I had her beneath me. Maybe I just need sleep. I
didn’t get that much last night, not with thinking about Ellen and what we
could have been doing. “It’s just an art school for high school students.”

“But they
live there.”

I shrug.
“It’s a boarding school. That’s about it.”

 “I think
it’s interesting.” Ellen puts her book aside. “I’ve never been to a boarding
school before. What’s it like?”

And she
won’t be visiting Baxter, unless I take her, and only after she’s been vetted.
“Dorms, classrooms, a cafeteria. A mini college set-up of sorts.”

“It used
to be a plantation, right?”

I laugh.
“The only thing left is the house, the original kitchen, a carriage house,
blacksmith’s building, and a few cabins.”

“I still
think it’s fascinating though, but what kind of parent ships their kids off to
a boarding school?  I get military academies for the troublemakers, but these
kids are artists and musicians. They aren’t the ones usually causing problems
at school. It’s got to suck to have your parent send you away.”

Nobody’s
parent sent their kid there, at least not in the traditional sense. “Don’t
know. I just teach English, Literature and Creative Writing.” It’s the same
answer I gave her before and I’m not about to feed her any more information
about Baxter, even if she is
fascinated
.

“Have you
always liked English?”

“I’ve
always liked reading,” I answer honestly. She seems a bit surprised. “I know,
most jocks don’t know how to read.”

She
laughs while she blushes. I’m not offended. It’s a stereotype I’ve had to live
with.

“What do
you like to read?”

“Anything
and everything.” I hand over my e-reader. “Take a look for yourself.”

She
starts sliding her finger across the screen, reading the titles, I assume,
silently. “Mystery, Sci-fi, Fantasy, and even romance.”

“I like
to read.”

She goes
back to swipe the page again. “Classics, Military, New Adult, Young Adult, and
what is this.”

Shit!

“Why, Mr.
Kent, do your students know you read erotica?”

My face
is getting warm. At least she whispered the last word. “I read
everything
.” 

“Is it
any good?” She blinks innocently at me.

“We could
read it together and find out.”

Ellen
sucks in a breath and her face turns red. “That may not be such a good idea.”
She hands my e-reader back. “Especially on a crowded train.”

Maybe
that’s why she was skittish this morning. Things did move very fast yesterday.
I relax back into my seat. I’m worried about nothing. She’s a nice girl. Sexy
as hell, but sweet. And, I do need to get to know her better, which will make
the first time we have sex all the better.

“Have you
always been a reader?”

“As far
back as I can remember.” Mostly hiding it from my father because my time was
better spent practicing one sport or another. Unless it was the newspaper,
reading was a waste of time and for girls or sissies. He’d probably take his
belt to me if he saw a romance on the reader. Then again, Dad hasn’t reached
for his belt since I was sixteen and looked him in the eye, almost daring him
to hit me one more time.

The train
starts pulling into the station and I shove my e-reader into my backpack as
Ellen grabs her stuff. Pain shoots up my thigh when I stand. I sat too long
with it bent, unable to stretch out in these seats. I grab my cane and wait for
break in the traffic before stepping out in the aisle and letting her go ahead
of me. I hate that I have to move so slow and need to rely on my cane so much,
but I can’t help it until it loosens up. The people behind me are probably
grumbling about the old man holding them up.

When we
reach the exit, I hook the cane over my arm, grab the handrails and hop down
the steps on one foot.

Ellen’s
brown eyes are full of worry. “Let’s take a cab,” she blurts out.

“I just
need to let it loosen up. Besides, if I don’t walk on it some, I’ll never make
it through a production at the theatre.”

Ellen

He might
not admit it, but Gabe is in a lot of pain. He may think he’s hiding it but
he’s not. It’s in his squinted blue eyes and in the white tightness around his
mouth. He needs to get that leg stretched out, or some medication, or ice or
something.  “Is there anything you can take?”

“I’ll get
some Ibuprofen when we get a chance.”

That
isn’t going to help. Not that kind of pain he is in. That’s what you take for a
headache. “You don’t have anything stronger?”

“Back at
the apartment, but I rarely take it.”

I wheel
around on him. “Why the hell not?”

“It’s a
narcotic.”

“So?” If
I was in as much pain as he seems to be, I’d be taking whatever I could get my
hands on.

“I’ve
seen too many guys become addicted to them. Athletes that have too many
injuries. They dope up so they can keep playing and then they can’t survive
without them.”

Interesting
that he doesn’t like drugs, even those prescribed. It makes me think he’s
innocent of any wrongdoing at Baxter because I can’t imagine he would remain
silent if he knew kids were getting drugged up. “So, you just plan to tough it
out?”

“Unless
it’s impossible not to.”

I shake
my head and turn back to the exit from Penn Station. “Wait here,” I tell him
and to go hail a taxi. Luckily there are at least a dozen waiting to pick up
passengers. I wave over to Gabe, who is already making his way toward me and we
get inside.

“Where
to?”

“Central
Park,” I answer and settle back before glancing over at Gabe. He did say he
needed to stretch his leg and I can’t go to the apartment yet. Gabe lays his
head back and closes his eyes. At least I know I have an ice pack.

Since
he’s not paying attention to me, I slip my hand inside my bag and grab my cell
phones. I have three on me right now. My regular one, for Ellen West, and the
number I give everyone. The burner I charged overnight, and the one that needs
to disappear. My bag is huge and I look inside, clicking on the flashlight of
the iPhone so I can tell the other two apart. The one with the big blue “X” is
the one that has to go. I palm it and slip it out of the bag, then shove it in
the gap in the back seat of the cab without Gabe having a clue. If anyone is
tracking the phone, they’ll have a hell of a time finding me after it’s gone
all over New York and back. Worst case scenario, they’ll know I took the train
into New York and went to Central Park. They’ll never track me from there. It’d
be impossible.

The taxi
pulls up to one of the many entrances and I pay him, adding a generous tip and
get out. Gabe glances around. “I haven’t been here in a long time.”

“You did
say you wanted to walk a bit.”

He
grimaces and starts off.

“Are you
hungry? We can get something to eat?”

“Nah.
Just let me work this out for a bit.”

I match
my pace with his, looking over my shoulder in every direction. I sure hope I’m
just being paranoid and nobody is tracking me. I haven’t looked over my
shoulder in so long and am not used to it anymore.