Father Christmas (3 page)

Her heart pounded double-time. No
stranger—especially one carrying a firearm—was supposed to get past
the front desk to this small room beyond the reception area. But
Molly’s assistant, Cara, often helped the teachers during lunch
time, and Molly had had to abandon the front desk to bandage
Keisha’s bleeding elbow. No one had been standing guard at the
entry to prevent this man and his gun from invading the
premises.

Swallowing, she squared her shoulders and
stared straight into his eyes. “Can I help you?” she asked, her
voice deceptively firm. Heaven knew, she didn’t want to annoy an
armed man. But she had to get him out of the building, as quickly
and quietly as possible.

“
I’m looking for Molly
Saunders.”

“
Let’s go to the front
desk,” she suggested, risking a step toward him and keeping her
gaze on his face, trying to pretend she hadn’t glimpsed that
scary-looking revolver tucked into the shoulder holster under his
jacket.

He stepped back, allowing
her to pass through the door and lead him into to the reception
area. From the main room came the high pitched chatter of children
and the familiar strains of the
Nutcracker’s
“Waltz of the Flowers.” Still watching the
stranger’s face, Molly eased herself behind the L-shaped desk,
though she didn’t dare to sit. At her right hand the computer
monitor’s screen saver showed fish in colorful outlines, blowing
bubbles. At her left stood the telephone. If she could reach it, if
she could dial the three-digit police emergency number before he
drew out his gun and pulled the trigger...

He remained on the opposite side of the
desk, studying her. “Molly Saunders?” he repeated.

“
I’m Molly
Saunders.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the
other. His jacket rearranged itself, draping over the gun so she
could no longer see it. “I got your name from Allison Winslow,” he
said.

Her nerves subsided a degree. Allison was
her best friend. She wouldn’t give Molly’s name out to a
murderer—at least not intentionally. “Do you know Allison?”

He shook his head. “I got her name from
someone whose case I handled. James McCoy.”

Molly’s tension dropped another notch. Jamie
McCoy, Allison’s fiancé, had discovered an abandoned baby on his
porch last June. If Molly wasn’t mistaken, he’d contacted a private
investigator to locate the child’s mother. Private eyes carried
guns, didn’t they?

If this man was a private eye, his gun was
understandable, even if it made her extremely uneasy. “What can I
do for you, Mr....?”

“
John Russo.” She thought
he was going to shake her hand, but he only stared at her with his
disturbingly dark eyes. “I have a son.”

She nodded, waiting for him to
elaborate.

He seemed to give his words a great deal of
thought before he spoke. “His baby-sitter had to leave town, and
I’m...” His mouth twisted into a smile, or maybe it was a grimace.
“I’d like to enroll him here.”

Molly caught herself before informing him
that the Children’s Garden was full to capacity, with a few names
on the waiting list. Of course it wouldn’t be fair to let him jump
ahead of others on the list, but... He looked desperate. A
desperate man with a gun had to be taken seriously.

“
How old is your son, Mr.
Russo?”

“
Two.”

“
And his
mother—?”

“
Not in the picture,” he
said laconically. Something hardened in his eyes, like molten steel
chilling to black.

All right. A single father of a
two-year-old, with a gun and without a baby-sitter, an acquaintance
of her best friend’s fiancé... She really shouldn’t let him skip
ahead of the others on the waiting list, especially since the Young
Toddlers class was already full. And yet...

And yet those eyes of his...

“
I’m sure you must have
some questions about the Children’s Garden—how our program works,
how we pick our faculty—”

He shook his head. “No questions. Can you
take Mike?”

“
Don’t you even want to
tour the facilities?” She knew that if he did, it would only
confirm that he was right in wanting his son to attend her
preschool. The Children’s Garden operated out of bright, clean
rooms, abundant in wholesome stimuli and learning activities,
arranged with play spaces where children could burn off energy, an
outdoor playground, and bathrooms equipped with everything from
changing tables to potties to real toilets for the older children.
The head faculty all had college degrees, and the adult to child
ratio was much better than the state’s licensing board required.
Molly believed, without undue modesty, that her preschool was the
best in Arlington.

Either John Russo knew the school’s
reputation or he didn’t care. “Can you take him?”

“
Do you want to know about
our fee schedule?”

“
I can afford it,” he
said. “Can you take him?”

She
really
shouldn’t be so willing to ignore the waiting
list, at least not without meeting the child, observing him in
action, getting a sense of how he would fit in with the other
children in the Young Toddler class. “When did you want to have him
start?”

“
Monday.”

Monday? Today was Friday! “Usually, Mr.
Russo, we like to have a child come in and get a feel for the
school. Our program is an excellent one, but it’s not appropriate
for every child.”

“
He’ll do okay.” A muscle
fluttered in Russo’s jaw, the only sign that he was not in complete
control of himself. He held his long, lean body very still. If she
hadn’t glimpsed his gun, she would never guess that he was
armed.

“
I tell you what,” she
said, refusing to consider too deeply why she was willing to
accommodate this man. “On Saturday mornings, I run a special
program for fathers and their children. I call it the Daddy
School.”

“
That’s what your friend
does,” he recalled. “Allison Winslow.”

“
That’s right. She teaches
classes for fathers-to-be and fathers of newborns. Once the
children get older, their fathers have different needs, and so she
graduates them on to me.” Molly smiled. Russo didn’t smile back.
“Anyway, I open the Children’s Garden from ten to twelve for
fathers and their children to come in and play. My teachers and I
observe, offer suggestions, answer questions. Sometimes I’ll
provide more formal instruction while another teacher takes the
children off to play. Why don’t you bring your son tomorrow so I
can meet him?” And so she could see how such a reserved,
self-protective man could possibly relate to a two-year-old boy
whose mother was not in the picture. So she could develop an idea
of what she might be getting herself into if she allowed Russo’s
son into her school. And so Russo himself could see if this was
really what he wanted, what his son needed.

“
Meanwhile,” she continued
when he didn’t speak, “I’ll give you a folder of information about
the Children’s Garden. Also, some forms you’ll need to fill
out—health forms, emergency forms, insurance and so on. Also—” she
pulled a prepared “Welcome to the Garden” folder from a drawer in
the file cabinet behind her, and a fee schedule “—a list of our
tuition costs for the half-day and full-day programs.”

He barely glanced at the fee schedule before
sliding it into the folder. “I’ll be here tomorrow at ten,” he
promised, his dark eyes boring into her for a long, quiet moment
before he turned.

She watched him stroll out of the reception
area and through the front door. Moving around the desk, she
approached the door and spied on him through the glass sidelight.
His legs were absurdly long, his gait as graceful as a dancer’s as
he crossed the parking lot to a nondescript Ford. Seemingly
impervious to the November cold, he yanked off his jacket and
tossed it onto the passenger seat before climbing in.

Seeing the thick leather shoulder strap of
his holster—seeing his gun—she shuddered and turned away. Why on
earth had she agreed to let his son attend her preschool?

His eyes, she acknowledged. The dark power
of his eyes had made her say yes.

“
I DON’T LIKE HARRY,” Mike
announced for the zillionth time.

The raw morning air nipped at John as he
strapped Mike into his booster seat in the back of the car. “Forget
about Harriet, okay? It was just for one day.”

“
I don’t like Harry. I
like Norma,” Mike explained.

John clipped the seat belt into its lock.
“That was yesterday,” he said, straightening up and opening the
driver’s door. The sun was milky white and cold, reminding John
that winter was only a few weeks away. He zipped up his leather
jacket, then lifted the Children’s Garden folder from the roof of
the car, where he’d temporarily left it, and tossed it onto the
passenger seat. Inside, along with a half-dozen forms he’d filled
out delineating the state of Mike’s health, his vaccination
history, John’s phone number at work and his cell-phone number and
the phone numbers of three other neighbors, none of whom were
planning to fly off to San Jose in the foreseeable future, he’d
enclosed a check covering one month’s tuition as well as an
enrollment fee, a supplies fee, and an insurance fee.

Police work paid pretty well, thank God, and
John didn’t have much in the way of expenses. His check wasn’t
going to bounce, even though the number he’d had to write next to
the dollar sign was a whole lot larger than he would have
liked.

He closed Mike’s door, then got in behind
the wheel and started the engine. “No more Harry,” he said,
adapting to Mike’s speech patterns. “Except for emergencies. If
everything works out today, you’re going to go to school.”

“
What school?”

“
A school for
kids.”

“
They got
cookies?”

“
Probably,” John fibbed.
One of the brochures in the Children’s Garden folder discussed
nutrition, urging parents not to pack their children’s lunch bags
and boxes with sweets and describing the healthful snacks—fruit,
cheese, crackers and the like—the school provided. But maybe every
now and then they’d splurge on cookies for the kids. If they knew
anything about children, they’d recognize the value of cookies as a
behavioral tool.

“
Norma in the
school?”

“
No. There’ll be other
teachers there. A lady named Molly.”

“
Molly?”

“
Molly Saunders.” An image
of the woman flashed across John’s vision, nearly obliterating his
view of the modest residential street through the
windshield.
Molly Saunders
.
Glossy brown hair, amber-brown eyes...and the fullest, sweetest
lips he’d ever seen on a woman.

He hadn’t wanted to notice her lips. Or her
eyes, wide-set and direct, or her hair, stick-straight and
blunt-cut in a sassy shoulder-length style. Or her figure, a
delicious array of curves proportioned just right for her petite
frame. He hadn’t wanted to notice that she was young and fresh and
pretty. He didn’t want to think of her as a woman.

She was a teacher. A preschool
administrator. A first-aid expert who had been applying a bandage
strip to a little girl’s elbow when John had entered the school.
He’d lurked just outside the door to that small storage room,
beyond the girl’s line of vision, and watched as Molly spoke to the
fretful child, consoling her as she washed the trickle of blood
from the girl’s tiny scrape, dabbed a no-sting ointment on the
girl’s skin, ruffled her hair and regaled her with a story about a
snow-man who lost his bow-tie and wound up with a scarf instead.
And then Molly Saunders had touched a magic wand to the girl’s
elbow.

Twenty-four hours after John had walked out
of the Balfours’ blood-stained bedroom, he’d found himself
transfixed by a woman with a gentle voice and a magic wand. He’d
been thinking about that woman ever since.

He didn’t want to think about her. He just
wanted to know he could leave his son in a safe place while he was
at work. If Molly Saunders was part of that safe place, so be
it.

“
I wanna cookie,” Mike
said.

At last, he was off his I-don’t-like-Harry
kick. John didn’t have the heart to tell him about the nutrition
brochure in the folder. If the Children’s Garden Preschool was
really hard-core about refined-sugar treats, Mike was going to be
as disappointed with this child-care arrangement as he’d been with
Harriet Simka.

A dozen cars were parked in the lot outside
the square brick building on Dudley Road, in a neighborhood that
straddled the undefined boundary separating urban from suburban
Arlington. A few blocks north placed a person in the downtown
business district, but the Preschool building sat at a comfortable
remove from the city’s hustle and bustle. Several leafless trees
bordered the small parking lot. Beyond the chain-link fence that
surrounded the rear yard, John could see a sprawling outdoor play
area surrounded by dead grass.

Mike noticed the play area as soon as John
let him out of his car seat. He raced over to the fence. “I go on
the swing!” he yelled. “I go on the swing!”

No one was on the swing, or any of the other
equipment. It was too cold for children to play outdoors.

John joined his son by the fence to check
out the play area. Besides the swing set there was an expanse of
sand and a complicated jungle-gym featuring slides, bridges,
tunnels and a small raised platform that children could reach by
climbing a rope ladder on one side or a sloping pile of tires on
the other. It looked like something an imaginative kid could turn
into a house or a fort or an airport under siege by two-year-old
guerrillas.