Rio's Fire (14 page)

Fire screwed up his face as he mimicked Rio, sticking out his tongue for good measure.
Sourpuss.

“If he has something to hide,” Rio whispered, “it might be upstairs.”

That sounded logical to Fire. If he were hiding something demonic, say…like a dead body, the second floor would be the place he would hide it. Now that he thought about it, if he ever committed a crime like that, he knew where
not
to hide anything. They went up a set of carpeted steps, reaching the second floor.

“I’ll take this end and you take the other,” his mate said as he pointed to where he wanted Fire to search.

There was only an office on Rio’s end of the hallway.

“Why do I have to get his bedroom?” Fire protested with a stamp of his foot. “Why can’t you go snooping around in his underwear
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drawer?” Fire felt nauseous at the idea of touching anything that belonged under Mr. Fishman’s pants. He wanted to scrub the image from his mind with a jackhammer. “Make me think about the principal’s underwear again and I can promise you, it’ll be a long time before I’m turned on.”

“Fine,” Rio said with a deep growl, looking even more disgusted than Fire felt at the idea of touching Mr. Fishman’s G-strings. “You owe me for this.”

Fire would pay Rio back with anything just as long as he didn’t have to rifle through the principal’s drawers. He knew there wasn’t a dead body in a dresser, but Fire had to find a way not to step into the man’s bedroom.

He
so
wanted to be a fly on the wall right now so he could watch Rio shuffle the portly man’s underwear around. He was never going to let the panther live this one down. Smiling to himself, Fire entered the office and began to search.

He was beginning to become frustrated when he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. One thing he did notice was that the principal had a lot of office supplies.
Naughty, naughty.
It seemed the principal was stealing from the school office.

Other than the pilfered Post-it Notes, abundance of pens, and enough paper clips to feed a starving country, there was nothing incriminating in Mr. Fishman’s office. Fire didn’t see a dead body anywhere, nor did he find anything that said Mr. Fishman was a demon posing as a human.

Maybe Rio had better luck. Fire sure as hell hoped so. He was running out of ideas of where to search for proof that the principal was a demon in disguise.

Just as Fire was about to leave the office, he heard Mr. Fishman’s loud booming voice out in the upstairs hallway. Either someone was with the man or he was on his phone talking. Fire panicked. What the hell was the principal doing home? Frantically looking around the office, Fire saw that there was nowhere for him to escape.

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There wasn’t even a closet in the office. He spotted heavy drapes by the window and knew he had no choice. Fire quickly tucked his frame behind it and thanked the feys that he was skinny as a rail.

Quickly tugging the mask off of his face, Fire held his breath.

He heard the door open. “No, I will be back this afternoon. I took the rest of the day off to get some work done at home.”

Oh, no, no, no.
Fire was not going to be stuck behind the drape for the rest of the afternoon, but he couldn’t think of a way to escape without Mr. Fishman seeing him. If he and Rio didn’t return to school by the time lunch was over, Mr. Fishman would get a call. They would both be in serious trouble. Again, Fire couldn’t allow Rio to lose his job. The man was a natural when it came to working with kids.

“I know damn well Mr. Veneto is a spy for Maverick. The mayor put him in my school to check up on me.” Mr. Fishman paused.

“Those allegations are preposterous and unfounded. Teachers these days are just soft and can’t handle constructive criticism. I remember back in the day when teachers were hard-nosed, knowing the score and keeping their students in check. I want that spy out of my school.”

Fire was floored. Mr. Fishman thought he was a spy? He wanted to laugh at the untruth. He was being punished, nothing more. Now that he knew the truth, Fire wasn’t so intimidated by the guy anymore.

Mr. Fishman was about to get canned. Well, he shouldn’t be such a stringent asshole.

Fire had heard the way the man had talked to a lot of the staff. It was deplorable. Even he knew that if Mr. Fishman had a problem with anyone, the man should be tactful about it and take the offending person into his office. He shouldn’t be dressing anyone down in front of others. He was a poor example of leadership.

But it cleared up Rio’s theory that Mr. Fishman was homophobic.

He now knew why the guy was all over him.

“I know it’s not a smart move to leave the school for the rest of the afternoon, but I need to find proof that Mayor Brac is trying to
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sabotage me. I’m not going down without a fight. When I prove those allegations are untrue, I’m firing those teachers who thought they could denunciate me.”

Fire wanted to come from behind the curtain and throttle the man.

Mr. Fishman didn’t think he was in the wrong. It was people like him that made going to work torturous. Fire was going make sure Maverick knew about this conversation.

“That’s a damn good idea,” Mr. Fishman said with light laughter.

“I think I will run for mayor. No one has contested Mayor Brac for as long as I can remember. It’s about time he was voted out of office.

Hell, he doesn’t even have an office.”

Fire was seeing red. Even though Maverick had come down hard on him, it was for a good reason. The man cared. That was exactly why Mr. Fishman was on the verge of losing his job. He knew the alpha couldn’t stand tyrants, and that was exactly what the principal was acting like. Fire wanted to punch the man in his portly face.

Fire heard something hit the window. He held his breath for a moment to see if Mr. Fishman had heard it as well, but the man was still expelling hot air on the phone. Slowly, Fire turned his head.

Rio was down on the front lawn, his arm over his shoulder, and Fire could only assume his mate was propelling small pebbles at the window. When Rio saw Fire looking down at him, he waved for Fire to get his ass down there.

And how did his mate expect him to accomplish that feat? The bracelet was still around his wrist, preventing Fire from shimmering out. He held his hands up in front of him and shrugged and then pointed toward Mr. Fishman. “
I can’t get out of here
,” Fire mouthed to Rio.

Thankfully his mate had taken the black ski mask off. That would’ve drawn a lot of unwanted attention. Rio began to pace back and forth on the front lawn, his expression worried. Fire watched for a moment and then Rio disappeared out of his line of sight.

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“No, no. I’m positive Mr. LeBlanc and Mr. Veneto are fooling around. When I become mayor, this town will see a drastic change.

We need good, wholesome families living here, not a bunch of queers.”

Okay, maybe Rio was correct about Mr. Fishman. Fire wanted to hit the man. His anger boiled over at what the bastard was saying.

What was so wrong about the same sex being together? Fire never understood men like Mr. Fishman. It wasn’t like Fire was trying to sleep with the guy for him to act this way.

He shuddered at that image, wishing he hadn’t thought about it.

He was definitely going to have to scrub his brain.

Fire was relieved when the doorbell rang. That had to be Rio.

There was a sound like someone heavy was getting out of a leather chair. Mr. Fishman should be more worried about his damn health than who was screwing who. “Hold on, Martha. Someone is at my front door.”

Fire knew damn well Rio wasn’t going to stick around for Mr.

Fishman to answer the door. He had played ding-dong ditch with the man. Fire snickered to himself. Rio was finally learning how to loosen up.

Fire counted to ten then bolted from the office. He couldn’t go downstairs right now, but he could hide in one of the other rooms until Mr. Fishman went back into his office. He heard the man coming back up the steps.

“Goddamn teenagers. If I find out who was playing a prank on me, I’ll have them arrested. All kids should be in school right now.”

Mr. Fishman walked into his office and closed the door.

What a fucking prick.
Fire hoped like hell that Maverick tossed Mr. Fishman out on his ear. Cracking the bedroom door open, Fire tiptoed down the hallway until he reached the top of the steps, and then he ran like hell. He shot out the back door, and Rio grabbed him around the waist.

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“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Fire grabbed Rio’s hand as they raced back to Rio’s truck that was parked a mile down the road, out of sight.

When they reached the vehicle, Fire fell on his back, on the grass, laughing his ass off. “Oh my god, my ass is still clenched. I thought for sure I was busted.”

Rio was lying next to him, laughing as well. “You should’ve seen how you were miming to me up in that window. Priceless.”

Fire threw his black ski mask at Rio. “You were the one who had us looking like bank robbers.”

Rio pushed to his feet, extending his hand, and then pulled Fire up as well. “We better get back to work before we’re missed. Did you find anything?” Rio climbed into the truck, Fire as well.

“Other than his pilfered office supplies, no.”

“Me either,” Rio said, sounding disappointed.

“Now what?” Fire asked. “Should we break into his office at school?”

Rio reached over and clasped Fire’s hand with his strong fingers, massaging Fire’s knuckles with his thumb. “I think I may have created a monster. You’re becoming a little too eager to break into places.”

“This coming from a teacher who just ran from the principal’s home in a ski mask,” Fire teased. “If only the little kiddies could see you now.”

Fire watched as his mate sobered and knew what the man was about to say. “He’s not the demon, Fire. We did our jobs and made sure he wasn’t a threat to the kids, but we have to let this go. No more breaking into places, okay?”

He knew the man was right, even if Fire had been willing to bet his life that Mr. Fishman was the demon. As he put the clues together, Fire realized that Mr. Fishman was just an asshole who was afraid Maverick sent in a spy and who hated gay people, nothing more.

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Although Fire would argue that being a homophobic person was demonic in his eyes. But Rio was talking sense. Mr. Fishman was stricken from the suspect list. No other person at the school seemed suspicious, so his and Rio’s days of being private investigators were over.

They were back at school in no time. Just as Fire walked back into his class, the bell rang. That was close. He had just enough time to wash his face and hands before his next class piled into his room.

His after-lunch class had come and gone. Now his last class of the day would soon be arriving.

Today he had Jeff, the crayon bandit. After everything that Fire had been through lately, the kid eating a crayon didn’t seem so bad.

At least it no longer irritated him. “All right, class, settle down. Today we’re going to do something easy.” Fire needed a break after his exciting lunch hour. “I want everybody to grab a piece of construction paper, crayons, a glue stick, and some glitter.”

“What are we drawing?” Suzy asked.

Fire thought about it for a second. “How about your favorite person?” That should make a lot of the parents happy. It would also keep the kids busy. Fire pointed toward a small desk situated next to his. “Jeff, you’re right here next to me, buddy.” Fire wasn’t taking any chances.

The students worked for the rest of the period, Fire letting them draw as many pictures as they wanted. When the dismissal bell rang, Fire instructed them to leave their drawings on their table.

He was thankful as hell he only had one more class until the school day was over. As he cleaned up the mess left behind, Fire picked up the drawing Jeff had been working on. His breath caught in his lungs when he saw two stick figures standing next to each other, holding hands. The smaller stick figure had a bright smile on his face as he held the taller figure’s hand.

Fire knew the small figure was Jeff. What made something warm simmer inside of him was when he realized that the tall figure was
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him. The little hellion had even drawn Fire’s pointy ears. He wasn’t going to cry. No he wasn’t. It was just a drawing.

Setting aside Jeff’s drawing, Fire began to look at the others.

Almost all the drawings were about Fire in some form or another. In the one Lucy had drawn, Fire was a butterfly, who had pointy ears.

Fire had always made sure that his hair covered his ears. But apparently kids were more perceptive than he realized. He still thought them the biggest troublemakers in the world, but damn it, weren’t they the cutest little things?

His kids liked him. He had told them to draw their favorite person…and it was him. Fire set the drawings down and wiped at his eyes, chastising himself for being such a big wuss. They were just drawings.

“Mr. Veneto.”

Fire sighed when he heard Mrs. Crumble’s voice behind him.

Now who got their head stuck in the banister? When Fire turned, he let out a loud gasp. “Are you okay, Mrs. Crumble?” Her skin was a mixture of blue and grey, the bags under her eyes drooping so heavily that it looked like someone was pulling the skin right off of her face.

But her eyes, those were what freaked Fire out the most. They looked devoid of life. He knew the lady was old, but she never looked this damn decrepit before. He was afraid to go near her.

Mrs. Crumble closed the classroom door. “I’ll be feeling a lot better, Mr. Veneto, when I’m done talking with you.”

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Rio wasn’t sure why, but his panther was going nuts. His cat was urging him to go check on Fire. They normally met outside in the hallway or by Rio’s truck after work. It was a damn odd feeling.