The Headmaster's Wife by Jane Haddam Read Free Book Online

time.”
    â€œI’ve always been on pins and needles.”
    â€œPersecution in the Midwest. I know.”
    â€œIt wasn’t persecution,” Cherie said. “It was—” She shrugged and went back to looking out the window onto the quad. “Do you know who I saw a moment ago? Mark DeAvecca.”
    â€œStoned as usual, I take it. It’s Friday night.”
    â€œYou can call it stoned if you want to.”
    â€œIt’s the best way of putting it,” Melissa said. “It fits his behavior. I’ve known dozens of kids like him in my life. There’s a soft underbelly of them in every good school.”
    â€œHe’s a brilliant kid,” Cherie said. “I know a lot of people around here think he’s stupid, but it isn’t true. It comes out every once in a while when you talk to him.”
    â€œHe’d have to be a brilliant kid,” Melissa said. She curled her legs up under her. “Look, I know I make fun of this place a lot It’s hard not to make fun of it. They’re so damned self-conscious about how progressive they all are, they make political correctness look sane. But even I know that the work here is not easy. If he wasn’t a brilliant kid, he couldn’t get away with the crap he pulls without flunking out.”
    â€œHe’s not even close to flunking out. I know a dozen kids with grades worse than his.”
    â€œExactly. And that in spite of the fact that he doesn’t know where he is half the time. But Cherie, no matter how bright he is, there’s nothing you can do for someone like that.”
    â€œEverybody thinks he takes drugs,” Cherie said again,feeling mulish. “His roommate takes drugs sometimes, what’s his name, Michael Feyre. You can smell it on him.”
    â€œWell, yes,” Melissa said, “Michael Feyre is not a brilliant kid. He doesn’t hide it very well.”
    â€œWith Mark DeAvecca, it’s not like drugs. It’s like—”
    â€œWhat?”
    Cherie shrugged. “Senile dementia.”
    â€œSenile dementia?” Melissa said. “The kid is sixteen, for God’s sake, and you think he’s got Alzheimer’s disease?”
    â€œNo, not really.” Cherie shook her head. “It’s not that I think he has it, it’s that that’s what it’s like. He
does
things. He forgets things—She’ll be sitting in class and we’ll be working out a problem, and he’ll do it. He’ll sit right there and do it. Then we’ll move on to something else, and maybe ten minutes later I’ll ask about the problem, and he won’t remember it. He won’t remember a tiling about it.”
    â€œDrugs.”
    â€œNo,” Cherie said. “If it was drugs, he wouldn’t have been able to do the problem in the first place. There’s something going on with that kid. I wish I knew what it was.”
    â€œDon’t bother. I mean it, Cherie, there’s no point in bothering. The kid’s got a famous mother and a rich father. A rich and famous father, come to think of it.”
    â€œStepfather,” Cherie said automatically. “His biological father is dead.”
    â€œWhatever. It doesn’t matter. They won’t throw him out of here, and they won’t do anything about what’s going on because they don’t want one of the paying customers to leave, and they don’t want a lawsuit or, worse, Mama to hit the Op-Ed pages of all the best newspapers blasting them to hell.”
    Cherie bit her lip. The carillon was marking a quarter hour. She’d noticed the clock in the kitchen at nine fifteen just a little while ago. It had to be nine thirty. The quad was empty. She’d always hated the cold. Back in Ann Arbor, she’d promised herself that as soon as she had the chance she’d go somewhere warm. She’d do her graduate work in Florida or Hawaii. She’d move to Texas or