“Okay,” Aurora agreed. She and Fitzgibbon headed out of the room together.
“What if the kid ghosts are in the lunchroom? They already know Everly can see them.” Ronan was back to looking worried instead of grossed out.
Ten had been thinking the same thing. “I’ll tell them that Cope and I can also help them, and Everly can agree.”
“That sounds like a good plan.” Cope sighed. “Another day, another ghost.”
Ten got up from his seat. “Only this time, they’re kids. I don’t know what’s worse, little ones Everly’s age or the assholes who hurt kids.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Grimm,” Principal Preston said from the doorway. “We don’t saythatword in school.”
Ten felt all the blood drain from his face. “Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry, Principal Preston.”
“If you were one of my kids, you’d get a detention.” Max laughed at the scared look on Ten’s face.
“I do my best to keep him in line, but Ten likes to go his own way and blaze his own trail.” Ronan shook his head as if he were disappointed in Ten
The principal snorted. “Husbands can be difficult at this age.”
Ronan snorted. “Preach, brother.”
“Actually, I’m glad you’re here. There’s something I need to ask you about.” Ten forgot his embarrassment at being jokingly chastised by Max Preston. If there had been child deaths at the school, the principal would know about them.
Raising an eyebrow, Max stepped into the classroom and closed the door behind him. “What’s up?”
“This might sound bizarre, but have there been any children who…” Christ, this was going to be harder than he thought.
“Who, what?” Concern lit the principal’s eyes.
“Who died at the school? Possibly in the sixties or seventies.” Ten crossed his fingers Preston could help him.
Preston sighed. He took a seat on the edge of the teacher’s desk. “As a matter of fact, there were three kids who died here in 1968.”
“Two boys and a girl?” Ten asked. He knew Everly had been right on the ball with what she’d seen but wanted to hear the principal verify the facts.
“Right. The incident was well before my time, so I’ve only ever heard about it through the grapevine. The long and the short of it was that three kids died during lunchtime. Back then, the school population was small enough that kindergarten through fourth grade all went to the cafeteria at the same time. “
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the parents, finding out their kids had died in the place they should have been the safest.” Although, with the rise in school shootings and peer-on-peer violence, schools hadn’t been safe in decades. Ten shivered at the thought. He put his daughter on the bus every day with the assumption that she’d be kept safe during the day.
“Exactly, but here’s where the story takes an unexpected turn. The deaths were ruled as pending by the Rockingham County Medical Examiner’s office, which didn’t sit well with the parents of all the kids in Miss Fairbanks’s class, especially the ones whose kids had died. Two weeks after the kids died, the teacher was found murdered in her classroom. She’d been stabbed several times.”
“Holy shit!” Ronan’s eyes widened. He obviously hadn’t taken Preston at his word when he said there was an unexpected turn in the case. “Who killed her?”
“No one and everyone,” Preston said with a shrug. “It was believed the parents of the dead kids were involved, but there was no evidence to prove that. According to what I was told, Miss Fairbanks was alive and well at three the day before when the kids were dismissed for the day. One of the janitors found her early the next morning before school started.”
Ronan’s eyes lit up. “It’s likeA Nightmare on Elm Streetwhere the parents of the kids Freddy Krueger killed immolated him with Molotov cocktails.”
Ten grimaced. He hated horror movies. His parents wouldn’t allow him to watch them when he was a kid, and he had to admit, he didn’t mind their strictness on this matter one bit. “I was thinkingMurder on the Orient Express, where the victim was stabbed multiple times by multiple people.”
“The story gets even crazier, if you can believe it. The day before Miss Fairbanks was murdered, the toxicology report came back, which listed the cause of death for the children as acute arsenic poisoning. The police assumed the kids were murdered by the teacher, and the investigation ended there for both cases. Either way, four people died, and no one was arrested, let alone convicted.” Preston looked between Ten and Ronan. “Is there a particular reason you’re asking about those deaths?”
“Yeah, Everly saw the spirits of three children while she was up onstage. She said they were standing near you.” Ten was curious to see Preston’s reaction to his news.
“Which is why I walked over to talk to you during the concert,” Ronan said. “I didn’t know if she was getting a weird vibe off you or what, so I wanted to be close by just in case.”
“Interesting,” Preston said. “I didn’t know your daughter had that skill.”
“We keep it on the down-low.” Ten sighed. “There are a lot of people who would look to exploit her gifts for their own means. We’re vigilant parents but have to be even more so because of what Everly can do.”
