“But the test scores of your students have fallen since you began teaching this ‘real’ history. I have them here in front of me.”
“Sure,” he admitted. “You know why? Because I went from teaching honors history to regular history.” He leaned forward again. “You know how politicians always talk about the importance of merit pay and rewarding ‘good’ teachers? Well, the ‘good’ teachers are the ones whose students do well on the standardized tests. And here’s the dirty little secret: teachers who teach the smart kids have students who do better on those tests than those who teach the low learners. I was one of those ‘good’ teachers. Now I’m not. Because the principal assigned me a different class. Not because my teaching skills suddenly deserted me. And not because I’ve expanded the class curriculum to include information outside the scope of the textbook.”
Claire nodded. “Okay.”
“So we’ll sue?”
“I think you have a legitimate grievance, and it’s quite possible we can get your job back. But this is by no means a slam dunk. Judges and juries, if it gets to that point, are notoriously unreliable. It’s not like you see on TV. There’s a chance the court could rule against you. Then you’d not only be out of a job, but you’d be out quite a bit of money.”
“But you think I have a shot?”
“I think you have a shot.”
“Let’s do it.”
She nodded. “All right. We’ll go after them. As long as you know the risks.”
He smiled. “What’s life without a little risk?”
Claire stood, and they shook on it. She hadn’t had much time to delve into the substance of the teacher’s lessons—she’d been focused more on the legalities of his case—but she knew from their discussions and from her brief perusal of his classroom notes that the “real” history Oscar Cortinez taught involved ethnic slaughter and very bad deeds by some very famous men. She wasn’t aware of any of this. When she’d gone to school here in the mid-1980s, it was a much cheerier version of the town’s history they were spoon-fed. Which meant that she was going to have to do a lot of reading up in order to familiarize herself with the issues that she planned to argue were the heart of this case.
She walked Oscar to the door and said good-bye, promising to call him as soon as she put together a rough draft of their complaint. Standing in the doorway, she saw Pam wave to her from across the street. Claire purposely looked away, walking back to her desk. One of these days, she was probably going to have to speak to Pam again, maybe even talk about what happened, but that day was not today.
She sat down, attempted to concentrate on the work before her, but the sight of Pam had brought back to her everything that had happened at the housewarming party, and she was overcome with a heavy feeling of dread. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t, and finally she broke down and called home in order to reassure herself that Julian and the kids were all right and everything was fine.
After dinner that night, Claire got on her laptop. She fully intended to access some of the historical sites to which Oscar Cortinez had given her the addresses, but once her browser opened, she decided instead to look up information about their house. Julian had already attempted to research the previous owners, and while he had not been able to locate or contact any of them, he had managed to find several articles and a police report about the man who had died in their basement. There were no pictures of the man—though there was little doubt that he was the figure they had seen shuffling down the hallway and into the living room—but the background information on him was pretty complete: Jim Swanson, age fifty-six, unemployed pipe fitter, Jardine native, divorced, ex-wife living in Tucson, parents dead, no brothers or sisters, house repossessed two years prior. The one thing no one seemed able to figure out, however, was why Swanson had decided to break into the house, take off his clothes and go into the basement. And the cause of death was still sketchy. “Organ failure” was the official explanation listed on the coroner’s report, but since the toxic screen came back clean and there was no evidence of any illness, the exact reason for the organ failure remained unclear.
What Julian had discovered was a good start, but that was all it was. A start. If they were ever going to find a way through this mess, they would need a lot more information, and Claire decided to start by seeing whether she could find Swanson’s ex-wife. The woman had apparently been divorced from her husband for twelve years before his death, so it was doubtful that she could shed any light on the details of his passing, but maybe Claire would be able to discover whether he had any previous connection to the house.
She started to type in the woman’s name, Elizabeth Swanson, but before she got past the z, her screen went black. For a second, she thought the power cord had come unplugged. Then, suddenly, the screen was filled with a single word: Don’t.
She frowned, perplexed and, at the same time, frightened. She wanted to believe that it was a technical glitch of some sort, totally unconnected to her. But it was a command, and it applied to what she was doing, and it made it seem as though something was trying to stop her. She was reminded, also, of the message on Megan’s phone—
Take off your pants.
—and she forced herself to calm down and breathe normally as she turned the machine off, then started it up again. The four-colored Windows logo appeared, all her little icons popped up … then the screen went black.
I told you.
The words appeared in the center of the screen and were instantly replaced by another message that filled the entire rectangular space.
DON’T.
Meekly, she shut off the laptop, closing it up. Her hands were shaking, and she went out to the living room, where Julian was reading Time magazine, James was reading a book and Megan was watching Access Hollywood. She tapped Julian on the shoulder, got his attention and motioned for him to follow her to the kitchen. Once there, she told him what had happened. He believed her without seeing proof, which was good, because she wasn’t about to turn on that laptop again. Who could tell what type of response she’d get if she attempted to access the Internet one more time?
“Nothing from the house,” he said, and she shivered, feeling cold, because he was whispering. He, too, was worried that their conversation might be overheard. “Look things up at your office or the library or one of those wi-fi cafés.”
“You, too,” she told him.
Julian nodded.
She wanted to say more. She was starting to feel like a prisoner, constantly under surveillance, and her gut reaction was to fight back, to say whatever the hell she wanted, to confront the ghost in this house by threatening it. But that wasn’t a smart move, she knew, and she stared into Julian’s eyes, telling him everything she could with that one meaningful look, and he nodded and kissed her, and the two of them left the kitchen and went out to the living room to watch over their children.
Nineteen
Megan awoke with the dawn and quickly checked to make sure nothing had happened to her during the night. No. She was okay. Still wrapped up like a mummy, comforter tucked into the sides of the bed, blanket and sheet tucked in below that, sleeping bag still zipped.
She emerged from her cocoon, sweating. Her parents did not know it, but she’d taken to wearing her clothes to bed rather than her pajamas. Why? Because pajama bottoms were pull-ups—pants had snaps and zippers and belts. Pajama tops were pullovers—regular shirts could be buttoned and sealed in with sweaters.