We have discretion in personnel matters, and I am prepared to remove her from the classroom while we investigate.”
Emily stared at him.
“Remove me?”
Wallace did not look at her.
“Please, Miss Hayes.”
“You haven’t asked me a single question.”
“This is not the moment.”
“It became the moment when you offered my job before anyone said I did anything wrong.”
A few children shifted in their seats.
Emily immediately regretted letting the argument happen in front of them, but Wallace had already exposed the truth: he was terrified of Nicholas Moretti, and he intended to make that fear somebody else’s problem.
Nicholas watched him for a long second.
Then he asked, “Is taking a student’s phone against school policy?”
Wallace hesitated.
“There are circumstances—”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Wallace’s stapled smile returned.
“No.
Not generally.”
“Is sending a first-grader to the front office with a written pass against school policy?”
“No.”
“Is allowing that student to contact a parent against school policy?”
“No.”
Nicholas glanced toward Emily’s desk.
“Then what exactly are you investigating?”
Wallace’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
From the doorway, Mrs.
Thompson lowered her eyes, hiding what looked suspiciously like relief.
Emily finally understood why Wallace had looked so frightened when Nicholas arrived.
He had assumed what everyone else assumed.
Nicholas Moretti had a reputation.
People in Brooklyn knew the name.
His company owned buildings, warehouses and distribution contracts throughout the city.
Men who were comfortable barking orders at everyone else became unusually polite around him.
Stories followed him from boardrooms to restaurants to neighborhood fundraisers, each retelling making him colder, richer and more dangerous.
Emily had heard the name before.
She had simply never connected it to the six-year-old who carefully lined up her crayons by color and always saved the purple one for last because it had been her mother’s favorite.
Wallace knew exactly who Sophia’s father was.
And the moment Nicholas entered the building, Wallace had begun protecting himself.
Nicholas turned to his daughter.
“Why did you tell Miss Hayes I would come?”
Sophia looked puzzled by the question.
“Because you said you might pick me up early.”
A few children looked at one another.
Mason whispered, “Oh.”
Emily almost smiled.
The sentence that had sounded like a warning had never been one.
It had been exactly what Sophia said it was: certainty.
Her father told her he might come.
So she believed he would.
Nicholas’s expression softened for the first time.
“I did say that.”
Sophia reached for his hand.
“You came.”
“I always will.”
Those three words changed him in Emily’s eyes more than any explanation could have.
