Chapter 78

7:30 a.m. Wednesday

Andy found he missed some of the many comforts Regan's car had afforded him for the previous two days - foremost was the Bluetooth feature that allowed him to drive without headphones.

"I am so sorry about yesterday," Joy said when he answered a call from Regan's number. "If I had any idea I would have just taken the heat myself. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," Andy said.

"Are you sure?" Joy asked in a worried voice. "I ... I don't want this to cause hard feelings between you and Regan or you and me."

"It's OK," Andy told her. "It really wasn't your fault that someone at the school saw a chance to get at Regan's mom."

"I'll let Regan explain all that," Joy said. The girl had spent most of the evening in tears after hearing that Andy had been pulled over. It was almost two hours later before Regan explained the rest of the story to her. It didn't make her feel better that she had played a part in the situation.

Indeed, Andy had to sit in the parking lot at school while Regan finished. Elizabeth saw him pull in and opened to the door to get inside with him when he didn't get out. She heard what appeared to be a serious conversation and immediately backed away and closed the door.

"So, what's the final tally?" Andy asked when Regan had finished. She had left nothing out despite the fact it galled her to no end that so much was known about Andy Drayton on the campus and that someone had used his circumstances to draw an erroneous conclusion.

"What tally?" Regan wondered.

"How many teachers are out on their ears today?" he clarified.

"Just one," Regan told him. "She wasn't a teacher. She was the woman who supervises our dorms during the day. The headmistress is going to be on campus for the rest of the year and she said she would do it. The woman who stays at night is going to start coming in earlier, I guess. I don't know because I won't have to worry about it."

The final statement caught Andy's attention immediately.

"Nothing happened to you, did it?" he asked urgently.

"No, I'm fine," Regan said. "Mom and Dad have decided it would be better if I spent the last month as a day student. I'm going to live at home starting tonight. Mom is going to call Joy and Ruth's parents and offer to let them stay at our house for the remainder of the semester. She was pretty pissed that they planned to search all the rooms without notifying the parents."

"You know, they don't call our parents when they search our lockers," Andy pointed out. "The next day, we get a letter to take home letting them know. The only time they call the parents is if they locate something illegal. Did they find anything like that out there?"

"Tons," Regan said. "I went down early for breakfast this morning. I missed dinner last night. There are rumors all over the place. One girl got caught with heroin. Another had a gun in her room. Can you believe that shit?"

"A gun?" Andy asked incredulously.

"It was disassembled, I heard," Regan replied. "Her family is big into bird hunting. She said the last time they went, she carried the gun upstairs without thinking about it. It was in some sort of case, I guess. She realized what she'd done but her family was already two hundred miles away. She disassembled the gun, removed a ... whatever it is that lets the gun fire ... and mailed that back to her parents. The cops searched the room high and low, I heard. They said that without the part she sent home, it was just a club. I don't think she's going to be expelled. Her parents are pretty big in Los Angeles."

"Jesus," Andy said. He knew if that had happened to him, he would be facing dozens of felony charges. Expulsion from school would be the least of his worries.

"One of the lower-school girls had a list with a bunch of classmates' names on it," Regan continued. "The rumor is that it was a hit list. I don't know, though. She's a scholarship girl and I've talked to her. Dad is dealing with that right now. He's going to stay on campus today. Mom is coming out later to help us pack up to go home."

"That sort of sucks," Andy said.

"It's sort of great!" Regan countered. "That means I can see you of an evening now - particularly if your parents buy the house they were looking at. If you have binoculars, you can even see into my bedroom window at night! Are they seriously thinking about it?"

"We didn't really talk about much besides ... you know," Andy answered.

"No, I get it," Regan said - although Andy doubted that she did. "You should ask them tonight."

"Uh, I think we're still going to be talking about last night tonight," Andy replied with chagrin.

"You got in trouble?" Regan asked as she caught on. Her parents had seemed to think that Andy was the victim of profiling rather than anything serious.

"Well, I mean, yeah," Andy replied. "Mom was pretty unhappy. I had to tell her everything, Regan. She knew that I was lying."

"Oh," Regan answered. "Do you think she'll tell my mom?"

"I don't know," Andy admitted. He had assumed that Regan had come clean, too. "What did you tell your folks?"

"I kept to the story we laid out," Regan admitted. "I told them that Joy ... started. I pretended that we didn't know anything about what was going on out here."

"Crap," Andy muttered. "I told Mom the truth. I don't know if she'll say anything. She was more concerned about why I was carrying Joy's underwear around with me than anything else, I think."

"Joy's underwear?" Regan asked. This was a portion of the evening she hadn't heard about.

"She put her underwear in a bag for me to ... I guess I'll bring them to you to take back to her later," Andy said. "I really don't know why she did it."

"Maybe so you could have a keepsake of your adventure," Regan replied. Her usually jovial voice was tight.

"No, no," Andy said quickly. "You're starting to think like Mom. It wasn't anything ... sexual. I think she just liked the underwear and didn't want anyone searching her laundry to try to prove your story false. She seemed to think that one of the women in the dorm was onto her."

"You can rest assured, I will have the answer the next time I talk to Joy," Regan told him.

"Crap," Andy said. "I told you, it wasn't like that. She wasn't trying to ... I don't know, seduce me ... by giving me her underwear in a bag. It isn't like she stuffed them in my pocket or anything. She gave me a paper bag with them inside. That's all. Oh, and she told me to give them to you to give back to her. Don't get mad over that. It's silly."

"Fine," Regan said. "I guess I'm a little jealous of everyone. It sucked that I didn't get to spend any time with you at all yesterday."

"Maybe I can meet you at your house tonight to help you unpack," Andy offered. "I guess I'll have to bring your dad's car back anyway."

"Well, I guess if you totally ignore Joy and Ruth tonight if they're there, I'll forgive you," Regan said with a laugh. "Oh, and give me a bunch of kisses, too. Maybe you can just stay with me tonight."

"I'm on pretty thin ice with Mom," Andy pointed out. "I'm worried that if I ask for too much, she'll put the brakes on staying with you this weekend."

"Oh, then tonight is out," Regan said. "Because, Mister, this weekend, it is so on!"

Elizabeth met Andy on the sidewalk near the parking lot. As usual, her curiosity stuck out farther than even her breasts did.

"I didn't mean to intrude but..." she began hesitantly. The rest of her sentence came out in a flurry of words - too quick for Andy to even understand them.

"What?" he asked, narrowing his eyes inquisitively.

"Did I hear you say Joy left her panties with you yesterday?" Elizabeth whispered.

"Oh, crap," Andy mumbled. He had seen Elizabeth begin to open the door but had thought she had departed before she could overhear anything. He should have known her big ears would pick up portions of the conversation.

"Did I?" Elizabeth asked, taking Andy's forearm to slow him down as they neared the school.

"You heard a statement completely out of context," Andy replied.

"What happened?" Elizabeth wondered.

"I don't have time to tell you right now," Andy answered, knowing that the suspense would drive the girl crazy until they met up again in fourth period.

"Andy!" Elizabeth cried as he started to hustle down the walkway. She hurried after him but he was inside the school before she could catch him.

Their fourth period class was an intensive review for the final the following week so Andy kept silent despite Elizabeth's constant badgering. It wasn't until he sat down at lunch with Chris Grant that Elizabeth had him cornered.

"Why did Joy leave her panties with you last night?" she asked in a voice loud enough that it caused the people from the two nearest tables to turn and look at Andy.

Even Chris, who usually was content to allow Andy a modicum of privacy, tilted his head in an expression of interest.

"See, you're missing the most interesting part," Andy told her.

"And Joy certainly has some interesting parts," Chris chimed in.

"She does," Andy agreed.

Elizabeth's face started to redden, not in embarrassment but from the fact that Andy was goading her. The explosion ceased when an unexpected person sat down beside her.

"I ... I wanted to thank you for keeping a lid on things from Saturday," Abby Barnes said in a hoarse voice. Her vocal chords hadn't recovered from having a belt wrapped around her neck in the boy's locker room.

The two guys simply nodded but Elizabeth spoke.

"Are you OK?" she asked with genuine concern. Her brother had told her that he'd visited Abby at the hospital and the girl had looked terrible. She didn't look much better three days later. The bruises on her face and neck had started to darken to a deep purple.

"Sort of," Abby answered. "I ... I wanted to stay home again today but Mom made me come to school. I don't know if she wanted me out of the house for some reason or if she thought I'd get sympathy or something. Either way, it pretty much sucks being here. I feel like everyone is staring at me or whispering behind my back."

"I don't think anyone knows what happened in there," Andy said. "I wouldn't worry about anyone saying things about you. I haven't heard anything but good comments about you this week. Everyone seems to understand that most of what happened was outside of your control. Just hang in there. OK?"

"I will," Abby said with a sigh. "I heard ... I heard that you made sure those guys paid for what they did to Leslie and me. Thanks, I guess. I mean, I know you did it mostly for Leslie but it makes me feel better that they got their asses kicked."

"If I had known... ," Andy began.

"You didn't," Abby cut in. "I know you would have done something to stop them. I knew it was a bad idea to go in there. But I was already pissed off when we got here and it happened."

"I'm sure the display we put on didn't help anything," Chris said. "I never meant for you to be put into a situation where you'd get hurt."

"You just wanted to rub my face in it like I'd tried to rub yours in it," Abby answered. "Yeah, I've thought a lot about things for the past few days. Uh, since everything happened on school property, the board is going to let me transfer to Kennedy for my senior year. A lawyer contacted Mom about the possibility of a lawsuit against the district. I'm trying to talk her out of it but..."

Her voice trailed off.

"I think I'm going to ditch the rest of the day and just go to the mall," she declared. "I just wanted to thank you. With the long weekend and then finals, I wasn't sure when I'd see you again."

"Good luck, Abby," Elizabeth said. "I hope things at Kennedy go OK for you."

Abby gave a sad smile as she stood. Andy noticed that she didn't wear her traditional school attire - tight jeans. She wore baggy sweatpants that hid most of her shape.

"Tell Chuck I said thanks for coming to see me at the hospital," she added. "That was pretty cool of him to do that."

"I'll tell him," Elizabeth answered. She watched the girl leave before turning back to Andy.

"Finish your story," she commanded.

"I don't really have time right now," Andy answered. "I promised Regan I'd call her at lunch. Did you talk to her last night?"

Andy knew the answer. Regan's parents had stayed on campus until after the "drug sweep" was concluded - going room to room with the police officers and the administrators to ensure that none of the girls were bullied or harassed. Regan had gone with them through her own dorm - most because she knew her presence added to the new headmistress' distress. It had been after 10 when the searches concluded.