I began to feel like I’d been nervous about nothing. “He was on foot,” I said. “There’s no way he could have followed me here. He scared me, Dad. But I’m okay now.”

  I sensed my father relaxing just a little. Vern drained the cognac from his glass and stood up.

  “You want me to check the guy out, Mac?” he said.

  My father shook his head. “I think Robbie’s right. If he was on foot, he couldn’t have followed her. I think we’re in the clear for now.”

  “Okay,” Vern said. “You take care of yourself, now, Robyn. And I think what you’re doing is great. I mean it.”

  I thanked him. I really like Vern. He’s kind of like an uncle to me. He’s known me my whole life, and he’s always as proud of me as my parents are.

  “Call me if you need me, Mac,” he said.

  “Have you had dinner, Robbie?” my father said after Vern left.

  I shook my head.

  My dad flagged down a waiter. While we waited for my order, he asked me what happened.

  I told him exactly how the ring and the photo had come into my possession and how I had gone back to the shelter to see if anyone recognized them. By the time I had finished my story, my heart had stopped pounding and my hands and feet no longer felt like blocks of ice. The waiter arrived with my food. As I plowed into it, my father picked up the ring and looked closely at it.

  “It’s a school ring,” he said. “There used to be a St. Mark’s Academy here in town. A boys’ school.”

  “Used to be? It doesn’t exist anymore?” I had been hoping the school would be able to help me find out something about Mr. Duffy—assuming he had ever been a student there.

  “It went co-ed about twenty years ago and changed its name. I think it’s called the Ashdale Academy now.”

  “Ashdale Academy? But Ashdale is an all-boys’ school, Dad.”

  “The co-ed thing didn’t work out. It reverted to boys-only after a couple of years. You’re sure this belonged to Mr. Duffy?”

  “He gave it and the photo to Aisha for safekeeping,” I said. “They must have meant something to him.”

  My father examined the photograph. “That’s kind of an old-fashioned haircut. And that tie... I’d say this was taken forty, maybe fifty years ago. You think it could be Duffy when he was young?”

  “I was hoping,” I said. “But no one who knew Mr. Duffy sees any resemblance.”

  “It’s cut in an odd shape, don’t you think?”

  I had wondered about the shape. It looked like someone had trimmed it—maybe to fit a locket.

  My dad’s phone rang.

  “Excuse me a minute, Robbie.”

  “No problem.” The truth was, I wanted to make a call myself. I pulled out my own phone and punched in Ben’s number. He sounded surprised to hear from me. He sounded even more surprised when I asked him if there was any chance his school was open during the next week or if it had already closed for the holidays.

  “It’s closed,” he said. When I sounded disappointed, he said, “Well, classes are over. Most of the teachers are probably gone. But I know there are still a few people around. I’m going over there tomorrow morning to pick up some stuff for the toy drive.”

  “Toy drive?”

  “Ashdale and another school do a joint toy drive every year—you know, for underprivileged kids. I’m supposed to pick up the toys Ashdale collected and take them to the other school for the wrap-a-thon.”

  “Wrap-a-thon, huh? Do you think anyone will be in the office?”

  “Well, I know Mr. Thorson is going to be there. He’s the principal. Why?”

  “What time are you going?”

  “First thing.”

  “Can I meet you?”

  “What’s going on, Robyn?”

  “I think I may have a lead, Ben. At least, I hope so. I’ll show you tomorrow.”

  We agreed to meet in front of Ben’s school at nine the next morning.

  After I put my phone away, I ate every bite of my supper and told my father what Morgan and I had found out so far about Mr. Duffy.

  “I’m impressed,” he said, smiling at me. “Don’t tell your mother, but if you ever decided to go into policing, you’d make detective in no time. You’re a natural.”

  I grinned. “Everything I learned, I learned from you, Dad.”

  “Don’t tell your mother that, either.”

  His phone rang again.

  “Tara,” he said into it, sounding pleased. “No, don’t apologize. What can I do for you?”

  Tara? If he was making plans with her, I didn’t want to get in the way.

  “I gotta go, Dad.” I stood up.

  “Just a moment,” my father said into the phone. Then he looked up at me. “Go? Go where?”

  “Home.”

  My father gave me an odd look. “Home?” he said. “I thought you were staying here tonight.”

  “I left something... um... I should go home, Dad.” I scooped up the ring and the photograph and put them safely in my purse.

  “Give me a minute and I’ll drive you,” my father said.

  “It’s okay. I can get there on my own.”

  “Well, at least let me give you cab fare.” He pressed some bills into my hand. “Take a taxi. I insist. Have Lauren call one for you.”

  “Dad, stop worrying.”

  But I took the money and slipped on my coat while he resumed his phone conversation. When I got to the front of the restaurant, Lauren was busy seating a large group of diners who had just arrived. I didn’t want to bother her.

  It was quiet out on the street. A couple of cars went by, but no taxis. I decided to walk down to the intersection, where there was more traffic. I was a block away from the restaurant when I felt a sharp jerk on my purse strap. Then the purse fell away from my shoulder. The strap had been cut. I started to turn around and got shoved into a dark alley. Whoever pushed me was wearing a balaclava so that I couldn’t see his face. He was holding a knife. I stared at it and couldn’t make myself look away. The blade was long and looked razor-sharp.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I

  opened my mouth. I don’t think I was going to scream. I’m pretty sure that I understood it would be crazy to make any noise at all under the circumstances. But I opened my mouth anyway, and I think that’s what made him hit me. I fell to the ground, stunned but not unconscious. I felt rough hands plunging into my pockets, yanking things out. Then he pushed me down again, on my stomach this time. I lay there for a moment, too frightened to move.

  I peered around.

  The man was gone.

  I staggered to my feet and touched the bandage that hid my stitches, afraid that he had reopened the wound on my face. But it was dry. My phone lay on the ground at my feet. I picked it up and put it back into my pocket. The money my father had given me was gone. I wobbled back to La Folie.

  My father was still talking on the phone, but he ended his call the moment he saw me. The expression on his face told me that I looked as shaky as I felt. He put his arms around me and led me out the door and up the stairs to his place. He made me tell him everything. When I had finished, he made a phone call. It wasn’t long before two uniformed police officers arrived, and my dad made me tell them what I had already told him.

  “What about that bandage on your face. Is that from the man who robbed you?” one of the cops said.

  I shook my head and explained the stitches.

  “Do you think the man who robbed you outside the restaurant is the same man who followed you to the bus shelter?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “He was wearing a balaclava,” my father said grimly.

  “What about the man from the bus shelter?” the same cop said. “Can you describe him?”

  I nodded and told them everything I remembered. They wrote down the description and asked me some more questions about what I had seen when I left the restaurant before they shut their notebooks. My father followed the officers to the door and talked to them for a few minutes before they finally left.

  “They’re going to check out the guy who followed you to the bus shelter,” my father said. He caught my chin in one hand and tilted my head back so that he could get a good look at me. “You’re going to have a bruise,” he said. His fog-gray eyes held mine. “I should have driven you to your mother’s.”

  “When I saw that knife—”

  “It’s okay, Robbie. You’re safe now.” He reached for my coat. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  “But what if the police find out something?”

  “If they do, I’ll let you know.”

  “What if they want to talk to me again?”

  “Then they’ll let you know.”

  “If they call me at Mom’s, Mom will freak out. She’ll never let me come down here alone again.”

  “Robbie, your mother has a right to know—”

  “She’s already been giving me a hard time about the homeless shelter. Please, Dad. I’m okay, really. We don’t have to upset her, do we?”

  He was still holding my coat, but he didn’t try to help me into it.

  “You have to tell her.”

  “She already knows I was planning to spend the night here.”

  “Didn’t you say you left something at home?”

  “It’s not important,” I said. “Please, Dad. You know how she can be.”

  My father hesitated.

  “You have to promise me that you’ll tell her what happened when you see her,” he said at last. “When she sees that bruise—”

  “I’ll tell her, I promise. But not tonight. Okay, Dad?”

  Finally, reluctantly, he agreed.

  . . .

  I took a long, hot bath and then curled up in front of the TV. I had almost given up hope of hearing from the police again that night when my father’s buzzer sounded. He went to answer it. A few moments later, he opened the door and the same two officers stepped in. One of them was holding my purse, its strap cut in half and dangling uselessly.

  “Where did you find it?” I said.

  “In an alley a couple of blocks away,” he said. “That’s pretty standard. Purse snatchers grab a purse and run like hell. When they think they’re safe, they take everything of value and dump the purse. Your wallet’s inside. But we’re going to want to hold onto it for a while. It’s evidence. Same with your wallet. We’ll see if we can get some prints off them.”

  “But he was wearing gloves,” I said. “The guy who attacked me was wearing gloves.”

  “Purse snatchers aren’t exactly geniuses,” the cop said. “You’d be surprised how many guys wear gloves when they’re doing the crime and then do something stupid right after, like taking off the gloves so they can go through the purse easier. It’s always worth checking. We’ll let you know if we find anything. I can give you back your ID—but you’ll have to sign for it. Did you have any money in the wallet?”

  I nodded.

  “Well. I hope it wasn’t much. It’s gone now,” the cop said. “Credit cards?”

  I shook my head.

  “Anything else of value?”

  “There was a gold ring in the purse. And a photograph. Are they still there?”

  The cop shook his head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I inventoried the contents myself.” He showed me the list he had written.

  “There are other things missing,” I said. “Some lip gloss. Some blush.”

  “It’s possible he tossed those,” the cop said.

  “Maybe he threw away the ring, too,” I said. “Or the photo.”

  What would a purse snatcher want with an old photograph? I wondered.

  I spoke up again. “Where exactly did you find my purse?”

  When he described the alley, my father nodded. “I know the one you mean.”

  “We found the purse about halfway down,” the cop said. “The place is a mess. It’s possible your makeup is in there somewhere. Maybe the picture, too. But a gold ring? I doubt it, but we can take another look.”

  “It’s okay,” my father said. “I’ll do it myself.”

  The cop nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Polaroid photo. “Is this the guy who followed you from the shelter to the bus stop?”

  I looked at the man in the photo. He had one dark eye and one milky white eye.

  “That’s him.”

  “Well, he wasn’t the guy who attacked you downstairs,” the cop said. “The director at the shelter says this guy went out for a smoke early in the evening—just about the time you left to walk to the bus stop. He was back fifteen minutes later and stayed inside for the rest of the night.”

  “He’s sure about that?” my father said.

  “He’s positive. So is the woman who works in the kitchen. A bunch of other people at the place say he was there all evening.” The two cops stood up. “We’re going to check your purse and wallet for prints. If we find any, we’ll run them against what’s in the system.”

  The second cop, who had stayed silent and had done most of the note-taking, returned my ID, my library card, my transit card. He made me sign for each item. Then the two cops left.

  “How about a cup of tea?” my father said.

  I slipped on my boots and my coat. “Show me where that alley is?”

  “Robyn, it’s nearly midnight. Whatever’s there is going to stay there, believe me.”

  “Please, Dad? If the ring is there, I don’t want to take the chance that someone will find it. It could be important. You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to.” But I sure hoped that he would want to. “Just tell me where it is.” I buttoned my jacket and pulled on my gloves.

  My father sighed and stood up. “You are so stubborn,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know who you remind me more of—your mother or me.”

  He pulled on his snow gear and got a couple flashlights out of a drawer. We trudged down the street to the alley the two police officers had described and spent nearly an hour hunting through the trash cans, discarded boxes, and scraps of litter. I found my blusher. My father found my lip gloss. But we didn’t find the ring or the photo.

  . . .

  After a nearly sleepless night, I met Ben the next morning. He was waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of a modernlooking building in one of the most upscale parts of the city. The weather hadn’t changed. It was still bone-shatteringly cold out. I had a hat pulled down over my ears and a thick wool scarf wrapped around my neck and chin. I stared up at the glass-and-steel structure.

  “This is Ashdale Academy?” I had heard of it, but I had never seen it.

  “What were you expecting?” Ben asked. “Gothic towers and ivory-covered walls?”

  “Something like that,” I admitted. I’d at least been expecting something a lot older. “My dad must have made a mistake. He said that this school used to be called St. Mark’s.”

  “It did.”

  “Well, there must be more than one. The school I’m looking for was around at least forty or fifty years ago.” If Mr. Duffy had gone there, it would have been much, much older than the school I was staring at. “This place looks like it was built way more recently.”

  “It was,” Ben said. “This building was supposed to be an addition to the original St. Mark’s.”

  “Supposed to be?”

  “There was a fire,” Ben said. “Shortly after the new wing was built.”

  “A fire?”

  “They had to knock down the old building completely. Expand the new addition. My father helped to raise the money for it. What are we doing here, Robyn? You said you had a lead on Mr. Duffy.”

  When I’d talked to him the night before, I had imagined presenting him with the photo and the ring. But they were long gone. All I could do was tell him about them instead.

  “Great work,” he said. “Can I see them?”

  “I’m afraid not. They were stolen.”

  His eyes widened. “Stolen?”

  “I was mugged last night.”

  “Mugged? Were you hurt?”

  I turned my head and pulled down my scarf so he could see the bruise on my face.

  His eyes widened even more. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” At least I was by then. I had thought I was fine at my father’s last night, too, after the police left. But I’d had trouble falling asleep. I tossed and turned and twisted the sheets into knots. I kept thinking about that knife.

  “Did you call the police? Did they catch the guy who mugged you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But no, they didn’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  “You think the ring means that Duffy used to go to St. Mark’s?” he said.

  It was hard to imagine. “Maybe. Or maybe somebody important to him did. But he told Aisha that he didn’t want to lose the ring or the picture, so they must have been valuable to him.”

  I shivered as a gust of wind hit me.

  “Do you think we could go inside?” I asked.

  Ben nodded. He led the way up the walk and rang a bell beside the front door. I peered inside. The school looked deserted except for a man who was mopping the floor just inside the main doors. He looked up when he heard the buzzer and came and opened the door for us.

  “Hi Pete,” Ben said, standing aside to let me go in first.

  “Ben, didn’t they tell you?” Pete said, grinning at him. “School’s out for the holidays.”

  “I’m here to pick up the toys for the toy drive,” Ben said.

  Pete gestured to a huge pile of cardboard cartons stacked to one side of the lobby.

  “I’ll go get a dolly,” he said. “It’ll go faster that way.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said. “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes. I need to talk to Mr. Thorson. Have you seen him?”

  “Who do you think packed all those boxes?” Pete said. “He’s in the office.”

  “Come on,” Ben said.

  I followed him down the hallway to the school’s offices. Like the rest of the school, they were silent and empty. Well, almost empty.

  “Ben,” said the office’s sole occupant, a smiling, bald-headed man dressed in gray slacks and a pullover sweater. He seemed as delighted to see Ben as Pete had been. “I put the toys in the lobby for you. Do you need help loading them up?”

 

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