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  “Well, that’s good. Anyway, I heard from my new friend that this is the school to be at,” Kate continued brightly.

  “Well, yes.” The woman’s voice filled with pride. “George Washington Elementary has always had the highest standards. In fact, we’re the number one choice school in all of Hillsborough County.”

  Kate and Rone shared a look. “George Washington Elementary?” Kate sent through their link.

  “Looks like your dream was right,” Rone sent back.

  “Is that right?” he rumbled aloud, daring to join the conversation. “But the sign outside says ‘The Center for Academic Excellence.”

  “Oh, I keep forgetting!” The woman put a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry—we were GWE for years and years. The name change is really recent—our principal pushed it through because she thought it sounded better.”

  “It does sound nice,” Kate said earnestly, carefully concealing the excitement Rone could feel bubbling inside her. “My friend said you have the highest quality of education, the best teachers—in fact, she mentioned one teacher in particular—Ms. Brooks I think? She said her son had Ms. Brooks and she really helped him achieve his academic potential.”

  The woman behind the desk frowned. “Well, we do have a teacher by that name here—or we did. She’s not here right now and hasn’t been for a few days.”

  “Oh? I hope she’s not sick,” Kate said anxiously. “I was really hoping to meet her. She sounded perfect for Bella. She has ADHD just like my friend’s little boy and I was hoping to find someone really patient and caring.”

  “Well, Ms. Brooks teaches kindergarten so your daughter wouldn’t be in her class anyway,” the woman said. “But I think you’ll find all our teachers are patient and caring.”

  “Oh, that’s disappointing—about Ms. Brooks, I mean.” Kate sighed. “But since we’re here anyway, do you think we could take a quick tour?”

  “Well…” The woman frowned uncertainly. “We generally like to schedule that kind of thing—”

  “We really have to make up our mind about schools quickly though,” Kate said, widening her big green eyes earnestly. “It’s between this one and Colbert Academy, down the road. They’ve already sent an acceptance letter for Bella and we only have until today to tell them if we want the spot or not.”

  The woman behind the desk bristled. “Colbert Academy might be private but they have nothing on GWE—I mean, CFAE,” she corrected herself hastily. “I’ll tell you what, school is out right now so you can’t really see things in action, so to speak, but you can at least get a tour of the grounds. Come on through.” She nodded at the open end of the countertop.

  Kate went through and Rone followed, making sure to keep his mate between himself and the school official in case the human female was a Sensitive. Luckily, she was leading the way so it was easy to keep distance between them.

  “Now, I can’t stay out of the office long because I’m the only one here,” she was saying to Kate, who was nodding attentively. “But I’ll give you the general layout and you can wander around for five or ten minutes to see what you think. I’m sure you’ll find we have a beautiful campus. Now the media center is in that direction…and over there is the cafeteria…”

  She went on, pointing out various buildings and structures but Rone was only half listening. He lifted his head again and scented the air. He caught a smell that seemed strange and out of place. It was faint and several days old but still detectable to his incredibly sensitive Wulven nose. Could that be…Beast Kindred? He sniffed again. It is—it has to be. But what the hell would a Beast Kindred be doing here?

  Well, possibly the same thing he was pretending to do. There were more Kindred living topside on Earth now so it was possible that one of them might be the father to a child going to this school. But the woman from the front desk had mentioned that she didn’t think they had any other Kindred children attending here. So if that was the case, why was there a Kindred scent in the air?

  Up ahead, the woman seemed to be winding down her talk.

  “…and that over there is the kindergarten and first grade wing,” she was telling Kate. “Of course, that’s not where your daughter…”

  “Bella,” Kate supplied quickly.

  “Oh, right—such a pretty name! Anyway, that’s not where she’d be but they have some really cute artwork up if you look at the bulletin boards on the outside of each classroom.”

  “Thank you!” Kate smiled at her. “It’s so sweet of you to let us have a look around so we can make up our minds.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find that GWE—sorry—CFAE is the best school around.” The woman smiled back but just then the phone started ringing from inside the office. “Oh, excuse me—I have to get that!”

  “Go right ahead,” Kate told her. “We’re just going to have a quick look around and we’ll be back in a minute.”

  “All right then, have fun!” With a final wave, the woman disappeared back into the office, finally leaving them alone.

  “Whew,” Kate said under her breath when the office door was safely closed. “I thought she’d never leave!” Then she took a closer look at Rone, who was still sniffing the air. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” He frowned. “A scent that doesn’t belong but I can’t figure out why it would be here.”

  “You think you should follow it?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe in a minute. Right now, let’s go down to the kippergarden classrooms and see if I can get a scent for the girl.”

  “That’s kindergarten,” Kate said, smiling.

  Rone shrugged. “Whatever it is, if we can get into her classroom to catch her scent, I’ll have a much easier time finding her.”

  “All right, let’s go.” Kate led the way and he followed, still bothered by the faint whiff of Beast Kindred in the air.

  The school was a series of long, beige, brick buildings all connected by covered walkways. Each classroom door had the name of the teacher and many had large rectangular bulletin boards covered in artwork or essays in childish script. “How I spent my Summer” and “My plans for the future” and similar themes.

  At last they came to a classroom with the name “E Brooks” on the plate. The bulletin board outside it was hung with colorful self-portraits of children holding books. “Miss Brook’s Reading Rainbows” was written at the top of the board in letters cut from multicolored paper.

  “Aww, look at that,” Kate said, smiling. “She had them all draw a picture of themselves holding their favorite book! How cute!”

  “Adorable,” Rone muttered, trying the door handle, which was locked. “But not terribly helpful from a scent perspective. All I can smell is wax, ink, and paper.”

  He was about to force the door open as quietly as possible—he was easily strong enough to break the lock—when a voice behind them startled him.

  “Hi, can I help you with something?”

  Rone and Kate whirled around to see a slender blonde female with blue eyes and an uncertain look on her face.

  “Oh, hi!” Kate slipped into character at once. “Our little girl goes to Miss Brook’s class and we think she left her lunchbox in the classroom.”

  “She does, does she?” The woman narrowed her eyes. “What’s her name?”

  “Bella,” Kate said.

  “I don’t remember Emily—ah, Miss Brooks—having a Bella in her classroom.”

  “Well, that’s because she just started here yesterday,” Kate said quickly. “We’re new in town—just moved here. Only the second day of school and she’s already losing things—kids, right?”

  “Yeah, they do that.” The woman seemed to relax a little and returned Kate’s rueful smile with one of her own. “Well, Emily isn’t here right now but I have a spare key to her classroom. I can let you in to look around but only for a minute.”

  “Oh, thank you so much, Miss…” Kate held out her hand, her eyebrows raised.

  “Oh, I’m sorry—I’m Miss Lane