Book One: A Storm of Glass and Ashes

Chapter Twenty-Six: Bitter Waters

One flight and short drive later, and Alex was at Bittermoss School. He'd read up on it on the way. It was an elegant brick building with a generous greenhouse and massive gymnasium. A nice, sedate hedge wound around both the parking lot and the border of the school's landscaping, and massive old-growth oaks framed the entry. The red tones of the brick were offset by the happy bunting, Welcome to the Best School Ever! This drew the eye to the playground, its equipment elaborate and shaded with springtime pastels. There was even a small moss garden and water feature, seated in the middle of the best butterfly flowerbed Alex had ever seen. It was, in fact, the most cheerfully elegant place he'd ever been. If he had a kid and Kaiser's kind of money, he'd already be halfway sold on Bittermoss on the landscaping alone.

The door had many construction paper sunshine faces on it, with children's names and ages printed carefully on each one. The drawings were fairly good for even an adult. Most of the ages were frighteningly young. Four, five, six year olds had drawn these, and the six-year-old's work was a very realistic human face inside of the sun.

Gifted and Talented, Alex thought. That didn't cover the half of it.

He went through the metal detector and signed in at the front desk, then turned to the rather fluffy haired girl behind it. Her nametag read "Tiffany Adams" and holy hell, but she looked every inch of it. "Hi." He said. "My name is Alex West. I'd really like a chance to speak with Mrs. Studdard."

Tiffany blinked. "She's the owner of the school."

He stepped her competency down by a couple floors. "Yes. But I need to ask her some questions about her husband. You can tell her that Kaiser sent me. He was supposed to call ahead and let her know I was coming."

Tiffany stood up. She was elegantly dressed—that seemed to be the key word for this place—in a perfectly modest skirt and vest combo, a white striped blouse beneath, and fairly expensive designer jewelry. He was pretty sure that necklace and earring combo came from Tiffany Co., making it a nice play on her name. He wondered if she'd done that intentionally, or if designer things were part of the work uniform in this place. He really hoped it paid its teachers a living wage.

Tiffany reappeared a few moments later, her face wreathed in a tight, stressed smile. Naomi Studdard followed behind her. This was always an interesting moment for Alex, when somebody he'd read up on sprang to life in front of him. Edgar Studdard's wife was a perfect vision of mature femininity. 50-something, there wasn't a trace of gray in her auburn hair and only the most minimal wrinkles had been permitted in her skin. Unlike most botox patients, Alex could barely tell she'd had injections done. It was mostly a tightness to the forehead, and the paralysis of her eyebrows that gave it away. But these had been tooled, plucked, and drawn in an expression of permanent good cheer. Her clothing was straight up Neman Marcus, very well made and, he thought, retailored to fit her exquisitely. She wore a navy-blue set rather like Tiffany's, but hers made that poor child's outfit look like burlap. The scent of Baccarat Rouge was both her herald and her farewell. She'd applied just the right amount of it, and of makeup. In fact, Alex was willing to state that this woman was the nearest thing to flawless he'd ever seen in a human being.

"You must be Alisdair West," Naomi said, and offered a hand with the most perfect mauve manicure.

"And you're Mrs. Studdard. Thank you for agreeing to see me."

"Yes. Tiffany, please notify the teachers that our meeting in the greenhouse today will be delayed by a few minutes. No, I know you don't know what I'm talking about. It's alright. They'll know what we're talking about." Naomi smiled mirthlessly at the girl, then turned to Alex. "I thought we could have this conversation there. It's one of the better indoor gardens in Boston. Our gardening club is so proud, and flowers tend to make...difficult conversations easier."