Oh, I really can’t deal with this now. I glance up toward Karen’s office window, but the blinds are down.

“What do you want, Mr. Martin?”

“What do I want? You attack my daughter, go into hiding, and you’re asking what do I want?”

“I’m not going to discuss this with you now.” I juggle the box in my arms as it threatens to fall.

“Fired you, have they?” Mr. Martin says, staring at the box. He’s not a big man, but he’s blocking my path, all self-righteous anger shining bright on his red face. Has he been sitting outside the school all day, waiting for me to come back? How close to the edge is he? I can’t reach my phone to call the police without dropping the box and alerting him and we’re too far from the school building for anyone to hear if I call for help.

“I said, I’m not going to discuss this now. You need to be home taking care of your daughter.”

He freezes. “Don’t you tell me what to do with my own kid—it’s you she needs protecting from, you stupid bitch.”

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “It’s not me she needs protecting from. Don’t you care that some man is sending her bloody photos of himself naked? Don’t you care that he asked her out when she was fourteen fucking years old? You were told all this, but all you seem to care about is getting one over on me and the school. It’s not me she needs protecting from, it’s the forty-year-old man sending her pornographic photos.”

I realize he’s shaking, all the red-faced swagger gone.

“Get out of my way. And don’t you dare come near me again or it’ll be me going to the police. You’ll be on the school CCTV.”

He stands back and stares at me, shaking his head. “You’re insane. Fucking insane.”

God, how did this get so complicated? That time I saw those pictures on Rebecca’s phone, it was instinct that made me take it. She was laughing and bragging about having sex with some forty-year-old, but I saw something else in her face; I saw the shadow of Nicole Wallace and Annie Weston and Bella and me. I saw me in her face. And I wanted…I wanted to protect her, that was all.