The Girl in the Lane

Book summary

Gina's life falls apart after a young girl, Rachel, vanishes under her watch during a class trip to Central Park. Desperate for answers, she teams up with her brother while confronting a haunting connection to her imprisoned fiancé's past. Can she uncover the truth before it’s too late?

Excerpt from The Girl in the Lane

Chapter 1

“I just can’t believe she was out four days this month,” Gina grumbled.

“Well, we do have ten sick days,” Megan said. “If a teacher wants to use them all by the end of November, let her. She’ll be sorry when it’s dark and cold and the snow is blowing.” Megan touched a little girl on the top of her head before the girl went racing towards the monkey bars. “Honestly, that girl, Rachel, needs to be evaluated. Have you spoken to her mother yet?”

Gina hadn’t. She didn’t want to open that door, the door to endless meetings and parents’ resistance, and, by the time any changes in behavior occurred, the girl would already be in third grade. No help to Gina.

“Look at her, over there, playing by herself near the swings,” Megan said. “She’s such a strange duck. Is she bonding with any of the girls in your class? Have you spoken to Doctor Lewis about her?”

“Not yet,” Gina mumbled.

“The problem is that Rachel’s mother smothers her. That can’t be good. Rachel needs to socialize with the other girls, have play dates. What happened to her father anyway?”

Before Gina had a chance to respond, a breathless red-headed girl came rushing up to Megan. “Miss Connor, Victoria fell on the jungle gym – right on her head – and she’s really bleeding.”

Megan raced over to the jungle gym and Gina followed behind. A bevy of girls surrounded poor Victoria, who was wailing uncontrollably.

“I’ve got to get her to the school nurse,” Megan said. “Can you gather both of our classes and follow right behind me?”

“Do you want me to go with you, Miss Connor? I’m Victoria’s best friend.”

“I didn’t push her,” the rotund girl with the huge brown eyes insisted. “I don’t care what anyone says. I didn’t push her.”

“So can I go with you, Miss Connor?” Victoria’s best friend begged.

“No, stay with Mrs. Patino. She’ll bring you back to school.”

“But I want her to come with me!” Victoria insisted. “She’s my best friend!”

And so, Megan consented, and then she whipped both girls out of sight, practically carrying Victoria out of the park. Victoria, who was always falling and crying and screaming and bellowing and pushing and shoving. This behavior usually resulted in her getting hurt, which was a huge inconvenience to everyone, especially to Gina, who now had the task of gathering thirty-two second graders from Central Park and then walking with them past Madison Avenue.

The rule of was, upon leaving the premises, there should always be one teacher for every ten girls. Technically Gina and Megan should not have taken their students to Central Park without two other chaperones. But, after all, it was a warm fall day, and the girls were antsy, and so were the teachers, and the park was mere streets away, so what could possibly happen?

Well, this could happen. One teacher now to over thirty girls.

Gina blew her whistle, creating a definite din. One teenager, wearing a hoodie and baggy jeans, was blasting a boom box, and a little boy was hollering at the top of his lungs over dripped ice cream, so only a few girls, exploding with laughter, came running. Gina had to send those girls to gather the others and they were slow in lining up. It was going on three and, if they were late for the buses, there would be a terrible fuss.

And it had started to drizzle. The sunny day had turned overcast, and Gina felt a sudden chill in the October air.

Ten minutes later the second-grade girls from Miss Mitter’s were lined up and partnered. Gina held up her hand in the peace sign and a hush fell over most of them.

“As you can see, I am the only teacher here, so I need some cooperation.”

The girls didn’t look too cooperative.

“Does everyone have her partner?”

There was no answer.

“Everyone, make sure you have your partner. Is everyone standing by the person she walked into the park with?”

There were a lot of feeble yeses.

Perhaps she should count them, but she wasn’t sure how many girls were in Megan’s class, and it was getting late, and she was tired, having slept little the night before, kept up, while worrying about her dwindling finances.

So instead, she forged on, leading the line. She put the studious girls in the back, the reliable ones. And Gina walked slowly and deliberately, waiting for fresh traffic lights on Fifth Avenue and then on Madison. She marched through the pink doorway of Miss Mitter’s and up four flights of stairs, and she left Megan’s students in Megan’s classroom (although Megan wasn’t there yet), and then Gina proceeded to her own classroom.

“Girls, everyone please take a seat. We’ll pack up and get ready to go home when everyone is quiet.”

Which wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

And Gina couldn’t even silence them (not really), because she was running back and forth between her class and Megan’s until Megan came in, flushed, and flustered, and said that Victoria had to go to the ER for stitches, and Megan only hoped that they didn’t get in trouble, because they disobeyed the rule having only two chaperones.

Gina started to feel dizzy and nauseous, as though she was losing control.

She asked her students – for the fourth time – to sit, and then she said Victoria was going to be fine. No, she wasn’t in an ambulance, and she wasn’t dead, and no one was going to be in trouble unless they didn’t quiet down, and Gina was so frustrated and her voice was so shrill that the girls finally rushed into their seats, mute at last.

All except Rachel, whose chair was empty.

Gina felt a flutter of panic, and then she asked in a little voice, “Is Rachel in the bathroom?”

The girls looked at each other, with wide and bulging eyes.

“All right,” Gina drew a deep breath, “who was her partner?”

Again, the girls eyed one another, dazed.

“Girls, this is not a hard question. One of you walked from the park back to school with her. Who was it?”

The silence terrified Gina, especially when she saw the puzzled expressions on the little girls’ faces.

“I don’t understand.” A chill flashed through her.

And then the girls all began to talk at once and the confusion only heightened

Gina’s panic. The room began to whirl around her, as she tried to catch her breath. She felt like she was floating in a bad dream. A sheen of sweat ran from her forehead to her chin and down to her neck.

“Where is she?” asked Ashley, the smallest girl in the class.

Devon, a tall girl with braids, said, “Didn’t she come back with us?”

“She was playing by the sandbox.” Summer, a blonde girl, kicked her foot in the aisle.

“I saw her by the swings,” Madison said softly.

“But then she went to the sandbox,” Bonnie added.

“Girls,” Gina screamed at the top of her lungs, “I asked you all, every one of you at the park, if you were walking with your partner, and you all answered yes. How could this have happened? Someone must have walked into the park with her!”

Or maybe Rachel hadn’t walked into the park at all. Maybe she was still in the building – except Gina had a vague recollection of Megan commenting on Rachel – Rachel alone.

“She was our partner,” Vanessa, a red-haired girl, was crying now, “but not really, because it was a threesome.”

“What? What are you talking about?!”

“Someone was absent, so Rachel didn’t have a partner.” Vanessa continued to sob. “Miss Connor told us that we had to triple up, so Natasha and I took Rachel as our partner.”

“So, when you asked if everyone had a partner,” nosy Natasha said, “we answered yes because we did have our partners, only Rachel wasn’t really our partner.”

“I saw her.” Isabelle wrinkled her freckled nose. “I know where Rachel is.”

“Where is she?” Oh God, Gina prayed, let her be in the building, somewhere on the first floor, wandering.

“I saw her in the park, way over by the water fountain, talking to a man.”

Rachel. Never came back from the park. Talking to a man. “Did she know this man?”

Isabelle shrugged. “It wasn’t her father. She doesn’t have a father.”

Gina didn’t even bother with her coat. She flew into the hall and ran into the computer teacher, an easy-going man, who always spoke softly. “Watch my class!”

“I can’t. I have a meeting. Aren’t they supposed to be packing up and going home?”

Gina didn’t answer him. Nor did she wait for the elevator. She raced down four flights of stairs. Her knees buckled and she tripped over a backpack, and fell, and got up, and kept going. The first graders were behind her, chattering, the teacher threatening them if they weren’t quiet on the stairs -

Gina left by the side door. She didn’t want Mr. Fleming, the security guard, to see her. Not now. Not yet.

It was turning dark and nasty, and Gina felt a steady rain on her shoulders. “God please let Rachel be there,” she prayed. “God, please let her be there. God, please let her be there!”

Gina almost got hit by a car as she crossed the street and entered the park. Then she took her steps slowly, hesitantly, so frightened she could hardly breathe. With baby steps, she made her way to the playground, pausing at the iron gate.

Oh God, please let her be there.

No child was swinging or climbing up the slide. The sandbox was empty, and the monkey bars stood silent, a steel silhouette against the darkening sky.

The playground, which just minutes ago had been full of laughter and small children, was eerie and desolate.

And Rachel was nowhere in sight.

Chapter 2

It can’t be, Gina thought, it just can’t be.

That feeling again, as though she was trapped in some sort of nightmare - that none of this was real, that soon she would wake up in her own pink and green bedroom and her alarm would ring, and she would nudge her husband, and force herself out of her safe cocoon.

The cold rain on her face whipped her back into reality.

As she made her way out of the park, she clung to a tiny glimmer of hope. Even though Rachel was quiet and unassuming, she was smart. There was always a possibility that she had found her way back to the school, or some kind person had helped her, and right now she would be waiting in the lobby. Waiting with an angry and furious Miss Kennedy.

Of course, Gina would lose her job or, at least, they would not hire her back for the next school year. But that was all right, better than the alternative, which was unthinkable.

The parents of the elementary school girls were gathered outside the school, chatting. Dressed in designer clothes, carrying handbags that cost more than the average car, they didn’t seem to look at her in any peculiar way. In fact, they didn’t glance at her at all. If a child was missing, they would know already.

It was going to be all right.

She drew a deep breath, threw open the front door and stepped inside the lobby.