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Nerves jumped inside her as she waited for the face-to-face with a woman who had tried to kill her not once, not twice, but three times. Eva had set the fire that could have killed Sammy. If it was true, then there had to be such evil in Eva’s heart.

Suzanna wasn’t sure how long she waited before the door opened and Eva was led in by Dallas. They were followed by Officer Benjamin Cooper, who took up a position by the door.

Eva was clad in an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit. Her hair was a mess, and she wore no makeup. She looked far different from the well-put-together woman who had met Suzanna on parent-teacher night.

“Can you take off my cuffs?” she asked Dallas. She smiled at him. “I promise I’ll behave.”

Dallas moved behind her and unfastened the handcuffs, and then Eva sat in the chair opposite Suzanna’s and gazed at her. “Mrs. Michaels, I’ve been told of the charges against me, but I’ll tell you right now I’m totally innocent in all this. I would never try to harm you.”

She looked so earnest, and for a moment Suzanna believed her. But then she remembered all the evidence against her and saw there was something dark in the very depths of the woman’s eyes.

“What about the car in your garage that had front-end damage?” Suzanna asked.

“Oh, that old thing. When I bought it, it had the damage. I wanted a second car as a backup, and that was all I could afford at the time. I certainly didn’t use that car to run you off the road. I haven’t driven that car in months and months. In fact, the battery in it is probably dead from lack of use.”

Oh, the woman was very good. It would be so easy to believe in her innocence if not for the hard darkness in the very center of her eyes. “What about the acetone bottles? How did your fingerprints get on them?”

Eva’s face flushed and she leaned forward. “I truly don’t know, Mrs. Michaels. Maybe I touched them in the store. It wasn’t that long ago that I bought myself a bottle of acetone to take off my nail polish. I just can’t believe I’ve been arrested for things I didn’t do. This is all just wrong…a complete miscarriage of justice, and you need to know that I’m an innocent woman.”

“I just hope Holly gets through all this okay,” Suzanna replied.

It was like a switch went off. “Don’t you even say her name,” Eva said with a snarl. “It’s because you didn’t see Holly’s potential, you bitch. You had to die so my daughter could get a new teacher who would appreciate her special qualities. You had to be gone for my Holly’s sake.”

The words spewed out of her with utter rage. “My teachers never saw my specialness. I was overlooked, and my mother was told I was average…average! None of them saw me for who I was, for how amazing I was, and now it’s happening all over again with my daughter. I won’t have it. I simply won’t have it.”

Suddenly, like a wild animal, she leaped across the table and managed to get her hands around Suzanna’s throat. “Die, you bitch. You were supposed to die.” Her hands squeezed tight, momentarily cutting off Suzanna’s air. She reached up and grabbed Eva’s hands in an effort to get them off her.

Dallas and Benjamin jumped into action, pulling the screaming woman off Suzanna and getting her in handcuffs once again. Benjamin took her out of the door as Dallas looked at Suzanna. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied as she gulped in air. She moved her hands up to her throat and then shook her head. “I just find it so hard to believe that all this happened because she wanted a new teacher for her daughter.”

“It sounds to me like she’s had some past trauma in that area of her life. Did you get what you needed here?”

“Yes, although the real victim in all this is Holly, and that makes me very sad,” she replied.

Dallas smiled at her. “It’s a good thing Eva’s attempts to kill you didn’t succeed. We need people like you to teach our children.”

“Thanks, Dallas.” She grabbed her purse, and five minutes later she was back in the rental car and headed home. Now that the threat against her had been resolved, there was no reason for Seth and Sammy to be in her life. It was time to go back to simply being Sammy’s teacher.

The thought of not being around Sammy in a more integral way crushed her heart. She would miss seeing his smiling, sweet face first thing in the morning. She would definitely miss laughing with him during game times and tucking him in at night with a kiss. She wished Sammy could be her son, but that couldn’t happen because Seth didn’t love her.

Yet, she could have sworn he loved her. She’d seen the emotion shining from his beautiful eyes and had felt it in his every touch. But his ex-wife had left him so damaged he refused to ever marry again.

It made her mad that fate had shown her that she could love again as deeply as she had loved Davy. It had felt like a second chance at lasting happiness, but it had only been a fanciful mirage.

When she arrived back at the house, Seth and Sammy were gone. She assumed they had gone to Seth’s house to assess the damage. She went directly to the freezer to figure out something for dinner. She pulled out a package of hot dogs and buns.

She should make a quick run to the grocery store while they were gone. However, her brain kept replaying her time with Eva. With her lack of sleep and the knowledge that soon Seth and Sammy would be out of her life forever, she didn’t feel like doing much of anything.

Hot dogs would do for tonight, and then in the morning she could make a grocery store run. She sank down on the sofa, closed her eyes and fought against a rush of emotions.

While she was grateful that Eva was behind bars, she found the whole thing sad. What hauntings did the woman carry from her past? And what would become of Holly?

She didn’t even want to think about Seth and Sammy right now. If she thought about them for too long, she would begin to sob, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

She must have drifted off to sleep, for the next thing she knew Seth and Sammy came into the house. Sammy ran over to where she sat on the sofa. “Mrs. Michaels, some of the stuff in my room is okay,” he exclaimed with shiny bright eyes. “There was only some things that got burned up. I brought my tablet with me and it works.”

“That’s wonderful, Sammy,” she replied. “And I’m glad you have your tablet.”