Taming Jesse James by RaeAnne Thayne Page A

hot, steamy activities his subconscious had conjured up for them to do together. Hell, even he was horror-struck when he woke up and found himself hard and ready for action. She wasn’t at all his type. So why couldn’t he seem to stop thinking about her?
    â€œAre you listening to me?”
    â€œSure.” He snapped his attention back to Chuck Hendricks, chagrined that he’d let himself get so distracted from the investigation by the soft, pretty Sarah McKenzie.
    He also didn’t like the fact that the principal could make him feel as if he had somehow traveled twenty years back in time and was once more the troublemaker du jour in Up-Chuck’s sixth-grade class.
    â€œWhat are you going to do to get to the bottom of this?” Hendricks snapped. “These criminals must be caught and punished severely. I can tell you right where to start. Corey Sylvester.”
    The principal said the name with such seething animosity that a wave of sympathy for the kid washed through Jesse. He knew all too well what it was like to be at the top of Chuck’s scapegoat list.
    â€œWhy Corey?” he asked.
    â€œIt’s exactly the sort of thing he would do. After thirty-five years of teaching hooligans, I know a bad apple and I can tell you that boy is just plain rotten.”
    The principal didn’t seem to notice the sudden frown and narrowed gaze of one of those former hooligans. “Besides that,” he went on, “I saw him hanging around by the jar yesterday before lunch recess. It’s the second or third time I’ve seen him there. I know he was up to no good.”
    â€œMaybe he was putting some quarters in.”
    Hendricks harrumphed as if the idea was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “I doubt it.”
    Jesse felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. He would have liked to tell Up-Chuck exactly what he thought of him, but he knew that wouldn’t help him solve the case of the missing quarters. “I’ll talk to him. But I’ve got to tell you, my instincts are telling me you’re on the wrong track. I don’t think he did it. Or if he did, he couldn’t have acted alone.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œDo the math, Chuck.” His smile would have curdled milk, but his former teacher didn’t seem to notice. “Corey weighs no more than sixty-five pounds. A jar with six thousand quarters would weigh a whole lot more than that. He wouldn’t even be able to wrestle it onto a dolly by himself, let alone push the thing out of the building.”
    He paused to give the information time to sink through Hendricks’s thick skull. “Then you have the matter of getting it out of here. You think he could haul a dolly weighing that much all the way to his house?”
    â€œWell, he probably had help. Most likely that troublemaking Connor kid. You’ll probably find both of them spending the loot all over town on any manner of illegal—not to mention immoral—activity.”
    Yeah. Paying for booze and hookers with quarters always went over real well. “Thanks for all the leads. I’ll do my best to get the money back for the kids.”
    The principal sniffed. “I sincerely hope you do.”
    Jesse sighed. Having Chuck on his case over this was going to be a major pain in the keister until he found the culprits.

Chapter 5
    H e managed to put off talking to Corey Sylvester for nearly two hours.
    Finally he had to admit that he had nobody left to interview. He had talked to the janitor and the assistant principal, to several of the faculty members and the custodial staff. He had interviewed the residents of the three houses across the street from the school to see if any of them had heard or seen anything in the night, and he had Lou notifying local merchants and banks to give him a buzz if anybody brought in an unusual number of quarters.
    He had half a mind to wrap up the initial canvas right now and forget