The chair next to her creaked again, and he returned his hand to her arm, causing a flurry of little wings inside her belly. Was his touch always going to do this to her?
His gaze was still on her. Reluctantly, she met it. “What?”
“Allie, I never would have considered you that way. Not just because that description is cruel and hateful, but because it’s simply not true.” He took a breath in and exhaled it loudly. “I can see how maybe, growing up with some of the censure I saw from your family, you might think that. And God knows when I was in high school I had my own share of self-doubt.”
She had a really hard time believing that.
“But you’re wrong. When I remember what you were like, I remember a fresh-faced young girl, hopeful and smart and sweet. Maybe a tad on the young side for me.” His eyes twinkled. “Then. But with a good heart and infinite possibility.” He looked away from her.
Was he regretting what he’d said? Her chest squeezed.
But when he looked back at her, he was smiling. “Allie, you were gorgeous. Please, don’t ever sell yourself short like that.”
She didn’t think she’d ever heard anything so wonderful in her life. She fought back tears. Not of sadness, but…of what, she didn’t quite know. But to hear how he thought about her really touched her heart. “Thanks. I… Thanks.”
And what did he mean about her being too young for him…then?
Okay, easy girl. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
Were they really even having this conversation? Besides, he was probably just being nice.
She cleared her throat, hoping to get back to more comfortable territory. “Anyway, Meredith seems to think you two have a connection. Maybe you can point out to her that if the video gets approval, she’ll receive airtime on that big screen at the gala. There will be several well-financed supporters present, along with the press. I doubt she’d turn down that opportunity. Coming from you, anyway.”
“How exactly do you propose I make this suggestion to her when I’ve been dodging her calls for the better part of two days?” he drawled.
Allie shouldn’t care what he did with his dating life, but all the same, her heart blossomed with hope that Sam hadn’t been seduced by Meredith’s charms—not then and not now. “I’m sure you can figure out something.” She smiled brightly. “Think about all the inside information you could get for your book.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”
…
After Sam left Allie in the newsroom, he headed back to his own classroom, bemused by his discovery. How had he never realized that the bright, shining expression fifteen year old Allie—or had she been sixteen by then?—had worn on her young face whenever she greeted him that last year on the school paper was…love?
He wouldn’t be a man if hearing that tidbit didn’t stroke his ego just a bit. He’d been blind, evidently. But he had also been caught up in his own issues back then—his parents’ cold, unhappy marriage and his desire to get away from them, everything pinned on his acceptance to his dream college—UC Berkeley.
Hearing Allie’s description of herself really angered him. Her skewed perception likely had everything to do with how the people around her treated her, made her see herself. People who should have loved her, nurtured her. God, it was a miracle that she had grown up to be the sexy, smart, and confident woman she was now.
A woman he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Even with all the other pressing concerns involving his mother’s health, finding out who was behind Mr. Williams’s murder, and the recent spate of “accidents,” Allie was still uppermost on his mind.
And to discover that, once upon a time, she’d had a huge crush on him, gave him a deeper satisfaction than he would have expected. She’d been in love him. Her first?
A strange wave of possession swept over him. Maybe it had always been there, but he recognized it more firmly now. He wanted to protect her from further hurt.
He’d better get busy then. He slipped his cell phone from his back pocket and, despite his dread, dialed the number.
“Sam, I was just thinking of you,” Meredith’s confident, sexy voice greeted him.
Damn, talking to this woman was the last thing he wanted to be doing right now. Or ever, really.
But he would.
For Allie.
Chapter Twelve
Hail peppered her classroom windows, joining the rain pounding against them. It made for a grim Tuesday afternoon. This weather had better not last through the rest of the week, or Allie was going to have a miserable Sunday entertaining the whole clan for Vi’s birthday barbecue inside her small house.
She was grading essay papers when a masculine voice came from the doorway.
“Ahem.”
It irked her how quickly her day went from dreary to bright by Sam’s appearance. He was carrying a large FedEx box. How long has he been standing there?
Damn. There was that fluttering in her stomach again. From the dark shadow on his chin, he didn’t look like he’d shaved. Didn’t he know there was a dress code here? Sheesh.
“This was at the office for you when I stopped for my mail,” he said and gestured towards the box. “Ohio?”
“No way.” She jumped to her feet and dug around her top desk drawer until she found a pair of scissors and cut the tape. “It’s got to be from Jackson Williams’s sister.”
His brows shot up, and he looked at the box with curiosity. “Yeah?”
“The police had looked through everything before it was sent to her, so she didn’t see why I shouldn’t have it. Provided I send her one of the first videos.”
She pulled out the items lying on top. Pictures of Mr. Williams. One looked like a college graduation photo and another showed him teaching in front of a class.
Just as she remembered him.
Even from these two-dimensional pictures, she could see how the kids were engaged by the energy and passion on his young face. He’d only been thirty-one when he disappeared. The same age Allie was now.
Her stomach dropped when she saw the old coffee mug that Mr. Williams had carried everywhere, earning laughter from the students when they saw what was printed on it: World’s Goodest Teacher. She set that aside and saw mounds of papers, not in any type of order. She’d have to look at those later. There was a VHS tape, too, and she picked it up. The label on the side read, Crimson Press Outtakes. Anticipation coursed through her as she thought of the gold mine this might turn out to be. Actual video of Mr. Williams.
“I feel like a kid in a candy store.” She glanced up at Sam, who was still looking at the picture she’d handed him of Mr. Williams teaching in front of the class. “What do you think?”
He looked up, distracted. “I’d say you hit pay dirt.”
They continued to sift through the material, finding—no surprise—a number of books, including a worn copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, The Count of Monte Cristo, and a copy of Don Quixote in Spanish. There was also a letter opener which seemed a little old-fashioned—maybe it was a gift?—a nice fountain pen, and some old cough drops at the bottom of the box, tucked under several folders.
After twenty minutes of reading through letters and correspondence Mr. Williams had been keeping—mostly documents she guessed he’d simply never had time to throw away—she finally found something that made her sit up and take notice. Handwritten on plain, white stationary were three letters, unmistakably feminine. She scanned the first paragraph.
Love letters. Addressed to Jackson, and signed with an elaborate “E.”
They didn’t profess undying love or anything, but they were very personal. The first one was short, thanking him for being there when she needed someone, and that she appreciated how he’d just listened to her.
Allie had always appreciated that trait, too.
The next one was more intimate, and from its tone, she could assume they had taken their relationship to the n
ext level. It felt weird and kind of pervie reading these details about her teacher. Sam came over and picked up the first letter. He looked as weirded out as she had felt reading it. Maybe more.
Then she read the last letter.
Jackson,
Forgive me. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to realize… You’re who I want. I’ll give it up, everything, for you. It’s not your choice to make, so don’t push me away. It won’t change how I feel.
I’m going to tell him. Tell them both. Being truthful is the only way I can be happy.
Just be patient a little longer.
And don’t give up on me.
Love always,
E
Good lord. Señora Sanchez was right. Jackson Williams had been carrying on an affair with a married woman.
Allie dropped into a chair. The letter didn’t come out and say she was married, but she’d be foolish to pretend otherwise. “E” had said she would tell them both. Which most likely meant a husband and child.
Mr. Williams had had an affair, and the result was he’d likely broken up a family.
She felt sick. Sam pulled the letter from her fingers and read it. She waited. This definitely opened up the list of people who would have had a motive for killing him.
“You know the familiar saying, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?” she mused when he finished. “What if he ended things? Told her to go back to her family? Do you suppose this woman could have been have been distraught enough to murder him?”
“Allie, we don’t even know when these were written. This could have been a college fling, over before he arrived at St. Andrew’s. Don’t jump to conclusions. Besides, the police went through all this, and for whatever reason, they didn’t think these were important enough to keep as evidence.”
“Well, back then no one knew for certain what had happened to him,” she pointed out, feeling defensive at his brusque response. “It wasn’t a murder investigation. There were no motives, no suspicious clues left behind. But now, with his body turning up yards from the school, it clearly indicates foul play. These letters may mean something in light of that. I’m going to contact Detective Johnson, see if he has any interest in them.”
Sam’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t say anything. She dialed the detective’s number. Voicemail. She spoke quickly, explaining she had some items that might be useful for his investigation, and asked him to return her call. Sam stared out the window and refused to meet her gaze.
She picked up the letter again and studied the signature. Who was this mystery woman?
If Señora Sanchez knew about Mr. Williams’s relationship with this woman, Allie couldn’t help but wonder who else might have known. Back then, she would have laid bets on one certain person knowing all the hot, juicy gossip.
“Sam, have you talked to Meredith yet? Has she committed to coming in?”
He sighed. “I have. She was going to get back to me about when she’d be available to meet with us. I’ll try her again.” He turned around, his brows furrowed. “Look, I need to get going. There’s something I have to do.”
Allie nodded, slightly puzzled by his abrupt exit, then shrugged and returned her attention to the box’s contents, strewn across her desk. Having done her civic duty by attempting to notify the police about the letters, she started straightening up and realized there was a lot of other stuff in the box that would be perfect for her video.
She tossed everything back in, grabbed her purse, and carried it down the hall to the Crimson Press room, where she knew there was a VCR. She might as well pop in the tape and see if there was something she could use.
He could be on the tape. Actual, live video. Would he seem different, with the perspective of another decade? Would she recognize him, distinguish him from this other man she was now learning about?
Her pulse quickened. Only one way to find out.
She pushed the tape into the VCR and hit play.
…
Sam ran his hand across the surface of the old desk. Smooth, save for the area where he’d gouged his name—and been properly punished for it—when he was four-years old.
His mother’d had this thing for as long as he could remember. Back before email, this was where she’d drafted all her correspondence. Now it seemed to be delegated to paying bills.
He felt shitty sitting here now, knowing he was going to be looking through her things to try and disprove the awful suspicions he was having. She was with Aunt Kathy right now. He expected he had at least half an hour before she returned.
But the curve of the writing in the notes they found…was familiar. Familiar from all the years of letters his mother had written him, letters he wished he had copies of so he could compare them with the image in his mind from today.
Elizabeth Margaret Fratto had a distinctive handwriting style.
And the woman in those damn letters talked about being alone. Until Jackson Williams came along, listened to her, cared for her, made her feel important again.
Back then, his father had not only been a surgeon—a time-consuming career for anyone, let alone a parent—but he’d also headed his own surgical practice with four other surgeons. Between his patients and the running of the practice, Sam and his mother hardly ever saw his father. And Sam? He had been a high school senior, wrapped up in applying to colleges, his friends, his photography stint for the school paper, soccer, girls. He hadn’t been around much, either.
She could have been lonely. She could have been susceptible to the charisma of the young Jackson Williams, even at six years her junior. Sam could see the attraction on both sides. His mother, after all, had always been beautiful.
He had to know, either way. He pulled open a drawer and started sifting through things. Nothing here except for copies of bills from the past few months and paper-clipped receipts organized by date. Very neat. The next drawer contained some old stationary, envelopes, pens, and self-addressed mailing stickers, as organized as the first. He couldn’t see anything that would help.
He looked back on the surface of the desk. There was a memo pad stacked neatly under her book of stamps. He slid it out. Her handwriting was clear and legible on the list of things to do for the week. It was as close a match as his memory permitted.
His mother had written those to her lover.
Now what? Allie wanted to show those letters to the police. But for what purpose? There was no possible way his mother had killed anyone. All the letters could prove was she had betrayed her husband, her family, with an illicit relationship.
And it wasn’t as if his father hadn’t known.
After years of blocking the memory of that night, it was strange to willingly dredge it up. To try and remember the details. It was the night he’d learned his parents’ love had been a sham, their marriage a joke.
Sam was supposed to have been at a party, but he hadn’t been in the mood, which was completely out of character for him. He had come home and was headed to his room. But at hearing the argument streaming down the hallway, he’d been paralyzed. Unable to continue to his room and shut the door.
Not when he heard his father calling her a whore. It had shocked the hell out of him.
Francisco Fratto had accused her of running around with some pansy-assed dreamer. And Sam’s respectable, soft-spoken mother had responded in kind. Accused him of screwing his assistants and receptionists at his practice over the years, to the point he’d become a joke.
They both threatened to ruin the other. Near the end, Sam had finally found the ability to move his legs and shut himself in his room, blasting Bon Jovi through his headphones to drown out their words.
But he hadn’t been able to block the memory of what he’d heard.
Two months later, his diploma and acceptance letter to UC Berkeley in hand, Sam had left, no reason to hang around.
He also recalled it hadn’t been long after that night that Mr. Williams went missing.
Sam knew about passion. He knew about betrayal.
How ordinary people could snap, their passion blinding them to reason. It was how he made a living.
His mother, though? Elizabeth Fratto couldn’t murder anyone. She couldn’t.
He went to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. While he ground the beans, he thought about his father. Cold, methodical. If he was worried his wife was going to leave him, disgrace the family name, would he have considered ways of getting the other man out of the picture permanently?
But his father was dead. He couldn’t have set the fire or damaged Allie’s car, and Sam didn’t harbor any illusions those were mere coincidences.
His mother, however, had access to the school, probably the basement, too, if she needed it. She was aware of Allie’s intentions to create a video—but she had also supported it. He doubted the idea would even have been approved without her speaking up.
She wasn’t the one doing these things. It just wouldn’t make sense.
Regardless of her innocence, if those letters came to light and Elizabeth Fratto was identified as the woman who had written them, she’d be exposed not only to public humiliation, but she would become a prime suspect. Right now, his mother could barely get up in the morning, make it to her doctors’ appointments, or play a game of cards.
The stress she would be under if the letters came to light would probably kill her.
Sam couldn’t let that happen. For all her faults, her lies, her betrayal, he didn’t want his mother to die because of a mistake she’d made so long ago.
She couldn’t kill anyone. She didn’t have it in her.
So he had to figure out who did. And fast. Before the letters became a driving force in the murder investigation. Before anyone could identify his mother as the author.
The pot of coffee had just finished brewing when he heard the garage door open. He put the kettle on, because he knew she preferred tea this late in the evening. And a few minutes later, as she steeped her tea across from him at the kitchen counter, he mentioned the box. The letters.
But he didn’t have the balls to confront her directly. Not yet. He wanted to see how she would react. Her only reaction was to pull the tea bag from her cup, discard it in the garbage, and ask him how his day had gone.
You Again Page 14
