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“I guess I can go ahead and tell you. There were several sizeable cash withdrawals made over the past three months. During the time that Tiffany Bigelow was sole signatory.”
Patrick swore under his breath.
Emily silently agreed.
“So I’m in the unenviable position of heaping more grief on the Bigelow family.”
“What effect will this have on the Sea World trip and all the other requests for PTO assistance?” Emily asked.
“The account is frozen. Tiffany had been very excited about a spectacular new connection she’d made for a fund-raising activity, but she didn’t share the details. I’m afraid I was distracted by…other priorities and didn’t give it the attention I should have.”
“Tiffany always took notes.” Patrick leaned forward. “I’ve been thinking she might have files on her home computer.”
“The thought crossed my mind, too. But the police will be involved very soon and I don’t think we’ll be in a position to ask favors from Tiffany’s husband. I sincerely doubt he’ll let us anywhere near her computer.”
Patrick hesitated, glancing at his watch. “It’s late. Surely, you don’t intend to call the police tonight.”
The principal sighed. “No, to be honest I just want to go home and have a glass of wine. This has been one heck of a day.”
“Since there’s nothing more we can do today, why don’t we sleep on it and maybe there will be an obvious solution tomorrow morning?” Patrick’s face was bland, innocent.
But Emily could almost feel electricity rolling off him. He might have sincere hazel eyes, but he was up to something.
“Yes. Let’s call it a day. I’ll update both of you within the next day or so. Remember, this goes no further than this room.”
Emily murmured agreement, aware of Patrick’s hand on her elbow as they left the office.
“Can I talk to you outside?” he asked, his mouth close to her ear.
“Of course.” Of course…she should run like hell. Because the reliable Mr. Stevens was putting out some decidedly dangerous vibes.
“Where’s your car?” he asked as they left the building.
She nodded in the direction of her minivan. “Over there.”
He was silent as they walked to her car.
Emily punched the button on her keyless entry tag. The lock opened, but she hesitated.
Patrick’s gaze was intent. “I need to ask you to do something for me.”
With some men, she would have figured he was propositioning her. The ones who hadn’t figured out that, although she enjoyed an off-color joke and liked to pretend she was worldly-wise, she kept her sex life toward the nonexistent end of the spectrum. She’d learned the consequences of loving too soon, too easily.
But she suspected Patrick had something else in mind. And that intrigued her.
“What?”
“I need access to Tiffany’s computer.”
“You heard Principal Ross. There’s no way we’ll get near that computer.”
“There’s one way. We go tonight, together, and ask Brad Bigelow. We tell him we’re very sorry to bother him, but we need Tiffany’s PTO files.”
“I’m not going to pester her family while they’re grieving.”
Patrick sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It is kind of ghoulish. But we’ll be very tactful, very respectful. And we might discover some simple answer for the missing money. We could end up saving her family more grief.”
Emily contemplated his argument. They might actually be helping Tiffany’s family. It was a stretch, though. “Why do I have to be there?”
“People trust you. You’re very open and always say what you think.”
Emily chuckled, a hoarse, desperate sound. And here she’d thought nobody listened to a word she said. “I’m trustworthy, so you want me to lie to a man who suddenly lost his wife and the mother of his children and must be out of his mind with grief.”
“Yes.” He frowned. “I guess that’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Let the police handle it.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do. But you heard Ross. Once the police are involved that computer will be tied up for years. It won’t harm anyone if we copy her PTO files.” He leaned closer, his gaze earnest. “Please?”
“It means that much to you, this Florida trip?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
He glanced away. “I’m not going to disappoint those kids.” His voice was low.
Emily was touched. And wary. This was not the Patrick Stevens she’d met two years ago. “Okay. But I’ll need to get home first to feed my kids and supervise their homework. Should we call Brad?”
“No. Let’s not give him any advance warning.”
“I can meet you at eight. We’ll need the Bigelow’s address. I think they live on Cedar….”
“I’ve got their address in here.” He patted his backpack.
Emily had to wonder why he seemed so prepared, as if he’d known he would need the information. She also had to wonder if maybe there was another reason he was so anxious to get his hands on Tiffany’s files.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU’RE SURE I shouldn’t follow you to the Bigelows’ house?” Emily asked Patrick when they met later that evening. She’d parked under a light in the coffee house parking lot.
Patrick leaned against a Lexus SUV. “Better if we arrive together—a united front. It’ll seem more natural, like we’re working closely on the project. I’ll drive, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” Might as well use his gas.
He walked around to the other side of the SUV and opened the passenger door for her.
More unexpected gallantry.
Bemused, Emily sank into the cushy leather passenger seat as Patrick settled himself in the driver’s seat.
“Nice,” she said.
“It’s from my other life. Before teaching, when I made a living wage.”
Glancing around the luxurious interior, Emily said, “I have the feeling you and I have very different ideas of what a living wage is.”
He laughed, backing the car out of the space. “It was nice while it lasted. The money, that is.”
“What did you do?”
“I was a chemist with Porter Chemical.”
“I imagine that was interesting.”
“No, you don’t.”
Emily was taken aback for a second. Then she chuckled. “You’re right. It sounds pretty boring to me. But I imagine it’s interesting to the serious, scientific types.”
“Is that how I strike you?” He sounded pleased.
“Yes.”
“There are worse things than being serious.”
“But there’s such a thing as being too serious.”
He glanced at her before pulling out onto Cedar. “It’s a balance I guess I haven’t achieved.”
“Why’d you decide to stay on at the school permanently?”
He shrugged. “It fit. You ever have an experience like that, where things just seemed right?”
“Yeah, both of my marriages.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.
“You’ve been married twice?”
Nodding, she said, “And each time I thought it was forever.”
A few minutes later, Patrick parked the SUV in front of a ranch-style home with an immaculate front yard. He let the motor idle.
Turning to her, his gaze was solemn. “You’re very real, Emily. You don’t play games. I admire that in a person.”
This side of him rattled her. He’d said he admired her, loudmouthed Emily, mother of Jason-who-sets-mouse-traps-in-teachers’-desks.
Thanking him seemed over the top, so she opted for a smile of gratitude.
“Let’s go.” He reached into the backseat to retrieve his backpack, which brought him entirely too close.
Emily opened the door and stepped out before he got the idea he needed to open the door for her. Or an even weirder idea, like kissing her.
And, yet, she was disappointed when she was no longer cocooned in the car with him. It was as if they’d been in an alternate reality, where they could talk like any other two people.
He cupped her elbow as they walked to the front door. “You mind doing the talking?”
“Since I’m the trustworthy one, I guess I’d better.”
He chuckled, the sound coming entirely too close for comfort in the dark. “See, you say what you’re thinking.”
“That’s not always a good thing.”
“Probably not. But at least a guy knows where he stands with you.”
Emily opened her mouth to respond, but closed it. Instead, she knocked on the Bigelows’ door.
A blond girl who looked to be about nine opened the door.
“Hi, honey, is your father home?” Emily asked.
The girl nodded and disappeared, leaving the door ajar.
At Emily’s house, one of her kids would have simply bellowed her name from the doorway. She wondered if this was how well-mannered children answered the door.
A man came to the door. Tall, blond and muscular, he looked just like Emily expected—high school home-coming court royalty, only aged fifteen years.
“May I help you?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you, Mr. Bigelow. I’m Emily Patterson and I’ve taken over as PTO president at Elmwood. And this is Patrick Stevens, PTO adviser.” It wasn’t a lie, really. He’d given her quite a bit of advice in the past couple days. “Please accept our condolences on your loss.”
“Thank you.”
When they didn’t move to leave, Mr. Bigelow frowned. “What can I do for you? I already gave Tiffany’s files to Mrs. Ross.”
“I know and I’m so sorry to intrude at a time like this. But I need to look at the PTO notes Tiffany kept on her PC. They’re probably more complete than the file I was given.”
“Now’s not a good time. My daughters and I were on our way out.”
Patrick stepped forward. “We can copy the files onto a disk. It’ll only take a moment.”
“Come to think of it, Tiffany might have it on disk already. Let me check.” He didn’t invite them in, simply shut the door with the promise of returning in a minute.
Emily looked at Patrick.
He shrugged.
They waited what seemed more like five hours, but was probably about five minutes.
“Yep, here it is.” Bigelow leaned out the door and handed Emily a floppy disk. “Marked PTO. You can have it. Hope it helps. Bye.”
