It's Never too Late

“I’m moving on.”

“So the not deserting her...that’s as in friends? You’re going to stay friends with her?”

She was asking questions he didn’t have answers for. Questions he hadn’t asked himself. “Ella and I... We’ve been a couple for a long time.” He had no idea why he was answering her. Or even thinking about the question. “I don’t think of myself as free. At the same time, I don’t find it wrong that she’s seeing someone else. I don’t expect her to remain true to me. She told me point-blank that she wasn’t going to. She doesn’t just want to get married, she wants to have babies right away.”

“And you don’t?” There was no judgment in her tone.

“Not right now, I don’t. I can’t speak to the future. I just don’t know.”

“You’ve got a lot on your plate. With school. Your grandmother. Work...”

What was it with the women in his life always trying to do his thinking for him?

“Life in Shelter Valley is temporary. My time here is limited. I won’t take on fatherhood until I’m in a position to be a father.”

Some things he just didn’t question.

* * *

ADDY WAS ON her way home from the store Friday afternoon when she saw the red lights in her rearview mirror. And recognized the man driving the police cruiser behind her. Pulling to the side of the road, she waited.

“At least you didn’t use the siren,” she greeted as Greg Richards approached her car.

“I didn’t stop you on your own street, either,” the forty-seven-year-old sheriff said, coming up to her door with his pad in hand.

“I appreciate that, but you could have just called my prepaid cell.”

“I didn’t want to take a chance that you’d be with someone who might ask who’d called. Or overhear our conversation. I’d rather we appear to be complete strangers until we know who’s behind the threats. I don’t want to give anyone any cause to suspect you’re anything but what you say you are.”

The last time she’d seen the sheriff, when he and Will had met her at her Phoenix hotel right after she’d arrived from Denver, he’d been driving a ten-year-old Ford pickup and wearing jeans and a polo shirt.

“Do you really think someone is out to hurt Will?” she asked. “Maybe this was just a random act from a coward who was unhappy with a grade or something.” A drastic way to express disappointment, to be sure, but it would let her off the hook so she could get the hell out of Dodge.

“We’ve had another letter. That’s why I stopped you. I wanted you to know.” With a uniformed arm on the top of her opened window, he leaned in toward her, and the intensity in his green-eyed gaze made her aware of the seriousness of the situation.

“It was left under the door of Will’s office again. Same type of envelope. Ordinary copy paper from a common ink jet printer. It warned Will that he should be making plans to get a sum of money together.”

A car passed. And then another. She’d been on her way home from the big-box store outside of town and hadn’t yet reached city limits so they were surrounded by open desert, devoid of curious onlookers.

“Weren’t the first threats against Will and Montford?” They’d shown her the letters. She didn’t have copies. Her job didn’t require it and she didn’t want this initial review tainted with too many suppositions. Didn’t want to go back to the letters, look for clues there. She had to keep her mind open to every possibility so she didn’t overlook some instance, occurrence or behavior that could open Will up to a lawsuit because she’d been focusing somewhere else.

“They were vague, but yes, the implications included Montford. And this one could, too. It doesn’t say how much money. Or from where.”

“What does Will think?”

“His first instinct was to resign immediately rather than put the school in jeopardy.”

Addy shook her head. “That’s wrong on so many levels. You can’t let a bully win, just in principle.” Unless Will was guilty of the charges. “Second, his resignation in no way stops the perpetrator from suing him personally or going after the school if he or she really believes they have a case. In fact, his resignation would most likely make him look more guilty in the eyes of the court or a jury.”

“Which is what I told him.”

“Until formal charges are brought there’s nothing he can do but continue on with his daily activities as though nothing is wrong. The less guilty he acts, the less confident his accuser will be. And the less chance they’ll have some questionable behavior to report as evidence against him in court.”

Nodding, Greg said, “I’ll pass that on to him.”

“And in the meantime, I keep looking. The first thing to do after receiving a hint of a threat is to get legal counsel. He’s done that, albeit unofficially. The most we can do at this point is to be prepared.”

“And find whoever the hell is behind this. That’s my job.”