It's Never too Late

“Take a drive with me?”

* * *

ADDY SAT IN the passenger seat of Mark’s truck because he asked her to. She was strong. A survivor. She could get through this and then she’d be on her way back to Colorado.

The reunion the night before had been lovely. A dream dating back long ago. For one evening, she’d been a member of the Parsons family, just like she’d once prayed she would be. She’d see them again. When they came to visit her in Colorado. And when she made occasional trips to Shelter Valley.

Would she see Mark, too?

She couldn’t help but hope so.

The Parsonses were hoping she’d stay in Shelter Valley. But she couldn’t. Will would help them understand.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.” Mark threw her words from the other day back at her.

Staring straight ahead, Addy waited. Tried to stay tough. Surely the town had changed enough in twenty-five years to make it all unrecognizable. From the little bit she’d seen on her trip downtown, that was the case. Even the town square was different. Blessedly different. Not that she’d done more than glance at it.

Some of the stores had been the same, but she hadn’t gone in them.

Still, she wasn’t taking any chances. One never knew when a memory would hit, when recognition would strike.

She wanted no part of it.

The truck stopped in front of a building she didn’t recognize. The Shelter Valley Sheriff’s Office.

“Wait here.”

Mark jumped down from the truck and went inside the building. He was gone a few minutes and returned without the satchel on his shoulder.

“Don’t you have class today?” she asked him.

“Not until ten. And I’ve got perfect attendance, so I can miss if it comes to that. I know you went to bat for me. Thank you.”

“You didn’t need my help.”

“I’m a genius,” Mark said, grinning.

“I didn’t need a test score to tell me that.”

His smile faded. “I get that, you know,” he said, watching the road, but glancing at her, too. Holding her gaze for a long few seconds. “I’m the one who needed the validation, which is ridiculous.”

They were back on the road again. Going home, she hoped. But it didn’t look like it. They seemed to be leaving town. And that was okay with her, too.

Mark didn’t speak again until he pulled the truck to a stop. She figured that they really didn’t have all that much to say to each other. She’d lied to him. She’d turned his questionable entrance qualifications over to the authorities when she could have thrown the evidence in the trash.

But his scholarship had been saved.

“Did you ask who filled out your scholarship application?”

Mark turned to her. “I thought you knew.”

“There is no record of a scholarship for you in the database, which is all I had access to. Which means it was privately funded.”

“What about Will Parsons? You could ask him.”

She shook her head. “It didn’t have anything to do with the investigation.”