It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,24

more than he’s already had.”

“He mentioned going back there.”

“Probably would, too, if the house was there.”

Shrewd eyes appealed her to understand.

“You don’t want him to go back.”

“He has so much more to offer than that place can give him.”

“Shouldn’t that be his choice?”

“Should be, but it ain’t. He’s saddled with me.”

“He loves you.” She didn’t need to know him well to know that.

“And I love him. So I sold the house.” She paused to breathe. “The money’ll pay for my medicine. And my burial, too, when the time comes.”

“I still think you should tell him.”

“Not yet. But I had to tell someone. Thank you, young woman, for having compassion on an old woman. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to rest.”

With that, she closed her eyes. Addy rinsed their tea glasses and let herself out.

She should have asked Nonnie about Mark’s scholarship.

* * *

ON HIS BREAK, Mark texted Ella again. He sat in the student union and set up his new tablet, playing with the features. He signed on to Wi-Fi to register for a class bulletin board.

And tested internet speeds because...that’s the kind of thing he did. A guy had to know his specs.

As a test case, he typed in fires in the Denver, Colorado, area twenty-five years before. Just on a whim. Addy’s house fire was none of his business. Unless she chose to tell him about it.

He was only looking because he was studying fire safety and engineering. Because he was curious about the details of the fire in a purely scientific sense. And because he’d lost a friend to an explosion and could relate—if only minutely—to his new neighbor’s suffering.

He didn’t find anything.

* * *

PROFESSOR CHRISTINE EVANS was deceased.

Standing at her kitchen table, Addy stared at the woman’s file on the secure Montford server accessible only by Will and one or two other people. No one could legitimately accuse Will, or Montford, of poor record keeping. A scan of Christine’s death certificate was in the woman’s file.

Cause of death was a fatal blow due to a car accident.

But the shocking part was that she’d died before she taught that semester at Montford.

Scrolling back to the first page of the file, Addy read again, checked dates. And then brought up the chart depicting a historical account of professorial ratings at Montford. She double-checked the dates of Christine’s student ratings and her performance reviews.

She was right.

The woman had been dead before she taught a course at the college.

Which meant that someone had tampered with the records.

Addy was onto something. And the something wouldn’t be good if it meant that someone Will trusted enough to have access to the secured database was altering records.

With her finger on the page down key, she quickly flipped through the pages she’d read and then slowed when she came to the parts of Christine’s employment file that she hadn’t seen.

A newspaper article written by a local reporter, dated January 2001. Just a few weeks after Christine’s one semester at Montford had ended.

Dead Sister Saves Lives

Addy read every word of the story. Two sisters, traveling together. An accident. One dies, the other lives...and the attending physician mixes up their identities.

She read it again. And then, hands on the keyboard, typed quickly. Furiously searching for more. With her memberships to online sources, she accessed local public records. Legal and criminal records from the county courthouse. Montford databases.

She looked at marriage licenses. And found adoption papers, too.

And wondered if Greg Richards knew what she’d just learned. If that was why he had her looking into Will Parsons’s activities. Was it possible the sheriff was using her to find out what a prosecutor might uncover if Will Parsons was brought up on the charges that were alleged in the anonymous letter he’d received?

Were they both using her? Because they knew there was something to find?

Feeling sick to her stomach, she stumbled outside, fell into the cheap lounge chair on the tiny patio and sat listening to the tinkling of water in her fountain.

Just listening. Focusing on the water. Searching for peace.

Will Parsons was a good man.

He would not lie to her.

CHAPTER NINE

NONNIE WAS IN BED ASLEEP, her chair parked beside the lowered double mattress in her room that allowed her to slide easily from bed to chair without assistance, when Mark got home shortly after eight that evening.

It felt good to put in a full day of work again. Good to be providing. And he felt guilty as hell that Nonnie was spending so much time