“Oh yeah? What’s her name?”
“Lucy Gardiner. You wouldn’t by chance know her, would you?”
He stops walking, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Lucy?”
“Yeah.”
He stares at me for a beat, then he grins. “Is this a test? You already ran some kind of background check on me, didn’t you?”
“No, why?”
He laughs as he begins walking again. “Because Lucy Gardiner is my ex-wife.”
I don’t follow. I’m stuck to the ground as if cemented in place. Ex-wife. Shehasmoved on, and this is the bastard she married. Do they have kids? Why did they divorce?
I have so many questions rolling around in my head, but bigger than them is the realization that she was able to move on. She was it for me. No one even came close.
Joseph spins around to face me. “How do you know Lucy?”
“We went to high school together.” My voice cracks on my last word. If Joseph noticed, he’s kind enough not to point it out.
I leave out that she was the love of my life. The one I was supposed to go to college with and marry… before life threw a few punches my way and I lost it all.
“Interesting.” Joseph resumes walking again. I catch up and fall in stride beside him. “Was she cold and detached back then, too?”
Joseph opens the door to the administration building, and I follow.
Cold and detached? Those are the last two words I would use to describe her. Fortunately, I don’t have to respond. Joseph is too busy smiling and saying hi to everyone he passes. This doesn’t look like a threatened man. He shows no fear.
“Do you still have the letter? I’d like to see it,” I say.
Joseph grins. “Yes, in my office.”
We step into his office, and he walks behind his desk and opens a drawer. The space is bare of any personal items, no photos, art, or personal coffee mugs. The coffee mug currently on his desk has the Havenwood emblem. It sits beside a laptop and two basic black pens.
If he hadn’t said this was his office, I would think this was a community desk used by anyone needing to plug in their laptop.
“How long have you worked here?”
He laughs. “Too long. It’s been years. Here’s the letter.”
I turn back to him, and he’s still grinning as he hands me the letter.
I skim it, and at first, I think he must be joking; it looks like a child put it together. A piece of white copy paper with letters glued on, which were clearly cut out of a magazine, to spell out, “Give back the funding or die!”
I’ve seen a lot of threats over the years, but the only time I’ve seen anything like this was on television.
“Is this it?” I run my hand down my face, trying to school my features. “What I mean is, is this the only threat you received?”
“No, I’ve received several calls telling me to return the funding.”
No twitch. That’s a good sign.
“Did the caller say what would happen if you didn’t return the funding?”
Joseph finally drops his grin. “It was implied that they would hurt me.”
Twitch. Fuck. “Any idea who did this?” I ask.
