Between the Lines (14 page)

Gabe – 23

I sit
back and wait for her to answer. Shock, fear and a whole array of emotions play
across her face. I have no idea what she’s thinking but I’m not getting up
until I have her answer.

That’s
twice in one week the Baxter administration office has fucked up. First, by not
vetting Isaac more thoroughly and discovering his connection to me and now
letting this woman on campus without digging to find out who she really is.

There’s a
separate administrative staff in charge of hiring, overseeing the school staff,
and investigating everyone who wants to visit the campus, even if it’s just to
see an art exhibit. The offices are in Poughkeepsie, which is the official
address of Baxter. Few people, outside of those who live and work there, know
where it really is, and that’s for the safety of the students. Now they’ve let
this stranger in? Of course, residents of the community know where the school
is, but that’s about it, and even if they don’t have facts, I’m sure they
suspect something’s different about Baxter. Or, maybe they just assume that
it’s a private high school where kids live and that’s it. I don’t really care,
as long as they leave the school alone.

Had the
administration vetted Isaac more thoroughly, I probably would have been
terminated from my post when spring break started. They usually know a good
month before a new student is coming in so everything can be prepared.

Ellen
isn’t saying anything. She’s just looking at me, brown eyes wide, like a deer
caught in headlights. She goes around investigating people. Has nobody ever
turned the tables on her before now?

I stare
into her eyes. “Mag would have never let you on campus if she’d known they
didn’t give you a background check.”

“How do
you know they didn’t?”

“Do they
know your real name?”

Her
cheeks turn pink. “No.”

I reach
for my phone. I don’t care if they decide to fire me or not, Mag needs to know
what I do. I doubt Ellen will be inside of Baxter again after tonight.

“Who are
you calling?”

“Mag.”

“Why?”

“The
school is very particular about who they let in and they sure as hell need more
of a name. Mag’s not going to be happy.”

“Why Mag
over anyone else? And, what the hell are they hiding?”

Did she
really just ask me that question? “How thorough was your research before coming
to Baxter?”

“As
thorough as possible,” Ellen answers defensively, though she colors a bit.

I snort.
Is she ever honest? “Did you research the family at all?”

She
shrugs. “I know the family who built it still owns it, but they don’t really
have anything to do with the school.”

I laugh.
“Research again! Mag is a Baxter.”

Her eyes
go wide. “She owns the school.”

“No, the
Baxter Foundation owns the school. Mag is just more hands-on than the rest,
though I’m sure you met a few relatives during your interviews to visit, if
anyone bothered to even talk to you.”

Ellen
bites the corner of her bottom lip as if she’s thinking. “Then maybe Mag can
explain why it became a school ten years ago. I can’t seem to find the
connection.”

“Mag
isn’t going to tell you damn thing,” I practically yell. “Especially after she
realizes you aren’t who you claim to me.”

She
straightens. “I am Ellen West. That is my name. I haven’t deceived anyone.”

“Fine,
tell me what name were you born with and then I’ll decide if Mag gets a call or
not.”

“Westbrook.”
She sets her glass on the table with a bit of force and stands. “Caroline
Elizabeth Elaine Westbrook.”

“Two
middle names? Really?”

She just
glares at me and stomps out of restaurant.

This
isn’t exactly how I anticipated the evening would go. Well, I wasn’t sure what
would happen when I saw her back here, but I sure as hell didn’t anticipate her
yelling and stomping out. I’m the one that was supposed to do that. She’s the
liar, not me.

Ellen

I lean
back against my closed apartment door and rest my head against it. Why does it
matter who I am? My blog should give them more than enough information to allow
me to interview the staff and tour the school. My credentials, certificates,
class standing and degrees, along with every investigation I’ve written is
posted. It got me in the door. It’s not important who I was before and I don’t
get what difference it makes to anyone but me now.

Shit! Now
Gabe has my full, real name. Paige is the only one who knows, outside of those
who worked on the case and my family. And, nobody else was to ever know. It
isn’t safe.

What if
Gabe tells someone?

What if
he lets
Krestyanov
know where I am?

Shit, I
never considered he might already know everything. What if he was hired to find
me?

“Get a
grip, Ellen,” I order myself

I found
Gabe. He didn’t find me. I moved into the same apartment house where he already
lived, not the other way around.

I’m getting
about as paranoid as I was when it all started. I saw bad men around every
corner, convinced I was being followed, and jumping at my own shadow.

I can’t
go down that road again. I can’t!

I take a
deep breath and blow it out. I am safe. Nobody knows who I am and Elizabeth is
dead. She was buried the day I walked away from the courthouse.

Why the
hell did I just resurrect her?

“Shit!”
Going to the fridge, I take out a bottle of wine and pour myself a glass. My
hands are shaking and that stupid, stupid anxiety is creeping in.

I will
not let it get a hold of me.

I can
control it.

I don’t
need the meds.

I toss
the wine in the sink. That’s the last thing I need right now and it certainly
won’t help.

I need to
focus and work.

That’s
it!

Focus,
work, and not think about my past, my family or the hot, former football player
turned teacher. Work is what keeps me calm. And music. I switch on my iPod and
classical music fills the air. My heart and pulse calm a little, but not
enough.

I breathe
deep, stretching to the ceiling and down to my toes, running through the warm-up
ritual. Not only is it great exercise, but it’s one of my calming mechanisms.

Once my
pulse is normal again, I take another deep breath, blow it out before grabbing
the computer and putting it on my lap. Pulling up my browser I start my
background check into the Baxter family. Maybe what I’m looking for is there,
starting with Mag Bradley, which leads me to Mag Baxter Bradley, or rather,
Magnolia Baxter Bradley. “Magnolia?”

Each link
says about the same thing, and not telling me stuff that explains Baxter. So, I
dig further into the family and school, following one link after another.
There’re pictures from when it was an art camp, and a young Mag with a few
girls and boy, Theo Baxter, who looks about three or four years older than
Mag.  I jot down the name for further reference.

The camp
closed after a tragic accident. Wait, it wasn’t an accident. It was a suicide.
I pull up the articles. Theo Baxter, age eighteen, a camp counselor, hung himself
from a tree. Few details are given, but they aren’t really necessary. The camp
closed after that and opened two years later as the Baxter Academy of Arts.

There’s a
link between the two, but I’m missing it.

I review
the specifications for the school, what has to be filed with the State Board of
Education each year and updated whenever possible. These stats include
enrollment, cost of tuition, scholarships, fund raising. I didn’t pay that much
attention when I read it before, except to note who donated large sums. I was
looking for the names that have become familiar to me for being linked to
corruption. More specifically, I’m always looking for names that were once
linked to my father. 

Nobody on
the Baxter donation list, that I know of at least, have any shady dealings,
which is probably why I didn’t look any closer. I’m still shocked that one
hundred percent of their students are on scholarship. There isn’t one family
out there that can afford to send their talented child to this school?

At least
it explains why they have such extravagant fund raisers. A few car washes a
year certainly isn’t going to cut it. They need a hell of a lot more than the
couple of hundred that would raise.

Next I
pull up Jenna Ferguson, not that I got a bad vibe from her, but I’m nosy.

There it
is. A fire back in February. Laura Ferguson, age eighty, suffered from smoke
inhalation and admitted the hospital. At least she didn’t die in the fire.

Oh dear,
but there’s an obituary. She died only a few weeks ago and her only living
relative was Jenna. Was she Jenna’s only living relative? Memorial donations
were to be made to the Alzheimer’s Association.

I can’t
begin to imagine how hard that must have been for Jenna. At least my
grandparents knew who I was up until the end.

Reading
any further about Jenna doesn’t feel right. Her losses this year are huge and
I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate me nosing around in her business. It’s not the
same when a person isn’t corrupt and she’s entitled to her privacy.

I click
back on the Baxter page to see what other staff I want to research and scroll
through.

Wait! I
could swear that last week there were two art teachers, now there is only one –
Alexia Deme. I know there were two because I wondered how why they didn’t have
more at the time. It is an art school. But, only Alexia is on that page now.

I pull up
my notebook in the computer and check. There it is. Two art teachers – Alexia
Deme and Jesse Tinley

Did the
other one quit?

It’s just
another question I’ll need to ask when I go back in a day or so.

After
looking into a few staff, I find nothing of real interest, though a number of
the counselors have psychology degrees. That’s strange. They’re there to help
the kids make informed decisions about their future and maybe being a
psychologist is the best way to help the kids figure out what they want to do
with the rest of their lives. It still seems odd. Though, it’s not like I asked
my school counselor what his degree was in. Maybe he was a psychologist too.

Glancing
at the clock, I realize it’s after one in the morning. I really should go to
bed. I look down the narrow hall. It’s too dark back there, and I know I
couldn’t sleep. I’m still anxious and this research is about the only thing
keeping me from panicking.

The news!
That’s it. I haven’t paid any attention to what’s been in the news since before
I moved. Surely I missed something. Maybe even something in this town, though I
doubt it. I’m pretty sure nothing of interest ever happens here.

Gabe – 24

Caroline
Elizabeth Elaine Westbrook’s picture pops up after I search the name. Actually,
several pictures of her and her family, her rich daddy, fund raisers, parties
with the elite of society, politicians and movie stars. Fancy dresses, fancy
balls, fancy people, and she was only in high school. Then, pictures of her
outside of the courthouse, on the stand in front of the grand jury where her
father was indicted for prostitution, human trafficking, and smuggling, among
various other illegal activities. I thought prostitution was legal in Nevada.
Then again, it doesn’t sound like those connected with Westbrook were actually
given a choice. That tends to change the legality a lot.

Not far
away from Ellen, in most of the pictures after the indictment, is Scott.

Or,
Special Agent Scott Donahue.

Why the
hell didn’t she just tell me?

I shake
my head and go back to reading.

Caroline
Westbrook dropped off the face of the earth after that and not another word was
reported. She simply disappeared.

Shit! No
wonder she didn’t to tell me who he was.

The two
phones, secrecy. Of course! I met her a week ago today, and even though she
slept with me, I can’t really blame her for not coming clean. I can’t believe
she told me her name yesterday.

Holy
shit, I hope nobody overheard her.

I go back
through Ellen West’s blog posts. One by one she attacks the men who were once
in her father’s elite circle of friends, names that popped up in news as being
investigated.  She takes down each and every one of them, but they don’t follow
a pattern, or at least not right after the other, but disbursed with other
posts, as if there is no rhyme or reason to why she picked what she reported
on. That was probably intentional to cover her ass. But, one by one, she was
out to destroy anyone who worked with her father and guilty of the same crimes.

Her own
vengeance.

It also
explains why her picture never accompanies her blog.

One thing
is certain, I was a bit harsh. I get why she changed her name and wanted to
start over. I wouldn’t want to be linked to her shithead dad either. And, I get
why she didn’t tell me who Scott really was.

But, I’m
missing something. Why was a sixteen-year-old on the stand? She had to have
been a character witness or something for her father. I can’t imagine it’d be
anything else.

She was
just a kid! The same age as almost half of my students.

Ellen has
a lot more in common with them than she realizes.

After
refilling my cup of coffee, I settle back on the couch, prop my leg back on the
table and let the icepack rest on top of my knee and start reading through the
articles that followed the indictment and trial, skimming until I get to the
day Ellen appeared before the grand jury. There’s no reference of her testimony
or anything relating to the case. Just that she testified. I wish they would have
summarized her testimony, like the others, but after asking her name, she was
taken into the judge’s chambers, to testify in private. Why?

Simply
because she was a minor?

It has to
be more than that, especially since her testimony lasted more than a week
behind closed doors. I’ll figure it out, but one thing is for certain, Ellen
West is not the person, or reporter, I had her pegged for. And, even though I
don’t like that she’s snooping around Baxter, I’ve got a hell of a lot of
respect for her. And, a part of me is starting to trust her again. Even if she
did learn the truth, I’m not so certain she’d do anything to bring harm to the
kids at Baxter.

An
apology is in order. She might hate me, and I’m still not sure what to tell
Mag, if anything. Are Ellen’s secrets any different from the ones Baxter is
keeping?

Ellen

“Who the
hell is pounding on my door?” Sunlight’s streaming into the room and I wince,
turning away from it. I didn’t fall asleep until nearly four in the morning,
really no closer to my answers about Baxter than before. I was considering
giving up on the entire thing and search for another story until I read about
the teacher arrested last week. It’s too much of a coincidence not to be
connected. Baxter had two art teachers last week, an art teacher is arrested
over spring break, and there is one teacher this week. Was the babysitter his
only victim or were there students also?

Sure, the
babysitter recanted, but a lot of victims say they lied when they get scared.
It’s easier than facing the future of courtrooms and testimony. Of course, she
could have lied at the beginning, but in my book, what a victim blurts out
first is usually the truth. I just hope she’s okay. Shit like that can really
screw you up. Not that I’ve experienced it, but I investigated enough
complaints about the foster care system to know that a lot of kids fall victim
and don’t always recover. How the hell could they?

The
pounding starts again. Why don’t they just go away? It’s way too early for
anyone to be here. And, the only people I know in this town are at their jobs.

I glance
at the clock. It’s nearly ten a.m. So, it isn’t that early, but early enough
for me.

Coffee. I
need coffee and lots of it.

Pulling
myself from the bed I stumble down the hall. How did I get in bed? The last
thing I remember is lying down on the couch. An uncomfortable one, but that’s
where I intended to sleep. I couldn’t be in the bedroom. It’s in the back of
the apartment and I didn’t want to risk getting trapped back there.

 Half
afraid of what I’ll find, I look into the peephole on the door. What the hell
is Gabe doing here at this time of day?

“Shouldn’t
you be teaching a class?” I ask after opening the door.

He’s
grinning at me and it does nothing to help my irritation. Though, he does look very
fine leaning against the door jamb at the entrance of my apartment, wearing a
light blue, tight t-shirt that compliments his eyes.

“I’m not
needed today.” He shrugs.

Not
needed. He’s a fucking teacher. Since when are they not needed on a school day?

Coffee, I
need coffee and then maybe this’ll make sense and I’ll figure out why he’s
here.

“Want to
grab some breakfast?”

My
stomach grumbles, answering before I can. “Why?” Should I trust him? He sure as
hell wasn’t trusting of me yesterday.

“An
apology.” He shrugs again. “I get why you changed your name and were secretive
in New York. It can’t be easy being the one to turn your father in to the
federal investigators.”

My blood
turns cold and my face feels like ice. My fingers start tingling and my mouth goes
dry. How the hell did he figure out the truth? My testimony was sealed and
never made a part of the public record. “You’re mistaken.”

“Miss
West,” Gabe starts with a condescending tone. “You’re a reporter. Surely you
know the art of reading between the lines.”