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Yeah, she was lying. “Really? Seems like there would be a reason. I’m sure you have plenty of storage space at school.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. We are so overcrowded. If the alumni don’t come through with more gifts, we may have to close down.”
Good answer. But I still didn’t believe that was the only reason.
I would leave it for now. If I could get Jonah alone, I could tell him my suspicions, and I could get him to turn on the sweetness and soften her up. Of course, I wasn’t in any mood for the two of them to be alone.
I opened the yearbook in front of me, the one from Larry Wade’s junior year. I leafed through the pages. Juniors… Juniors… There they were. I flipped to the end and looked under W. There he was, Lawrence Wade. But for the fact that he was balding and graying, he looked about the same. Pretty forgettable. I backtracked to S, looking for Simpson. He wasn’t there. Well, that didn’t mean anything. Tom Simpson could have been in a different class. I turned to the seniors. Sure enough, there he was, Thomas Simpson. Blond, light-eyed, and very good-looking.
“Bingo,” I said. I shoved the yearbook in front of Jonah.
He gawked at it. “Oh my God. That’s exactly what Bryce looked like in high school, except with a different hairstyle.”
Jonah hadn’t opened the book in front of him. He had been making small talk with Jordan. The waitress brought her wine, and she took a sip.
I continued looking through the book. Lo and behold, there was Theodore Mathias, also a senior in this book. The photo was in black and white, but he appeared dark-haired and dark-eyed with an olive complexion. So Simpson and Mathias were both a year older than Larry, or at least a year ahead of him in school. Next thing on my list was to see if there was any mention of a future lawyers club anywhere in the yearbook. As I began to flip to the index, something caught my eye back in the Juniors section.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Chapter Twenty–Four
Jonah
Something in Melanie’s whisper gave me pause. I turned to her, and she had become pale. “Sweetheart, what is it?”
She shoved the yearbook in front of me, pointing. “Check out who else was in Larry Wade’s class.”
The pictures were in black and white, so I couldn’t tell if the hair and eyes were right, but the name I recognized.
Rodney Cates.
My heart thumped. This was all getting just a little too eerie.
My phone buzzed on the table in front of me, and I glanced down. Another text.
Our time is coming, my love. Soon we will be together for eternity.
Shit.
“What is it?” Melanie asked.
“Nothing. Work related.” I hated lying to Melanie, but I would tell her later. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Jordan. The less she knew about this whole situation, the better. We were putting her in danger just by having her get these books.
“I hope I’m not prying,” Jordan said, “but what do you need these books for? You said you needed to find some information for your uncle.”
“Yes,” I said. “My uncle is…dying from cancer.”
She clasped her hand to her mouth. “Oh! I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. He’s lived a good life.” Lying really didn’t come easy for me. “He was hoping to get in touch with a few of his classmates.”
“How would the yearbook help that? It would be easier to find them online. They’re probably all on Facebook.”
Of course. This was why lying didn’t come easy to me. I sucked at it.
“Oh, it’s not information so much he was looking for,” Melanie said, stroking my arm. “It’s photos. You see, all of his photos were destroyed in a fire a few years ago.”
And again, the hand on the mouth. “Goodness, what terrible luck.”
