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“Listen, I didn’t get to finish apologizing for what happened between us that summer.”
“It’s ancient history.” She smiles sadly, betraying how fresh the wound really is.
“Well, I still think about it a lot. I shouldn’t have accused you of planting those letters. I have no idea how they ended up in my room, but I should’ve known you wouldn’t do something like that.”
“It made sense for you to suspect me. I was a kid, and kids sometimes do dumb things when they’re upset.”
To her credit, Alexis was a very smart kid. More mature and well traveled than most girls her age.
I understood why she latched on to me the way she did. She was starving for attention. I grew up in a crowded household, one of five kids, so I know how it feels to be treated like part of the scenery. Frank was fully immersed in his research, and I only ever saw Rachael outside her studio in the early mornings. Erica wandered into Frank’s office a few times a day to see what we were up to, but otherwise she kept to herself.
Alexis was on her own, so I let her tag along with me. I tried to do something nice for her on her birthday, and although I knew I’d made the right call in refusing to kiss her, I still felt like shit for hurting her feelings.
When I woke to the sound of Frank’s fists pounding my bedroom door the next morning, I thought it had something to do with what’d happened the previous night. I jumped out of bed, pulled on a shirt and opened the door expecting to have to explain my intentions.
“Where are they, Gavin?” Frank asked, scowling.
“Where are what?” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “What time is it?”
“The letters from Anthony Wayne to George Washington are missing,” he said. “I know you took them. Just tell me where they are.”
“I didn’t take them.”
“Don’t lie to me, son. You’re the only one here with a motive.”
“What motive?” I balked as he brushed past me into the room. “Frank, I swear, I didn’t take them.”
He began rummaging through the closet, pulling my clothes out and tossing them on the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He moved on to the dresser drawers. I started picking my clothes up, watching in disbelief as my friend and mentor ransacked my room like a bloodhound.
“They aren’t in here, Frank—”
“Aha!”
I stood there speechless as he drew two plastic sleeves containing yellowed parchment from my sock drawer. Letters from General Anthony Wayne to George Washington, penned during The Revolutionary War.
“I have no clue how those got in there,” I said.
“Right.” He sneered. “Two twenty-thousand-dollar letters just wandered into your sock drawer of their own accord.”
My head swam with possibilities. “Maybe I accidentally gathered them with my notes.”
“You know damn well that I keep these in a special case on my desk. There’s no way you could’ve accidentally gotten your hands on them. The insult to my intelligence is almost more offensive than the crime itself.”
“I don’t know how they got in there, Frank, but I didn’t take them.”
He shook his head. “I let you into my house. Let you participate in my research. And this is how you repay me?”
“Frank, please—”
“I’ll see to it that you never earn your PhD from any reputable university on the East Coast.”
He marched from the room in a huff. I sat on my bed, dumbfounded, staring at the open drawer until my eyes began to water. I didn’t take the letters, and Frank was very careful about not leaving historical documents lying around. So how the hell did those letters get in here?
“Gavin?” Alexis peered through the doorway with wide eyes. “I heard my dad shouting. What happened?”
