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Sweet Jesus. Relief poured through him when she stirred.
“Allie? What’s going on? Did you fall in the dark?”
She just stared at him, not saying anything at first. If she had a concussion it could be—
“Someone hit me,” she mumbled. “On the back of my head.”
Alarm flooded through him. “God damn it,” he muttered. “You sure have a nose for trouble.” He pressed his fingers lightly around the base of her skull. Sure enough, she grunted in pain as he touched the large goose-egg. He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No!” Her eyes widened in a
larm. “That’s not necessary. I’m fine.” She struggled to sit up.
“Are you kidding me? You’ve got a knot on your head the size of Alaska. You might have a concussion.”
“Maybe. But I don’t need an ambulance. I can call my sister to take me to the Emergency.”
Like that was going to happen. Not on his watch. “No, I’ll take you,” he said forcefully enough that she wouldn’t argue.
She eased out a sigh. “Fine. But we should call the police first, though.”
She was probably right about that. “If you’re sure you feel okay.”
“I’m sure.”
“Can you walk? With my help?”
He helped her up and half-carried her to a chair in the newsroom. Swiftly, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Detective Johnson’s number. The detective answered, and in brief order, Sam explained what had happened.
“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” Sam said, and returned the phone to his pocket. “Do you think they took anything?”
She looked down and seemed to realize she was still holding her purse. She opened it and peered inside. “My wallet’s still here.” She pulled it out and scanned the contents. “Nothing taken.”
“Did you see who hit you? Anything at all in the way of a description?”
“No. Sorry.” She shook her head, then winced at the motion. “I don’t understand. If nothing’s taken, why did they hit me?”
Sam bit down his growing anger at whoever had done this. “I don’t know, but if you’re up to it, maybe we should look around. See if anything’s missing.”
“Oh, my God. The box!”
He held up a hand. “There was some stuff lying next to you.”
They went back to the stairwell. The box was on its side in a corner. Half the contents had spilled onto the floor. They pushed everything back in, and he carried it back to the room.
“Do you think the person who hit me was looking for something in here?” she asked, fingering the cardboard flap.
“God knows. Can you tell if anything is missing?”
She dug through the box, and he watched as she pushed things around to reveal the contents again. The letters they’d read were still there, the elegant scrawl of his mother’s handwriting hard to miss. “I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. You?”
He surveyed the contents again, but he hadn’t exactly been taking inventory earlier. “I just don’t know.”
An hour later, they didn’t have any more answers. Detective Johnson hadn’t found any sign of forced entry, and a call to the school’s security company indicated that other than Sam, no one else had used an access code to enter the school after the building was locked. Which meant the person had likely gained entry to the school earlier in the day.
As a precaution, Detective Johnson took the box and all of its contents—including the damn letters—into police custody. He didn’t indicate one way or another what he thought about any of the items, but he did say it was worth taking a look, in light of recent events. He promised to send them an inventory list of its contents, to see if it jogged their memories of anything that might be missing.
For a crazy minute, before Detective Johnson arrived, Sam had considered asking Allie to hold off on turning over the letters. To buy some time for him to figure out who had really done the murder. But there hadn’t been time and, in the end, he could never have asked her to conceal potential evidence, no matter how terrifying the implications might be.
