Chapter 7 - The Woman Julian Couldn’t Forget
Franklin Elementary at one in the morning was eerie.
No children.
No teachers.
Only emergency lights glowing across colorful bulletin boards.
Police had cleared the building.
No intruder was found.
Nothing stolen.
But on Sophie’s desk sat a single photograph.
Thomas Carter.
Someone had placed a red circle around his face.
Detective Morales bagged it.
“This person wants your attention.”
“They have it,” Sophie said.
Julian stood near the classroom door.
He had said almost nothing since they arrived.
Sophie knew why.
This was different from warehouses and shipping terminals.
This was her classroom.
Her children.
The threat had crossed a line.
One of the officers found a rear window unlocked.
Security footage had been erased for twelve minutes.
Professional.
Calculated.
Sophie walked toward the reading corner.
A paper crown sat on a chair.
Her student Owen had made it earlier.
KING OF FRACTIONS.
The sight nearly broke her.
Julian approached quietly.
“You won’t teach tomorrow.”
She turned.
“Yes, I will.”
“Sophie.”
“If I stay home, they win.”
“If you come, you give them another chance.”
“These children depend on routine.”
“And they need their teacher alive.”
“I am alive.”
“Because you’ve been lucky.”
The words stung.
She stepped closer.
“You think I don’t know that?”
Julian lowered his voice.
“I think you keep acting brave so no one sees you’re terrified.”
Sophie stared at him.
“Maybe.”
His anger vanished.
“I am terrified.”
There.
She had said it.
“I’m scared every time my phone rings. I’m scared someone will follow one of my students home. I’m scared my father died for something I don’t understand. And I’m scared that every time I look at you, I feel safer when I know I probably shouldn’t.”
Julian became very still.
Sophie immediately regretted the final sentence.
“Forget I said that.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
“No.”
She turned away.
Julian caught her hand gently.
Not her wrist.
Her hand.
“I should scare you.”
“You do.”
“That isn’t what you just said.”
“People are complicated.”
“I’m not.”
Sophie looked at him.
“You bought three concert seats because you missed your parents.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“You carry your father’s watch even though it doesn’t work.”
He glanced toward his wrist.
“You let Marco interrupt you in ways nobody else does because you trust him.”
Julian said nothing.
“And yesterday you personally found a replacement copy of my mother’s piano book online.”
His gaze sharpened.
“How did you know?”
“The receipt had your name.”
He looked annoyed.
Sophie smiled faintly.
“You’re very bad at anonymous kindness.”
“That wasn’t kindness.”
“What was it?”
“Problem solving.”
“Of course.”
For the first time since they met, Julian smiled.
Actually smiled.
Not the almost-expression.
A real one.
It transformed his face.
Sophie stared.
“That’s unsettling.”
“What?”
“You look normal.”
“Insulting.”
“Accurate.”
Then the smile disappeared.
Because Julian’s phone buzzed.
A message from Marco.
One sentence.
WE FOUND DOMINIC.
Dominic Vale was alive.
Barely.
He had been found inside an abandoned garage.
No serious wounds.
The blood in the car wasn’t his.
At the hospital, Dominic told police he had been abducted.
By two masked men.
He claimed they demanded information about Thomas Carter’s missing ledger.
Sophie watched through a glass wall while detectives questioned him.
Julian stood beside her.
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“The blood.”
“Whose was it?”
Julian looked at her.
“Samuel Price.”
Sophie turned.
“They found him?”
“DNA matched an old federal sample.”
“But Price is alive.”
“He may not be anymore.”
Dominic insisted he had never seen Price.
Then Detective Morales asked why he had accessed Thomas Carter’s accident report six years earlier.
Dominic’s answer was immediate.
“On Julian’s orders.”
Sophie looked at Julian.
His face changed.
Morales stepped into the hallway twenty minutes later.
“Did you order Vale to alter the report?”
“No.”
“Can you prove it?”
“No.”
Dominic produced emails.
Old ones.
Messages from Julian’s company account.
Instructions to remove references to Thomas Carter’s employment with Romano Maritime.
Julian read them.
“They’re fake.”
Morales nodded.
“Maybe.”
Sophie examined the messages.
Something felt wrong.
Then she noticed the date.
One email had supposedly been sent on March 18, six years earlier.
She remembered that date.
Everyone in Chicago did.
A major blizzard had shut down the airport.
Julian had been in London, according to newspapers, negotiating a hotel acquisition.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Morales said. “Emails travel.”
But Julian was studying something else.
The signature.
J. Romano.
He looked at Sophie.
“I never sign emails that way.”
“How do you sign them?”
“JR.”
Every employee knew it.
Every real message used JR.
Someone had copied his identity without knowing his habits.
Dominic had made one mistake.
Julian walked into the hospital room.
Dominic looked up.
“Julian.”
“You framed me badly.”
Dominic’s expression remained calm.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“My father taught me not to write my name beneath instructions. He said words should be enough.”
Dominic’s face changed.
Tiny.
But Sophie saw it.
Julian did too.
“You knew that,” Julian said.
Dominic smiled faintly.
“Then perhaps someone else forgot.”
“Who?”
Dominic’s eyes shifted toward Sophie.
“Ask her father.”
Sophie stepped forward.
“My father is dead.”
“Is he?”
The room froze.
Sophie stared.
Dominic leaned back against the hospital pillow.
“You’ve all made one assumption from the beginning.”
Julian’s voice hardened.
“Careful.”
Dominic looked directly at Sophie.
“Thomas Carter’s body was identified after the crash by dental records.”
Sophie stopped breathing.
“Yes.”
“Records submitted by Daniel Whitaker.”
Her pulse hammered.
Dominic whispered:
“You should ask yourself why your father’s best friend was the only man allowed to identify him.”
May you like
And just like that, the impossible thought entered Sophie’s mind.
What if Thomas Carter had never died?
