“Well, not exactly, though I did move to a different motel as a precaution. I wasn’t going to let him corner me again.” I swallow.“At least, that was the plan. But he’s very good at tracking me down.”
My hands shake, and I tuck them into my lap. “I thought he would spread rumors. I accepted that I would probably get fired as Quinn’s nanny. The plan was to fight it, to prove I wasn’t a liability. I wanted to come back to you whole, or not at all.”
Emily’s fingertips drift forward, stopping shy of mine. “And now?”
“Now I understand isolation protects no one,” I reply, inching closer until our fingers brush. “Least of all me.”
“You can’t just give up on your job,” Jared says, vibrating with indignation on my behalf.
“But how can I continue doing my job with Carson still in a position of authority? Reporting him already proved useless.” I spread my hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Here, he has even more power.”
Emily’s brow furrows. “The system failed you once. That doesn’t mean it will again.”
“Different district, same playbook,” I counter, wincing as my split lip protests the movement. “Carson has spent years cultivating his professional image. He’s on a first-name basis with every board member. The parent association considers him indispensable.”
Jared pushes back his chair and paces the dining-room floor in tight steps. “You have physical evidence this time. Bruises. A split lip.” His hand cuts through the air, emphasizing each point. “It’s different from a paper trail that can disappear.”
“He’ll explain it away as a personal altercation.” Cynicism threads through the words. “He’ll point to my violent outburst documented at Westbrook as a pattern of behavior, and they’ll believe what’s easiest. Carson won’t even need to work hard to sell his narrative. He’s already subtly suggested to the board and parents that I might be emotionally unstable.”
Grady, who has remained silent during most of my disclosure, reaches for the messenger bag propped beside him, fingers working the buckle open. “What if the narrative wasn’t yours against his?”
My eyebrows draw together, the movement tugging at my bruised cheek. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Carson has a history.” Grady pulls a thick manila folder from his bag, placing it between us on the table. The tab bears Carson’s initials in neat block letters.
Emily and Jared lean forward at the same time, their attention fixed on Grady’s unexpected revelation.
Shock freezes me in place. “You’ve been investigating him?”
“For a while now,” Grady says, his hazel eyes serious. “It’s taken a while to gather all the evidence, but it’s a solid case.”
He opens the folder, revealing organized stacks of paper separated by colored tabs. “I called in a favor with a friend who had connections in Westbrook. From there, I pulled public records, news archives, faculty bulletins, and district newsletters.”
Pages slide across the table as Grady extracts documents from their sections. “You’re not his first victim, Leif. He’s done this at multiple school districts, and each time, he was moved along with glowing recommendations and a raise.”
My fingers hover over a yellowed newspaper clipping as my pulse quickens.
Emily asks as she lifts his notebook to flip through it. “This is what you’ve been working on?”
“Yes. Each school can bury a complaint,” Grady says, “but the same pattern keeps resurfacing across districts. The state board has authority to act when student safety is at risk, and a multi-district pattern is exactly that.”
Hope flickers, fragile but real. “They won’t care about me, but Quinn…”
“Quinn’s case changes everything. Carson threatened a student’s accommodations to manipulate you. That breach in ethics is indefensible, even by his staunchest allies.” Grady’s shoulders pull back, and suddenly I see him as the man who bargained million-dollar contracts for bestselling authors instead of my quiet friend. “And if you can trust me, then I have a plan to ensure Carson never sets foot in a school again.”
For the first time since stepping into Emily’s cottage, I allow myself to hope. The bruises on my face still throb, but the pain will fade.
“What’s the plan?”
Grady offers a small, confident smile as he outlines a strategy. And with each detail he shares, the sense of doom that’s followed me since Westbrook slips away, replaced by the strength of allies at my side.
Carson believed my solitude was his greatest weapon. He never imagined it could be the spark that lit an alliance determined to bring him down.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Emily
Grady closes the folder with a quiet snap. His plan is laid out with the skill of someone who’s spent years negotiating contracts. “I think that’s all we can do for now.”