Page 22 of The Hampton Beach Café 5
Turning back to the horizon, he shook his head again.
“How could I hate you?” he asked quietly. “You were my best friend, my only friend. And you left. You never even looked back... then suddenly you're here and I'm happier than I've been in years, then it turns out you're leaving again? I didn't hate you then and I can't hate you now. I'm just... so hurt.”
“I know,” she said, feeling her voice break, “and I'm sorry. I need your help. I think Clarkson is scamming us. And I need someone who knows him better than I do to help me figure out if it's true.”
Alex frowned, suddenly turning his gaze back on her.
“What makes you think he's a scammer?”
Frances told him everything she'd learned from Martha and the favor she and Lucinda had asked for from Kennedy about the multiple company names and how the old woman was certain that Clarkson scammed her out of her home.
Alex shook his head, his expression darkening. “If that's true, we need to stop him. But I don't know how much help I can be. I'm still pretty angry with you, Frances.”
“I understand,” she said softly. “But we can't let him get away with this. I need your help. Please.”
There was a long pause as Alex considered her words. Finally, he sighed.
“Okay. I'll help you. But you have to promise me one thing––actually, two things.”
“What?” Frances asked, holding her breath.
“That you'll not keep anything from me again. No matter how hard it is to tell me the truth.”
Frances nodded, relief flooding through her.
“I promise––” she said quickly, but he cut her off.
“And when you leave, if you leave, you'll stay in touch this time...”
There was a long silence as Frances scrambled for what to say. She wanted to leap forward onto his lap, throw her leg over his and kiss him, promise him she wasn't leaving, but that was so beyond not an option. Whatever had passed between them the other night––that intense kiss, his hands on her waist––that was gone.
“I swear,” she said quietly.
He cleared his throat. “Now, what do you need my help with?”
“Uh…” she started, hesitating, “…well, to break into his house. I want to go through his files before we go through the council records so we have something to compare them to...”
The look of shock on his face was almost comical, but she didn't laugh. She was seriously asking him to help her break into Clarkson's home office and she needed him to know she was serious.
“Right,” he said, blinking hard. “Well, he lives about twenty minutes away and according to his live stream, he's currently in Boston having lunch, so we'd better get a move on.”
Frances stared. There was no way he should have agreed that easily. She remembered their conversation a few weeks past––he asked her if he’d ever said no to helping her, and it struck her once again that he really hadn’t ever refused her a real request…
***
“I can't find anything,” Frances whispered, frustration evident in her voice as she rifled through the papers in one of the drawers.
Alex frowned, his brows furrowing in concentration as he continued to search through another drawer.
“Me neither,” he replied, his tone equally frustrated. “It's like he's covered his tracks too well.”
Frances sighed, feeling a sense of defeat creeping in. She had hoped to find concrete evidence to expose Clarkson's scam, but they were coming up empty-handed.
Just as they were about to give up, Alex noticed a folder tucked away in the corner of the desk drawer. He pulled it out and quickly scanned through its contents.
“Wait, what's this?” Alex exclaimed, his eyes widening.
Frances rushed over to him, shining her flashlight on the folder. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw what Alex had found. It was a stack of papers with building inspection reports, but they all looked legitimate.
