Page 32 of All The Wrong Notes

“Okay, I’m not supposed to know. I’m not supposed to be here, and my brother will have my hide if he finds out, but you’re so lovely, and you make him happier than I’ve ever known him, and I wanted to be here when you found out. You won’t tell him, will you? Can you keep it a secret? Pretend you only heard about it from the bank person?”

For a moment, Gwen appeared very young, far less than her twenty-five years, and Elise couldn’t help but roll her eyes in amusement at her predicament.

“Fine, but on one condition. You tell me what on earth is going on.”

“This is all I know.” Gwen leaned forward, her eyes huge behind her glasses. “I don’t know everything, but I’ve put a few pieces together. I heard Will on the phone. I guess it was just after everything happened, and I’ve never heard him so angry. He gets cold and icy when he’s upset, like those teachers who would start speaking very quietly, and everyone would get terrified. Well, not this time. He was yelling, so loudly I could hear him. I have my own place, a studio loft where I live and work, but I go back to the house often. This time I was there and I heard him, so I went to see what was wrong. I don’t know who he was talking to, but he was shouting things like, ‘This time, he’s gone too far,’ and ‘I won’t let him get away with it.’”

“And?” Surely that wasn’t all of it.

“I knew something was up. He left that night. I’m not sure where he went, but he only got back two days ago. I made sure I was in the house, and, well, I hung around where I could hear his calls. These were harder, because he wasn’t yelling. But I did hear him say to someone, ‘Put every penny back. I don’t care how you do it, but make it look like a computer error.’ And I knew that it had to do with you, and the reason everything changed at the centre so quickly. Did it have to do with him?”

Elise frowned. “Him? Who?”

“Kevin.” Gwen almost spat the name. “I don't know why he was there, but he’s a terrible person. Keep away from him. Will knew I’d seen him. He’d actually tried to chat me up when I was there a few weeks ago. Me! He had no idea who I was, telling me all about his vacation home in the Caymans, like he was some sort of big shot. I told Will about it, and he almost turned red.”

This was strange. “When did this happen?”

Gwen’s mouth twisted as she thought. “Oh, about a month ago, maybe six weeks. No, I remember. It was the beginning of February, because I remember thinking that if I had a house in the Caymans, I wouldn’t be in Toronto on Groundhog Day.”

Kevin was in Toronto? Randall had told the choir Kevin had taken a job out of town. Any lingering notions that Kevin had ever been telling the truth dissolved. All at once, some pieces of the puzzle fell into place, but a lot of other questions arose. She’d have to somehow get the whole story from Will. If he ever spoke to her again.

* * *

Will looked at his phone. He put it in his pocket, and then took it out again. He didn’t even know what he was waiting for, but he was anxious for it to happen soon. These past three weeks had been terrible, dragging him into a level of hell he didn’t know existed, but he had triumphed. Still, after what he had done, he felt he would never be clean again.

Another glance at the phone. He was waiting for Elise to call him, although he knew she wouldn’t. She was too proud for that. After all, he had ignored her earlier calls for three weeks, and after the first day’s messages, she hadn’t called again.

She must hate him.

But she loved her job. The Queen City Arts Centre was everything to her, and her fierce need to provide those kids with their programs was what made her heart beat. If the cost of saving that, and her good name, was her hatred, he could live with it. But damn, he hoped he wouldn’t have to.

Ten o’clock. The bank must have called her by now. Ten past ten. When would she be off the phone? Would she speak to him? He could hardly comprehend how much he’d missed her, but he had been so single-minded in his purpose, he couldn’t let anything distract him. And, he had been afraid.

Ten fifteen. He couldn’t wait another minute. His finger hovered over the Frequent Caller list, and he touched her name. And then held his breath and waited.

* * *

Elise hadn’t slammed the phone down, or told him to eat rocks or stuff himself into a tree, which he took as a good sign. Whether she was pleased to hear from him, he couldn’t tell. She sounded not quite herself. Distracted, perhaps, or uncertain, which wasn’t at all surprising after the terrible time she’d had. Perhaps she was just still stunned by how events had turned out. When he said he was coming over, she agreed in a flat voice. Not excited, not angry, just emotionless. How unlike the sparkling, confident Elise he had fallen in love with.

He had known it for a while. He loved Elise. From the first time he set eyes on her, even in that dreadful yellow shirt and chinos that she wore to the blind-dating event that Carlos dragged him to, he had been captivated. His rudeness had been his attempt to deny that attraction he refused to acknowledge. Her refusal to nod and smile at everything he said had made her more and more interesting, and her willingness to challenge him had lit a spark that was impossible to extinguish. She was her own wonderful, unique self, full of drive and passion, unswayed by the superficial, fuelled by a commitment to helping others that left him feeling quite inadequate, and intensely proud. She backed down from no challenge, cringed before no one. And now that fire had been damped, and his own rage flared at the thought of it.

If he could punish Kevin Ouelette again for the hell he had put Elise through, Will would do it in a moment.

He paused on her doorstep, listening. Footsteps answered his knock, and in a moment, the door opened, giving him entry to her apartment.

For a few seconds, they stood there, neither one moving, just staring at each other, that brittle moment of paralysis, the knife-edge of time on which the entire world was balanced.

And then, in a rush, they were in each other’s arms.

Both spoke at once, the words falling over each other.

“I’m so sorry, can you forgive me?”

“I thought you’d never want to see me again.”

There was no space for thought right now. Will just wanted to hold her forever, and he cherished the feel of her pressed against him, arms around his back, and he pulled her close with one arm and let the other hand weave through her silky dark hair.

This. He wanted this, forever. He hadn’t realised how empty his arms had felt without her in them. He would never take her for granted, would never let her down again. He’d had no choice, but now he knew he would move mountains to stay with her forever.