CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We walked in and I was going to toss the mail on the entry table, but something caught my eye; peeking out of the pile was an envelope that was addressed to me in sloppy handwriting that I didn’t recognize. There was no return address. What the hell? I stood there and stared, starting to feel a little apprehensive for some reason.
“Jess,” I called.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, coming over to me.
“It’s nothing big. Just that there’s a letter addressed to me and it doesn’t have a return address. I don’t recognize the writing.”
I ripped it open carefully and removed a note from inside. Jess leaned over to read it along with me. There was a single sheet of plain white paper on which someone had written a short message in the same sloppy script. It said, “You should not be with him. End it now before you get hurt.”
“Who do you think wrote this?” she asked, sounding shocked.
“Well, Marla seems like she may not have both oars in the water and she’s certainly nasty enough. She’s also fixated on getting Braden back.”
“Okay, there’s a good possibility,” Jess agreed.
“Cole was creepy and he was definitely hitting on me. He kept saying that if it didn’t work with Braden I should consider dating him. This letter is so ambiguous. It’s hard to tell if the writer is warning me off for my own good or threatening me.”
“That’s a good point. He could be trying to get you away from Braden. I’d say that’s another good suspect.”
“Then there’s Mrs. Mason, who was giving me dirty looks all evening. She wants Braden for her daughter but I could also tell she just didn’t like me in general. I think she saw me as this interloper in her elite little Main Line WASP community.”
“She did sound pretty evil. It might not be anybody who was at the fundraiser though. There are a lot of strange people out there. Remember that article in the Times you told me about — the one that sounded like a conspiracy theory? What if it’s someone who buys into that stuff?”
“The gossipy magazines that covered the fundraiser in detail haven’t come out yet and I don’t think that the coverage in the papers was very specific. That was really all about the Foundation. So it’s not really public knowledge that we’re even dating. It’s just a hunch, but I feel like it was one of those three.”
“Maybe you should report it to the police.”
“Not yet. I can’t mention that I suspect anybody.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t go around accusing a state representative of doing something like this without any proof, and I think that the Masons are big financial supporters of the Pierce family foundation. I don’t want to risk alienating them based on some dirty looks. As for Marla, her family is wealthy and well-connected and I don’t want anyone to get sued. ”
“Fine, but you should still tell the police. Maybe you should tell your dad, too.”
“It would just worry him and he would want to buy us a Pit Bull or hire me a bodyguard or something. My parents worry about me enough. Actually, I have something else in mind, but I would need your help.”
“Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of this already.”
“Remember I had that forgery trial, the one where I had to hire a handwriting expert?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I still have his contact information. I think that I should hire him to compare the handwriting in this note to samples that I get from all three of the people I mentioned.”
“And just how are you going to get them to give you handwriting samples, Nancy Drew?”
“I’m going to follow them until an opportunity presents itself, but I need your help because they’ve all seen me but they don’t know you.”
“We can’t just follow people around indefinitely. Do these people even live around here?”
“I think that they all live near the Pierces but I’ll verify it,” I said, going over to my laptop. I did a quick search and discovered that Cole’s district was just outside the city and that he had a place there and in Harrisburg, the state capital. Marla had a townhouse in the city and the Masons lived within a few miles of Braden’s parents.
“Marla’s right here in the city. It would be easiest to start with her and the most likely time for her to go out would be on a Friday or Saturday night.”
“So what are you going to tell Braden? I can’t take you to meet my parents because I want to follow your ex-girlfriend around?”
“No. We’re going to need extra help.”