Page 101 of Promises We Meant to Keep

“What will you say?”

“First I need to figure out who erased the files.” Kamryn pulled into Windermere and parked in her spot. She didn’t hesitate as she got out of her car and walked swiftly up to her apartment, Greer hot on her heels.

“Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

Kamryn shook her head. “I know Elia didn’t. But that doesn’t…” Kamryn stopped. A corner of a folder stuck out from under the edge of her door. She frowned at it and bent down, sliding it back out before standing back up.

“What’s that?” Greer asked, peering over Kamryn’s shoulder.

“No clue.” Kamryn flipped open the folder and bit her lip. It was Rylann’s confession, everything hand-written in bubble letters about how she’d lied about everything. “Holy shit.”

Kamryn slapped the folder shut and looked down the hallway both ways. Who’d slipped this under her door? There was no one there, and she’d been gone close to an hour. Anyone could have put it there in the meantime.

“Damn it,” Kamryn muttered. She unlocked her door and stepped inside, looking up and down the hallway one more time as if that would give her the answers she was looking for. But of course, it didn’t. She moved to the couch and immediately laid the folder out on the coffee table, pulling out all of the papers.

It was Elia’s personnel file. All of the missing parts of it. And it was the case file for the investigation that Kamryn hadn’t been able to find yet. She skimmed through each of the papers inside of them before going straight back to the beginning and reading everything word for word.

This would relieve all of the newly resurfaced accusations against Elia. Everything Kamryn had been told so far was true. Elia had maintained her innocence from day one, Rylann had lied. The other accusations that had followed Rylann’s disappeared with similar confessions of lies. And it all came down to Felicity.

This was exactly what Kamryn had needed.

But who the hell had it this whole time?

“I tore about the office and the storerooms looking for this.” Kamryn flipped it closed and sank into the couch. She rubbed circles into her temples before glancing at Greer. “Seriously, thenumber of hours I’ve spent looking for these files is astronomical and then they suddenly appear at my apartment?”

Greer shrugged. “My guess is that whoever erased them or took them in the first place dumped them off for you.”

“Yeah, that’d be my guess too.” Kamryn sighed heavily, a weight lifting from her chest. She hadn’t realized how awful it had felt for so long. She wanted to run to Elia and tell her everything, but after her threat at the cafe, Kamryn knew that’d be the worst idea ever. She’d basically thrown the biggest punch she could in Elia’s direction.

Running her fingers through her hair, Kamryn couldn’t tear her gaze away from the folder on the coffee table.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to figure out who left me this.” Kamryn snagged her phone from her back pocket and dialed a number immediately. It was after hours and she knew she’d be lucky to get hold of security now, but at least she’d be able to do the one thing that she knew she could tonight.

Track down the mystery person.

She was going to walk into the next ethics meeting with her head held high and with all the information she could throw at them. This was going to end immediately. Enough with the witch hunt. Elia deserved to stay at Windermere, and she deserved be able to teach without looking over her shoulder for the next item that was going to come up.

“But what are you going to do about Elia?”

“What about Elia?”

“You told her that you loved her.” Greer touched Kamryn’s knee. “You’ve never said that to anyone other than Lauren.”

“Yeah, I haven’t.” Kamryn frowned. “And right now, I’m pretty damn convinced that I’m not going to tell anyone that ever again. Screw love, Greer. It sucks.”

“It can’t be all bad.”

“No. It’s awful. Elia was wrong. Love is hard.”

thirty-six

Elia’s feet dragged as she walked back toward her house from the humanities building. The day had been exhausting, and it shouldn’t have been. She was so used to long days at this point, but it seemed to be getting harder and harder to keep it together. Still, Elia couldn’t figure out why she could barely pick her feet up to walk down the sidewalk toward home.

Kamryn.

The administration building was on her way to the row of houses dedicated for faculty, and Elia was going to have to pass it in order to reach home. Elia looked down, hearing the rustlings of the students as they walked by going from one place to the next, their muffled voices in the cold air a welcome reprieve. They hadn’t talked since the coffee shop, and the weekend Speech meet had been tough to get through with that. But Elia had loads to say.

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