Page 25 of Promises We Meant to Keep (Love in Massachusetts #1)

twenty-five

Time.

That was all Kamryn wanted.

And it was everything she couldn’t have right now.

She’d ripped apart Elia’s personnel file, and there was nothing in it. Literally nothing. At least nothing that Elia could have been referring to when she’d told Kamryn to look into it. Scratching the back of her head, Kamryn was just about to open up her computer and do an online search like Elia had suggested, but the knock on her door stopped her.

“You ready?” Heather asked, her lips curled upward.

One way or another, Kamryn was going to find out exactly what everyone was hiding. Tonight. She was tired of waiting for answers.

“Yes.” Kamryn closed out her computer and took Elia’s personnel file, shoving it into the top drawer of her desk and locking it. She grabbed her satchel with her laptop and her notebook, and she followed Heather out. There wasn’t a chance that she was going to leave Heather alone in her office. Not now.

Kamryn walked into the conference room, surprised to find Susy already there. She shouldn’t be though. These three were never late to anything. In fact, they were always way earlier than they should be. Pursing her lips, Kamryn sat down and pulled out her things. She was ready for whatever they were going to throw at her.

She had to be.

“Let’s get started,” Yara said, eyeing Kamryn thoroughly. “I wanted to specifically talk about Elia Sharpe today. She’s gone unsupervised for too long, and in order to protect our students, we need to implement the protocols that were in place before.”

Before?

Kamryn was so out of the loop, and nothing in the personnel file had said that Elia was on restrictions. Or that she’d ever been suspended or put on leave. Absolutely nothing. It reeked of someone wiping it completely.

“What were the restrictions before?” Heather asked, leaning forward on the table, all her attention on Yara.

That had been what Kamryn wanted to ask—at least one of the millions of questions that had gone through her head. The first question that kept ringing through her brain was what the hell happened eighteen years ago?

“She wasn’t permitted to teach any extra curriculars. All interactions with students had to be supervised, and she had to pay for the assistant to supervise her. And someone must be present while she was teaching and on campus. And she wasn’t permitted to live on campus.” Yara put out a finger for each thing she listed off.

Those were insane restrictions.

How could anyone have survived those? It would have been better to have been fired. Or perhaps Elia would have done better to just quit. But those restrictions must have been dropped a long time ago because Elia had continued to teach Speech as far as Kamryn knew. Maybe those were just temporary restrictions during an investigation?

That would make far more sense.

Kamryn needed information. She picked up her pen and poised it over her paper. “You’re going to need to fill me in on what the charges were against Dr. Sharpe.”

“Charges?” Yara looked confused by that word choice, but she shouldn’t be. With restrictions as firm as the ones she was listing off, surely there would have been formal charges filed against Elia. And why she would have been allowed to stay at the school was lost on Kamryn.

Unless she’d been proven innocent of whatever it was.

“It’s in her personnel file,” Yara responded, wiggling her shoulders in discomfort.

“Actually, it’s not. Which is probably the more egregious error that we should be discussing at this point. But there are no reports or complaints in Dr. Sharpe’s file.” Kamryn pressed her lips together hard.

“What?” Heather’s eyes widened.

“That’s impossible,” Susy responded.

“It’s not if someone took them out, and I, for one, would like to know who might have done that. Because, again, even if a complaint was found baseless, there still needs to be a record of what happened and why it was filed.” Kamryn kept her pen on the paper, still waiting for some kind of answer to her earlier question. “So since I don’t have access to whatever information you three are discussing, you need to fill me in.”

Susy shook her head slowly in disbelief. “There was a complaint filed against Elia Sharpe, eighteen years ago, for sexual harassment against a student.”

“A female student,” Heather added with a snarl.

“Well, you can’t fire someone for being queer,” Kamryn commented, but her heart sank. To have someone make that accusation formally meant there was likely some sort of proof that it had happened. The lack of reporting was so stark, that if only one person had formally reported there were certainly others it had happened to who had kept their mouth shut over the years. And Kamryn would be responsible for digging up all that information.

“Eighteen years ago they could have,” Yara added, dropping her gaze to the table in front of her.

Had that been why Elia had kept that relationship so under wraps? It would be a very good guess, especially at an all-girls boarding school. At least it had been all girls then. Kamryn eyed Yara carefully. “Yes, eighteen years ago, we could have fired her for that. But you can’t now. And if you’re looking to fire Elia Sharpe for something, you’re going to have to come up with a far more egregious error on her part.”

“Perhaps a personal relationship with the Head of School.”

Ah, so that was going to come back and bite her in the ass. Kamryn dropped her pen onto the notepad. “I have a personal relationship with all of the faculty. It’s impossible not to when you work closely with them and when you live on the same campus as most. And it’s unlikely that I wouldn’t have a personal relationship with Dr. Sharpe, or any of the other four faculty members who were teaching here when I was a student. I’ve known them for more than half my life at this rate. You can’t require complete objectivity. It’s impossible.”

The lines around Yara’s mouth were prominent when she frowned. She didn’t like Kamryn’s response, but she also didn’t fight her on it. Probably because she didn’t hear enough of the conversation in Kamryn’s office to really know anything.

“What happened eighteen years ago?” Kamryn brought them back around.

“Do you remember Rylann Fowler?” Heather asked, looking solemn for the first time since she and Kamryn had been reintroduced. “Her older sister is Lucia.”

“Okay, vaguely. She’s a few years younger than me, right?”

“Four. She was in eighth grade when you graduated.” Heather seemed so forlorn now. She absolutely believed what she was about to say. Kamryn had no doubts about it. “When she was a sophomore, she filed a complaint against Elia Sharpe for sexual harassment. She was on the Speech team, and she said that Elia harassed her not only in the classroom but also on the overnight trips that they took.”

“Only harassment?” Kamryn asked, writing sexual harassment onto her yellow pad. She was finally getting somewhere with answers.

“Yes.”

“No,” Yara interjected. “Rylann also accused Elia of sexual advances and coercion, but she dropped that part of her complaint after the pressure from the school became too much.”

Kamryn wrote that down as well. She was going to need to dig deep into the school archives for as much information as she could possibly find about the details. Surely, they had to be somewhere. At the very least, Mrs. Caldera should remember everything. She always did.

“Was Rylann the only student who complained?”

“She was,” Susy jumped into the conversation. “At least about anything sexual. Elia had other complaints about being too hard on the students, expecting too much.”

That would be Elia. Kamryn had those same complaints when she’d been a student, but Elia had never expected more than what her students could handle. She just held them to high standards, and now, twenty years later, Kamryn was glad Elia had done that. It helped her to raise the bar on herself several times over the years.

“So in the following eighteen years, disregarding this one situation, there were no other complaints filed against Elia about sexual harassment, sexual coercion, sexual assault, rape, or anything of that nature?” Kamryn was ready to hear it all, even if it devastated her in the end. She needed to know who she was dealing with—who she was falling head over heels in love with.

“Not as far as I know,” Yara answered.

Both Heather and Susy shook their heads.

“But if the personnel file has been wiped of any incriminating reports, then we have no way of knowing tonight if there were other complaints filed against her,” Kamryn added.

“We don’t,” Susy responded.

“And you couldn’t tell me all of this before? When I suggested Elia for this team? When you hired me and told me that this team was top priority for the board?” Kamryn dropped her pen onto her notepad. “Because this is relevant information to how I run this school and protect the children we house and teach here. Without all the information, I can’t do that. In my view, you’re as liable as Elia right now, and as liable as whoever cleaned out her files.”

Heather looked an odd shade of gray. Susy looked as though she’d just been scolded. Yara, however, seemed pleased as punch. Kamryn couldn’t figure the three of them out. But at least they seemed to take what she’d said to heart.

“Let’s do this…” Kamryn started with a sigh. “Let’s meet again, soon. And in the meantime, Yara and I will begin to work through the files in the school and see if we can find the missing records. All of them, even if Elia’s weren’t the only ones. We need to make sure that they were or weren’t. And then we’re going to figure out who did it.”

“Sounds good,” Yara answered.

Of course she would be happy with this answer. She was basically getting what she wanted for now. And the for now part was what Kamryn had to remember.

“Heather, Susy—I want you to report back to the board about the missing records. Without disclosing the details of whose records are missing unless Yara and I find more information out before the next board meeting.” Kamryn wrote each of these action items down, so that everyone was on the same page when they got back together. “In the meantime, we’ll implement some of Yara’s restrictions on Elia, but not all of them.”

“What?” Yara’s eyes widened in shock.

Kamryn shook her head, holding her ground on this one. “Those restrictions went away for a reason, and what you’re asking for is over and above what would be required unless a new complaint was filed. And there hasn’t been. I’ll speak with Elia about supervision during classes and office hours and ask that she restrict her time in the main part of campus. Since I’m co-leading the Speech team, she’ll be supervised by me on those trips and during practices.”

“And you don’t see that as a conflict?” Yara pushed.

“No, I don’t. The board hired me for a reason. Let me do my job.” Kamryn stared across the table at Yara, giving her a pointed look. “If you see my position as a conflict of interest, then you should recuse yourself right now.’

“Why would Yara need to leave?” Heather asked.

Kamryn held her hand out for Yara to explain. She didn’t want to be the one to explain it. She was airing dirty laundry for sure. Elia had said the breakup was mutual, but that didn’t mean that Yara felt that way. When Yara didn’t answer, Kamryn jumped right back in.

“During the time of the accusation, actually, Yara and Elia were in a committed relationship.”

“Not at the time of the accusation,” Yara corrected. “Elia and I broke up before that happened.”

“Lucky for you,” Kamryn murmured. She couldn’t imagine being in a relationship with someone who had been accused of that, having children at home, and then having to decide whether or not to support a partner.

“Yes, lucky for me,” Yara agreed. “Not so lucky for Rylann. It ruined her.”

Kamryn would look into that one too. She needed as much information as she could possibly find. “Yara, are you available to come in tomorrow?”

“Thursday, I can.”

“Good.” Kamryn put it into her calendar. “We’ll start our investigation then. We’ll meet together next week to discuss what we’ve found—or not found.” Kamryn was ready for this to be done. She needed time to collect herself again.

They finished the meeting, and Kamryn made sure that the others left before heading back to her office. She fired off a text to Greer, but she kept it simple. She couldn’t exactly tell her everything. It was all confidential at this point. But she needed someone to vent to and to tell her worries to, and Greer was the best option for that. At least at this point.

“Hey,” Kamryn said as she answered Greer’s call. “I’ve had a hell of a day.”

“Oh no, what happened?”

Shaking her head, Kamryn stared at her desk drawer where she’d shoved Elia’s file. “I can’t talk specifics.”

“Okay.” Greer knew the drill.

“People can be so cruel, but right now I’m not sure who to believe.” Kamryn closed her eyes and let that sink in. Without all of the facts, she was left in a constant spinning loop of what-ifs.

“Who do you want to believe?” Greer asked.

“All of them.” That was Kamryn’s issue. She wanted to always believe the one who was coming forth and making the accusation, first and foremost. So she couldn’t just let that go. “I want to believe all of them.”

“Oh, Kam, that’s so hard.”

“Because it’s impossible.” Kamryn groaned and put her head on her desk. “What do I do?”

“You go straight to the closest source you can find.”

Kamryn had known that was the answer, but despite having Greer tell her that to her face, she still didn’t want to do it. This was going to hurt. Not just Elia, not just Kamryn, but it was going to hurt whatever was between them.

Wasn’t it?

“Yeah. You’re right. Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”

“Love you!”

Kamryn hung up, and without waiting to start doubting herself, she grabbed her jacket, locked up her office, and left the building. It didn’t take her long to reach the humanities building and find Elia’s office door wide open and the light still on. Speech practice would have ended only ten minutes before, and Kamryn was certain that Elia would be cleaning up to head home.

When she reached the door, Elia looked up at her, devastation clearly written all across her face. Elia was waiting for Kamryn to bring her bad news. But Kamryn wasn’t ready to do that, not just yet.

“What did you decide?” Elia asked.

Kamryn pursed her lips and shook her head. “Not here. Take a walk with me, Elia.”