“Thisis the paper he wrote.” He handed her a printout of it. “And now, look at this.” He pulled up the plagiarized paper. “See when this was uploaded? Same time that Blake’s paper was deleted. And… it was late Friday afternoon. From the school’s computer system. Blake was working at Parker’s then. He couldn’t have uploaded it. Here’s a printout for you of all the info and the IP addresses.”
She leaned back and stared at him. “So you mean someone deliberately did this to Blake? Why?”
“We have a theory but can’t prove it. And we sure aren’t going to accuse anyone without proof. We’ve seen firsthand what false accusations can do to a person.” He gave her a hard stare. “But if you can find out who was logged into the school’s computers late Friday afternoon, then maybe you can find your proof.”
“I’ll talk to our head of technology. See what he can find out.” She rose from her seat. “I’m sorry this happened, Mr. Brown.”
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” He turned to leave. “I’m going to go get Blake now and bring him back to school.”
“Please tell him to stop by my office when you get here.”
“We will. I’ll be with him.” And Blake better be hearing a heartfelt apology from Mrs. Grimshaw or else. He didn’t know what the else was… but he was in full-out protective parent mode now, and Blake deserved so much better than the blows life had been throwing at him.
Jesse burst through the front door of his cottage. “Blake, you here?”
“In the kitchen,” Blake called out.
Heather and Blake sat at the kitchen table, eating some of Evelyn’s cinnamon rolls. He strode over to the coffeepot, poured a mug, and sat down. “So, I have news. I’m taking you back to school.”
“But Mrs. Grimshaw said I was suspended for a week.”
“That was before we proved you didn’t do what she said you did.”
“But how?” His eyes widened, and he jumped up. “How did you manage that?”
“Austin helped us.” Heather grinned.
“You knew about this, too?”
She nodded.
“Austin got into the backup system and found your original paper, along with the fake one uploaded in its place. I turned in a copy of your real paper, by the way. The fake paper was uploaded from an IP address at the school and your original paper deleted at the same time. And when all that was happening at the school? It just happens to be when you were working at Parker’s. Mrs. Grimshaw is going to look into who might have done this.”
“You found out all of this? You did this for me?”
“Of course. I believed you. We just needed to find a way to prove it.”
“Austin overheard Livy and I talking about it and said he’d look into it. And he found the proof.” Heather beamed with happiness.
Jesse’s face probably looked just the same. He was so thrilled to be able to prove Blake was telling the truth all along.
“I need to thank Austin.”
“And you can. But first, I’m taking you back to school. No need to miss any more classes.”
“I’ll be ready in five minutes.” Blake sprinted out of the kitchen.
He looked over at Heather. “You okay?”
“Of course,” she said, her voice husky. “I’m just really happy that this worked out.”
He got up and pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her tightly. “It did work out. We make a pretty good parenting team, don’t we? Considering we’re just newbies at the job.”
“We do.” She smiled up at him, then pressed her cheek against his chest.
He stood there holding her, feeling like things were finally falling into place in his life. And he planned on enjoying every minute of it.
Emily stood impatiently outside Blake’s classroom. Why hadn’t the teacher let them out when the bell rang? She tapped her foot, staring at the clock across the hall, ticking away the seconds. It was lunchtime, and she had much to talk to Blake about. The rumors were already flying around about him being back at school.
