This was his wild Violet? It looked like her . . . and yet, not. Married life suited her, that was clear. She was as gorgeous as when he’d last seen her, and the thought of another man in her life made him ache inside. It should have been him at her side, but he’d been a selfish ass.
“Jonathan,” she said in a flat, polite voice. “What a lovely surprise.” Her voice indicated that it was neither a surprise nor lovely.
“Just a reminder, Ms. DeWitt, that visitors need to be checked in to the office in the future,” Principal Esparza said, casting another friendly smile in Jonathan’s direction.
“Of course. My apologies,” Violet said, ever so polite. “Won’t you come in, Jonathan?” She gestured at the classroom.
He gave a nod to his security guard, who turned to stand at the doorway in an alert pose. Not that Jonathan was expecting trouble at Neptune Middle School, of course, but he had found out a long time ago that looking important got you as many places—and sometimes more—than greasing palms did.
Violet’s little heels clacked as she returned to sit at her oversized desk at the front of the room. He noticed she didn’t offer him a seat, and eyed the rickety student desks lined up in neat rows. Her classroom was colorful and bold, pictures of exotic locations and maps of the world covering the walls, along with charts and flags. Despite the surroundings, the school was old and dark, the wood paneling warped with age, and he was pretty sure the tiles in the ceiling were going to fall down due to water damage. “Nice place. Where are your students?”
“It’s three thirty,” she said in that too-smooth, too-controlled voice. “Class is over. This is detention.”
He turned to look over at her, grinning in what he hoped was his best flirty smile that had never failed to melt her in the past. “Guess I’ve been naughty.”
Violet clasped her hands on her desk. “Mr. Lyons, I think we both know why you’re here.”
“Jonathan.”
“Mr. Lyons,” she echoed, her even gaze almost daring him to contradict her. She stared him down for a moment longer, then reached into her desk drawer and pulled out an envelope and held it out to him.
He approached, taking the familiar envelope from her, noting that the seal on the back was still intact. “You didn’t open it?”
“I’m quite familiar with my father’s little games. I don’t need to open it to know I’m not going to play along. This is all a ploy of his for some purpose I haven’t yet figured out, nor do I care to.”
Jonathan wondered at her icy demeanor. Violet was being downright chilly to him, and he hadn’t done a thing. “You still holding a grudge from the past?”
Her eyes narrowed.
That would be a yes. “Look, Violet. I was a kid, you were a kid. We were young. We did stupid things, made stupid mistakes. Can’t we get past that and work together?”
“Work together? On what?”
He pulled his own envelope out of an inner pocket in his Fioravanti suit jacket and held it out to her.
She simply gazed at him, arching an eyebrow.
All right, he was going to have to do this the hard way. He flicked the envelope open, pulled out the paper inside, and read it to her. The first line was the middle school’s address. The second line said: “My daughter Violet holds the key.” He looked over at her to see her reaction to the cryptic statement.
Violet rolled her eyes.
“Well? What do you think?”
“I think my late father missed his calling as a dramatic actor,” Violet said. “If there’s a key to be found, it’s probably in my envelope. You can have it.” She nudged it toward him and took a stack of papers off the corner of her desk and pulled them in front of her. Then, she picked up a red pen and began to grade, as if he wasn’t there.
Jonathan stared at her for what seemed like forever. She truly wasn’t curious? She didn’t want to know? “Aren’t you the slightest bit interested in what your father was hiding?”
“No.” She didn’t look up, just kept on grading.
“Would you be surprised to hear that upon his death, not only were all his journals missing, but there was rumor that he’d stolen something important from his latest dig?”
“I would not be surprised,” Violet said, still not looking up. She scribbled a note in red on a test, flipped it over, and went on to the next one. “If it could create drama and tension for my father, he’d do it.”
“That was my dig,” Jonathan said. “Your father stole from me.”
She ignored him.
“Don’t you care?”
At that, Violet looked up and gave him another cool look. “Should I care? I’m told that upon my father’s death, an anonymous third party settled all of his debts and that they were not to be a concern of mine. I was also told to be thankful.” Her mouth puckered on the last part, as if she’d bit down on a lemon. “I consider this one of those handled debts.”
So she knew he’d taken care of things and wasn’t pleased. It didn’t deter him. “I want those journals. More than that, I want the stele he stole from my dig. It’s irreplaceable.”
She looked back down at her test again, and nudged the envelope with her other hand, easing it toward him a bit more.
“Goddamn it, Violet. Talk to me, here.”
“I am talking,” she said in that same even voice.
“I want to work together on this. I need those journals and what he stole.”
“I told you. You’re free to take my envelope.”
Irritated, he snatched it off her desk and tore it open. There was nothing but a symbol inside, one completely unfamiliar to him. “I don’t know what this means.”
“That’s really not my problem.” She smiled faintly at him and pointed at the door, as if to suggest he should leave.
It was clear that she was done with him, just as it was clear to Jonathan that if he was going to get anywhere, he’d need Violet’s help. Violet would have access to information about the late Dr. DeWitt that he wouldn’t. Memories. Insider knowledge.
“I’ll pay you a million dollars if you’ll assist me with this.”
She looked up from her paperwork, her eyes going wide with surprise. “You’re serious?”
“I’m a billionaire now, or didn’t you hear? I took over Lyons Motors.”
“Hooray for you.” Her face was impassive.