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.”
“You are going to tell Braden about the letter though, aren’t you?”
“Not yet. He’s just like my dad. He’ll get all worried and uber protective. He might get himself in trouble by going after one or even all three of the people who I suspect. He might even suspect Cam of being jealous or something and I don’t think it was him.” Suddenly it dawned on me. “That’s it! Cameron can help us.”
“But Marla knows him too. Maybe we should ask Mark.”
“Mark would tell Braden. He’ll be with you, who Marla doesn’t know, and she won’t be expecting to see him. Even if he did run into her though, big deal. He could just say he was on a date.”
“What makes you think he’ll agree to spend his weekends following Marla?”
“I think that he’s bored. That’s why criminal law sounds exciting to him. Did you get his number?” I asked.
“I did,” she said a little sheepishly. “Just in case something happened, you know?”
“What, like the courtroom burned down or something?” I teased.
“Something like that.” She fished her phone out of her purse.
“Call him and ask him if it’s too late to invite him to dinner with us. You can tell him we need to talk to him.”
When she hung up she said that although he sounded surprised, he would be happy to join us. He had a place in Society Hill, another Center City neighborhood which was very near here. I was surprised I hadn’t run into him somewhere sooner. We ordered from a local Chinese place and I ran out to pick it up. By the time I got back Cam had arrived and he and Jess were laughing and talking animatedly. I set the table and we sat down to eat.
“So, Jessica says that there’s something you want to talk to me about?”
“Yeah, I got this letter today,” I said, showing it to him.
“Who would send something like this?”
“I have a hunch that it was either Marla, Cole, or possibly Mrs. Mason.”
“Well, any of them would be capable of it, but couldn’t it be anybody?” I explained my reasoning to him and he saw my point. Next I outlined my plan.
“So you would want Jessica and me just to follow her?”
“I was thinking that maybe you could at least find out what places she tends to go to. Then maybe we could come up with a plan for getting the sample. This would be just sort of an information gathering phase. What do you think?”