All Chapters of THE PASTOR'S SON'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRECT : Chapter 231 - Chapter 239

Chapter 227The Week of AlmostsThe school changed overnight, and it didn't feel like victory.By Tuesday, Hargrove's name had been scraped off the office door. An interim principal, a brisk woman named Dr. Reyes, stood in the front hall at eight a.m. and shook every student's hand as they came in, as if rebuilding tThe Week of Almosts rust one palm at a time. The forum was gone. Someone on the board had shut it down in the night, and the empty page now showed only a gray rectangle and the words *This site has been removed.*Leon walked through the corridors expecting stares. He got them. But they weren't the stares he'd braced for.A senior he'd never spoken to held a door open for him and said, "Hey, I read the one about the library." A teacher paused beside his locker, smiled with visible awkwardness, and said only, "Good work, Mr. Carter," before hurrying off. Someone had taped a small drawing of a mouse to his locker door, with a tiny pen and a crown. He stood looking at it for

Chapter 229 The Letter from BeforeLeon read the email standing under a streetlamp, with Aaron's hand still warm in his.*Dear Leon,**You do not know me, and I apologize for writing at a time that must already feel crowded. My name is Daniel Reyes. I watched a recording of the assembly this afternoon, because my niece, who goes to your school, sent it to me. I saw your father in the front row.**I have not seen Matthias Carter in forty-one years.*Leon's grip tightened on the phone.*We were boys together at St. Alban's. He was my closest friend. When we were seventeen, his father found a letter I had written him, and by the end of that week he had been sent away. I wrote to him for two years. He never answered. I assumed he hated me. I built a whole life on that assumption.**Today I watched him put his hand on your shoulder when you walked into that auditorium, and I realized I might have been wrong.**I am not writing to cause trouble. I am writing because I am sixty now, and I d

Chapter 231The Man with the BoxDaniel Reyes arrived on the twenty-third, in a rented sedan, forty minutes early.Leon watched from the upstairs window as the car crawled up the street and parked at the curb. A thin man in a long gray coat got out, stood on the pavement, and did not move. He held a cardboard box against his chest with both arms. He looked at the house for a long time, the way a person looks at a place they have only ever imagined."Dad," Leon called down the stairs. "He's here."There was a pause.Then a sound Leon had never heard in this house, a chair knocked sideways, and his father's footsteps going very fast, then very slowly, then stopping dead in the hallway."I cannot open the door," Matthias said."You don't have to. I'll get it.""I cannot open the door, Leon. My hands are..." He held them up. They were shaking so badly that his wedding ring clicked against his watch.Leon came down, took one of those hands in both of his, and held it until the trembling ea

Chapter 233The Offer on Christmas NightLeon took the call in the church parking lot, sitting in the passenger seat of his mother's car with the heater off and his breath fogging the windshield.He had meant to wait until they got home. But Delphine had said *no matter how late*, and his hands wouldn't stop shaking, and Aaron had stood at the car window with snow on his shoulders and said, "Just call. I'll hold the door."So he called.She picked up on the first ring."Leon. Merry Christmas. I hope I haven't interrupted anything.""My father just gave a sermon that made half the parish cry.""Good heavens.""It's a long story.""I look forward to it." Her voice was warm and dry, but under it he could hear something brighter, a thread of barely contained excitement. "I'll be quick, because I suspect you'd like to go home. Harlow & Vane has made an offer."Leon stopped breathing."It's the house I mentioned. Spring list, hardcover debut, a first print run that I'm told is, and I quote,