Chapter 4 - THE PRINCIPAL HAD BEEN WAITING FOR HER
Teresa did something Karen had never seen her do.
She smiled at Gordon Pike.
Not kindly.
Knowingly.
Pike’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Karen saw fear.
Teresa walked away without saying a word.
By noon Karen had been escorted from Ridgemont.
Students watched through classroom windows.
Some teachers looked down.
Again.
Just like the flooded hallway.
Karen carried one cardboard box containing lesson plans, Toby’s drawings, and the coffee mug Micah had given her before Thanksgiving.
Outside the gates, Teresa was waiting.
“You knew,” Karen said.
Teresa did not pretend otherwise.
“He knows something.”
“About you?”
“Yes.”
Karen wanted answers.
Teresa only said, “Not yet.”
That night, Karen received a call from Toby’s hospital.
A surgical opening had unexpectedly become available in twelve days.
If Karen wanted it, she needed to confirm within forty-eight hours.
She sat at the kitchen table staring at the estimate.
Toby entered quietly.
He had heard enough.
“Are we poor?”
Karen looked at him.
“No.”
He pointed at the cookie tin.
“Then why do you count money when you think I’m brushing my teeth?”
Karen’s throat tightened.
Toby sat beside her.
“You can tell me stuff.”
Karen pulled him against her.
For the first time, she told him some of the truth.
Not all.
Never all.
Across Boston, Elias’s investigator delivered news.
Pike had discovered Teresa’s identity through a private background check arranged two weeks earlier.
But that was not the disturbing part.
Pike had also contacted Emilio Baron.
Elias’s cousin.
The same Emilio who had smiled while Elias dismantled their father’s old criminal operations.
Elias called him immediately.
No answer.
At Ridgemont, Pike entered his office after dark.
Emilio was already sitting there.
“You said she wouldn’t know until the donation was signed,” Pike snapped.
“She still doesn’t know everything.”
“And Elias?”
“His mother keeps him controlled.”
Pike poured himself whiskey.
“What about the teacher?”
Emilio smiled.
“She’s desperate now.”
He slid an envelope across the desk.
Inside were copies of Karen’s hospital bills.
Pike looked confused.
“What do you want with her?”
Emilio’s smile disappeared.
Because the missing four million dollars was only the beginning.
He leaned forward and revealed the next secret.
“The anonymous Ridgemont donation isn’t Elias’s money.”
May you like
“It’s mine.”
“And I need that school to wash every dollar of it.”
