Melanie caught her breath and strained to listen. The footsteps started up again. Reverberating in the deserted hallway, they advanced toward her. She made out the sound of one person walking. Yes, definitely one person. Could Hogan have killed Carmen already? Wait a minute! The footsteps passed the development office’s door. They were moving closer. They were outside the door of this office. Melanie backed farther into the room, looking around frantically. In the dim light filtering through the blinds, she saw only one place to hide. Under the desk. She pulled the swivel chair out and crawled into the desk well, dragging the chair in behind her, heart hammering against her rib cage. Just then she heard the doorknob turn. Somebody was coming in after her.
61
THE FOOTSTEPS HAD STOPPED outside the office door. For a moment nothing happened, and chill silence prevailed. Melanie slipped her hand into her evening bag and grasped the Beretta, getting ready to defend herself. The door squeaked open on noisy hinges. She heard the sound of ragged breathing and thought it was her own, that it would give her away. But it came from her pursuer.
“Carmen? He-hello? Are you here?” a frightened voice called out.
Dizzy with relief, Melanie pushed the swivel chair out and rose to her feet. “It’s me, Melanie.”
Lulu was in the act of reaching for the light switch.
“Don’t!” Melanie covered the distance to Lulu’s side in two rapid steps, knocking the girl’s hand away in the nick of time. “No lights,” she whispered urgently. “Hogan could show up any minute. He could already be in the hall. You have to leave.”
“Carmen’s my sister. I’m staying.”
“What you’re doing won’t help her. If I have to worry about you, too, I’ll get distracted. Go. Now.”
“I want to help.”
“Fine. There’s something important you can do for me. I have a detective who’s supposed to show up to make the arrest, but I haven’t heard from him in the last half hour. I need you to call him. Take my phone, go outside, tell him where I am and to get here fast. Just hit redial. His number is the last one I called.”
Lulu looked at her in confusion. “I…I don’t know. I-”
“Do it!” Melanie commanded. “Trust me, it’s the only way. Come on, I’ll take you to the front staircase. Hogan will use the back, and I don’t want you running into him by accident.”
Grabbing Lulu firmly by the wrist, Melanie leaned out the office door and stole a furtive glance down the hallway. “It’s clear. Let’s go.”
They hurried along the dark hall in the opposite direction from the way Melanie had come. When they reached the main staircase, Melanie gave Lulu her cell phone and physically turned the girl so she was pointing downstairs. “Go. And don’t you dare come back.”
Lulu started down but then turned, throwing a pleading look over her shoulder. “You’ll protect her? Promise?”
“Yes. Now, get out of here. And be quiet about it.”
Melanie watched Lulu creep down the stairs until the girl’s slender form disappeared from sight, and then she turned resolutely back. But what she saw froze her in her tracks. A flashlight beam, bouncing wildly off the walls, kicking up strange shadows. Two figures struggling. Melanie drew her gun and advanced stealthily. Clinging to the darkness along the walls, she moved forward until she could see them clearly. They were standing in front of the door to the development office.
“Want me to fucking kill you?” Hogan said. In the crazed violence of the sound, Melanie just barely recognized the psychologist’s laid-back voice. He had Carmen by both arms.
“No.”
“Then don’t try that again, stupid bitch. Nobody can hear you with what’s going on downstairs anyway.”
Hogan pushed Carmen away roughly and fished in his coat pocket. Melanie tensed, thinking he might pull a gun, but he brought out a set of keys and inserted one into the lock. In a second they were inside. Melanie crept right up to the door, listening. Hogan didn’t turn on the light. Instead the beeps and groans of a computer sounded, and a blue glow emanated from the frosted-glass window. Hogan had booted up the computer. Melanie looked at her watch-7:29. In just one minute, ten million dollars would flow into Holbrooke’s account, Hogan would force Carmen to execute the commands transferring it out, and then he would have no further use for her.
“Hurry up,” she heard Hogan tell Carmen. “Pull up the account. I need to be in it when the money comes.”
Melanie realized that giving her phone to Lulu had been a big mistake. Now was the moment to call 911. But in the time it would take Melanie to search out another telephone, Carmen could die. She looked down at the gun in her hand and back up at the office door. At least she could stop that from happening, even if she had to do it by herself.
62
PATRICIA WATCHED from offstage, struggling to compose herself before walking out in front of the audience. The auctioneer brought down the final gavel, and she knew it was over. Not the auction, but everything. The scheme. Her relationship with James. Her hopes of wresting victory from the jaws of defeat. The taste of this long-awaited moment was like ash in her mouth.
She strode up to the podium in the glare of the spotlight and smiled. She was one of those people who always managed to function as long as she had a goal in mind. Her object now was clear: to avoid getting caught, to stay out of jail. The status quo, which an hour ago she despised as a humiliating second best, already seemed precious to her, lost and irretrievable.
“Members of the Holbrooke community,” she began, and tears welled in her eyes at the thought that she might never utter those words again. She looked out over her audience-so rich, so beautiful, so lavishly attired. If they found out the truth, they would no longer defer to her, no longer count her as a power in their world.
Patricia stopped, overcome, and looked down at her hands twisting wretchedly before her. The audience held its collective breath, and in the long, pregnant pause that followed, Patricia resolved things in her own mind. She wouldn’t give in. She refused to let this happen. She saw a way out. She would reveal the plot, pretend she’d stumbled across it, play the hero safeguarding the school’s millions.
Patricia squared her shoulders and began again. “First let me say that your generosity overwhelms me. This has been a tragic week for our school. All of you-alumnae and parents-could have chosen to turn your backs on us in our hour of need, in the wake of these shocking events. But you didn’t. Instead you embraced Holbrooke, with goodwill, with open arms and open checkbooks. Tonight we have raised over one million dollars from the auction alone!”
Applause and cheers roared through the auditorium. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she intoned, until the din quieted. “I will now read the names of the donors in Miss Holbrooke’s Inner Circle. Every family on this list has contributed at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the endowment campaign. I would ask that each family stand as your name is announced to receive the thanks of the Holbrooke community. You have played a singular role in financing our school’s future, and we acknowledge your generosity tonight with humble gratitude.”