“What is going on out here?!” Headmaster Davis barked, waving his arms as he marched toward us.
When he saw the overturned cart, the spilled chemicals, and Cameron’s Porsche sitting diagonally across the driving lane, his eyes widened. But his reaction was exactly what I had spent the last three years observing at this corrupt school. He didn't look at my bleeding knee. He didn't look at the tire marks.
He looked at Cameron Sterling. Or rather, he looked at the son of Arthur Sterling, the man whose checkbook kept the academy’s endowment afloat.
“Cameron,” Davis said, his tone instantly shifting from angry to conciliatory. “Are you alright? What happened here?”
“I was just trying to pull out of my spot, Mr. Davis,” Cameron lied smoothly, leaning back in his seat and adopting a perfectly innocent expression. “Margaret stepped right out in front of me. I had to swerve to avoid hitting her. She knocked her own cart over and then started screaming at me.”
Mason nodded eagerly from the passenger seat. “Yeah, Mr. Davis. It was totally her fault. Cam even tried to give her some money to replace her broken stuff, but she just went crazy and made some weird phone call.”
Headmaster Davis turned his gaze on me. His face hardened into a mask of bureaucratic disgust.
“Margaret,” he said sharply. “Is this true?”
“No,” I said calmly. “Mr. Sterling accelerated into a drift maneuver in a pedestrian zone. He struck my cart with the rear panel of his vehicle.”
Davis blinked. He wasn't used to me speaking in complete, articulate sentences. He was used to the hunched, quiet old woman who stared at the floor and nodded when given orders.
“I saw it from my window, Margaret,” Davis lied, adjusting his silk tie. “You were walking in the middle of the vehicle lane. You’ve been warned about this before.”
I hadn't. But I knew how this game was played.
“And throwing money at me?” I asked, gesturing to the wet bills on the ground. “Was that also my fault?”
“Cameron was trying to be generous after your careless mistake,” Davis said stiffly. He stepped closer to me, lowering his voice so the boys wouldn't hear. “Listen to me carefully, Margaret. Mr. Sterling is our most important donor. We have the Board of Trustees meeting tomorrow morning regarding the new athletic center. I will not have an hourly employee harassing our top families. Go to the maintenance shed, turn in your keys, and clock out. You’re done here.”
He fired me. Just like that.
I looked at the headmaster. I had spent three years collecting evidence on this man. I had dug through his shredded trash. I had cross-referenced the school’s bloated budget with Arthur Sterling’s personal offshore accounts. I knew exactly how deep the rot went.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do, Richard?” I asked.
Davis flinched. I had never called him by his first name.
Before he could respond, my eyes caught a subtle movement inside the Porsche. While Davis was distracted by our argument, Cameron reached into his designer jacket. He pulled out a small, silver flash drive. He didn't look at Mason, but he shoved the drive hard into Mason’s varsity jacket pocket, giving his friend a sharp, warning glare.
Mason swallowed hard and nodded, patting the pocket to secure it.
I filed that detail away. A silver flash drive.
Suddenly, the deep hum of a heavy engine interrupted the standoff. A massive, black armored SUV rolled smoothly into the parking lot, completely ignoring the student crosswalks. It pulled to a stop directly behind Cameron’s Porsche, blocking the sports car in.
Elias stepped out of the driver’s side. He was wearing a tailored dark suit, his broad shoulders blocking the afternoon sun. He didn't look at the headmaster. He didn't look at the boys. He walked straight to me.
“Are you injured?” Elias asked, his eyes scanning my scraped knee.
“I’m fine, Elias,” I said.
Headmaster Davis puffed out his chest, stepping forward to assert his authority. “Excuse me! Who are you? You cannot park that vehicle there! This is a restricted area!”
Elias finally looked at the headmaster. The expression on Elias’s face was so completely devoid of warmth that Davis actually took a physical step backward.
“You fired me, Richard,” I said, picking up my ruined clipboard from the ground. “I am leaving. But I suggest you retain the security footage of this parking lot from the last ten minutes. You’re going to need it.”