I looked across the darkened courtyard toward the administration building. The light in Vance’s corner office was off, but a faint, yellowish glow was spilling from the narrow basement windows near the ground.
They were down there right now. Vance and Sterling.
If they found out Joe was hiding the key, they were going to hurt him. I had to know what was in that room. I had to know what Joe had been protecting.
I reached into my pocket and felt the cold metal of my master work-study ring of keys. It couldn’t open the vault, but it could get me into the building.
I had promised myself I would keep my head down and survive this school. But as I stared at the basement light, I made the one irreversible decision that would burn my life to the ground.
I walked toward the administration building, pulled out my keys, and slipped into the dark.
CHAPTER 3
The inside of the administration building was entirely pitch black, save for the emergency exit signs glowing a toxic, bloody red above the doors. I moved with agonizing slowness. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like a gunshot to my hypersensitive ears.
The air down here was thick and stale, smelling of old paper, damp concrete, and the faint, metallic odor of heating oil. As I approached the stairwell leading to the sub-basement, I noticed something that made my breath catch in my throat.
The security guards were gone.
Vance had ordered the area sealed immediately after the key was found. He had explicitly told them to physically restrain anyone who came near. But the post was empty. The door leading down to the basement was slightly ajar, a sliver of pale yellow light cutting across the tile floor.
Vance had dismissed the guards. He wanted total, unobserved privacy.
I slipped through the gap, stepping onto the concrete stairs. The temperature dropped noticeably as I descended into the bowels of the academy. My shadow stretched long and distorted against the brick walls.
At the bottom of the stairs lay the north corridor. It was a long, narrow tunnel lined with heavy steam pipes. At the very end of the hall stood the new security installation: a massive, heavy-gauge steel door set into a reinforced frame.
It looked like a bank vault. Above the door, on a small brass plaque, were the numbers B-17.
The heavy steel door was cracked open.
I crept closer, pressing my back against the damp brick wall. The voices filtering through the gap were low, urgent, and thick with hostility.
“You told me this situation was handled, Arthur!” It was Principal Vance, his voice shedding all of its usual refined polish. He sounded breathless, terrified. “You told me nobody knew about the offshore transfers!”
“Keep your voice down,” Arthur Sterling replied, a low, menacing growl. “I pay you a fortune to ensure this school remains a cooperative environment. I bought the new science wing, I bought the sports complex, and I bought every single test score that got my idiot son his college offers. Your only job was to hold the ledgers.”
I froze. My mind struggled to process what I was hearing.
Test scores. Offshore transfers. Ledgers.
Oakridge Academy wasn’t just a school for the elite. It was a laundering hub. Arthur Sterling wasn’t just donating money; he was funneling illegal funds through the academy’s endowment, buying grades and athletic accolades for his son and likely others, while running something far more sinister under the table. And Vance was his personal banker, using the school’s non-profit status as a shield.
“The physical ledgers are dangerous!” Vance hissed, his voice echoing slightly in the vault. “I told you to digitize them!”
“Digital can be hacked by the feds,” Sterling snapped. “Ink on paper is only seen by the people who have the key. Which brings me to my next point, Richard. How in the hell did the only master key to this room end up in a hollowed-out stick held by a deaf gardener?!”
There was a moment of silence. I slowly leaned an inch closer, holding my breath, trying to see into the crack.
“I… I don’t know,” Vance stammered. I could hear papers shuffling, a heavy metal drawer slamming shut. “I kept it in the wall safe in my office. Joe cleans that office every night. He must have seen me use the combination.”
“A deaf, mute, uneducated groundskeeper cracked a digital safe and orchestrated corporate espionage?” Sterling asked, the sarcasm dripping like acid. “You’re a fool, Richard. The man is a plant. He’s been working here for three years. He’s been feeding our routines to someone on the outside.”
“The police…” Vance said weakly.