“Are not involved,” Sterling interrupted sharply. “Not yet. I have men looking for the gardener right now. When we find him, we will determine who he is talking to. But right now, we have a bigger problem. The boy.”
My heart stopped beating. My blood turned to ice water.
“Liam?” Vance said. “The scholarship kid? He doesn’t know anything. He’s just a terrified nobody. I threatened his financial aid. He won’t speak.”
“He saw the key,” Sterling countered coldly. “He saw the engraving. You said so yourself. If this gardener has federal contacts, the boy is a loose end. We can’t trust that he won’t put the pieces together.”
“What do you want to do?” Vance asked.
“We empty the room,” Sterling commanded. “Now. Trent and his boys are pulling my SUV up to the loading dock in five minutes. We move the ledgers, the cash, and the hard drives to the safe house. Then, we initiate a fire in this room. An electrical fault. Everything burns. We expel the boy tomorrow morning for starting it. We found his work-study keys near the source. He goes to juvenile detention, we walk away clean, and Oakridge collects the insurance money.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from gasping aloud. The sheer sociopathic efficiency of the plan was staggering. They were going to burn down the evidence and frame me for arson, destroying my life without a second thought. And worse—they had men hunting Old Joe.
I had to run. I had to get to a phone, call the police, the FBI, anyone. I had to warn Joe.
I took a slow, agonizing step backward. My heel hit something soft.
Clatter.
I had backed right into an aluminum bucket left in the hallway. It scraped loudly against the concrete floor. The sound was deafening in the silence of the basement.
The voices inside the vault instantly stopped.
“Who’s out there?” Sterling barked.
I turned and ran. I didn’t care about noise anymore. I sprinted down the north corridor, my sneakers slapping the wet concrete. I hit the stairwell, grabbing the metal railing and practically flying up the steps.
I reached the top landing, threw my weight against the door leading to the main hallway, and burst through.
A heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder, spinning me around violently. The momentum sent me crashing into a row of metal filing cabinets. The metal warped loudly as I slumped to the floor, gasping for air.
I looked up.
Standing over me, breathing heavily, was Trent Sterling. Flanking him were Brad and Kyle. They had come to help move the boxes.
Trent stared down at me, his eyes wide with adrenaline and a dawning, sickening realization. He had seen me coming out of the basement.
“Well, well,” Trent said, a dark, terrifying smile twisting his features. “Look who we found snooping where he doesn’t belong.”
I scrambled backward on the tile floor, but my back was against the cabinets. There was nowhere to go.
Down the hallway, the heavy basement door swung open. Principal Vance and Arthur Sterling stepped out. Sterling was carrying a heavy leather duffel bag. Vance looked completely deranged, his suit jacket off, his tie undone, holding a heavy metal flashlight like a club.
“Dad,” Trent said, his voice laced with cruel excitement, pointing down at me. “I caught a rat.”
Arthur Sterling walked slowly down the hallway, stopping right in front of me. He looked down at me not with anger, but with the cold, detached expression of a man looking at a bug he was about to step on.
“Put him in the vault, boys,” Sterling said quietly. “Let’s see how much he likes the heat.”
CHAPTER 4
The vault smelled of ozone, old dust, and impending death. It was a sterile, windowless square of concrete, lined with rows of metal shelves. Most of the shelves were empty now, the incriminating ledgers stuffed into Arthur Sterling’s leather duffel bags.
Trent and Kyle had dragged me down the stairs by my arms. My knees were scraped raw from the concrete. They threw me onto the cold floor in the center of the B-17 vault. I rolled over, coughing, my chest aching where Trent had kneed me in the ribs.