Vance stood in the doorway, trembling, holding a can of industrial lighter fluid he had taken from the maintenance closet. Arthur Sterling stood beside him, completely composed.
“This is crazy,” I choked out, looking up at Trent, whose arrogant smile had finally faded into something resembling nervous tension. “Trent, look at what they’re doing. They’re going to kill me.”
Trent looked away, his jaw tightening. “You brought this on yourself, Liam. You should have minded your own business.”
“Minded my business?” I yelled, the adrenaline finally overriding the fear. I pointed a shaking finger at him. “He bought your life, Trent! Your football stats, your college offers! It’s all fake! Your dad is laundering money, and you’re just his dumb, violent puppet!”
Trent lunged forward, grabbing the collar of my shirt and hauling me halfway off the ground. He raised his fist, his eyes blazing with humiliation and rage.
“Trenton. Enough,” Sterling commanded sharply.
Trent froze, his fist trembling in the air. He glared at me with pure hatred, but the lifelong conditioning of obeying his father won. He slowly released my collar, letting me drop back to the floor, and stepped backward.
Sterling looked at Vance. “Douse the shelves. Start by the electrical panel to make it look authentic. Leave his master keys near the junction box.”
Vance swallowed hard, unscrewing the cap on the lighter fluid. His hands were shaking so badly he spilled fluid onto his own shoes. “Arthur… arson is one thing. Murder…”
“It’s not murder, it’s a tragedy caused by a delinquent student,” Sterling said smoothly, checking his gold Rolex. “We have three minutes before the security guards do their exterior perimeter sweep. Do it.”
Vance stepped toward the electrical panel, raising the plastic bottle.
I braced myself, searching the room frantically for anything I could use as a weapon. A loose pipe, a heavy binder. But the room had been cleared. I was going to burn alive because a bully bumped into an old man.
Suddenly, a massive, deafening alarm shattered the silence of the basement.
It wasn’t a fire alarm. It was the school’s emergency lockdown siren, a blaring, rhythmic electronic shriek designed for active threats. The red strobe lights in the ceiling began to flash, bathing the concrete vault in a harsh, pulsing crimson glare.
Sterling whipped around, staring at the open steel door. “What the hell is that? Who triggered the lockdown?!”
“I don’t know!” Vance shouted over the siren, dropping the lighter fluid. “The override is in the main office!”
Heavy, rapid footsteps echoed down the north corridor. Not the soft padding of teenage boys, but the heavy, tactical tread of multiple people running with purpose.
“FBI! Nobody move! Hands where I can see them!”
Two men in heavy tactical gear, carrying large black rifles, swung around the corner and leveled their weapons directly into the vault. Arthur Sterling froze. Trent let out a pathetic, terrified squeak and immediately dropped to his knees, throwing his hands in the air. Vance practically collapsed against the wall, sliding down into a puddle of his own lighter fluid, whimpering.
I stayed on the floor, breathing heavily, watching the chaos unfold.
A third man stepped into the doorway, holstering a sidearm.
He was wearing faded denim overalls, a green flannel shirt, and wire-rimmed glasses. He wasn’t limping. His posture was perfectly straight, his shoulders broad and steady.
It was Joe.
He didn’t have his cane. And as he looked at the men cowering in the room, the “deaf and mute” gardener cleared his throat.
“Arthur Sterling. Richard Vance. You are both under arrest for racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit murder,” Joe said.
His voice wasn’t weak. It was deep, articulate, and completely devoid of the silent frailty he had portrayed for the last three years. Perfect, commanding American English.
Vance stared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish. “Joe… you…”
“Special Agent Joseph Miller, Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Joe said, pulling a leather badge wallet from his overalls and holding it up in the flashing red light. He stepped into the room, kicking the lighter fluid bottle away from Vance. “I’ve been embedded here for three years tracking the financial irregularities in your endowment, Vance. It was slow work. The ledgers in this room were the missing piece.”