Vance looked at the broken cane. He didn’t seem to recognize it at first. “What are you talking about?”
“This cane is identical to the one in Arthur Prescott’s portrait downstairs,” I explained. “Elias was walking around with a historical artifact. But that’s not the worst part. When Kevin broke it, I found this hidden inside the hollow handle.”
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the titanium key, and placed it on the leather blotter.
“It says B-17,” I said. “I don’t know what it opens, but—”
When Headmaster Vance saw the titanium key, all the color instantly vanished from his face.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t breathe. He just stared at the matte-grey metal as if a live grenade had just been placed on his desk.
“Arthur?” I asked, my anger faltering as I saw his reaction.
Vance’s hand began to tremble. It started as a subtle shake and quickly grew so violent that his heavy gold wedding ring rattled against the wood of his desk. He looked up at me, his eyes wide and dilated with absolute terror.
“Where did you get this?” Vance whispered, his voice entirely devoid of its usual authority.
“I just told you,” I said, taking a step back. “Kevin broke Elias’s cane. This fell out of it.”
Vance didn’t ask about Kevin. He didn’t ask if Elias was hurt. Without taking his terrified eyes off the key, he reached under the lip of his desk and flipped open a hidden plastic cover. He slammed his palm onto a red emergency button.
The intercom on his desk crackled to life immediately. “Security dispatch,” a crisp voice answered.
“Seal the Founder’s Archive,” Vance ordered, his voice cracking. “Code Red. Lock down the entire north wing. Do not let anyone in or out.”
“Copy that, Headmaster. Initiating Code Red.”
I stared at him, completely lost. “Arthur, what the hell is going on? What is the Founder’s Archive? What does B-17 mean?”
Vance slowly picked up the titanium key, handling it with a reverence that bordered on religious fear. He looked at me, and for the first time since I had known him, the polished politician was gone. He looked like a man who was about to face a firing squad.
“Prescott Academy isn’t owned by a board of directors, David,” Vance said, his voice hollow. “It is owned by an anonymous trust. A trust established by Arthur Prescott himself. The Board only manages the daily operations. But the Trust owns the land, the buildings, the endowment, everything.”
He swallowed hard. “In the basement of the north wing is the Founder’s Archive. Inside that archive is a master vault. Box number B-17. It contains the Founder’s Charter—a legal document that grants absolute, unquestionable authority over this institution.”
Vance looked down at the key. “There is only one key to Box B-17 in existence. It is held by the Chairman of the Trust. The anonymous heir to the Prescott fortune.”
My brain tried to process the information, but it hit a brick wall of logic. “But Arthur… Elias had this key. I saw it fall out of his cane.”
Vance slowly raised his head. The realization of what I had just said hit him like a physical blow. I could see the exact moment the pieces clicked together in his mind. The uncashed paychecks. The antique cane. The quiet observation.
Elias wasn’t a thief.
The Chairman of the Trust, the billionaire who owned the ground we were standing on, had been working undercover as a minimum-wage janitor.