Had this all really started with a college scavenger hunt?
“Wendy?”
She should have been scared, but she wasn’t. It just reconfirmed what she already knew. She turned around. Phil Turnball stood in her doorway.
“Other people know,” she said.
Phil smiled. His face had that shine from too much drink. “You think I mean to hurt you?”
“Haven’t you already?”
“I guess that’s true. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“How did you get in?”
“The garage was open.”
Charlie and that damn bike. She wasn’t sure what the right move was here. She could try to be subtle, hit her cell phone, dial 9-1-1 or something. She could try to send an e-mail, an electronic SOS of some kind.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
“Do you mind if I call a friend then?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“And if I insist?”
Phil took out a gun. “I have no intention of hurting you.”
Wendy froze. When a gun comes out, it becomes the only thing you see. She swallowed, tried to stay strong. “Hey, Phil?”
“What?”
“Nothing says you have no intention of hurting someone better than whipping out a handgun.”
“We need to talk,” Phil said. “But I’m just not sure where to start.”
“How about how you kicked that mirror shard into Christa Stockwell’s eye?”
“You really have done your homework, haven’t you, Wendy?”
She said nothing.
“You’re right too. That is where it began.” He sighed. The gun hung down by his thigh. “You know what happened though, don’t you? I was hiding and then Christa Stockwell screamed. I ran for the door, but she tripped me and grabbed my leg. I never meant to hurt her. I was just trying to get away, and I panicked.”
“You were in the dean’s house because of a scavenger hunt?”
“We all were.”
“Yet you took the fall alone.”
For a moment Phil looked off, lost. She considered making a run for it. He wasn’t pointing the gun at her. It might be her best chance. But Wendy didn’t move. She just sat there until he finally said, “Yes, that’s true.”
“Why?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You see, I came into that school with every advantage. Wealth, family name, a prep school education. The others struggled and scraped. I was drawn to that. They were my friends. Besides, I was going to get in trouble anyway—why drag them into it?”
“Admirable,” Wendy said.
“Of course, I didn’t know the extent of the trouble I was in. It was dark in the house. I thought Christa was just screaming out of fear. I had no idea when I confessed that she’d been hurt that badly.” He cocked his head to the right. “I like to think that I still would have done the same thing. Taken the hit for my friends, that is. But I don’t know.”
She tried to glance at the computer, tried to see if there was something she could click to get help. “So what happened then?”
“You know already, don’t you?”
“You were expelled.”
“Yes.”
“And your parents paid Christa Stockwell for her silence.”
“My parents were aghast. But maybe, I don’t know, maybe I knew they would be. They paid my debt and then told me to go away. They gave the family business to my brother. I was out. But again maybe that was a good thing.”
“You felt free,” Wendy said.
“Yes.”
“You were now like your roommates. The guys you admired.”
He smiled. “Exactly. And so, like them, I struggled and scraped. I refused any help. I got a job with Barry Brothers. I put together a client list, worked hard to keep everyone happy. I married Sherry, a spectacular woman in every way. We made a family. Beautiful kids, nice house. All on my own. No nepotism, no help . . .”
His voice drifted off. He smiled.
“What?”
“You, Wendy.”
“What about me?”
“Here we are, the two of us. I have a gun. I’m telling you all about my nefarious deeds. You’re asking questions to stall me, hoping for the police to arrive just in the nick of time.”
She said nothing.
“But I’m not here for me, Wendy. I’m here for you.”
She looked at his face, and suddenly, despite the gun and the situation, the fear left her. “How so?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
“I’d rather—”
“You want the answers, don’t you?”
“I guess.”
“So where was I?”
“Married, job, no nepotism.”
“Right, thank you. You said you met Ridley Barry?”
“Yes.”
“Nice old man, right? Very charming. He comes across as honest. And he is. I was too.” He looked down at the gun in his hand as though it had just materialized out of thin air. “You don’t start off as a thief. I bet even Bernie Madoff didn’t. You’re doing the best you can for your clients. But it’s a cutthroat world. You make a bad trade. You lose some money. But you know you’ll get it back. So you move some other money into that account. Just for a day, maybe a week. When the next trade comes in, you’ll make it up and then some. It isn’t stealing. In the end, your clients will be better off. You just start small like that, a little crossing of the line—but then what can you do about it? If you admit what you’ve done, you’re ruined. You’ll get fired or go to jail. So what other choice do you have? You have to keep borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and hope that something will click, some Hail Mary pass will work, so you can get out from under.”
“Bottom line,” Wendy said, “you stole from your clients?”
“Yes.”
“Gave yourself a decent salary?”
“It was part of keeping up appearances.”
“Right,” Wendy said. “I see.”
Phil smiled. “You’re right, of course. I’m just trying to give you the mind frame, justified or not. Did Ridley tell you why they first started looking at me?”
She nodded. “You lied on your résumé.”
“Right. That night in the dean’s house—it came back to haunt me again. All of a sudden, because of what happened all those years ago, my whole world began to disintegrate. Can you imagine how I felt? I took the fall for those guys, even though I wasn’t really to blame, and now, well, after all these years, I was still suffering.”