“Difficult doesn’t begin to describe it! We wrote Emory that check from his college savings account, fully expecting he would use it to pay for his spring tuition. If we had known he would cash it to spend it on poker games organized byyoursorority house—”
“I’ll remind you, Mr. Willingham, those games were not approved by the Department of Fraternity & Sorority Life or theuniversity. Nor was I aware of them. We’ve been over this before. The girls involved have been punished, and sanctions have been imposed on the chapter. As you already know, the money has not been recovered, and it will be up to the courts to determine what, if any, financial restitution is due to your son and who will be responsible.”
“We all knowwhois responsible,” Mr. Willingham snapped. “It was that Ramirez girl. My attorney told me she’s a scholarship case. It’s obvious she saw a chance to make some quick cash off an impressionable young pledge, and she took advantage of it.”
I felt my hands tighten into fists at his baseless assumption.
“Veronica was here on a four-yearmeritscholarship,” Celeste said, her voice sharpening. “That award had nothing to do with her ability to pay for her education.”
“Just because she’s smart doesn’t change the fact that she’s broke. I’ve seen where that girl lives. Her mother’s a single parent who works in a hospital billing office, for Chrissake. And now her daughter’s run off with other people’s hard-earned tuition.”
Racist much?
“Ms. Ramirez is awaiting trial,” Celeste reminded him. “And she is entitled to due process under the law.”
“And I’m entitled to my money! But you and I both know the only way I’m going to get it back is through a check from this chapter. The longer I have to wait, the less likely I am to recover it. That girl’s probably spent every last dime of it already.”
What a self-righteous jerk!
“There is nothing more the university or I can do for you, Mr. Willingham.”
“My son was an eighteen-year-old freshman when he lost that money. It’s not right.”
“Your son was—and is—an adult,” Celeste said pointedly, “and he and his friends made a conscious choice to participate inillegal activities with full knowledge of the consquences. According to the report you filed with the police, your son attended no less than six poker nights over the course of a semester, and he did so while fully aware of the risks. He could have come forward at any point and reported everything to me or the Office of Student Conduct. He chose not to do so until his tuition was past due and he had no other recourse but to inform you. While I am sympathetic to your loss, your son has some responsibility to shoulder in this as well. The money he chose to gamble is not my problem, nor is it the problem of this chapter. Like it or not, the cash that was taken from this house is a matter for the court. The legal system will decide if any of it is owed to you. Until then, there is nothing I can do. I will ask you not to contact me with any more meeting requests or restitution demands, or I will be forced to reach out to our lawyers and request that they intervene.”
I wasn’t sure how Vero felt about her house mom, or what role Celeste had played in the investigation into Vero and the money, but I couldn’t deny her poise and control of what must have been a very difficult situation to navigate. House Mom felt like an appropriate title. You can love, support, and nurture your kids, but that doesn’t mean they won’t make a few mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes have serious consequences. And sometimes parents make mistakes in judgment, too. I wondered if she ever worried that she had misjudged Vero in all this. If that’s why she was taking care to safeguard Vero’s rights. Or if it was just her inner–mama bear coming out—the impulse to lash out in defense of your child regardless of what they might have done.
Or the instinct to fend off someone you considered a threat to them.
Mr. Willingham wanted his money back. And he wasn’t having any luck getting it in the privileged manner he was probablyaccustomed to. He’d obviously done his homework about Vero’s home and her family. It wasn’t such a big leap to think that he might have known she’d fled to her cousin’s apartment in Virginia. Or that he might have sent her letters designed to intimidate her into coming back. Would it be that much of a reach to think that he might have snuck into her room and overheard a conversation that led him to Theo’s house?
I tucked away that suspicion. For now.
If the security logs didn’t yield any helpful information, I would do some digging into the Willinghams. In my experience, people with that much hate in their hearts usually had plenty of their own sins to hide.
Mr. Willingham’s chair screeched as he stood. “If that’s your position, we’ll show ourselves out. But don’t be surprised if you hear frommylawyer as well. Your sorority will answer for this. Come on, Emory.”
I scurried back to Vero. “She’s coming!” I whispered.
Vero dropped her shovel. She grabbed the window ledge and arched up onto her toes. “Cam, Zoey! Time’s up!”
Their shocked faces appeared in the window above us. Arnold peeped out of his bucket. “I’m not done!” Cam whispered frantically. “You didn’t give me enough time to copy the drive!”
“We’ll have to figure out another way to get the logs,” I said. “Get out of there, now!”
Cam ducked back into the office. A moment later, he reappeared holding something that looked like a circuit board stuck to a packet of Pop-Tarts. He tossed it through the open window. “Hold this.”
I scrambled to catch the hard drive against my coveralls.
“We can’t take that with us!” I hissed up at him.
“Don’t freak out. She won’t even notice it’s gone.” He handedme Arnold’s bucket. Then he folded his lean frame and put a leg out the window. He waved a quick goodbye to Zoey and put his fist to his ear, the universal symbol forcall me. He jumped down from the ledge and landed on the ground beside me.
“How is Celeste not going to notice when her computer doesn’t turn on?” I pointed out.
He dusted his hands on the front of his coveralls. “She won’t suspect a thing. I closed the PC and plugged everything back into it just like I found it. If she turns on her computer, the fan will come on, some lights will blink at her, she’ll get some error message she won’t understand. She’ll assume her computer is broken. Then Zoey will offer to call a professional to come and repair it. The brilliant professional she’s going to call is going to beme,” he said, jabbing his thumb at his chest.
“You little sneak!” Vero shoved him down the hill toward the parking lot. “You didn’t run out of time! You took that hard drive on purpose, just so you’d have an excuse to give Zoey your number, so she’d have a reason to call you and you’d have a reason to come back!”
