“What’s that mean?”

Len smiled and spread his hands. “Damned if I know. Tripp is the president. Bob here is the VP. And Cal is the secretary.”

“I know and, man, am I impressed.” Again he scolded himself for the tone. This wasn’t the time. “But I still don’t know why you’re all looking for Corinne.”

“And we don’t know why we can’t find her,” Len countered, spreading his meaty paws. “It’s a mystery, isn’t it? We’ve texted her. We’ve e-mailed her. We’ve called her mobile and your house. Heck, I even stopped by the school. Did you know that?”

Adam bit back his reply.

“Corinne wasn’t there. She was absent—and there was no absence note from a parent. So I talked to Tom.” Tom Gorman was the principal. He, too, lived in town and had three kids. Towns like this got ridiculously incestuous. “He says Corinne normally has the best attendance record of any teacher in the district, but suddenly she’s a no-show. He was concerned.”

“Len?”

“Yes?”

“Can you cut the crap and tell me why you’re all so anxious to find my wife?”

Len looked over at the three monkeys on the couch. Bob’s face was set in stone. Cal was busy cleaning his glasses. That left it up to Tripp Evans. Tripp cleared his throat and said, “There seems to be some discrepancies with the lacrosse financials.”

Boom.

Or maybe the opposite of boom. The house grew even quieter. Adam was sure that he could actually hear his own heart beating in his chest. He found the seat behind him and lowered himself onto it.

“What are you talking about?”

But of course, he already knew, didn’t he?

Bob now found his voice. “What do you think we’re talking about?” he half snapped. “There’s money missing from the account.”

Cal nodded, just to do something.

“And you think . . . ?” Adam didn’t finish the thought. First off, it was obvious what they thought. Two, it would not do to even voice such a ridiculous accusation.

But was it ridiculous?

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Len said, playing Mr. Reasonable. “Right now, we just want to talk to Corinne. As I told you before, I’m here as a friend and neighbor and maybe a board member. That’s why we are all here. We’re Corinne’s friends. And yours. We want to keep this between us.”

Lots of nods.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” Len said, leaning forward in a conspiratorial way, “that if the books get straightened out, that will be the end of it. It stays in this room. No questions will be asked. If the discrepancies go away, if the ledger is made whole again, well, we don’t really care about the hows or whys. We all move on.”

Adam stayed quiet. Organizations are all the same. Cover-ups and lies. The greater good and all that. Through his confusion and fear, part of Adam couldn’t help but feel disgust. But that was beside the point. He needed to be very careful here. Despite Len Gilman’s twice-repeated “friend/neighbor/board member” spiel, he was a cop. He wasn’t here as a nicety. He was here to gather information. Adam had to be careful how much he gave him.

“This discrepancy,” Adam said. “How large is it?”

“Very,” Len Gilman said.

“In terms of . . .”

“Sorry, that’s confidential.”

“You can’t seriously believe that Corinne would do anything—”

“Right now,” Len Gilman said, “we just need to talk to her.”

Adam stayed silent.

“Where is she, Adam?”

He couldn’t tell them, of course. He couldn’t even try to explain. The attorney in him took over. How many times had he warned his own client not to talk? How many convictions had he nailed because some idiot tried to talk his way out of it?

“Adam?”

“I think you guys better leave now.”

Chapter 28

Dan Molino tried not to cry as he watched his son Kenny line up for the forty-yard dash.

Kenny was a high school senior and one of the top football prospects in the state. He had a breakout senior year, gaining notice and respect among the big-time scouts, and now here he was, warming up for the final combine event. Dan stood in the bleachers, feeling that familiar rush, that parental high, as he watched his big son—Kenny was 285 pounds now—getting ready to put his feet in the starting blocks. Dan was a big guy too, six-two, two forty. He’d also played some ball back in the day, All-State linebacker, but he’d been a step too slow and a size too small to go Division I. He started up his own business in freelance furniture delivery twenty-five years ago, and now Dan owned two trucks and had nine guys working for him. The big stores, they often had their own delivery fleet. Dan specialized in taking care of the little mom-and-pop shops, though there seemed to be less and less of them every day. The big chains were squeezing them out, just like the big boys like UPS and FedEx were squeezing him.

Still, Dan made a living. A few of those big-chain mattress stores had recently decided to cut back on their own fleet. Found it cheaper to hire a local guy like Dan. It helped. So, okay, Dan wasn’t killing it, but he was doing fine. He and Carly had a nice place in Sparta off the lake. They had three kids. Ronald was the youngest. He was twelve. Karen was a freshman, getting to that stage when the sass and puberty kicked in and the boys start noticing. Dan hoped that he’d survive it. And then there was Kenny, his firstborn, the high school senior who was poised to get a full ride to a major college football program. Alabama and Ohio State were showing interest already.

If Kenny could just nail this forty-yard dash.

Watching his son, Dan felt his eyes water up. Always happened. It was kind of embarrassing, the way he’d react like this. Couldn’t help it, though. He’d started wearing sunglasses to Kenny’s high school games so no one would see, but that hadn’t helped when they were inside and Kenny was getting some award, like when they named him MVP at the team dinner and Dan’s sitting there, and boom, there it came, the eyes watering up, sometimes even a tear or two running down the cheek. When someone would notice, Dan would say allergies or that he had a cold or some such thing. Who knows, maybe they bought that line. Carly loved this part of him, calling him her sensitive Teddy Bear or giving him a big hug. Whatever else Dan had done, whatever mistakes he’d made in his life, he had hit the biggest bottom-of-the-ninth homer when Carly Applegate had chosen him to be her life partner.

In truth, Dan didn’t think that Carly had been quite as lucky. Eddie Thompson had liked her, back in the day. Eddie’s family got in early on McDonald’s chains, made a fortune. They were always in the town paper now, Eddie and his wife, Melinda, doing some charity thing or whatever. Carly never said anything, but Dan knew it bugged her. Or maybe that was just Dan’s own issues. He didn’t know anymore. Dan only knew that when he saw his kids do something special, like play football or win awards, his eyes watered up. He was an easy cry and he tried to hide that, but Carly knew the truth and loved him for it.

Dan was wearing sunglasses today. That was for sure.

With the big-time scouts keeping a watchful eye, Kenny had done really well in the other tests—the vertical jump, the 7-on-7, that trench warfare thing. Still, the forty-yard dash would clinch it for him. A full ride to some big-time university. Ohio State, Penn State, Alabama, maybe even—oh man, it was almost too much to even let himself think about it—Notre Dame. The Notre Dame scout was here, and Dan couldn’t help noticing that the guy had been keeping tabs on Kenny.

Just one last dash. Just beat 5.2 and Kenny was golden. That was what they said. If a prospect slower than that, the scouts lost interest, even if he was great at everything else. They wanted a 5.2 or better. If Kenny did that, if Kenny could just run this one race at his best time . . .