Chapter 5 - THE BLACK SEDAN
"Move!" I screamed.
I grabbed Maria by her heavy winter coat and threw us both backward into the narrow alleyway between the laundry building and a brick retaining wall.
The black sedan clipped a metal trash can, sending it flying into the street with a deafening crash, before swerving violently back onto the road. The tires screeched as the car tore off into the night, its taillights vanishing around the corner.
Maria was hyperventilating on the wet concrete. I pulled her up, my own heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
"Are you hurt?" I gasped, checking her over.
"No, no, I am okay," she choked out, terrified. "Who was that?"
I hadn't seen the driver through the tinted windows, but I had seen the license plate in the glare of the streetlamp. It was a municipal plate. A district vehicle.
Mercer wasn't just trying to scare me with legal summons anymore. He was escalating.
"They know I have the receipt," Maria sobbed, clutching her purse. "They will take Leo."
"They won't take Leo," I promised, my fear rapidly crystallizing into absolute, cold fury. "I am going to burn this entire operation to the ground."
I drove Maria home, ensuring she locked her apartment door, and then I sped back to my house.
I didn't sleep. I sat at my kitchen table with David the accountant, drinking black coffee while the sun came up. I laid the pink cash receipt next to the fraudulent invoices from Family Table Nutrition.
"This is RICO territory, Sarah," David said, rubbing his tired eyes. "Extortion, wire fraud, embezzlement. But if Mercer and Foster control the school and the district nutrition office, going to the local school board is suicide. They'll bury you."
"Then we don't go local," I said, staring at the pink receipt. "We go state."
At 9:00 AM, I walked into the State Department of Education building in downtown Richmond. I bypassed the receptionist and marched directly to the Office of the Inspector General.
I didn't have an appointment, but when I dropped the pink receipt, the fraudulent invoices, and Leo's stolen silver bracelet on the intake desk, a senior investigator named Agent Russo finally agreed to see me.
Russo was a sharp-eyed man in a cheap suit who looked like he hadn't smiled in a decade. He listened to my story in silence, flipping through the documents.
"You have a cash receipt signed by the principal, and invoices for a phantom vendor," Russo said, his voice flat. "It's compelling. But it's circumstantial without the master digital ledgers from the district servers. Mercer can claim the cash was lost by a secretary, and Foster can claim the vendor simply failed to deliver."
"So subpoena the ledgers," I said.
"I can't open a full state investigation based on one angry parent and a pink piece of paper, Mrs. Jenkins," Russo sighed. "I need an insider. Someone who has direct access to the district's internal financial software who will testify that the numbers were intentionally altered."
My shoulders slumped. Rosa, the cafeteria worker, had been fired. Mrs. Price was too terrified of losing her pension. Maria was undocumented.
I had no one.
I walked out of the state building feeling completely defeated. I got into my SUV and started the engine.
As I pulled out of the parking garage, my phone rang. It was an unknown number.
"Hello?" I answered.
"Mrs. Jenkins," a quiet, shaking voice said.
I recognized the voice instantly. It was Joanne, the school secretary who had originally leaked the spreadsheet of the 318 rejected children to me.
"Joanne? Are you okay?"
"They know I sent you the list, Sarah," she whispered, sounding like she was crying. "Mercer called me into his office this morning. He demanded my password to the main server. He's deleting the original digital ledgers right now."
"Joanne, listen to me," I said, my grip tightening on the steering wheel. "If he deletes them, we have nothing. You have to stop him."
"I can't!" she sobbed. "He locked me out of the office! But Sarah... there's a backup."
I slammed on the brakes, pulling onto the shoulder of the road. "Where?"
"Elaine Foster is paranoid," Joanne whispered quickly. "She doesn't trust Mercer. She kept physical copies of every altered application and every kickback deposit slip. She keeps them in a locked blue binder."
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"Where is the binder, Joanne?"
"It's not at the school. It's in the trunk of Elaine's car. But Sarah, you have to hurry. Elaine just packed her office. She's fleeing the state."
