Chapter 6 - THE BLUE BINDER
I didn't think about the cease-and-desist order. I didn't think about the police.
I slammed my foot on the gas and tore down Interstate 95 toward Brookside Elementary.
Elaine Foster was running. If she crossed state lines with the blue binder, the evidence would vanish forever, and Principal Mercer would successfully bury his crimes beneath a mountain of deleted hard drives.
I pulled into the school parking lot. It was 10:30 AM. The lot was quiet, the children inside their classrooms.
I spotted Elaine’s silver Honda Accord parked in her reserved spot near the cafeteria loading dock. She was standing by the open trunk, frantically throwing cardboard boxes inside. She looked disheveled, her expensive coat tossed carelessly over a box of files.
I parked my SUV blocking her car in.
Elaine looked up, her eyes widening in panic as I stepped out.
"Move your car, Sarah," Elaine demanded, her voice shrill. "I have a police order against you! I'll call them right now!"
"Call them," I challenged, walking straight toward her. "Call the police, Elaine. Let's have them search your trunk while we wait."
She froze, her hand hovering over her cell phone. She looked at me, and the arrogant, untouchable district manager vanished. Beneath it was a terrified, desperate woman.
"You don't understand," Elaine choked out, stepping back against her car. "Mercer set me up. He's making me take the fall."
"You set yourself up when you stole food from starving children," I said coldly. "Give me the blue binder."
Elaine shook her head wildly. "If I give you that binder, Mercer will destroy me. He knows about my brother. Marcus isn't just an addict, Sarah. He owed fifty thousand dollars to a local loan shark. They were going to break his legs. Mercer offered to help me set up the phantom vendor to pay off the debt."
"So you stole from children to save your brother," I said, feeling a twisted sense of pity. "But Marcus's debt is paid now. Why are you running?"
"Because Mercer didn't stop!" Elaine cried, tears ruining her mascara. "He forced me to keep rejecting lunch applications. He kept 90% of the money for himself. And when you started asking questions, he told me I had to take the cash and leave, or he would pin the entire operation on me."
"He's already pinning it on you, Elaine," I said softly. "He's deleting the digital files right now. He's going to claim you acted alone. The only thing that proves he was the mastermind is in that blue binder."
Elaine stared at me, the reality of her betrayal sinking in. Mercer was burning her to save himself.
She turned to her trunk, her hands shaking, and pulled out a thick, navy-blue canvas binder. She held it against her chest for a long moment.
Then, she handed it to me.
"Page forty-two," Elaine whispered, her voice dead. "It's the deposit slips from his offshore Cayman account. It matches the exact amounts missing from the PTA fund."
I took the heavy binder. "Go to the Inspector General's office, Elaine. Ask for Agent Russo. Turn yourself in before Mercer sends the police to do it."
Elaine didn't answer. She got into her car, backed over the curb to get around my SUV, and sped out of the parking lot.
I stood alone by the loading dock, clutching the blue binder. I had it. The proof.
I turned back to my car, eager to get to David and the state investigators.
But as I reached for my door handle, the heavy metal door of the cafeteria loading dock banged open.
Principal Andrew Mercer stepped out into the crisp morning air.
He wasn't wearing his usual tailored suit jacket. His sleeves were rolled up, and he was holding a heavy, steel crowbar.
"Well, Sarah," Mercer said, a sickening, calm smile spreading across his face. "I see you found Elaine."
I backed away, putting the SUV between us. "It's over, Mercer. I have the ledger. I'm taking it to the state."
Mercer laughed. It was a chilling, hollow sound.
"You're not taking it anywhere," Mercer said, stepping off the loading dock. "You violated a police order by coming here. You are trespassing. And right now, you are holding stolen school property."
"It's evidence," I spat.
May you like
"It's a blue binder," he corrected, tapping the crowbar against his palm. "And when the police arrive to find you unconscious after a tragic, self-defense struggle with a principal protecting his school... that binder is going straight into the incinerator."
He lunged at me.
