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“That isn’t any kind of answer,” I say.
“That’s enough, Dr. Hart,” the dean says. “This isn’t helping your case.”
But I never take my eyes off Pritchard, who holds my glare with a smug smile.
“You want an answer, Dr. Hart? You got a faulty timeline when it comes to me. There was contamination in that waterway long before I ever put a dollar near it. You know it. And I got the surveyor’s report to prove it. That land was already dying, and I just lost a public battle for some land farther up the coast. I had a whole development planned, one that had involved considerable investment, but no land to put it on. Then, I found out about Gator Flats. Once a wetland is considered dead, it holds no value to you but holds untapped value to me.”
“You’re calling a poisoned food web ‘untapped value.’”
He huffs a laugh at that. “I’m calling it a bargain. It drops the price. It makes permits a great deal easier to procure. But I didn’t make it die. I’m just a businessman who, unfortunately, lost out on one deal and stumbled onto this one. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Then, why are you here? Why am I being forced to temper my research?”
“Strikes me, you conflated things. I’m here to make a donation to my alma mater. I grew up in a small town just like yours and dreamed of someone coming into it and pumping cash in the form of development, roads, jobs, shops, and tourism. I started a business with two guys, one backhoe, and a license. Parlayed that into a hundred-million-dollar business. I never asked for you to be fired. Just said to the dean that it wouldn’t look good on any of us if I pumped a boat load of cash into the school, and then, that money was used for research to cut me off at the knees. Would that sound like good business to you?”
I look to the dean. “So, Velaro didn’t directly ask for me to be suspended?”
The dean blusters. “Della…this isn’t…it’s hardly the right time for…”
Pritchard puts out his hand to stop the dean. “Della. My company got lucky, here. I’ve done nothing wrong. Perhaps you should try to figure out who has been feeding you information and what they might stand to gain.”
He means it. I don’t know why, but I feel it in my bones that Dale Pritchard isn’t lying. He might be a scavenger who found a dying waterway and now wants to make it his instead of protecting it. But he didn’t poison it.
Which means, someone else did.
“In short, you have another offender. But it’s not me. I hope you get your suspension dealt with swiftly.”
I’m left with my mouth slightly open, clutching the notes the club lawyer, Lucy, sent me. There is no way the dean will discuss my contract questions while entertaining Pritchard, and I’m not sure I could sit and ask him them anyway, now.
It feels as though my future is walking away from me as I watch the dean and Pritchard head back into the building I once thought I was a part of. The fight I had in me seeps into the concrete I’m standing on.
“Della.” My name is whispered from the side of the building.
I look around, then see Evan. He’s standing with his hands in his pockets and his head ducked in that apologetic slump of his. That old sedan he drives is parked in the shadows. And there’s an urgency in his voice I’ve never heard before as he calls my name again.
I hurry over to him. “Evan. God. You scared me.”
He puts a finger to his lips as he glances around the empty lot. “I need to give you something,” he says. “I found data. Real data about who’s been doing the tampering. But I can’t risk being seen giving it to you. They’re watching.”
I look up at the side of the building. “Who is?”
“It doesn’t matter. Quick. I got your files and some of the data out for you.” He nods towards the trunk of his car, and I hurry after him. “I nabbed that small blue cooler. No one will miss it, and Mina’s too excited about her new research.”
“Her what?”
“The dean offered her a larger grant. It was a bribe, to stop her continuing your work and to abandon her own, and she’s too stupid to see it.”
“To see what?”
“That she was just bought.”
He pops the trunk, and, at first, I’m confused. There’s nothing in there except…my old notebooks. The ones stolen from my motel room.
“You found my books?” I ask. But as soon as the words slip out of my mouth, the pieces start to fall into place.
Who would know I was going to get more samples late that night? The only people who knew were Mina and Evan.
Who knew which motel I was staying at? I let Evan know as I was leaving, a throwaway comment over my shoulder because someone should know where I was, from a safety perspective.
