One by one, I started to hear the guests arrived. At first, there was only the slight sound of conversation and the occasional laugh or cough. Then it sounded like the entire rooftop was filling up with people. I didn’t dare to look out yet; I was waiting until the place was full and crowded enough for me to casually walk out of the greenhouse without being noticed. I had jammed the latch shut from the inside so that no one would open the greenhouse door until I was ready. One person tried the door to see if the greenhouse was open, but when it didn’t budge, she made some casual comment about it being locked and moved on.
I heard Marta’s voice above the others. She had that kind of high-pitched, grating voice that stood out in a crowd for all the wrong reasons. It sounded like she was walking around greeting guests and trying to stir up excitement for their “big reveal.”
“Oh yes, just wait,” Marta said as she spoke to someone who was standing close to the greenhouse doors. “This is going to change everything.”
I snickered silently to myself. If only she knew how much things were about to change tonight. Then, maybe she wouldn’t be quite so cocky and sure of herself.
It sounded like the crowd had grown to a sizeable amount, enough for me to start making my way out into the sea of people. I stood up and opened the greenhouse door and walked out as if I had been there the entire time and was supposed to be.
“I didn’t realize the greenhouse was open,” a woman said next to me. “I tried the lock a few minutes ago, and it didn’t budge.”
“Really?” I feigned ignorance. “It worked perfectly for me. You should definitely look inside. The flowers are stunning.”
The woman smiled, and I held the door open for her as she went inside. I looked out at the sea of people with drinks in their hands.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
22
I grabbed a cocktail off one of the trays of a waiter passing by and took a sip both to calm my nerves, and it helped me to look as though I was enjoying myself. The rooftop was set with tables and chairs and also enough space for people to mingle and walk around. There were two bar stations and at least a dozen servers weaving through the crowd with appetizers and drinks.
Along the edge of the rooftop, just in front of the railing that Michael had nearly dropped me over was a long table set with place cards. I casually walked past the table to take a look since no one was sitting there yet. I saw Marta’s name written on a card near the center, and next to hers was a card labeled “Headmaster.” The other names I didn’t recognize but assumed they were board members of one sort or another. I tried to stay to the corners of the roof, behind the crowds of gathered people, as I watched and waited.
Nearly an hour had gone by with nothing having happened yet, except for more mingling and the fact that I helped myself to another cocktail because the cold metal of the knife pressing up against my chest where I had slid it into my dress for safekeeping was making me so nervous that the insides of my thighs were sweating.
Finally, the crowd seemed to quiet, and people started to take their seats at the tables. I found the table that I was closest to and sat down. I was far enough from Marta and the other Deans that I was pretty confident I wouldn’t get spotted.
Marta started in on some speech about the rich history of Lineage Academy, and then she superfluously thanked the board members sitting at the table with her. The seat next to her remained empty. Then she mentioned the school's “successful operations,” which I assumed was code terminology for the illegal drug transactions going on under the watchful eye of the school leadership, and she made some rather bunt comments about moving the books around, which sounded an awful lot like embezzlement.
I wondered what the aquarium staff thought of all of this. When I looked around at them, they seemed to be more occupied talking with each other and looking on their phones than paying attention to the event. I let Marta’s words drone out a bit in my ears as I imagined what the wait staff would say the next day after they had worked an event that someone ended up being murdered at.
But when Marta started talking about Goldshire, my attention honed back in on her.
“Goldshire Academy has long been our ally,” she said.
What? Goldshire and Lineage had been rivals since before I was born. What was she even talking about?
Maybe Marta had already had one too many cocktails and was losing track of what she was saying. But she didn’t sound like she was slurring at all and no one else in the crowd seemed shocked by what she was saying. Which seemed very odd to me.
“Had it not been for our long alliance,” she continued, “we would not be here today. And we certainly would not be able to plan for what our future holds without Goldshire Academy’s cooperation. I know that most of you aren’t aware of what was sacrificed in order for us to have this solid foundation with which our business stands upon and that most of you have no idea how the relationship had been strong enough to continue all these years, even after the unfortunate death of my husband. But it is thanks to our new Headmaster, a genius man who had orchestrated all of our powerful financial gains and relationships, a man who had kept the image of our school-front pristine, and a man who was once one of Goldshire Academy’s most prominent members…”
What?
“It is thanks to this man that we owe both our fortunes and our futures, and I am very pleased to welcome him to the position of Headmaster of Lineage.”
Marta started to clap her hands together, and within moments, the rest of the crowd had joined her. Everyone seemed to be turning their heads around to see who and where this man was. A disturbing silence fell over the tables as the clapping ceased, and whispers started to emerge. I saw someone start to walk in from the back of the room but couldn’t make out who it was.
These damn glasses that I had stolen were making everything too blurry to see clearly. I pulled them down onto the bridge of my nose a little and tried to look over the edge. A large older man, maybe in his early sixties, was walking toward the front of the crowd. Marta seemed to be absolutely gushing over him, while several of the board members at her table looked on with nothing short of sheer shock on their faces.
Apparently, none of them knew about that before that night either, but some of them sure seemed to recognize the man walking toward them.
The man gave Marta a huge hug and whispered something in her ear. Then he walked along the front of the table with his back to the audience and shook each one of the board member’s hands in turn. Some of them had expressions of awe on their face. One lady turned pale white and looked like she was going to throw up right in her salad plate.
Turn around, I whispered to myself. Come on, turn around so we can see who you are.
As the man started to walk around to the opposite side of the long table to take his seat next to Marta, I began to think of what the best way would be for me to get close enough to plunge this knife into his throat. Or maybe his chest. Whichever I could reach the fastest. I knew I’d only have one chance before I got caught, and it was all over.
But as long as I made that chance count, it will have been worth it.
Damn it, I left my phone in the greenhouse.
I knew I’d have to find a way to go back and get it. I must have set it down on the ground as I was trying to get the knife concealed into my dress. The mysterious man made the turn around the corner of the table and walked up to his seat, looking out at everyone there and smiling with the evilest, most recognizable, and unmistakable smile that I had ever seen. I mean, it may have been years since I’d seen it, and I may have only been four years old, but some images are etched into your memory forever no matter how hard you try to scrub them out of your head. Now, I understood why people looked as if they wanted to vomit. Now, I understood the secrecy. Now, I understood why my presence here was so risky and so volatile and making so many people frustrated.
Because that wicked grin belonged to my father.
A man I thought had died.
23
I sat in a paralyzed fear as I stared ahead at the face looking out over the crowd. Not only was my father alive, but he was the new Headmaster of Lineage Academy?
How was that even possible?
I started to panic. I should have listened to the guys. I shouldn’t have come in here alone. Not only wasn’t I going to be able to get close enough to kill him, but I likely wasn’t even strong enough to deliver a fatal blow with a freaking steak knife. And even if I could mortally wound him, there was zero way I was making it out of here alive.
