people. There are no funds to move into the loans accounts.”
“What do you mean?” Shock pummeled Sayles. The image of Jennie Gebben fell from his thoughts.
“None.”
“But there was going to be an operating surplus this term,” he whispered. “I thought we’d worked that out.”
“Well,” she said testily, “there isn’t.”
Oh, how he hated her. She’d told him, she’d
promised
him, there would be money. The shock yielded to a maelstrom of anger. He swallowed and looked out the window at the grassy quad whose sidewalks he had crossed perhaps ten thousand times.
“The fact is the money isn’t there.”
“What are we going to do?” His voice rose with panic. “Can we cover it up?”
“Cover it up? We’re long past that point.” She smiled but cruelly and he thought her face looked like a malicious tortoise’s. “Randy, without that money, the school is going to close.”
“What
happened
to it? We were supposed to have two and a half million.”
She tossed her head at a question he himself knew the answer to. Why does a college lose money? Auden University had been skimming the surface of insolvency for ten years. Competition from cheaper state and trade schools, decreasing college-age population, escalating salary demands and costs …
“This murder, it’s going to focus a lot of attention on the school and its problems. That’s the last thing we need. Not now. We can’t afford people pulling their childrenout. And for God’s sake we don’t need profiles of the school in the press.” She did not look at the
Register
but her fingers absently tapped the grim headline.
Sayles said coldly, “Her death was most inopportune.”
The dean missed his irony. She asked, “Does anybody know about our arrangement?”
Long dark hair. It often dipped down over one eye. Which? Her right eye. She would keen with passion. The Gebben girl. Student number 144691. She would cry at the scent of a forest filling with stiff fall leaves
.
“Does anybody know?” he mused.
Nope, not anymore she doesn’t
. Sayles shook his head.
The dean stood and walked to the window. Her back was to him. She had a solid figure, rubbery and strong; this was appealing—the severity and solemnity one wants in airline pilots and surgeons. A large, stern woman, hair going a little wiry, eyes puffy from wrestling with an injustice only partially of her own making.
Jennie Gebben. Who would grip his cock with her prominent teeth and rasp up and down along his swollen skin
.
Who could not without prompting analyze European motives behind Civil War foreign relations but who had the far more enduring gift of pressing her knees into Sayles’s midriff and with a stone-buffed heel square against his asshole force his pelvis against hers
.
Student number 144691
.
“Randy, we can expect an audit by mid-June. If you don’t raise three million six hundred thousand dollars in cash by then—”
“How am I supposed to get that much money?” He heard his voice rise to a strident whine, which he detested but could not avoid.
“You?” she asked. Dean Larraby polished the purple stone against the fabric of her skirt then looked up at Sayles. “I think it’s pretty clear, Randy. You, better than anybody, know what’s at stake if you don’t find that money.”
She got the idea from a made-for-TV movie.
It had been a film about a thirteen-year-old girl, and her mother and stepfather
hated
her. Once, they locked her in the house while they went away to gamble and the girl ran away from home by jumping out a window then grabbing onto a freight train that went to New York City.
Sarah shut off the water running in the bathtub, which though it
was
filled with steamy water and fragrant violet bubble bath did not—as she had told her mother—contain her. She had run upstairs and taken a fast shower then dressed quickly. Now, wearing a T-shirt, overalls, Nikes and a nylon windbreaker—her traveling clothes—she listened to
“What do you mean?” Shock pummeled Sayles. The image of Jennie Gebben fell from his thoughts.
“None.”
“But there was going to be an operating surplus this term,” he whispered. “I thought we’d worked that out.”
“Well,” she said testily, “there isn’t.”
Oh, how he hated her. She’d told him, she’d
promised
him, there would be money. The shock yielded to a maelstrom of anger. He swallowed and looked out the window at the grassy quad whose sidewalks he had crossed perhaps ten thousand times.
“The fact is the money isn’t there.”
“What are we going to do?” His voice rose with panic. “Can we cover it up?”
“Cover it up? We’re long past that point.” She smiled but cruelly and he thought her face looked like a malicious tortoise’s. “Randy, without that money, the school is going to close.”
“What
happened
to it? We were supposed to have two and a half million.”
She tossed her head at a question he himself knew the answer to. Why does a college lose money? Auden University had been skimming the surface of insolvency for ten years. Competition from cheaper state and trade schools, decreasing college-age population, escalating salary demands and costs …
“This murder, it’s going to focus a lot of attention on the school and its problems. That’s the last thing we need. Not now. We can’t afford people pulling their childrenout. And for God’s sake we don’t need profiles of the school in the press.” She did not look at the
Register
but her fingers absently tapped the grim headline.
Sayles said coldly, “Her death was most inopportune.”
The dean missed his irony. She asked, “Does anybody know about our arrangement?”
Long dark hair. It often dipped down over one eye. Which? Her right eye. She would keen with passion. The Gebben girl. Student number 144691. She would cry at the scent of a forest filling with stiff fall leaves
.
“Does anybody know?” he mused.
Nope, not anymore she doesn’t
. Sayles shook his head.
The dean stood and walked to the window. Her back was to him. She had a solid figure, rubbery and strong; this was appealing—the severity and solemnity one wants in airline pilots and surgeons. A large, stern woman, hair going a little wiry, eyes puffy from wrestling with an injustice only partially of her own making.
Jennie Gebben. Who would grip his cock with her prominent teeth and rasp up and down along his swollen skin
.
Who could not without prompting analyze European motives behind Civil War foreign relations but who had the far more enduring gift of pressing her knees into Sayles’s midriff and with a stone-buffed heel square against his asshole force his pelvis against hers
.
Student number 144691
.
“Randy, we can expect an audit by mid-June. If you don’t raise three million six hundred thousand dollars in cash by then—”
“How am I supposed to get that much money?” He heard his voice rise to a strident whine, which he detested but could not avoid.
“You?” she asked. Dean Larraby polished the purple stone against the fabric of her skirt then looked up at Sayles. “I think it’s pretty clear, Randy. You, better than anybody, know what’s at stake if you don’t find that money.”
She got the idea from a made-for-TV movie.
It had been a film about a thirteen-year-old girl, and her mother and stepfather
hated
her. Once, they locked her in the house while they went away to gamble and the girl ran away from home by jumping out a window then grabbing onto a freight train that went to New York City.
Sarah shut off the water running in the bathtub, which though it
was
filled with steamy water and fragrant violet bubble bath did not—as she had told her mother—contain her. She had run upstairs and taken a fast shower then dressed quickly. Now, wearing a T-shirt, overalls, Nikes and a nylon windbreaker—her traveling clothes—she listened to
Similar Books
