Reputation(68)
My father pops onto the screen. Aldrich University President Alfred Manning Not Connected to Any Hack Scandals Thus Far, but Noted for Erratic Behavior. What does that mean? I’ve barely gotten to speak to my father about all the stress he’s under aside from the trading of e-mails on certain press releases I need to communicate to the donors. Most evenings, he’s at meetings, or dealing with detectives, or addressing the board, trying to put out fires. Normally, I’d be in on some of these meetings, as so much of Aldrich’s activities are things the donors want to know about, but it seems George is doing the bulk of the work.
I lean forward, trying to hear what Marilyn O’Leary is saying to the reporter. “Alfred Manning is fine,” she insists. Her lipstick is a weird shade of orange. “He’s understandably stressed by the situation, personally and professionally.”
And then, inevitably, the reporter reminds the viewers of Dad’s ties to me: “President Manning is also dealing with the death of his daughter’s husband, Greg Strasser.” The picture of Greg and me in Barbados pops on the screen. I slide down in my chair, covering my face with my hair.
“What’s the matter?” Willa slides into the bench across from me.
I glance toward the TV. “Oh, you know. I’m just on the news again.”
Willa wrinkles her nose. “They’re saying Dad seems exhausted,” she says. “Do you think we should be worried?”
“Marilyn says he’s fine.”
Willa snorts. “Marilyn’s probably the one who planted the story in the first place. Something about her rubs me wrong. I think she’s after Dad’s job.”
I ponder this for a moment, trying to imagine Marilyn O’Leary, a blond, slightly haggard, with a take-no-shit, Kellyanne Conway–thing going, taking over as Aldrich president. It makes me a little ill. Marilyn tried to date my father about ten years ago, when the stuff with my mom was still fresh. She threw herself at him. Acted completely ridiculous. I was surprised when, after he rejected her, she gracefully backed down. She’s always struck me as one of those rat-sniffing terriers, stopping at nothing to dig for what it wants.
Willa looks disdainfully at the plate of fries I’ve ordered. I figure I’m going to get a lecture about trans fats, but then she sighs, plucks one from my plate, and stuffs it into her mouth. “Thanks for meeting me on your lunch break.”
“It’s not like I was busy,” I mutter. “What’s going on?”
Willa’s throat bobs as she swallows another fry. “I thought you might want to know about some of the questions I asked Raina Hammond.”
I stare at her. I just can’t believe Willa cornered the feisty, slippery girl and got answers out of her. “Did she admit to something?”
Willa pokes a stirrer through the ice cubes in her water glass. “Greg was giving her money.” She looks at me uneasily, maybe thinking I’m going to have some kind of ballistic reaction. I just gape. “All in all, he gradually transferred about fifteen grand into a Venmo account in her name.”
“Fifteen thousand . . . are you kidding?” I splutter. A few guys at the bar look over. I hunch down in the booth, my head whirling. I feel hot, then cold, then dizzy. “Are you sure?”
Willa nods. “Positive. Raina scammed a guy in her hometown—some doctor. They had sex, she admitted to him she was underage, and got him to pay her. I have a feeling she tried to seduce Dad in a similar way, though she swore to me that it backfired. She turned to Greg next.” She crunches another fry. “Except he didn’t bite, either.”
“So why did he still give her money, then?”
Willa picks at her nails. “She said he took pity on her. He wanted to offer her a way out of a life as a scam artist. She said her true dream was to be a real student at Aldrich. She wasn’t even a matriculated student when she was Dad’s assistant, if you can believe it. She lied her way into that job so she could get close to him to milk him out of some cash.”
I stare up at the dusty, faux-Tiffany pendant lamp above us. How could my husband feel so much sympathy for someone he barely knew? He wasn’t a bleeding heart. Maybe I’m biased because of those sickening e-mails, but I feel there’s more to the story.
“I don’t buy he was doing it just to be nice,” I say.
“Yeah, I didn’t at first, either,” Willa says, shrugging. “No offense. But she seemed genuine—and believe me, I’ve interviewed enough liars. She even let me look at her bank accounts—the girl has about twenty bucks to her name right now. Apparently, she paid the bursar right before Greg died. I called the bursar, too—Raina’s last payment, which isn’t registered on the hack, actually took place the day all the systems were down. She paid cash.”
“Do you think Greg paid her in cash, or she just withdrew cash from her bank account?”
“I don’t know, though I’m not sure it really matters. But if she’s telling the truth—and I think she is—if Greg was helping her pay for college, Raina has no reason to kill him. It explains why she was so upset about his death, too. You wouldn’t have wanted to see the town this girl was from, so I get why she’d do anything not to go back there. Aldrich is a ticket to something better.” Willa bites into another fry, then gives me another sheepish glance. “She also showed me empirical evidence that Sienna wasn’t anywhere near your house all night, too.”