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After all, it wasn’t Bettencourt who lit the match.
At the end of the hall, I find Jacob.
He shifts his weight from side to side in front of a set of dark double doors. His suit, bespoke as always, is flawless, but he has a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. The calm expression on his face is bullshit.
“You’re nervous.” I’m surprised enough to say it. Jacob, actually sweating? That’s not like him.
“Excited.” His smile is both gorgeous and fake.
He didn’t seem this way when he told me about his father’s warnings. Maybe it didn’t seem real to him then.
It certainly seems real enough now. His nervousness is unsettling. He’s the one who’s most prepared.
“I’m having visions of you as a frat boy going through pledge week.”
Jacob rattles off three Greek letters. His chosen fraternity. One of the most exclusive and historic organizations at Stanford. “We had the distinction of having the most celebrity alumni. And the largest amount of beer consumed at parties.”
I groan. “Of course you did.”
“Come on. If you’d been there, you would have joined, too. You’d have been the president. They would have loved you.”
The words echo in his eyes.They would have loved you the way I loved you.My throat closes. Jacob and I in a fraternity would have been well-documented, unlike the years after my parents died. I can see the pictures that never were in my mind. A younger version of me in a frat boy jacket, my arm around Jacob. Jacob, grinning at me at a party. The two of us, golden and unscathed.
“We’ve talked about this.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.”
His jaw works. “You should have been there.”
“I’m here now.”
He lets out a breath in a rush. “I asked my dad to help you. Back then. I asked him to keep you in our prep school, pay for college. It would have been nothing.”
“Jacob. It would not have been nothing.”
“Your father would have done it for me, if it had happened in reverse.”
That’s true, but it never would have happened in reverse. My father wouldn’t stand for insurance fraud. He sure as hell wouldn’t stand for murder.
I don’t think Jacob knows what Bettencourt and the rest of the consortium did. He might have his suspicions, given how much he knows about the initiation. And these last-minute apologies…
“What’s this about?”
“I know about the debts.” He glances at the doors. “The ones that ruined your family. Bettencourt should never have called those in after what happened.”
So he knows about the debts, but not that they were bogus. Or about the murder. He could have told me this at his place, but I can’t blame him. Fear makes people confess all kinds of things.
Jacob isn’t just nervous. He’safraid.
I’m tempted to tell him, but he’ll find out.
Along with the rest of the world.
I feel a squeeze of guilt. He’ll be implicated, too.
Don’t do this,Mason insists.
I let go of him, but before I can turn away, Jacob stops me with a hand in my lapel. “Why do you want to go into business with them after all that?”
I force a cool smile. “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
