I stuffed the papers back in the envelope and reached for my cell phone as I backed out of the closet.
I bumped into someone on my way out.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you.”
Suddenly I felt something cold and hard poking into the middle of my back.
“Don’t move.”
Chapter 28
“Very funny, Dr. Blanco,” I said, forcing a laugh and projecting my voice as much as possible. “But I’m a little tired for practical jokes. Why don’t—”
“Shut up and give me the envelope,” he said, emphasizing his words with a jab from the gun. At least I assumed it was a gun. I didn’t think Blanco had enough imagination to fool me with a pencil or an umbrella. “And stop shouting. It won’t do you any good. Everybody’s out in the barn watching that wretched farce.”
“Does that mean you’re hoping The Fa—the president will cancel Ramon’s show?”
“I couldn’t care less whether it’s canceled or not,” he said. “That was Jean Wright’s particular obsession.”
“Great,” I said. “Then we have no quarrel. Here.”
I held the envelope over my left shoulder. After a second, I felt it snatched away.
“Now if you’ll just let me go back to sleep—” I began.
“Oh, do shut up,” he said, jabbing the gun in my back. “And drop the cell phone.”
I complied.
“There’s no need to—”
“Shut up!” He jabbed me again. “You’re annoying me, and you’re going to make me late for my plane.”
“Plane?” I echoed.
“Yes, I’m leaving,” he said. “And no, I’m not going to tell you where I’m going. Let’s just say there’s no extradition and my money will be waiting there to meet me.”
A sudden thought hit me.
“Your money?” I echoed. “Strictly speaking, aren’t we talking about the college’s money?”
“Mine now,” he said. “And it’s all Jean Wright’s fault.”
“It was her idea to embezzle from the college?”
“No!” His voice was scornful. “She has enough family money to have no financial worries, and she’s not interested in anything except her stupid little department. But if she hadn’t been blackmailing me to help her with all her dirty tricks, I wouldn’t have needed the money. I could have just stayed here and built up my resumé until I finally got a well-paid administrative job at an important college. But then she came along. And I knew sooner or later she’d spill the beans.”
“That you’d cheated your way into your position, taking scholarships and awards that were intended for deserving Latino students.”
“I was deserving, too,” he said. “I was tired of seeing people whose grades weren’t any better than mine getting all the breaks just because they belonged to some minority, while I had to work and take out thousands of dollars of loans to get what was being handed to them.”
I was tempted to echo Ramon and point out that he didn’t know what those other students had gone through to get those grades and what kind of prejudice they’d experienced. But I got a feeling that starting a debate over affirmative action wasn’t in my best interest at the moment. Not with my opponent holding a gun at my back.
Suddenly I realized that my legs and feet were wet. Had I peed myself out of fright? Not my normal reaction to danger. I usually coped well as long as a crisis lasted, and then got the shakes afterward. But who knew what the hormones were doing to my normal reactions.
Wait—the hormones . . .
“Oh my God!” Blanco exclaimed. “You just peed on my foot!”
“No, I didn’t,” I snapped. “My water just broke!”
“Your what?” He stepped away from me, and I’d have breathed a sigh of relief, but when I turned around, the gun was still pointed at me.
“My water,” I said. “Amniotic fluid. What the babies are floating in.”
“Yuck!” His tone was a curious mixture of disgust and puzzlement, as if he were trying to figure out if this was less gross than being peed on, or more. For that matter, I wasn’t sure myself whether my water had broken or whether the stress had made my bladder give way.
“Wait!” he said. “Does this mean—?”
“That I’m going into labor?” I said. “Probably. I have no idea how soon, though. Could be anytime, though since—aaaaahhhhh!”
I faked a contraction, clutching the twins and doubling over as if in pain. I wasn’t sure how long a first contraction was supposed to last. Probably best if I make it relatively short, though long enough to rattle him. I relaxed my tensed body and glanced back at Blanco.