“Slow down,” Adam said.
“You want the truth, don’t you?” Tripp’s tone was almost singsong. “Keep up.”
“Your office,” Adam said.
“What about it? Oh, it’s a shit hole, is that what you’re thinking?”
“I thought you’d done well at some big Madison Avenue firm,” Adam said.
“I was there for about five minutes before they laid me off. See, I always figured that I’d have a job for life with my dad’s sporting goods store. Put all my eggs in that basket. When that went south, I lost everything. Yeah, I tried to put out my own shingle, but, well, you just saw the results of that.”
“You were broke.”
“Yep.”
“And there was enough money in the lacrosse treasury.”
“Way more than enough. You know Sydney Gallonde? Rich guy I went to Cedarfield High with? Sucked at lacrosse. Rode the bench. He gave us a hundred grand because I worked him. Me. There were other donors too. When I came in, the organization could barely buy a goalpost. Now we have turf fields and uniforms and . . .” Tripp stopped talking. “I guess you think I’m just rationalizing again.”
“You are.”
“Maybe, Adam. But you’re not naïve enough to think the world is black-and-white.”
“Hardly.”
“It is always us against them. That’s what all of life is. We fight wars for that reason. We make decisions every day to protect our own loved ones, even if it means hardships for others. You buy your boy a new pair of cleats for lacrosse. Maybe you could have used that money to save a starving child in Africa. But no, you let that child starve. Us against them. We all do this.”
“Tripp?”
“What?”
“This really isn’t a good time for your bullshit.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Tripp stopped in the middle of the woods, knelt down, and started feeling his way around on the ground. His hand pushed away the brush and leaves. Adam readied his gun and took two steps back.
“I’m not going to attack you, Adam. There’s no need.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for something. . . . Ah, here it is.”
He stood up.
Holding a shovel.
Adam’s legs went rubbery. “Oh no. . . .”
Tripp just stood there. “You were right. In the end, it came to my family or yours. Only one could survive. So let me ask you, Adam. What would you have done?”
Adam just shook his head. “No. . . .”
“You got most of it right. I did take the money, but I had every intention of paying it back. I won’t go through the justification again. Corinne found out. I begged her not to say anything, that it would ruin my life. I was trying to buy time. But really, there was no way I could repay that money. Not yet. So yeah, I have a background in bookkeeping. I did it at my dad’s store for years. I started to change the books so the finger pointed more at her. Corinne didn’t know about it, of course. She actually listened to me and kept quiet. She didn’t even tell you, did she?”
“No,” Adam said. “She didn’t.”
“So I went to Bob and Cal and then, with great pretend regret, Len. I told all of them Corinne had stolen the lacrosse funds. Strangely enough, Bob was the one who didn’t really buy it. So I told him that when I confronted Corinne, she said it was him.”
“And then Bob went to his cousin.”
“I didn’t count on that.”
“Where is Corinne now?”
“You’re standing right where I buried her.”
Just like that.
Adam made himself look down. Vertigo took over. He didn’t bother to steady himself. The earth beneath his feet, he could see, had recently been disturbed. He collapsed to the side, leaning against a tree, his breath hitching in his chest.
“You okay, Adam?”
He swallowed and lifted the gun. Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together. . . .
“Start digging,” Adam said.
“What good is that going to do? I already told you she’s there.”
Still dizzy, Adam staggered toward him and put the gun right in his face. “Start digging now.”
Tripp shrugged and walked past him. Adam kept the gun on him, trying hard to not even blink. Tripp pierced the dirt with the shovel, scooped up the dirt, tossed it to the side.
“Tell me the rest of it,” Adam said.
“You know the rest of it, don’t you? After you confronted her about faking the pregnancy, Corinne was furious. She’d had enough. She was going to tell what I’d done. So I told her, okay, fair enough, I’ll come forward. I said, let’s just meet at lunchtime and go over it, so we’re on the same page. She was reluctant, but hey, I can be persuasive.”