Full Ride (39 page)

His smirk is infuriating.

“But . . . you had no proof of any of that,” Mom stammers.

“Of course I did,” Mr. Trumbull says. “Your
letters
, back and forth. Let's just say that I did some judicious editing, but . . . Excellerand loved it that you were so terrified of them, that I had you so convinced that they were out to get you. They loved it that Roger was so forlorn, begging you to come visit him in Atlanta, begging you to tell him where you really were.”

Excellerand actually saw some of the real letters, I realize, the handwritten ones that truly did sound like Daddy. And, of course, just as Mr. Trumbull kept Mom and me from knowing where Daddy really was, Daddy never saw the parts of Mom's letters describing where we were.

Even when Daddy got out of prison, he would have had no way of finding us.

“You are a thoroughly evil man,” I say.

I decide that Mr. Trumbull has finally answered one of my original questions: He didn't see us as human. We never were anything but pawns to him.

“Oh, and you and your mother are saints?” he asks sarcastically. “You're not even eighteen yet, and your father's already taught you so well, you're trying to manipulate one of the top lawyers in Atlanta!”

Should Mom and I worry about that one word, “trying”?

“You wouldn't have known anything if my receptionist hadn't screwed up,” Mr. Trumbull continues.

“You didn't fire her over this, did you?” I ask. I'm partly just trying to buy some time. But it strikes me that poor Tria was a pawn in all this too.

Mr. Trumbull ignores my question. I take that as proof that he did fire Tria, and he hasn't given her a single thought since.

This does not surprise me.

“You know,” Mr. Trumbull says, “when you called Monday and said you and your mother were both in Atlanta, I was almost afraid that you'd gone to the authorities. I should have remembered I was dealing with a criminal family. I should have known your first thought would be blackmail, and you'd try to turn the situation to your own advantage no matter what.”

He's right,
I think.
That is where Daddy's brain went first.

But there's that word, “trying,” again.

Mom's face has gone pale.

“You really think we'd be able to withstand
another
media firestorm, if all this came out?” she says.

“And what proof did we have?” I ask. “It would have been our word against yours. It's not like anybody else knew you'd told us Daddy was in California. It's not like Mom kept copies of the letters she sent Daddy, that you intercepted. And who'd believe Daddy, anyway?”

“So it actually is win-win, this time around,” Mom says. “You get to keep blackmailing Excellerand. We get to escape with new identities. And Becca—I mean, Sarah—gets to apply for college.”

I keep my eyes down, so Mr. Trumbull doesn't see any emotion in my eyes about abandoning my Deskins friends. I reach across the table and pull out one of the smaller papers from the envelope in front of Mom. It's a bank check, a special kind that Mr. Trumbull couldn't double-cross us by canceling.

Special or not, I've never seen any kind of check with so many digits after the dollar sign, before the decimal.

“And I get everything I need to pay for college, all the way through a PhD, if I want,” I say. I make myself grin. “Or just a lot of really good spring breaks.”

“And you two moralists don't feel any guilt about engaging in blackmail yourselves?” Mr. Trumbull asks.

“Of course not,” I make myself say. “I've learned a lot from you
and
Daddy. This is how the world works. We're just getting what we deserve.”

Mom holds out her hand to me, and I give her the check. She tucks it back into the manila envelope along with all the paperwork “proving” our new identities: two new birth certificates, two new social security cards, an entirely fictional high school transcript, and a copy of SAT scores that are even better than the ones I really got. (Hey, if you're going to cheat, why not go whole hog?)

Mom puts the envelope in a messenger bag she's been carrying and pulls out a thinner envelope to hand to Mr. Trumbull. I know there are twenty letters in there, which I've watched her write out by hand over the course of the past week. The last one in the pile tells Daddy she's never going to communicate with him again.

Mr. Trumbull tucks this envelope into his briefcase without opening it.

“You're not even going to make sure I did what you wanted?” Mom asks.

Mr. Trumbull shrugs.

“This is only insurance,” he says. He grins wickedly. “I've gotten Excellerand to trust me over the past three years. They're not looking that carefully anymore. But, if need be, I can always forge your handwriting. I've done it before. Even
Roger
was fooled.”

I hate this man. For a moment I can't even see straight.

“Wh-what if . . . ,” I sputter. “What if someday we decide to tell? What's to stop us?”

Mr. Trumbull keeps grinning.

“Oh, I've got insurance against that too,” he says. He begins fiddling with his tie clasp. “Amazing, isn't it, how technology can make cameras that fit into such a thin strip of metal? And that it's so easy to edit raw video? So
I
don't look guilty? Believe me, I'll keep this video of you two confessing to blackmail for a very, very long time.”

I've been so engrossed in watching Mr. Trumbull that I haven't been paying attention to any of the other people around us. But I suddenly realize that the two yoga moms from the side table are standing beside us now.

“FBI—you're under arrest,” one of the women says. She flashes a gold badge in a leather case. Even from across the table I can read the words “Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

A split second later the cinnamon-roll couple from behind Mr. Trumbull pull out FBI badges, too, and a pack of men in FBI jackets swarm in through the front and back doors shouting, “FBI! Don't make a move!”

We're surrounded.

Mom and I freeze. Mr. Trumbull looks startled for only an instant, then his face smooths out and he's as calm as ever.

“Oh, yes,” he says loudly, with just as much confidence as he always showed in court. “I'm glad you're here. These two women are trying to blackmail me. All the evidence is right here.”

He taps his tie clasp.

“Nice try,” the woman says. “And we will be using that evidence. But
you're
the one we're arresting.”

And then both women grab Mr. Trumbull.

Beside me, Mom starts tugging at her bra. She digs down and pulls out a wire.

“Okay, if this is standard procedure for the FBI in sting operations, why haven't they come up with listening devices to put in women's bras that
don't itch
?” she asks.

“Good point, ma'am,” one of the “yoga moms” says. “I totally agree. Allison and I will bring that up with our superiors.”

The “yoga moms” are actually Special Agents Allison Moritz and Toni Bitters, members of the FBI team Mom and I started working with after Daddy told me to go talk to the federal prosecutor who'd sent him to prison. (This is where Oscar's computer skills really helped: He's the one who found the prosecutor's home address last Saturday. And my taping Mr. Trumbull in his office helped, too, to prove I wasn't lying. It's just a shame it wasn't enough evidence to arrest him.) The FBI team rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed with Mom and me, all week long, so we'd know exactly how to get Mr. Trumbull to reveal everything—or as I thought of it, to set him up, then bring him down.

Mr. Trumbull struggles against Allison and Toni's grip, even as other agents grab on to him too.

“You don't understand,” he protests. “You have it backward! I was just making up a story to get these two criminals to confess! They're the ones you should arrest!”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Allison says, rolling her eyes ever so slightly, as though she really wishes he would. She goes on with rest of the Miranda warning. Mr. Trumbull keeps struggling, but it's useless. I think it would be useless even if the only ones holding him were still just Allison and Toni—they really do work out. A lot. They're stronger than they look.

So are Mom and I.

Behind Mr. Trumbull and the FBI agents, I see a Panera worker coming from behind the counter. He's pulled out his iPhone and appears to be videotaping the entire scene. I can imagine that video rolling on TV or going viral online.

I don't care. Mom's right—the listening device in my own bra is insanely itchy, so I pull mine out too. And then I look Mr. Trumbull in the eye and say what I've been longing to all along.

“One thing you said is true,” I tell him. “This is a win-win. Only, it's really win-win-win. You go to prison like you deserve. Since Daddy had the idea for this sting operation, he gets to make up for some of the awful things he did. And Mom and me—we get to live the rest of our lives the way we want to, from here on out. We don't have to be afraid ever again. And . . . I get to go to college.”

I could actually go on listing wins—this moment seems full of them. I
am
still a little afraid of that iPhone videotaping behind me, but unlike three years ago, I can just ignore it. Because this time Mom and I are going to be known for something we actually did ourselves.

And—it was good.

Mom and I throw our arms around each other and hug and
hug and hug. I knock Mom's scarf back a little, revealing a strand of dark blond hair. The two of us have mostly been on lockdown all week, hiding out in a hotel room in a remote location. But I sneaked out last night to pick up a box of Clairol Nice 'n Easy for Mom. We're both going to see Daddy before we head back to Ohio. I have no idea what's going to happen with my parents' marriage—I have no idea what
should
happen—but I don't think Mom should look like she's aged a hundred years the first time she sees him in prison. Mom pulls the scarf off entirely and grins at me. I don't think the hair color actually matters—I think it's just that she's so relieved and happy at the moment—but here's something else that Mr. Trumbull was wrong about.

Mom is still absolutely beautiful.

I have to admit: I was wrong about her too.

“Do you think it's okay now?” I ask.

Mom nods, and I pull out the iPhone that Mrs. Collins generously let me keep for an extra week. I'm probably going to be “poor but honest” for the rest of my life, and I'm okay with that. But I am never living without a cell phone again.

I begin a text to Oscar, Rosa, Jala, and Stuart:

It's over
, I write.
Everything went perfectly.

•  •  •

There's a huge party when I get back to Deskins. Okay, it was previously scheduled, and it's for all of DHS, not just me. But no other school event could be so well-named: It's homecoming.

I never had time to buy a dress for the dance. And because Mom and I didn't keep that bank check from Mr. Trumbull, it's not like I could easily afford one, regardless. But Rosa assures me that her older sister, Lily, has a closetful of possibilities she's willing to loan me. Lily doesn't just have dresses from her high school dances—she also has several more sophisticated (or, depending on your perspective, sluttier) ones she bought for
clubbing now that she's at Columbus State. So I head over to Rosa's as soon as Mom and I arrive back in Deskins Saturday afternoon. I end up in the tiny bedroom that Rosa and her sister share, and Jala and Rosa and Lily work together to pull out dresses for me to try on.

It's a little overwhelming: The room is so small, and there are so many dresses, and Lily talks every bit as fast as Rosa. And the two sisters have so many posters on the walls showcasing their differing interests in hot actors and famous lawyers—Mario Lopez faces off against Alan Dershowitz; Ryan Gosling faces off against Sonia Sotomayor . . .

Then I realize that's not what's overwhelming me.

This is the first time I've been over to a friend's house since the day Daddy was arrested,
I think.
Since Annemarie Fenn's.

Do I deserve this kind of thing again? Am I worthy now?

It wasn't that I was unworthy before,
I remind myself.
I was just scared.

Jala tosses a dress at me and it lands on my head. She jokes, “Really, there's not enough material in that dress to be a scarf.” All four of us laugh.

I do deserve this.
I think
. I deserved it all along.

I end up choosing the dress that fits the best, even though it's fire-engine red and covered in ruffles. After three years of picking clothes based on not wanting to be noticed, this is about as far as I could go in the opposite direction.

I look at myself in the mirror and think,
A defense attorney would definitely
not
want a girl wearing this to court. And there's no way I would be allowed to visit my daddy in this outfit.

But I'm not going to court or visiting prison tonight. I'm not
just
the daughter of a criminal. Those aren't the only things that define me.

“Oscar is going to love that on you,” Rosa says, grinning in a
way that makes fun of her sister's taste and gives me an out if I want to refuse this dress.

Even if Daddy weren't a criminal, even if he hadn't been caught, this dress never would have been my style. I start to think,
It's awful being too poor to even buy my own dress for homecoming.
But that's instantly swept away by another thought:
I'm so lucky someone cares enough to loan me a dress.