Read Online Coin Heist by Elisa Ludwig - Free Book Online

terrible moment, I realized what it must be like to be her right now, and it wasn’t pretty. My mom deserved way better than this, and I wished, suddenly, that I could help her out.
    â€œOkay,” I agreed. “I’ll come in, but I’m not gonna talk to him.”
    â€œSuit yourself.” She clutched a plastic bag full of items she was dropping off for my dad—a pair of slippers, a couple pairs of socks, some underwear, and a paperback novel. Tom Clancy? My dad never read that crap. Maybe he was worried he’d get beaten up in jail if he was seen reading Proust.
    I followed her into the lobby where a guard behind a desk made us sign in. Then we were led down a long squeaky-floored hallway to a room. My dad was in there, wearing an orange jumpsuit, and he already had a visitor sitting across the table from him. As we got closer, I saw that it was indeed Harold Smerconish. I recognized him from the annual headmaster’s brunch they held at our house. Well, our old house. There was some other man next to him in a suit. A lawyer? All six of their hands were resting on the table between them.
    When he saw us, my dad stood up and waved to us from across the room. The eager smile on his unshaven face—well, it was pathetic. Seeing that, I wished like anything I’d stayed in the car.
    The guard directed us to a row of gray bucket seats along the wall. “Wait here.”
    â€œCan’t we see him now?” my mom asked.
    â€œNot until his first two visitors leave,” the guard said.
    â€œBut there’s only a few minutes left,” she pleaded.
    â€œRules,” he responded, glowering at us.
    My mom muttered some curses under her breath. I sank down into the plastic chair. From where we were sitting, I could hear most of my dad’s conversation.
    â€œWe don’t have a choice,” Smerconish was saying. “. . . enough for the end of the fiscal year. And then we’ll need to make arrangements.”
    â€œI never meant to do this,” my dad said, shaking his head, and for the first time I could ever remember, I thought I actually heard a sob in his voice. Oh god. “You know that, right, Harold?”
    â€œI’m sorry, Jim, but we’re not here to talk about that,” Smerconish said.
    The lawyer spoke up. “The board’s decided to strip you of your title, effective immediately.”
    â€œAnd what’s going to happen to the school?” my dad asked.
    â€œThe best action would be to close after May,” the lawyer said. “Sell off the assets. Pay creditors. Pay employees.”
    The school was closing ? Jesus. It was worse than the rumors.
    My dad would be responsible for shutting down Haverford Friends, founded 1886. Some legacy. Forget his stupid sculpture, his plans for expansion. They were going to bury him in the quad. And I was going to have to move to Atlantic City, become a blackjack dealer and change my name. All these years I’d been the one to disappoint him, not the other way around.
    â€œOh God,” my dad was saying. “Payroll . . . ?”
    â€œIs very, very tight. We’re trying our hardest, but short of some unexpected windfall . . .” Smerconish said. “We have no good options.”
    They were going to stiff employees, that’s how bad it was. My dad was worse than scum.
    Then the two men stood up. “We’d better go,” Smerconish said. “Good luck, Jim.”
    He pumped my dad’s hand in his gigantic one, then buttoned up his barn jacket—no HF alum was complete without one. It was the official uniform of preppy older guys everywhere. I noticed deep worry lines carved into his forehead. The wrinkles of someone who constantly made big decisions.
    Smerconish had sent all five of his kids to HF, back in the day. They were in college or older now. He was supposedly some big real estate guy who owned a bunch of stuff. But he mostly seemed like all the other