Chapter 1 — Pick Up My Keys

The keys hit the stone between Evan Mercer’s shoes.

“Pick them up,” Blake Whitmore said.

Evan looked down. The key fob bore the silver crest of the sports car parked across the bicycle rack. Behind Blake, three students had their phones raised.

“I didn’t drop them.”

Blake smiled for the cameras. “I know.”

A few people laughed. Most didn’t. They watched Evan instead, waiting to see whether he would bend.

Ten minutes earlier, he had ridden through Bellwether University’s front gate on a bicycle old enough to have survived two owners before him. Its blue paint had worn away around the handlebars. A canvas bag hung from his shoulder, and his shirt had dried unevenly after the uphill ride.

Blake had pulled up beside him in a black car that cost more than Evan had paid for his first apartment. Now the car occupied two spaces near the main building, and Evan’s bicycle stood locked to the rack a few feet away.

“Security’s going to ask you to move that thing,” Blake had said.

“It’s a bicycle rack.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

Evan had been running early for his meeting. He could have walked away then. Instead, he had watched Blake step out of the car and take in his clothes, his bag, and the worn tires.

“Deliveries go around back,” Blake said.

“I have a meeting.”

“With who? The maintenance office?”

The woman who got out of the passenger seat gave Blake a warning look. She was holding a phone, though its camera was pointed at the ground.

“Come on,” she said. “We’re late.”

Blake ignored her.

Evan had met men like him before. The trick was to give them no audience. But Bellwether’s courtyard was already filling with students between classes, and Blake knew exactly how to use one.

“I’m trying to get inside,” Evan said. “You’re standing in my way.”

Blake lifted his wrist. Sun caught the face of his watch.

“This costs more than you make in a year.”

“Then you paid too much.”

The first laugh came from somewhere behind Evan. Blake’s expression tightened.

That was when he threw the keys.

Now they lay on the stone, close enough for Blake to retrieve with one step.

“Go on,” Blake said. “You can tell your friends you touched a car like mine.”

Evan shifted his bag higher on his shoulder.

The woman beside Blake lowered her phone completely. “Blake.”

“What?”

“Just get your keys.”

Blake turned toward her. “Sloane, stay out of it.”

Evan noticed her name. He noticed something else, too. Blake’s phone lit up in his hand with a message. Evan saw only a few words before Blake tilted the screen away.

East Hall vote.

Evan kept his face still.

“Why are you interested in East Hall?” he asked.

Blake’s eyes sharpened. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

For one second, Blake looked less like a man enjoying a public humiliation and more like someone checking whether he had spoken too freely.

Then the main doors opened.

Dr. Mara Ellis crossed the courtyard at a brisk walk. Two members of her staff followed, one carrying a folder. The students nearest the steps made room for Bellwether’s president.

Blake straightened his shirt.

“Dr. Ellis,” he called. “There’s a guy here harassing students.”

Mara passed him without stopping.

“Mr. Mercer,” she said to Evan. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

The courtyard went quiet.

Mara glanced at the keys on the ground, then at the phones pointed in their direction. Evan saw her understand enough to set her jaw.

“The trustees are assembled,” she said. “We can begin whenever you’re ready.”

Blake gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “The trustees?”

Mara faced him at last. “Mr. Whitmore, this is Evan Mercer. He was elected chair of Bellwether’s board this morning.”

Sloane’s gaze moved from Evan to the keys. Blake didn’t move at all.

Evan had accepted the position only three days ago. His family’s foundation had supported Bellwether for decades, but he had never studied there and had kept his name out of its publicity. The board election had been private until that morning’s meeting. He had expected introductions, difficult questions, and a thick stack of papers.

He had not expected to find a trustee’s son guarding the bicycle rack.

Blake swallowed. “I didn’t know who he was.”

“That much is clear,” Mara said.

A student’s phone chimed. Someone had already posted a video.

Evan could feel the courtyard waiting for him to deliver a speech or demand an apology. Blake was waiting for punishment. Sloane looked as if she wanted everyone to put their phones away.

Instead, Evan stepped around the keys.

Blake exhaled.

Evan stopped beside him. “Who told you there was a vote on East Hall?”

Blake’s relief vanished. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You looked at a message about it.”

“It’s campus gossip.”

“The proposal hasn’t been given to the full board.”

Mara turned sharply toward Blake. Her staff member tightened her grip on the folder.

Blake looked between them. “My father knows people here. That isn’t a crime.”

“No,” Evan said. “It isn’t.”

He let the answer stand. There were too many cameras and too little he knew.

Mara led him up the steps. Behind them, Blake finally bent to retrieve his keys. Evan heard the metal scrape against the stone.

Inside the building, Mara guided him past the reception desk and into a side corridor. Only when the courtyard doors closed did she speak.

“I’ll ask campus security to preserve any footage.”

“Preserve it,” Evan said. “Don’t have anyone take students’ phones.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

He looked at her. “Did you know Blake Whitmore had heard about East Hall?”

“No.”

“His father?”

“Richard Whitmore has asked for a meeting. We haven’t agreed to one.”

They stopped outside the boardroom. Through the glass panel, Evan could see people seated around a long table, their papers arranged in orderly piles.

Mara lowered her voice. “The East Hall proposal is more complicated than the summary we sent you.”

“I read the summary.”

“I thought you had.”

Evan studied her face. Mara looked exhausted, but she met his eyes.

“Then we should start with the part it left out,” he said.

She opened the door.

On the table, beside the chair reserved for him, sat a folder marked

East Hall Redevelopment

. Evan reached for it before he sat down. Under the summary was a list of projected savings, a drawing of new buildings, and a timetable for removing the old ones.

There was no list of the people currently living there.

He looked up at the trustees.

“Before we discuss what East Hall is worth,” he said, “I want to know who lives in it.”