Selena Kitt - Baumgartner Generations - Henry

Jesus Christ, he actually sounded proud! It made Henry nauseous.

Libby pressed him further, and Henry knew she wanted it to be as clear as possible on the tape. “What are you talking about?”

Dean hissed, “We’re throwing the game! It’s all fixed! And it cost me a lot of damned money, too.”

Libby was quiet and then she said, “And you’re betting on the winning team, of course.”

“Hell yeah-all bets will be on Eastern!”

And there it was, all the proof they needed. Dean had admitted it to a witness and they had it on tape.

“Why would they?” Libby mused. “Why would these guys in your ‘study group’ jeopardize everything like this?”

“Because they’re getting paid!” he exclaimed. And then he stopped, as if he’d just realized something. “You could get paid, too, Libby. I know your parents are frickin’ dirt poor. Just think what you could do with ten thousand dollars!”

“Ten thousand?” Libby asked. “Is that what they’re getting?”

“No.” Dean paused. “Fifty thousand each.”

“How much are you keeping?”

Another pause. “Half a million.”

“Holy hell,” Libby whispered. “Where did all the money come from?”

“Literacy Tutor Foundation.” Dean laughed. “It’s my dad’s pet charity. I’ve been pimping for it since the beginning of the year.”

“Stealing from it, you mean,” she snapped.

“Whatever.” Dean shifted on the bed. Henry could hear the handcuffs moving on the post. ”After Saturday, there’s going to be plenty to go around. Tell Marcus I’ll pay him double!”

Libby hesitated. “What if I just tell him you’re going to throw the game?”

“Marcus looks out for himself. He’s a second-stringer with a bad knee. He’s never going to play pro ball. He’d be lucky to get a tryout as a walk on!” Dean scoffed. “He’s not stupid. If he finds out, I’m sure he’ll just use it to his advantage, like I am.”

“Yeah, but there’s a difference,” she snarled. “You planned this whole thing!”

“So?” Dean’s voice had the same arrogant tone it always did, and Henry found it infuriating. His roommate was handcuffed to a bedpost, afraid half a dozen defensive linemen were on their way to beat him to a pulp, and somehow his worldview had yet to change. “Look, there’s nothing he or anyone can do about it now. It’s a done deal. We might as well all profit from it.”

Henry held his breath under the bed, watching the wheels of the tape turning, sealing Dean’s fate.

“Come on, Libby, let me go.” Dean wasn’t pleading anymore. Maybe the fear had receded some, or maybe he really felt he was getting somewhere with his bribe. Who could turn down money, after all? “Ten thousand dollars. Think about it.”

“Twenty,” Libby said quietly.

Under the bed, Henry’s eyes widened.

“Fine,” Dean agreed. “Just let me go.”

“Fifty,” she countered.

Henry blinked. Was she serious? Was she really contemplating-?

Dean didn’t answer for a minute, and then he said, “Okay, okay…”

“Quarter million.” Libby’s voice was flat, emotionless. Ruthless. She had him beat, and clearly Dean knew it.

After a brief, defeated silence, he said, “Okay. Whatever you want.”

Henry watched as Libby stood, walking toward Dean’s bed. She stood there for a while, long enough to make Henry squirm. He was sure Dean was, too.

“You didn’t even acknowledge what you did to Elaine.” Her voice was so low he almost couldn’t hear her at all. “You don’t even care.”

“Oh come on!” Dean exclaimed, sounding really angry now, and even a little…self-righteous. “We both know she was drunk and she fucking wanted it. She was more than ready to top Henry off-why not me?”

Dean suddenly howled in pain.

Henry winced, his breath caught. What in the hell had she done to him?

“You couldn’t pay me enough to let you go, you motherfucker,” she growled and Dean screamed in pain again. “I hope they do kill you!”

Then Libby was bending low, peeking under the bed, urging Henry from underneath. He slid out as quietly as he could, taking the tape recorder with him. Dean was writhing in pain on the bed in his boxers, still blindfolded, hands over his head, the handcuffs looped between one of the wooden posts.

“Libby!” Dean yelled as she headed toward the door, gathering shoes and coats and pulling Henry in that direction too. “Don’t you leave me like this! Don’t you fucking dare!”

They closed and locked the door. It might afford Dean a little protection, if Marcus’s boys did show up-and at the very least, it would keep anyone from unhandcuffing him for a while, even if they did hear him yelling for help. Maybe even long enough for the cops to arrive.

It wasn’t until they were outside in the snow that Henry asked, “What did you do to him to make him scream like that?”

She shrugged, giving him a lopsided grin. “Apparently it’s true what they say about men’s testicles being sensitive.”

“Ouch.” He winced. He didn’t even want to think about it. He touched the tip of her nose, where a snowflake had landed and was melting. “Okay, Erin Brockovich, now what happens?”

“Now we take this information to the paper.” She took the tape recorder from his hand, tucking it into her jacket pocket and she showed him the notebook she’d taken from Dean’s backpack. It detailed not only the players involved, but beyond that there was a whole list of bets and an entire record of the ‘charitable donations’ people had made to the Literacy Tutoring Foundation that Dean had funneled elsewhere.

“The university paper?” Henry asked.

She set her mouth in a grim line. “No, the real one.”

Henry grabbed her hand as she turned to go, pulling her back into the circle of his arms and kissing her breathless.

When she broke the kiss, her eyelids fluttering open, snowflakes caught in her red lashes, she whispered, “I lied.”

“About what?” He couldn’t even imagine.

“I don’t like you.” She pressed her cheek to his chest, his heart thudding there under her listening ear, and he knew Toni had been right. He’d known all along who his soulmate was.

“Could have fooled me.” He kissed the top of her head.

“I don’t like you,” she repeated, her words muffled against his jacket, confessing, “I love you.”

He didn’t say anything-couldn’t speak-words had completely failed him. His whole life, they had failed him. They meant nothing, spoken or written. Like or love? It didn’t matter how they were spelled. It was the feeling behind them that mattered.

No words, he just held her, the world turning white around them.

Henry nuzzled Libby’s neck, not paying attention at all to the news report everyone else was glued to on Bel’s widescreen TV. It wasn’t just big news on campus-it was big news everywhere.

“News out of Ann Arbor today-Dean Mosher, son of University of Michigan Board of Regents director Stephen Mosher, was arrested Friday on charges of racketeering, fraud and embezzlement…”

“Serves him right,” Elaine said under her breath, but it was loud enough for Henry to hear her on the other side of Libby.

“Unreal.” Bel sat at his desk, shaking his head in disbelief.

The newscaster, a pretty blonde in a navy suit, went on, “Mosher senior paid back the missing funds to the Literacy Tutor Foundation charity himself and has resigned from the LTF board.”

“In other related news, reports of widespread gambling on-campus at the University of Michigan have focused on Fraternity Alpha Pi Alpha and members of the fraternity leadership are under investigation for racketeering.”