The door is unlocked, so I walk in. “Hello?” I shout, “Vince?”
“Hello? I’m sorry, but we aren’t open yet.” Vince comes out from the back, but stutters to a stop when he sees me. “Cody Anthony? Is that you?” He smiles. “Well, you’ve certainly grown up.”
“You remember me?”
Vince laughs. “Yeah. Lawrence bitched about you a lot back in the day. But don’t worry, no one would have been good enough for his Lucy.”
“Yeah. I’m here to ask about Joseph Taylor.”
He grins. “What, are you seeking out all of Lucy’s suitors now?”
“No.”
He finally takes in my serious tone. With a nod, he asks, “Let me guess, he owes you money too?”
“No.”
Vince licks his lips as he studies me. He’s trying to get a read on me. That is one thing he won’t get.
He nods. “Follow me. We can talk in my office."
He leads me down the hall to an office, and motions for me to take a seat. Then he closes the door.
“Someone tried to kill Joseph,” I say. “I need to know who else he borrowed from. I know he’s scared of someone.”
Vince stalls at my words, then drops his head back and stares at the ceiling. “That idiot. I told him to not touch that money.” His gaze meets mine. “Tell me, Cody, why do you care about Joseph?”
“The university hired me to protect him.”
Vince’s brows shoot up, and he laughs. “I wasn’t expecting that. I’m curious how he got the university to pay for his protection.” He waves his hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t matter. That man can talk anyone into anything. I’ve never seen anything like it. He had Lawrence fooled for years.”
“I’m not here to be sold on the man. He’s an ass. What I need to know is who else he borrowed from.”
“Whoelse?” Vince frowns. “Ah, I see. Well, I don’t know how he does it, but somehow, he has access to some of the university’s funds. He shuffles money around to hide the fact he’s borrowing some for himself. It was never a problem when it was a few thousand from the arts, or a little more from the engineering department. He always managed to pay them back before anyone noticed.”
“Embezzlement?”
His eyes widen. “No, he onlyborrowsthe money.”
Apparently, Vince isn’t up to date on the meaning of embezzlement. I leave it alone.
“What fund do you believe he borrowed from this time?” I ask.
He pulls a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of his desk and lights one, then takes a drag. “You have to understand something. Joseph went from gambling away a few thousand a week to tens of thousands. At first, it wasn’t a problem because he had enough to cover it.”
He smokes the cigarette in record time; he’s either nervous to give up the information, nervous for Joseph, or somehow in on the entire scheme.
“Well, recently, he’s been gambling more than he can cover. I told him he needed to slow down, but he didn’t listen.”
Whatever is causing Vince to be nervous, I’m glad it has him talking. “He needed a fund that he could borrow more than just a few thousand dollars from?” I ask.
Vince points his cigarette at me. “Exactly. There are a couple at the university that are big enough it might go unnoticed. But the president is so focused on the pre-med and science programs, Joseph didn’t dare touch those.”
“What does that leave?”
“The hockey program fund.”
Holy shit.Joseph originally said he needed protection because he caused a problem with some of the team’s funds. Was he sort of telling the truth in his backward way?
