Fast Track by Julie Garwood Read Free Book Online Page B

completely silent. When Cordie took a quick look at the people behind her, all she saw were stunned faces. She took a deep breath and hoped Jayden’s flimsily veiled confession would be passed over, but before she could turn around to the altar again, another student was heading to the pulpit. Like Jayden, he recounted another story, allegedly told to him by Mr. Kane, of an anonymous student who, in a fit of anger, broke into the school and vandalized it with a couple of cans of black spray paint. According to his account, after the boy had made the mess and written some pretty foul words on the walls outside the principal’s office, he started to think that maybe what he was doing might be a bad idea and he could be in some real trouble. He had heard Mr. Kane had helped another student get out of a bind with the police, so he called him. “Mr. Kane was steaming mad, all right . . . at least that’s what he told me,” the boy said, “but he got some paint and brushes and helped the student clean it all up.” He added, “It took all night.”
    And on it went. Seven students in all told stories of how they had heard of incidents where Mr. Kane had helped some kid in trouble. When the parade of narrators finally ended, Cordie sat motionless, almost afraid to look around.
    “How many felonies are we up to now? Four?” Jack whispered the question.
    “Five,” Alec corrected.
    Cordie knew there were several detectives and policemen in the congregation because her father had been a big financial supporter of the department. They would most likely call some of her father’s acts of kindness aiding and abetting, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, and God only knew what else. If she didn’t do something quickly, there was a strong possibility that at least two students would be arrested when the Mass was over.
    Father Anthony had just started back to the altar when Cordie sprang to her feet. The priest saw her and went back to his chair. Her mind was racing as she slowly walked up the three steps to the altar and then crossed over to the pulpit. She didn’t have the faintest idea what she was going to say until she started speaking.
    “My father was proud of the fact that he was Irish, and he used to tell me that the Irish are great storytellers.
He
certainly was,” she began. So far, so good. The crowd seemed to be buying it. She went on. “He loved to tell stories about students from the past, and the boys here today . . . like me . . . have all heard his stories so many times now, they’ve almost made them their own. Of course, you can assume that all those kids my father talked about and some of the things he said they did were greatly exaggerated. He meant his stories to be lessons so that the students would learn from mistakes others had made in the past . . . cautionary tales.”
    Cordie wasn’t quite sure what she said after that. When she went back to her seat, she noticed that Alec and Jack weren’t smiling, but there was a definite sparkle in their eyes. They knew exactly what she had just done and why. Like her father, she was protecting the boys.
    Somehow Cordie got through the rest of the day, though she couldn’t remember most of it. After the funeral and the burial, a large number of well-intentioned and caring people followed her to her home and stayed most of the afternoon. Gradually the guests began to thin out, and by evening most of them had said their good-byes, leaving only her close friends. With her house finally quiet again, she curled up in the corner of her sofa, her bare feet tucked under her. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep.
    Spencer and Aiden were still there. They were in a deep conversation with Alec and Jack. The topic was a congressman named Mitchell Ray Chambers, and from the look on Aiden’s face, he wasn’t a fan. Up until now she had avoided looking at Aiden whenever possible. He was like a magnet, though, drawing her to him. She had