“Okay—technically, I knew last fall. I knew when I started that Kent Buckley wanted to turn the place into a fortress. And at the time I was all for it, honestly. When I first got here, I totally agreed with him about the Death Star. I couldn’t believe you guys were teaching kids in that crumbling old building with nothing but Raymond for security. It offended me, honestly. It made me angry that you would be so willfully ignorant of the world we’re living in right now.”
When we hit the seawall, I didn’t even break stride, just turned and kept going, crossing my arms against the sea breeze. But my pace was slowing some. At first, I’d only wanted to yell, but now, I couldn’t help but listen, too.
“So yes,” Duncan went on, “I helped him. That’s what he told me the job was—that’s what he said the school wanted—a total security revamp. That’s why I walked in with that water gun last fall. Kent Buckley had told me this group was super pro-guns.”
“One look at us should have cleared that right up.”
“Yeah. But this is Texas.”
“Literally nobody wanted any guns anywhere except Kent Buckley.”
“But I didn’t know that. And it was only as I spent more time with him that I started to realize that he was … kind of … off.”
“Duh,” I said, still charging on.
“That—and once he got the idea for the new building—the way he obsessed over it, it felt kind of personal.”
“Max did not like Kent Buckley.”
“I got that impression. And then once he got this idea for the new school, he realized that he could make money off of it.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a part owner in the company that builds those Death Stars. Plus, he owns the pad site on West Beach. So if the school buys it, they buy it from him.”
“He told you that?”
“He did. Winter break. He called me and told me to put all that on hold—that we might be selling this building, and he wanted to save that money for the new school.”
My pace slowed now, as I thought about it. “So … you didn’t stop painting everything gray because of Babette?”
Duncan shook his head.
“So were you just—playing along?”
“At first. Yeah.”
“And when Babette told you to get into therapy?”
“I’d been planning to do that anyway, so Babette just made it easier. My sister was overjoyed.”
“And … me? All the stuff we did together? What was that about?”
A pause. “I knew Babette was bluffing.”
“How?”
“I’d read everything. I’d read my contract. I’d read the bylaws and guidelines and rules for the board. Babette wasn’t anywhere—not in the paperwork, anyway.”
“That can’t be right. Max wouldn’t just leave Babette out.”
“Maybe he didn’t think about it. Maybe he thought he’d live forever. Maybe he wasn’t a paperwork guy.”
“He definitely wasn’t a paperwork guy.”
“Maybe he was too busy dreaming up playgrounds to get into the nitty-gritty of the power structure of the board.”
That sounded about right. That sounded like Max.
“But Kent Buckley?” Duncan went on. “He is all about the power structure of the board. And after Max died, during all the shock and chaos, he was working to bring his friends on to the board, he was rewriting bylaws and pushing them through when nobody was focusing—and pretty soon, he’d executed a good old-fashioned power grab.”
“Did you know about it?”
“Some. He’d take me out sometimes, back at the beginning, and drink quite a bit and tell me too much.”
“So you knew what he was up to.”
“Yes, but in his version of reality, he’s the hero and everybody loves him. So it took me a little time to get that sorted out.”
I kept walking.
“At first,” Duncan said, “I was just doing the daily tasks to not call Babette’s bluff. I didn’t want her to know I was onto her. But then the weirdest thing happened…”
I waited, but he didn’t go on. Finally, I said, “What? What happened?”
Duncan took a breath. “I started to like them.”
For the first time, I looked over.
“I mean, I started to really like them. I started looking forward to them, wondering what was coming up next. I looked forward to the moment in the morning when you would swing by my office and give me some nutty assignment, like ‘eat a bowl of udon noodles,’ and I looked forward to actually doing it. Most of all, I just looked forward to you.”