Last Chance by Norah McClintock Page A

“That’s the point, Billy. I’m not even sure that any money was stolen. But I know that someone was in that office and that someone touched the money.” I explained to him exactly what had happened.
    There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.
    â€œBilly?”
    â€œI’m still here,” he said. More silence. “So you reported this guy, Nick, even though you didn’t see him take anything, you didn’t even see him in the room or see him come out of the room, and you don’t actually know if any money is missing because it hadn’t been counted.” He sounded doubtful. “But you’re pretty sure he stole some of it because it looks like someone touched it and he did something similar back in junior high. Right?”
    â€œMorgan says she would have done the same thing I did.”
    â€œOh,” Billy said. Another pause. “Well, maybe she’s right.”
    Maybe.
    â€œWhat would you have done, Billy? Would you have reported him?”
    More agonizing silence.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said at last. “But you’ve seen the guy in action. You’ve talked to him. So if you’re sure he did it . . . ”
    Which, of course, was the problem. But I was sure that
someone
had been in the office and that whoever it was had touched that money. I told myself that Morgan was right—leopards don’t change their spots.
    Â 
    . . .
    After lunch the next day, Janet came into my office and announced that she had an assignment for me. I followed her to a large meeting room where a group of people I didn’t know were unpacking boxes of printed materials onto two long tables.
    â€œWelcome to our bimonthly stuff-a-thon,” Janet said.
    â€œStuff-a-thon?”
    â€œWe’re assembling information kits—tip sheets for pet owners, information about the work we do and, most importantly, a coupon that people can use to send us a donation. We send a kit to anyone who phones or writes asking for information. We also take them with us when we do presentations and displays. Every couple of months we get a group of volunteers together to assemble a few hundred more,” she said. When we settled in to work, Janet bustled away. The staff at the shelter always seemed so busy.
    It took us a couple of hours to stuff all the information sheets into the animal shelter’s colorful folders. I was just tidying up after the rest of the volunteers had left when Kathy appeared. She had a small group of men and women with her. They were all dressed as though they had just stepped out of one of the office towers downtown. Kathy was telling them about some of the shelter’s programs. I wondered if they were important donors. Or maybe they were from the government. According to the information kits that I had just finished assembling, the shelter relied on government grants for some of its programs. Kathy was telling the group about how much the shelter relied on volunteers—volunteer dog walkers, volunteer fund-raisers, and volunteer pet-adoption counselors. While she was talking, she glanced out the window. The friendly expression on her face gave way to barely contained fury. She excused herself from her group and came over to me.
    â€œI need you to do something for me, Robyn,” she said. “Nick is over there by the fence.” She nodded toward the window. “Go and tell him I want to see him in my office
now,
okay? Tell him to wait for me there.”
    Taken aback by her anger, I hurried outside to fetch Nick. I wondered if Kathy wanted to talk to him about the money. Maybe the volunteers at the mall had had a rough idea of how much they had collected. Maybe Kathy had talked to them and figured out that some of the money was missing.
    As soon as I got outside, I saw that Nick wasn’t alone. He was talking to someone on the other side of the fence. As I started toward them, he took something out of his