Chapter 3

There were only seventy-two hours left until the SATs, yet the homeowners' group chat for Willow Creek was practically celebrating.

Kendra posted a screenshot of the $50,000 transfer she'd received from me the day before.

[Everyone, this is what happens when the parents in our community band together and use their brains to defeat someone trying to take advantage of us! The only way to deal with a scammer like Alynna Dawson is to use the law against her!]

A flood of thumbs-up emojis immediately followed.

Whitney sent a voice message: "Thank God Kendra took the lead. Otherwise, we'd still be letting that woman fool us."

Kendra replied with a smug emoji. Then she dropped a polished-looking business card into the chat.

[Everyone, listen up. Don't get too attached to that little compensation payment you just received. I had to pull some strings with people high up at the state level just to get this former test developer to agree to help us.]

[His name is Dr. Francis Holt! If we put the money into Dr. Holt's intensive SAT boot camp now, he can guarantee another fifty-point increase in the kids' scores!]

The group went silent for half a minute.

Finally, someone asked cautiously: [Kendra, how much does the boot camp cost?]

She answered immediately: [$20,000! Spots are limited, first come, first served! Dr. Holt has access to insider information about what will be on this year's test.]

[You can't put a price on something like that. His material is in a completely different league from the garbage Alynna put together.]

The parents fell for it.

A few of the more levelheaded ones raised doubts.

[Fifty points in three days? That doesn't sound realistic.]

Kendra immediately went off on them. [You're just too cheap to spend money on your child's future! Don't complain when your kid can't get into college!]

Whitney posted a screenshot of her payment. [I even took out an online loan. I'm going all in for Hayden! I trust Kendra!]

All thirty-three students were packed into a conference room at a budget hotel just outside the neighborhood.

Dr. Holt showed up in a cheap suit and could barely speak clearly. His so-called confidential practice exams were nothing more than old test questions he'd cobbled together from random websites.

Over those three days, the students received no meaningful review whatsoever.

Instead, they were forced to memorize a mountain of error-riddled "Holt Method" shortcuts.

Every day, Dr. Holt stood at the front of the room clutching printouts and pontificating as if every word out of his mouth were gospel.

"This type of question definitely won't be on the test this year. Don't waste your time studying it."

"If you get a geometry problem you don't understand, just use my Holt Triangle Trick and guess C. You'll still pick up points."

His nonsensical test-taking tricks were actively overwriting the solid foundation the students had already built.

Zeke, Kendra's blond-haired son, couldn't have been happier. Without me there to keep him on task, he sat openly playing games in the back row. Before long, he'd dragged several students who had originally planned to study into playing with him.

Dr. Holt turned a blind eye. His absurd reliance on luck and shortcuts was destroying what little discipline the students had left before the exam.

Meanwhile, I spent those three days relaxing on the oversized couch in my living room. I drank coffee and watched the neighborhood through my security cameras.

The editor-in-chief of one of the country's leading education journals sent me a request to review a paper.

I turned down every invitation from principals at the state's top high schools asking me to give their students a final motivational talk before the exam.

Then the bell rang for the first section of the SATs. The parents were still outside the budget hotel, posing happily for photos beneath a banner.

"Ms. Dawson, the state education department called again," Evelyn reminded me quietly.

I raised my coffee cup and took a sip. "Tell them I'm on vacation. I don't have time."