Chapter 14 - Five Minutes in the Dark
Evan shouted from the hall. “Nobody move!”
Glass shattered near the rear of the house.
Sophie screamed.
I pulled her behind the kitchen island while Maya dropped beside us.
“Stay down,” I said.
Footsteps hit the mudroom.
One set.
Then another.
Evan's team moved through the dark.
A beam from a flashlight cut across the hallway.
Someone ran upstairs.
“Maya's room,” she whispered.
Her backpack was still on her shoulder.
“What do they want?” Sophie asked.
Maya suddenly froze.
“The workbook.”
“What workbook?”
“The one from my bag. Claire's notes are in the margins.”
Before I could stop her, she moved toward the stairs.
I grabbed her arm.
“No.”
“They're looking for it.”
“Then let them look.”
A man appeared at the top of the stairs carrying Maya's pillowcase stuffed with papers.
Evan's guard tackled him before he reached the landing.
The second intruder crashed through the back door and escaped over the fence.
Police arrived minutes later.
The man they caught was not school security.
He was a private investigator who had worked for Whitmore's brother-in-law.
In his pocket was a printed list.
Maya Bennett - backpack, notebook, library key, Claire H. materials.
Sophie Harrison - purple USB.
My daughter's name was written like an item on a shopping list.
Something inside me went cold.
Maya watched my face.
“Don't do anything stupid.”
“I was about to tell you the same thing.”
After the police left, Maya opened her math workbook.
Several pages were covered with equations. Others held Claire's handwriting.
Names.
Dates.
Questions.
On the last page, Claire had written one sentence in red ink.
IF THEY ERASE THE NUMBERS, FOLLOW THE STUDENTS WHO NEVER EXISTED.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Maya sat down hard.
“I know.”
She flipped to an old donor report and pointed to a list of scholarship recipients.
Twelve names.
“I checked these once. I could only find six real students.”
Priya joined by video and stared.
“Ghost scholarships.”
Maya nodded.
“Fake kids. Real tuition money.”
Evan began searching databases.
Then he stopped.
One of the fake student names matched a beneficiary account tied to Nolan's private investment fund.
But another matched something worse.
A trust controlled by Headmaster Whitmore's wife.
The gala was in forty-eight hours.
I looked at Maya.
“We're going.”
Her eyes widened.
“To the gala?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “They'll destroy me in that room.”
I looked at Sophie's purple flash drive on the table.
“Then we're not going there to defend you.”
May you like
I closed the workbook.
“We're going there to expose them.”
