Chapter 5 - The Complaint
Back at graduation, Tessa walked me through a side door while the courtyard still buzzed. I wanted to be sick. Instead, I called Miriam Shaw.
"Richard filed a police report," I said. "And somebody knows about the backups."
"Let me handle the report. Keep the original drive offline. Are you somewhere safe?"
"I'm with Tessa."
"Good. Don't go home."
Professor Hughes found us in a faculty office, her academic cap in her hands. "Emily, your thesis adviser and I reviewed the misconduct complaint last night. It has allegations, not proof. A degree isn't revoked because an angry parent makes a speech."
"He contacted you before the ceremony?"
"He sent the allegations at two in the morning. He demanded we stop you from walking."
Maya Chen, my roommate and best friend, arrived with my spare sneakers and a bag of ice. She took one look at my face and said, "I swear, if I ever see that man again..."
"You'll let the cops do their jobs," I said.
"I was going to say I'd ruin his suit with a smoothie, but sure."
I laughed once. It hurt. Then I cried without warning. Maya put an arm around me and let me.
Tessa's phone kept buzzing. The slap went viral. Strangers called me brave or a liar. The whole internet was shouting.
Miriam joined us an hour later with a folder of documents. She had filed a motion to unseal the adoption record and a petition asking the state to review Daniel's conviction. "The police complaint doesn't change the records," she said. "But Richard has friends. Expect pressure."
She pulled out an injunction Richard's lawyer had delivered, claiming I'd agreed never to disclose Bennett Industrial records.
"I never signed that," I said.
"I know. Look at the witness page."
The signature was neat, slanted, and painfully familiar from the letters in Lillian's tin.
Nora Price.
May you like
Beneath it was a date: October 2019.
My birth mother had been dead for fifteen years.
