Chapter 4 - The Anonymous Message
Emma took a picture of the message before Lily could touch anything.
“Don’t reply yet.”
Lily’s voice shook. “Who is that?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret Grant looked over. “Is there a problem?”
Emma locked the screen. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
For the first time, Margaret looked nervous.
Good.
Emma gathered Ava and Lily and walked outside. Rain had started, hard enough to turn the parking lot silver.
Lily’s mother, Carla, arrived twenty minutes later in a faded blue Honda, still wearing hospital scrubs.
She got out running.
“Lily!”
Lily broke the second she saw her.
Carla held her, then looked at Emma over her daughter’s shoulder. “What happened?”
Emma told her.
Every part.
The slap. The phone. The deleted video. The anonymous message.
Carla went very still.
“I told them three months ago.”
Emma blinked. “About Brooke?”
“About all of it.”
Carla opened the trunk and pulled out a wrinkled folder.
Inside were printed emails.
Subject lines like CONCERN ABOUT REHEARSAL CONDUCT and FORMAL COMPLAINT - STUDENT SAFETY.
Every reply from Brightwood sounded polite and empty.
We take all concerns seriously.
We are monitoring the situation.
Competitive environments can create interpersonal tension.
Emma felt anger burn behind her ribs.
“Why did you keep sending her?”
Carla’s face tightened. “Because Lily begged me not to pull her out. Dance is the one thing she loves more than anything.”
Lily whispered, “And we can’t afford another studio.”
Carla looked ashamed.
Emma hated that most of all.
“You don’t need to be embarrassed.”
“I’m her mother. I knew something was wrong.”
“You complained. They ignored you.”
Carla stared at the building through the rain. “Vivian Sanders paid for the new performance wing.”
There it was.
Money.
Emma had seen that story before in other forms. Wealth didn’t always buy innocence. Sometimes it bought everyone else’s silence.
Lily’s phone buzzed again.
Another message.
MIDNIGHT. CHECK THE OLD BRIGHTWOOD INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT. HIGHLIGHT: WINTER INTENSIVE 2024.
Emma searched the account immediately.
The page still existed but hadn’t been updated in a year.
At the top was a highlight reel labeled WINTER INTENSIVE.
She tapped it.
Most clips were harmless: stretches, turns, girls laughing in matching warmups.
Then the final story loaded.
Three seconds of blurry hallway footage.
Brooke cornering another girl against a locker.
Ms. Vale standing ten feet away.
Watching.
Doing nothing.
Emma froze the frame.
The girl wasn’t Lily.
And the date was almost two years old.
Carla whispered, “Who is that?”
Ava answered before anyone else could.
“That’s Jenna Price.”
Emma looked at her.
“Where is Jenna now?”
May you like
Ava’s voice dropped.
“She quit dancing after she broke her ankle.”
