Chapter 8 - The Backup Nobody Knew About
Lily screamed.
Carla grabbed the laptop. “What happened?”
Emma checked the folder.
Empty.
Trash.
Empty.
Recent activity showed a remote deletion from another device.
“How could they get into her school account?” Carla asked.
“I don’t know.”
Lily looked terrified. “They know everything.”
Emma wanted to tell her that wasn’t true.
Instead she asked a better question.
“Did you save the pictures anywhere else?”
Lily shook her head.
Then Carla frowned.
“Wait.”
She walked to a kitchen drawer and pulled out an old tablet with a cracked corner.
“You used this for homework in January.”
Lily’s eyes widened.
The tablet had not connected to Wi-Fi in weeks.
Emma turned off the router before powering it up.
The school drive app opened with an old cached copy.
The pictures were still there.
Carla sat down hard.
“Oh my God.”
Emma used her phone to photograph every screen, then copied the files to two offline flash drives.
“One stays with you. One comes with me.”
“What now?” Carla asked.
“We stop handling this like a studio complaint.”
They contacted a lawyer recommended by Jenna’s mother, a civil attorney named David Cole.
He agreed to meet that evening.
David was in his fifties, rumpled, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by Brightwood’s reputation.
He studied the ledger photos for twenty minutes.
“This may involve deceptive business practices, retaliation against minors, scholarship interference, and possibly unauthorized access to a student account.”
Carla swallowed. “Can we stop them from kicking Lily out?”
“Maybe. But first, you need to understand something.”
He tapped the image showing altered scores.
“If this is real, people are going to panic.”
“They already are,” Emma said.
David looked at her. “Then assume they will destroy whatever they can.”
He asked who else might have records.
Emma mentioned Jenna.
Lily mentioned Mia Alvarez, another student Brooke had targeted.
Ava mentioned the studio bookkeeper, Mr. Keene, who had suddenly quit in December.
David wrote down the name.
“Find him?” Emma asked.
“I can try.”
Her phone buzzed before she could say more.
Ava.
Emma answered.
Her cousin was crying so hard she could barely speak.
“Emma, somebody broke into our house.”
Emma stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“Where are you?”
“At Mrs. Bell’s next door.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“What did they take?”
May you like
Ava went quiet.
Then whispered, “Only your dance box.”
