Chapter 3 - THE VIDEO THEY THOUGHT WAS GONE
Elliot moved toward Peyton.
Caroline stepped between them.
“My daughter is a minor.”
“So is mine.”
Peyton quickly locked her phone.
Elliot held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
Caroline smiled.
“You have no authority to search her phone.”
“I’m not searching it.”
Elliot looked at Peyton.
“I’m asking her to show me the video she was just watching.”
Peyton’s face tightened.
Caroline spoke before she could answer.
“There is no video.”
Elliot looked at her.
“I saw it.”
“You saw a screen from across a hallway.”
Caroline’s tone was smooth.
“You’re emotional.”
That word almost made Elliot laugh.
Emotional.
His daughter had been starving beside a trash can.
And Caroline Hargrove thought the problem was his emotions.
Lila stepped out of the nurse’s office.
“That’s the video.”
Everyone turned.
Lila pointed at Peyton’s phone.
“The one from the closet.”
Peyton went white.
Caroline turned to her daughter.
“Peyton?”
Peyton whispered,
“She’s lying.”
Lila’s shoulders dropped.
Elliot noticed immediately.
His daughter had heard those two words too many times.
He put a hand on her shoulder.
“No.”
He looked at everyone in the hallway.
“She’s done being called a liar.”
Principal Crowe appeared.
Caroline turned toward him.
“Jonathan, this has gotten completely out of control.”
Crowe nodded too quickly.
“I agree.”
Elliot watched them.
Caroline and Crowe were not merely acquainted.
They were coordinating.
That mattered.
“Mr. Mercer,” Crowe said, “the best thing for everyone would be for you to take Lila home while we conduct an internal review.”
Elliot almost smiled.
“Internal review?”
“Yes.”
“By the people she already complained to?”
Crowe hesitated.
“We have procedures.”
“Your procedures put my daughter on a cafeteria floor.”
Crowe’s face hardened.
“Ashbury Hall has been one of the safest schools in the state for over seventy years.”
“Then preserving the footage should be easy.”
Crowe looked away.
There it was again.
Fear.
Elliot pulled out his phone.
He called his chief legal officer.
“Dana.”
“Elliot?”
“I need an emergency preservation notice drafted for Ashbury Hall Academy.”
Crowe’s head snapped up.
“For all electronic records involving Lila Reed.”
Caroline’s smile disappeared.
“Video surveillance.”
“Email.”
“Internal messaging.”
“Disciplinary reports.”
“Student complaints.”
“Board communications.”
“Everything.”
Dana asked one question.
“Potential litigation?”
Elliot looked directly at Caroline.
“Yes.”
Caroline stepped forward.
“Threatening a school because your daughter got into an argument is reckless.”
Lila flinched.
Elliot saw it.
“An argument?”
He held her gaze.
“Is that what you call children forcing a girl to crawl under tables for food?”
Caroline stopped speaking.
Elliot continued.
“Is that what you call locking her in a closet?”
A teacher passing in the hallway slowed.
Crowe noticed.
“Everyone return to class.”
But it was too late.
Students were gathering.
Parents had started arriving.
Rumors were moving faster than the school could control.
Peyton suddenly burst into tears.
“My life is over.”
Caroline immediately hugged her.
Elliot stared.
Peyton had tormented Lila for months.
Yet Caroline’s daughter cried once and instantly received protection.
Lila had cried alone.
That was the entire system in one hallway.
Then Peyton screamed,
“She agreed to it!”
The hallway went silent.
Caroline turned.
“What?”
Peyton looked at Lila.
“She agreed!”
Elliot felt Lila stiffen.
Peyton’s voice shook.
“She wanted to be in the videos.”
“No, I didn’t,” Lila whispered.
“Yes, you did.”
“You said you wouldn’t give my lunch back.”
Peyton shouted,
“You could’ve just bought another lunch!”
Lila stared at her.
“I didn’t have money.”
Peyton laughed bitterly.
“Your dad is literally a billionaire.”
Silence.
Lila looked down.
“I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.”
That sentence hit Elliot hard.
His experiment.
His rules.
No special treatment.
No Mercer name.
No unlimited money.
He had wanted her to experience normal life.
He had unintentionally removed every shield she had.
Caroline seized on it.
“So this is really about you, Elliot.”
He looked at her.
“You sent your daughter here pretending to be poor.”
Caroline’s voice grew louder.
“You deceived the school.”
Crowe nodded.
“Technically, there may be enrollment issues.”
Elliot stared at them.
His daughter was bruised.
Hungry.
Humiliated.
And now they were blaming him.
Then Lila whispered,
“Dad.”
He looked at her.
“There was another girl.”
“What girl?”
Lila looked terrified.
“A girl who complained before me.”
Crowe’s expression changed.
Caroline’s did too.
Elliot noticed both.
“What happened to her?”
Lila swallowed.
May you like
“She disappeared.”
And this time, nobody from the school denied it.
