Chapter 4 - THE PRICE OF A FRIEND
The flash drive dropped six floors.
I lunged, but Lily grabbed my wrist before I could lean over the railing.
“Let me go!”
“It’s not what you think.”
“You lied to security, stole our evidence, and dropped it down an elevator shaft. What exactly am I supposed to think?”
Footsteps pounded above us.
Lily pulled me through a fire door and pressed one finger to her lips.
Two men in maintenance uniforms rushed past. One carried a stun gun.
“They threatened my brother,” she whispered. “Evan works in the university’s technology office. He found the fake login records. Voss’s people took him last night.”
The anger drained out of me.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. They said they’d hurt him if I didn’t sign the statement and bring them the drive.”
“You destroyed it.”
“No.”
Lily opened her palm. The real flash drive rested inside it.
“I dropped my dorm key.”
For the first time that day, I almost laughed.
We returned to Lang’s office through a service hallway. My father was furious until Lily showed him messages proving the threat against Evan.
Marcus sent a team to search the campus.
Dana opened the files on an isolated laptop. The records showed tuition money, scholarship funds, and donor contributions flowing into consulting firms that provided no services.
One company appeared repeatedly: Red Harbor Strategies.
“Who owns it?” I asked.
Dana searched the registration records.
The listed owner was Elaine Sterling.
My mother.
She had died when I was twelve.
My father stared at the screen as if he had seen a ghost.
“That’s impossible.”
“Was Mom involved with Westbridge?” I asked.
“She graduated from here. She served on the board before her accident.”
“What kind of accident?”
His silence frightened me more than an answer would have.
For years, I had believed my mother died when her car skidded off a wet road. My father never discussed the details.
Lang looked at him. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Tell me what?”
My father shut the laptop.
“Your mother was investigating Graham Voss before she died.”
The room became very still.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I spent fourteen years trying to keep you away from this.”
Marcus entered before my father could explain.
“We found Evan Chen in the old science building. He’s alive.”
Lily covered her mouth.
“But there’s something else,” Marcus continued. “He had a photograph taped to his chest.”
He placed the image on the desk.
It showed my mother standing beside Graham Voss and Richard Hale.
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On the back, someone had written five words:
ELAINE STERLING NEVER DIED ALONE.
