Chapter 7 - THE FIRE IN THE ARCHIVE
The archive occupied the oldest building on campus.
By the time we reached it, flames were visible behind the second-floor windows.
Students stood outside filming.
Campus officers pushed them away from the entrance.
“Professor Hughes is inside,” I shouted.
A firefighter stopped me before I reached the steps.
“You cannot go in there.”
“She called me from the second floor.”
He spoke into his radio.
Another team entered through the main doors.
Agent Grant demanded access to the security footage.
The camera system had stopped recording three minutes before the fire alarm.
That was not an accident.
Nothing happening around me was accidental anymore.
My father had not only planned to destroy my reputation.
He had planned to eliminate every record that could prove the scholarship theft.
A window shattered.
Firefighters appeared through the smoke carrying Professor Hughes.
She was conscious, but blood covered the side of her face.
I ran beside the stretcher.
“What happened?”
“Someone locked the archive door.”
“Did you see who?”
“No.”
She coughed.
“But I took the forms.”
She reached inside her jacket.
A plastic evidence folder was pressed against her chest.
The edges had melted.
The papers inside survived.
Agent Grant took the folder.
Professor Hughes grabbed my wrist.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“Your father did not begin the scholarship transfers.”
I leaned closer.
“What do you mean?”
“The first transfer happened eleven years ago.”
I stared at her.
Ethan had been fifteen.
I had been eleven.
“The university records only go back six years,” I said.
“The paper archive goes back farther.”
“Who authorized the original transfers?”
Professor Hughes closed her eyes.
“The signature belonged to your grandfather.”
My grandfather, Charles Bennett, had founded the Bennett Foundation.
He had died seven years earlier.
The public remembered him as a generous philanthropist.
The university library carried his name.
Students received awards bearing his photograph.
If Professor Hughes was right, the fraud had existed long before Ethan created Northbridge.
My family had not invented the scheme.
They had inherited it.
A paramedic moved me away as they loaded Professor Hughes into the ambulance.
Agent Grant examined the documents.
“These need to be secured immediately.”
A campus officer approached us.
“We found the source of the fire.”
He held up an evidence bag containing the remains of an electronic ignition device.
“It was placed beside the scholarship records.”
“Any fingerprints?” Agent Grant asked.
“Possibly.”
My phone vibrated.
A message appeared from Ethan.
YOU ARE BLAMING THE WRONG PERSON.
A second message arrived.
DAD WILL SACRIFICE ALL OF US TO SAVE HIMSELF.
Then he sent an address.
An abandoned parking structure near the river.
MIDNIGHT.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE ORIGINAL LEDGER.
Agent Grant read the message over my shoulder.
“You are not going alone.”
“He will disappear if he sees police.”
“He may be trying to kill you.”
I looked at the burning archive.
“He already tried to destroy the truth.”
May you like
The final message arrived before I could respond.
ASK MOM WHO REALLY SIGNED THE FIRST TRANSFER.
