Everyone Ignored Her… Until The Dean Read Her Final Letter
Chapter 8
Charles Whitmore arrived at the federal office with six lawyers.
He was calm.
Confident.
Expensive.
Emily sat across from him.
“You wanted to meet me.”
Charles smiled.
“You remind me of your father.”
Emily frowned.
“My father?”
“He was an accountant.”
“How do you know him?”
“I knew him well.”
Emily’s heart began racing.
“My father worked in Ohio.”
“So did I.”
Charles leaned forward.
“Years ago, he discovered financial irregularities in a company I owned.”
Emily stared.
“What happened?”
“He threatened to expose me.”
“Did you hurt him?”
Charles’s expression changed.
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“Someone else did.”
Emily felt cold.
“My father died in a car accident.”
Charles nodded.
“I know.”
Emily stared at him.
“You knew?”
“Your father was investigating the same network you’re investigating now.”
She opened her notebook.
“Then why did nobody tell me?”
“Because you were seventeen.”
Emily’s voice hardened.
“You knew I would find it eventually.”
“Yes.”
“Then why threaten me?”
Charles sighed.
“I didn’t.”
“Who did?”
He looked toward the lawyers.
“That’s the problem.”
Charles explained that the network had become larger than he intended.
People had taken control.
He had tried to withdraw.
They threatened his family.
They threatened his businesses.
Then they threatened Emily.
“Who?”
Charles gave her a name.
Victor Hale.
A former federal contractor who had built a private intelligence network.
Emily recognized the name.
It appeared in her father’s notebook.
She opened it.
There was a single note beside his name.
Never trust him.
Emily looked up.
“Where is Victor?”
Charles smiled sadly.
“That’s what everyone wants to know.”
The meeting ended.
But Emily finally understood something.
Her father hadn’t died because he had discovered one corrupt university.
He had died because he had discovered the entire network.
And Emily had unknowingly continued his investigation.
That night, she returned to the old library.
She sat at the same desk where she had written her first notes.
Sarah found her there.
“What are you doing?”
Emily closed the notebook.
“Finishing what my father started.”
Sarah sat beside her.
“You don’t have to.”
Emily smiled.
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Emily looked around the empty library.
“Because someone has to.”
