Chapter 9 - The Empty Seat
Mrs. Alvarez had not reported to work. Her phone went straight to voicemail, and she hadn't answered Maya's mother's messages either.
Emma imagined the worst. Grant persuaded her to make one call at a time instead of inventing tragedies. Mrs. Alvarez was staying with her sister after a warning about her job and pension.
"She's safe," Maya said, exhaling. "She's just scared."
"Both can be true," Emma replied.
Ruiz asked the district for a protection plan for employees who cooperated. She also warned Emma not to contact every witness herself; doing so could put pressure on people who needed to make their own choices.
Meanwhile, the edited cafeteria video had passed a million views. Strangers called Emma a spoiled billionaire's daughter. Others wanted Olivia expelled and ruined forever. Neither crowd knew Maya, Mrs. Alvarez, or the children waiting for hot lunches.
Emma recorded a statement rejecting the false report and asking people not to harass Olivia. She didn't name the anonymous witnesses. She ended by asking people to stop sharing pictures of students who hadn't consented.
At school the following morning, someone had taped a photograph of her mother to Emma's locker. Underneath it, in block capitals, someone wrote: SHE'D BE ASHAMED.
Emma stood without moving. Her mother had died six years earlier, and now a stranger was borrowing her voice.
Maya tore the paper down. Emma stopped her before she destroyed it. "We need a picture first."
Emma held the locker door while Maya photographed the note. Then Emma went to the counselor and cried harder than she had the day of the attack.
That afternoon Olivia appeared at the counseling office, pale and uncharacteristically alone.
"I didn't put that there," she said.
May you like
Emma didn't answer.
Olivia swallowed. "But I know who did."
