Chapter 3 - Seven Names
The Financial Aid Office maintained two copies of every scholarship renewal packet.
Maya’s official file was still there.
Her personal copy was missing.
That distinction should have been reassuring.
It wasn’t.
Dean Voss had shown Taylor confidential renewal information before Maya even knew she was under review.
Headmaster Hale suspended Voss pending an investigation.
Taylor lost her senior-prefect privileges immediately.
The school issued no public explanation.
That lasted approximately twenty-three minutes.
By lunch, Hawthorne’s anonymous student forum was full of rumors.
TAYLOR MORGAN SUSPENDED?
SCHOLARSHIP GIRL SET HER UP.
MAYA COLLINS TRYING TO GET PAID.
Jordan read the posts beside Maya in the library.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re reading comments.”
“That counts as doing something?”
“For mental health? Yes.”
Maya shut the laptop.
Her stomach hurt.
She hadn’t eaten since the smashed lunch.
Jordan pushed a granola bar across the table.
“Take it.”
“I’m fine.”
“Maya.”
She took it.
The wrapper sounded too loud in the silent room.
Maya looked toward Jordan.
“Why did you help?”
Jordan frowned.
“Because Taylor threw your backpack down the stairs.”
“No.”
Maya lowered her voice.
“Before that.”
Jordan understood.
“You sent the video to Hale immediately.”
“I’ve been keeping records.”
“Of Taylor?”
“Of complaints.”
Maya stared.
Jordan was part of Hawthorne Current, the student news channel. They edited assemblies and sporting-event footage and maintained parts of the digital archive.
“How many?”
Jordan hesitated.
“More than seven.”
Maya felt cold.
“What kind of complaints?”
“Bullying. Threats. Scholarship comments. People getting frozen out of clubs.”
“Taylor?”
“Usually.”
“Usually?”
Jordan opened a folder.
Screenshots.
Emails.
Anonymous submissions.
One showed Taylor mocking a sophomore’s secondhand blazer.
Another described Taylor telling a scholarship violinist that donor families “paid for the seats people like you borrow.”
Maya’s hands tightened.
“Why didn’t you publish this?”
“Because anonymous complaints aren’t enough.”
“You had video.”
“One video.”
“The other one?”
Jordan looked around.
“We don’t know who sent it.”
“Was it from today?”
“No.”
Jordan opened the file properties.
The video showing Taylor entering Financial Aid had been recorded two months earlier.
Maya frowned.
“But the message said 7:12 a.m.”
“Same time. Different day.”
That changed everything.
Taylor had been inside Financial Aid before.
“What happened two months ago?”
Jordan searched.
Then stopped.
“Amara Fields.”
Maya knew the name.
Everybody did, vaguely.
Amara had been a junior scholarship student, brilliant in mathematics, who transferred to a public school in January.
The official explanation was family relocation.
Jordan showed Maya an archived article.
AMARA FIELDS LEAVES HAWTHORNE MIDYEAR.
“She didn’t relocate,” Jordan said.
“How do you know?”
“She still lives twelve minutes away.”
Maya stared.
“What happened?”
“Three weeks before she left, someone reported her for cheating.”
Maya felt the pattern instantly.
“On what?”
“Calculus exam.”
“Was she guilty?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Taylor bully her?”
Jordan nodded.
“Publicly.”
Maya thought of the staircase.
Scholarship kids are so dramatic.
“You think Amara made the video?”
“Maybe.”
Jordan searched their messages.
“I tried contacting her after she left. She never answered.”
Maya ate half the granola bar without tasting it.
Seven names.
A scholarship conduct review.
A previous scholarship student accused of cheating after Taylor targeted her.
Maybe the staircase wasn’t an isolated cruelty.
Maybe it was a method.
Jordan’s phone buzzed.
Another anonymous message.
THIS DIDN’T START WITH MAYA.
ASK AMARA WHAT HAPPENED IN ROOM 314.
Jordan looked at Maya.
“Room 314.”
Maya knew it.
Dean Voss’s former office.
Before she moved into the administrative wing, Voss had worked in the old humanities building.
Jordan typed back.
WHO ARE YOU?
No response.
Maya said, “Can we contact Amara?”
“We can try.”
Jordan found an old school email.
Inactive.
A debate-team account.
Deleted.
Then Maya remembered something.
“She volunteered at the Westbridge Community Math Center.”
Jordan searched.
The center’s site listed tutors.
Amara Fields.
Saturday afternoons.
Maya looked at the clock.
Thursday.
Two days.
Jordan shook their head.
“We tell Hale.”
“And then?”
“He handles it.”
Maya looked toward the library windows.
Headmaster Hale had known about a complaint against Taylor that morning.
But apparently complaints had existed for months.
Maybe years.
“How much do you trust him?”
Jordan didn’t answer immediately.
“More than Voss.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Jordan closed the laptop.
“Then we bring an adult.”
“My mom?”
“Yes.”
Maya nodded.
That afternoon, Headmaster Hale called Maya back to his office.
Taylor was there with her father.
Richard Morgan looked exactly like every photograph on the donor wall.
Tall.
Immaculate suit.
Controlled expression.
Maya had seen his name on the science center every day.
Now he stood when she entered.
“Maya.”
Sandra was already seated.
Richard turned toward her.
“Mrs. Collins, I want to apologize for my daughter’s behavior.”
Taylor sat rigidly.
Sandra said, “She can apologize herself.”
Richard’s expression barely changed.
Taylor looked at Maya.
“I’m sorry for the staircase.”
Maya waited.
Taylor’s jaw tightened.
“And for what I said.”
Maya asked, “Are you sorry because it was wrong or because Jordan recorded it?”
Richard stepped in.
“That’s enough.”
Maya looked at him.
“No.”
Silence.
Even Taylor stared.
Maya continued.
“You asked me here.”
Headmaster Hale’s mouth almost moved.
Not quite a smile.
Richard sat.
Hale explained that the investigation had already identified six other scholarship students whose records Dean Voss accessed unusually close to disciplinary reports.
Seven names.
Taylor’s list.
Richard turned sharply toward his daughter.
“You never told me this.”
Taylor whispered, “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Taylor looked at Maya.
Then at Hale.
“Because one of those names wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Maya frowned.
“Whose?”
Taylor swallowed.
“Mine.”
Richard Morgan went completely still.
Taylor’s voice shook.
“Dean Voss wasn’t only reviewing scholarship students.”
She looked at her father.
“She was keeping files on donor families too.”
And suddenly Maya realized Taylor had not been helping Evelyn Voss only because she enjoyed power.
Dean Voss had something on Taylor.
May you like
Something serious enough to make the richest student at Hawthorne obey.
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