Chapter 9 - Rook17
Rook17 turned out not to be an adult.
That almost made it worse.
His name was Aaron Vance.
Seventeen years old.
Vice Principal Grant Vance’s son.
Emma had seen him hundreds of times without ever noticing him.
Aaron took advanced-placement classes, ran cross-country, worked stage crew, and rarely appeared in Madison’s public circle.
He was the kind of student teachers described as dependable.
Police identified him through recovered account login records and a backup email attached to the Scoreboard administrator profile.
When word reached the school, everyone reacted the same way.
Aaron?
Detective Vega did not discuss his interview with Emma.
But enough information emerged through lawyers and school notices to clarify the structure.
Scoreboard had begun eighteen months earlier as a private challenge group created by Aaron, Kyle, Madison, and four others.
At first, the group awarded meaningless points for pranks.
Embarrassing photos.
Stolen lunch seats.
Fake invitations.
Cruel, but not organized extortion.
Then Aaron changed the rules.
He created the payment ledger.
Madison expanded the victim list.
Kyle edited videos.
Others supplied material.
The system grew.
So did the money.
“What I don’t understand,” Emma told Zoe, “is why Madison would listen to Aaron.”
They were sitting outside the counseling office during free period.
Zoe looked around before answering.
“Because Aaron had access.”
“To Vance’s computer?”
“To everything.”
“His father knew?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma hated that answer.
Too many people didn’t know.
Or claimed not to.
The district investigator interviewed Howard for nearly four hours.
Vance remained on leave.
Dana Reed stopped appearing in public.
Madison’s attorney filed a motion asking police to return her seized phone, arguing the search exceeded proper scope.
The court denied immediate return while evidence was being preserved.
Emma learned all of this from Claire, who insisted on reading every official notice.
“Don’t turn this into revenge,” Claire warned one night.
Emma looked up from homework.
“I’m not.”
“You’re checking updates every ten minutes.”
“I want to know what happens.”
“So does Lucy.”
Emma glanced toward the living room, where her sister was laughing at a baking competition on television.
“What should I do?”
“Be her sister.”
Emma shut the laptop.
That became harder the next day.
Someone taped printed screenshots of Lucy’s Scoreboard messages to her locker.
Not the threatening ones.
Her response.
One showed Lucy writing:
You people are disgusting.
Another:
Madison, everyone already knows you’re fake.
The point was obvious.
Make Lucy look aggressive.
Make her partly responsible.
Lucy tore the papers down with shaking hands.
Emma found her in the restroom.
“I shouldn’t have written that.”
“You were angry.”
“They’re going to say I started it.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
Emma understood the fear.
The same strategy had been used on her.
Find one ugly moment.
Remove context.
Turn the victim into a participant.
Emma gathered every scrap of paper.
“We give these to Ms. Alvarez.”
“What if she thinks—”
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we tell the whole truth.”
Lucy looked at her.
“Even if I said something mean?”
“Especially then.”
They reported the incident.
Security footage identified the student who placed the pages.
A freshman named Derek Sloan.
When administrators questioned him, Derek admitted he had received the images through an encrypted message.
From Aaron Vance.
Aaron was under instructions not to contact potential witnesses.
That became a new problem for his attorney.
But the message contained something more important.
Aaron had written:
Push back hard. Madison’s family is bailing and we need pressure on Parker before D talks.
Emma read the sentence twice when Detective Vega showed it to Claire.
“Who is D?”
“We’re investigating.”
“Dana?”
“Maybe.”
“Then what does ‘before D talks’ mean?”
Vega shook her head.
“We don’t know.”
Emma hated the phrase again.
But that evening, the uncertainty broke.
Principal Howard called Claire.
Dana Reed had requested a meeting.
Not through her attorney.
Privately.
Claire refused.
“Anything she says can go through Detective Vega.”
Howard replied, “She says that’s exactly why she wants the meeting.”
Emma stood in the kitchen listening.
Claire’s expression hardened.
“No.”
There was a pause.
Then Howard said something Emma couldn’t hear.
Claire looked at her daughters.
“What?”
Emma mouthed.
Claire put the phone on speaker.
Howard’s voice filled the kitchen.
“She says she has information about Grant Vance.”
Claire folded her arms.
“Then she should tell police.”
“She says she will.”
“Good.”
“But she says there’s something you need to understand first.”
Emma’s pulse quickened.
“What?”
Howard was silent for a beat.
“Dana claims the fundraiser money was used without her knowledge.”
Emma frowned.
“That’s convenient.”
Howard continued.
“But she also says she knows who first discovered it.”
“Who?”
The answer made Emma’s stomach drop.
“Maya Chen.”
Emma thought of the girl forced out of school months earlier.
The girl everyone had called too sensitive.
The girl nobody had believed.
Howard continued.
“Dana says Maya wasn’t targeted because of an embarrassing video.”
Emma went still.
“She was targeted because she found evidence.”
The room became silent.
“What evidence?” Claire asked.
Howard answered quietly.
“Evidence that someone inside Westbridge had been stealing from the fundraiser long before Scoreboard started collecting money.”
And suddenly Madison’s threats against Maya had a different purpose.
They hadn’t only been cruelty.
May you like
They had been camouflage.
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