"You’re working for them," I whispered, the betrayal burning in my throat. "Maya trusted you."
Miller didn't blink. He just adjusted his utility belt, stepping calmly toward the door to unlock the deadbolt. "Maya was a smart girl. She took the tuition money and started a new life. You'd do well to be just as smart, Leo. Go back to class. Take some photos for the yearbook. Pretend this never happened."
"He left his own brother to die," I said, my voice cracking.
"And exposing him won't bring Ryan back," Miller replied coldly. "It will only destroy a family that provides half the jobs in this town. Including your mother’s. Have a good afternoon."
He opened the door. I didn't say another word. I practically ran out into the hallway, my backpack slapping against my spine.
I burst through the school’s front doors, ignoring the security guard shouting at me for leaving during fifth period. I just needed to run. I sprinted across the student parking lot, down the street, until my lungs burned and my legs felt like lead.
I collapsed onto a wooden bench in the municipal park, miles away from the high school.
I was at the absolute bottom.
I put my head in my hands. The evidence was gone. Shattered into a hundred pieces of useless glass and plastic under a corrupt cop’s boot. Chase had won. Mayor Harding had won. If I pushed any harder, my mom would go to jail on fake charges, and we’d lose everything.
I sat there for two hours, watching ordinary people walk their dogs, unaware of the poison running beneath the streets of their town.
I needed to give up.
But I couldn't stop hearing Maya's screams on that audio recording. I couldn't stop seeing Chase’s arrogant smile in the alleyway.
I forced myself to think. I replayed the timeline of the pink phone in my head.
When I first plugged the phone into the charger in the darkroom, before the barrage of text messages flooded in, I had seen a small icon in the top right corner of the screen. A tiny cloud with a syncing arrow.
Maya’s phone was connected to a cloud backup account.
I sat up straight on the park bench. If her phone backed up automatically when it hit the school’s Wi-Fi, the audio recording might exist on a server. But to access it, I would need her account email and password.
I pulled my cheap laptop out of my bag and opened it on my lap, connecting to the park's public Wi-Fi.
I remembered her email from the contact info I briefly scanned: [email protected].
I typed it into the cloud login portal. I hit "Forgot Password."
The screen loaded a security question.
What is Ryan’s sanctuary?
My heart hammered. Ryan’s sanctuary. Maya had set the password hint to something only she or Ryan would know. Something deeply personal.
I thought about the memorial assembly the school held for Ryan. People had given speeches. I recalled the football coach talking about Ryan’s dedication, his work ethic. But I also remembered a brief speech given by Mayor Harding.
He had complained, jokingly, that he could never find Ryan on weekends because the boy was always out at the lake, fixing up that old, rotting wooden boathouse the family owned on the north shore.
Lake Lawson.
My mom's words from this morning hit me like a physical blow. The town is clearing out the old boathouses to build luxury condos. Mayor Harding is pushing up the timeline.
Why the sudden rush to demolish his own family’s old property?
Unless Maya hadn't run away out of state. Unless Maya had hidden the physical backup—a hard drive, an SD card, a laptop—in the one place she knew Ryan loved, knowing Mayor Harding never went there. And now, the Mayor was tearing the boathouses down to ensure no stone was left unturned.
I slammed my laptop shut and shoved it into my bag.
I rented one of the city’s electric scooters and rode it all the way out to the north shore of Lake Lawson. The wind coming off the water was biting, carrying the smell of wet pine and decay.
The north shore was isolated, accessible only by a cracked dirt road heavily rutted by recent construction trucks. The Harding boathouse was at the far end of the property line, half-submerged in the dark water, its wooden siding gray and peeling. Yellow condemnation tape was wrapped around the entrance. A bulldozer was parked fifty yards away, sitting idle for the evening.
I ducked under the yellow tape and approached the heavy, weathered door. It was padlocked, but the wood around the hinges was entirely rotted. I wedged a piece of rusted metal piping into the gap and pried. The wood splintered with a loud crack, and the door swung open.
Inside, it was pitch black and smelled of mildew.
I clicked on my phone’s flashlight, sweeping the beam over the dusty interior. Old canoes, canvas tarps, and rotting life jackets were piled in the corners.
"Who's there?"
The voice was thin, terrified, and came from the shadows of the loft above.
I froze, aiming my light upward.
A girl was standing near the edge of the wooden loft. She looked terrible. Her clothes were dirty, her hair matted, and she was clutching a heavy steel wrench in her hands.