Maya paused the video.
A master key. Only faculty and administration had those. How did a sixteen-year-old student have a master key to the faculty desks?
Maya zoomed in on the silver key in the video. Attached to the key ring was a heavy, distinct leather fob bearing a corporate logo: Sterling Real Estate Developments.
Her pulse quickened. Chloe hadn't stolen that key. It had been given to her. And the only person who would have an unrestricted faculty master key with a Sterling corporate keychain was the man who had just paid to build the new science wing: Chloe’s father.
That’s why she smashed it, Maya realized. Chloe must have noticed the tablet recording. She thought the video was stored on the device’s internal memory. She destroyed the tablet to destroy the evidence of her academic fraud.
But there was something else.
Maya minimized the video and searched the SD card’s background files. Because the tablet had been continuously connected to the school's unsecured guest network, Maya’s father had installed an automatic packet-sniffer years ago—a basic security protocol that logged incoming background data.
Maya opened the log file from the exact minute Chloe used the key.
She wasn't a hacker, but she could read plain text emails that had been sent over the open network. There was a copied email from Principal Davis’s account, sent to Richard Sterling at 8:00 AM that very morning.
“Richard, the master keys are in Chloe’s locker as requested. The history and chemistry exams have been placed in the desk drawers. We appreciate your latest $500,000 contribution to the endowment. The board will ensure Chloe’s GPA is adjusted to meet Ivy League requirements before the semester ends.”
Maya sat back in her chair, the air rushing out of her lungs.
It wasn't just Chloe cheating. The principal was selling grades. He was giving a student a master key to rig her exams for half a million dollars.
If this got out, it wouldn't just ruin Chloe. It would destroy Principal Davis, and it would trigger a state investigation into the school's board of directors.