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Delia
About three weeks after I’d told Robert that I needed help with school, I had pretty much forgotten about it. I was curled up on my bed, my laptop open in front of me as I half-heartedly scrolled through my school emails.
I was trying to distract myself—anything to keep my mind off the spiraling mess that my life had become.
But no distraction ever lasted long.
I picked up the phone without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Ms. Sturgess?” The voice on the other end was crisp and professional, immediately cutting through my foggy thoughts. “This is Alan Morris. I’m Robert Hastings’ attorney. Do you have a moment?”
I sat up straighter, my heart thudding in my chest. I gripped the phone tighter as unease prickled at the back of my neck. “Yes! Yes, I have a moment. Thank you for getting in touch with me.”
“Of course. Mr. Hastings made it extremely clear how important this is to him.” Alan cleared his throat. “We’ve been investigating the issue with your missing practicum footage, your recorded hours for the counseling center.”
I had a sinking feeling he was about to tell me that there was nothing to be done, that I’d have a new baby at home and another year of school to go, that my life was over. But he surprised me instead by saying, “I apologize for the wait, but I needed to be completely sure before I told you that this was no accident. As I suspected, there is evidence that someone intentionally singled you out and destroyed those files.”
My heart dropped. I shot to my feet, pacing the small square footage of my room as something beyond panic, something bordering on mania, swelled inside me. “What do you meanintentionally?” I demanded. “But…why? I haven’t done any—”
“I really can’t speak to motive, Ms. Sturgess. In my line of work, people consistently surprise me with their reasoning,” Alan said carefully, “but there is surveillance footage that points to a culprit.”
“Footage,” I repeated blankly. Was he telling me he had video proof of someone doing this to me?
“Yes, footage. We obtained the video today. I’ve sent it to your email. You’ll see it shortly, and I would advise you to be cautious in the meantime. It may be someone you know or someone in a position of power in the clinic or at the university. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“You’re saying that someone close to me might hate me.”
“Well, I don’t know if anyone hates you, but certainly someone will go to extreme lengths to keep you from graduating, whatever their reason for that might be. And they might know you, yes.”
I sat completely still, listening to the ringing in my head. “Okay,” I said quietly, unsure of what else to possibly say.
“I’ll remain available if you have questions or need further assistance. Please check your email when you’re ready.”
I didn’t even say goodbye. I just ended the call and stared blankly at my phone for a long moment, my mind racing.
Someone intentionally sabotaged me.
I grabbed my laptop and clicked over to my email, my hands trembling so badly that I had to re-enter my password twice. My inbox refreshed, and nothing. I checked my junk email, and there it was: a new message from Alan Morris with an attachment.
I hovered my cursor over the email for a long second, staring at the words like they might leap off the screen and strangle me. Part of me didn’t want to open it. I didn’t want to know. Because if it was someone I knew, someone with a position of power…
I swallowed hard and clicked.
A video loaded, agonizingly slow even though it was only a couple of minutes, footage from the office where I’d spent so much time logging hours, but it was completely empty.
And then I saw him.
Jeremy.
Jeremy moved toward the cabinet where the USB drives were kept. Jeremy looked through them and found the zipped bag with my name on the label. Jeremy took that bag over to the clinic’s computer and inserted the USBs one by one.
It wasn’t clear what he was doing, but it didn’t take a genius to know what he was doing. He was deleting the last 192 hours of my sessions.
The air left my lungs in a sharp gasp, and I clapped my hand over my mouth. My vision blurred as I watched him on the screen.
I paused the video to catch my breath, feeling only my pulse pounding in my ears as I stared at the familiar shape of his face.
No.It couldn’t be him. It just couldn’t.