Chapter 10 - The Secret Investigation
|
Early that afternoon, the heavy door to Nora's room pushed open. Nora's college roommate, Maya Chen, stumbled inside carrying an oversized canvas tote bag packed to the brim with soft knitted blankets, expensive lip balm, phone chargers, and three absurdly fluffy pairs of socks.
Maya stopped dead just inside the doorway. Her face completely crumpled the second she saw the wires holding Nora’s jaw together and the horrifying black bruises painting her friend's face.
Nora immediately pointed a warning finger at her, narrowing her bruised eyes.
Maya sniffled loudly, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I'm not crying. Hospital air is aggressively dry.”
Nora weakly picked up her marker and wrote on the board: Liar.
“Rude,” Maya choked out a watery laugh.
For the first time since the call at 11:47 the previous night, watching them bicker, Nora looked almost like her normal self. I felt a knot loosen in my chest.
I stepped into the hallway to give the two girls some privacy to communicate.
Ten minutes later, Maya slipped out of the room looking for me. She wrung her hands together nervously, looking up and down the corridor.
“Mr. Miller?”
Something in her shaky voice made all my instincts flare. “What is it, Maya?”
“I... I think I know why Nora had those names written down.”
I felt my body become completely still. “Tell me.”
Maya swallowed hard, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Those four guys? The ones from the rich families? It wasn't a random mugging. Nora was working on a story.”
“What story?”
Maya glanced nervously toward the closed hospital room door. “She was writing a massive investigative piece for the Wellington student newspaper about missing scholarship money.”
I stared at her in total confusion. “Nora studies environmental economics. Since when does she write for the paper?”
“She writes under a pen name for the Wellington Chronicle,” Maya revealed.
That was entirely news to me. Maya seemed to read the shock on my face.
“She didn't tell you?”
“No.”
“She said you'd worry too much.”
May you like
I let out a harsh sigh. “That sounds exactly like Nora. Tell me about the scholarship.”
“The university announced a new flagship scholarship fund last year. Twenty million dollars. It was heavily publicized, supposed to help first-generation students and students from low-income families afford tuition.” Maya bit her lip. “Except Nora found out some of the money might not be reaching the students at all.”
