Chapter 7 - The Ghost of Westridge High
The dial tone droned in my ear like a mechanical heartbeat, steady and mocking. I dropped the receiver back onto its cradle, my hands trembling slightly against the polished mahogany of the desk.
Forged signatures on the community culinary grant.
The words echoed in my mind, cutting through the triumph of Lauren’s downfall. Helen Gable hadn't just called to gloat; she had fired the opening salvo of a completely different, infinitely more dangerous war. For years, I had poured a percentage of my restaurant group’s profits into the Westridge Community Culinary Grant—a scholarship fund designed to help low-income teenagers from my old neighborhood attend culinary school. It was my way of ensuring no other kid had to claw their way out of poverty the way I had.
If Helen had tampered with those filings, if she had somehow weaponized my mother’s name to implicate me in financial fraud, it wasn't just my reputation on the line. It was everything I had built for the community.
I grabbed my cell phone, bypassing Ethan’s text completely, and dialed Marcus’s direct mobile number.
He answered on the second ring. “Maya? Did something else happen with Pierce?”
“No,” I said, my voice tight and urgent. “Marcus, I need you to pull every public record, state filing, and tax document associated with the Westridge Community Culinary Grant from the past three years. Immediately.”
“The grant?” Marcus’s tone shifted instantly from professional weariness to razor-sharp alertness. “Isn't that the charity foundation you set up in your mother’s honor? Why are we looking at that?”
“Because I just received a call from Helen Gable,” I said, walking to the window and staring down at the morning traffic swirling through the downtown streets. “She claims my mother’s signature on the grant filings was forged to create a paper trail of embezzlement.”
Silence stretched across the line for several long seconds.
“Helen Gable?” Marcus asked, confusion heavy in his voice. “The retired high school counselor? What does she have to do with your corporate filings?”
“She wasn't just a counselor, Marcus. She was the administrative gatekeeper for every scholarship and financial document in our district when I was a teenager. She hated my family, and she’s spent the last seventeen years bitter that I managed to escape the life she mapped out for me.” I gripped the window frame tightly. “If she’s tied into this, she didn't just stumble onto our paperwork. She helped engineer it.”
“Alright,” Marcus said decisively. “I’m looping in our forensic compliance team right now. If someone tampered with state charitable trust filings using your mother’s name, they left a digital trail. Meet me at my office in twenty minutes. We’re going to tear those documents apart line by line.”
I grabbed my coat, threw my bag over my shoulder, and rushed out of the office. But as I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the restaurant and stepped out onto the sidewalk, a sleek black sedan idling by the curb caught my eye.
The tinted window rolled down an inch.
May you like
Inside sat an older woman with sharp, perfectly coiffed silver hair and dark sunglasses, watching me with a cold, predatory smile before the window glided shut and the car slipped seamlessly into the morning traffic.
Helen Gable was already watching.
