Chapter Ten #2
Maren glanced at Emmett. “It needs to be something Owen thinks could damage him professionally.”
Emmett looked toward his phone.
The suspension.
The contract offer.
The accusation that he had been fixated on Piper for months.
There was one truth Owen did not know.
Graham did.
Griffin did.
Possibly the athletic director.
Piper did not.
He had planned to tell her eventually.
Not during an investigation.
Not with six people listening.
Emmett looked at Piper.
“Write that I requested a transfer from Ridgeview in May.”
The room fell silent.
Piper stared.
“What?”
“I asked the athletic department about entering the transfer portal.”
Griffin closed his eyes briefly.
Maren looked at him.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
Piper did not look away from Emmett.
“Why?”
He could lie.
He could offer hockey reasons. Ice time. Professional development. Coaching systems.
All of them contained pieces of truth.
None were the answer.
“I thought I needed distance from Lake Briar.”
“Because of Owen?”
“No.”
“Because of me?”
The question came quietly.
Everyone else disappeared.
Emmett held her gaze.
“Yes.”
Piper’s face revealed nothing.
He continued because stopping would make the confession worse.
“You were with him. I was spending the summer watching you plan events, defend him, and pretend everything was fine.”
“So you were going to leave.”
“I considered it.”
“Did you apply?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Emmett looked down at the table.
“The transfer deadline passed.”
“That is not why.”
“No.”
Piper waited.
He could feel Griffin watching.
Emmett did not care.
“You climbed onto the rental office roof during the storm.”
Her brow furrowed.
“The banner.”
“Yes.”
“That was in May.”
“Two days before the deadline.”
“You decided to stay because I made poor ladder choices?”
“I decided leaving would not make me stop wanting you.”
Piper’s breathing changed.
Tyler made a quiet sound.
Griffin pushed the office door closed in his face.
Piper looked at the document.
“You want me to write that?”
“Write that I considered transferring because of an inappropriate emotional attachment to you.”
Her eyes snapped toward him.
“That is not how I would phrase it.”
“It is how Owen will.”
The hurt crossed her face before she hid it.
Emmett regretted the wording.
Not the truth.
“I did not think wanting you was inappropriate,” he said.
“You thought it was enough to leave the school.”
“I thought staying might make me interfere.”
“You did interfere.”
“At the gala.”
“And with the tire.”
“The tire was flat.”
“That is not emotional interference.”
“It felt important.”
Her mouth moved despite herself.
Good.
He needed that.
Piper typed:
Emmett considered transferring from Ridgeview because he believed his feelings for Piper had become a distraction.
Emmett looked at the sentence.
It felt too honest to be bait.
Perhaps that made it effective.
Piper saved the file.
Everyone watched the device activity dashboard.
Nothing happened.
One minute.
Two.
Five.
Tyler knocked against the office door.
“Can I breathe inside again?”
“No,” Griffin said.
Piper refreshed the page.
The old MacBook remained active.
Then the new folder changed.
Accessed one minute ago.
Maren leaned closer.
“He opened it.”
Piper’s fingers moved over the keyboard.
“He opened the document.”
Emmett felt no satisfaction.
Only a cold understanding of how closely Owen had been watching.
“What now?” he asked.
“We wait to see what he does with it.”
Piper closed the dashboard.
Daniel called fifteen minutes later.
She placed the phone on speaker after introducing everyone.
“The digital forensics team has preserved the available logs,” Daniel said. “Do not disconnect the laptop yet. We are preparing notices to your financial institutions, vendors, and clients.”
“Will the trap file matter legally?” Piper asked.
“If Owen uses information from it, yes. It strengthens the unauthorized-access claim.”
“What about the laptop itself?” Emmett asked.
Daniel’s tone became cautious. “It belongs to Piper.”
“It is inside Owen’s apartment,” Piper said.
“Possibly.”
Emmett looked at her.
“Possibly?”
“I left it there. He could have moved it.”
Daniel continued. “The device location service may help, but do not attempt to retrieve it yourselves. I am contacting local law enforcement.”
Emmett felt Piper look at him.
He kept his face neutral.
“I heard him,” he said.
“Good,” she replied.
“I dislike being supervised.”
“You require it.”
Daniel cleared his throat.
“There is another concern.”
Piper’s humor disappeared.
“What?”
“The old laptop was connected to your business email. We found forwarding rules created three months ago.”
“What kind of rules?”
“Copies of messages containing certain words were automatically sent to an external address.”
Emmett leaned closer.
“What words?”
Daniel read from the report.
“Emmett. Ridgeview. Breakup. Counseling. Contract. Client concern. Infidelity.”
The room went silent.
Piper’s face lost color.
“He was searching my email for Emmett’s name.”
“For at least three months,” Daniel said.
Emmett looked at her.
Piper wrapped one arm around herself.
“He knew every time I mentioned you.”
“Yes.”
“He knew before the golf club message.”
“Possibly.”
“What was the external address?”
“The account is anonymized, but the forensics team is tracing it.”
Piper stood and walked toward the rear window.
Emmett wanted to follow.
He waited.
“Daniel,” she said, “how much of my business could he have copied?”
“All of it.”
Her shoulders rose with one slow breath.
“Can I still hold tomorrow’s interview?”
Emmett turned toward her.
Daniel paused.
“Legally, I recommend postponing.”
“No.”
“Piper.”
“If I postpone, Owen controls the reason.”
“You are facing a serious privacy and business breach.”
“I know.”
“The interview platform may not protect you.”
“I know.”
“You could expose yourself to additional legal risk.”
“I know.”
Emmett heard the determination in every repetition.
He also heard exhaustion.
“Can she attend with counsel?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Can the producer agree in writing not to air unverified material?”
“We can demand it.”
“Can we require Owen’s submissions in advance?”
“We can try.”
Piper looked back at Emmett.
He did not tell her to cancel.
He wanted to.
Instead, he was helping build the conditions under which she could choose to proceed.
The realization shifted something in her expression.
“Prepare the demands,” she told Daniel.
“I will.”
The call ended.
Maren returned to Piper’s side.
“We should move the planning meeting somewhere private.”
“Brennan’s cabin,” Griffin said.
“Reporters know we are there,” Emmett replied.
“My parents’ old lake house,” Ava offered. “No one has used it since June. The driveway is behind the state road, and there is no public dock.”
Piper nodded.
“Good.”
They packed the laptops, copied the logs, and left Briar Bean through the rear delivery entrance.
Emmett rode with Griffin because Piper needed to speak privately with Maren.
He did not like it.
He accepted it.
Progress was irritating.
Ava’s family lake house sat fifteen minutes beyond the main Lake Briar cabins, hidden behind oak trees and an overgrown gravel drive. The small two-story house faced a quiet inlet with no neighboring buildings in sight.
They settled around the dining table.