Chapter 9 - The President and the Clock
The emergency board session took place behind glass doors on the administration building's fourth floor.
Students gathered outside with handmade signs demanding an independent investigation.
Some signs carried Bea's words about Liam.
She was grateful but uneasy about becoming a symbol.
"I'm still a person who needs a job," she told Hannah.
Inside, Victor accused Dr. Cruz of damaging the university's reputation by making unverified allegations during graduation.
Cruz admitted he had mishandled the timing of the announcement.
He refused, however, to retract the evidence that Bea's scholarship had been redirected.
A trustee named Amina Soriano asked why the audit had not been opened years earlier.
Victor claimed the matter was confidential and old.
Amina requested a vote to appoint outside investigators.
The motion failed by one vote.
As the board broke for lunch, Bea saw Carmina entering through a private stairwell.
She moved with the assurance of someone accustomed to being invited into rooms where decisions had already been made.
Bea waited outside the meeting chamber.
When Carmina saw her, she stopped.
"You should be home with your son," she said.
"I'd like to be," Bea replied.
"Your family keeps making it difficult."
Carmina's eyes dropped to the red blanket.
"You think a scholarship gives you the right to judge everyone?"
"No."
Bea stepped closer.
"The forged signature does."
Carmina glanced toward the security cameras.
For once she lowered her voice.
"Elena could have left the matter alone."
"She wanted the classrooms built."
"She wanted more than that."
Bea watched Carmina's expression carefully.
"Then tell me."
"Your mother promised she wouldn't involve the next generation."
Before Bea could respond, Victor emerged and drew Carmina aside.
The board resumed without inviting Bea to speak.
By evening Cruz had been placed on administrative leave, and an acting president was appointed.
The university announced that the scholarship review would continue, but made no commitment about who would conduct it.
Hannah told Bea that professors were worried about retaliation.
Jonah received an anonymous message promising damaging photographs of his family if he kept reporting.
At nine that night, Bea's phone received a picture of the blue ledger on a wooden desk.
The attached message read, "If you want this back, come alone."
Bea did not go alone.
She met Daniel at a police station and showed him the message.
He helped her file an incident report and advised her not to answer the sender directly.
Hannah stayed with Liam while the police examined the image.
The desk in the photograph had a carved clock built into its back panel.
Jonah recognized it from promotional photographs of the old Velasco Foundation office.
The building had been converted into an event hall.
Police could not enter solely because a similar desk appeared in an anonymous photograph, but they could seek security footage and interview the building manager.
Bea wanted someone to act faster.
The blue ledger might show where years of missing scholarship money had gone.
Every delay gave whoever held it time to alter or destroy it.
Daniel reminded her that rushing into a trap would not help Liam or Elena.
They spent the afternoon assembling a timeline of money transfers.
One payment caught Bea's attention because its description read REGIONAL EDUCATION INITIATIVE while the recipient was a private property company.
That company had purchased the building where she lived.
"So the threat about my room wasn't random," she said.
Daniel nodded.
"It may be part of a longer pattern."
Amina Soriano called with news from the board.
She had found an archived finance committee report containing a reference to a whistleblower protection agreement signed by Elena and Carmina twelve years earlier.
But the agreement was filed in two separate parts.
Only Carmina's copy appeared in university storage.
Elena's copy had vanished.
"This may be the agreement she keeps mentioning," Amina said.
Bea returned to her mother's letter.
One line now sounded different.
"When the clock strikes six, people hear only the bell, not the gears that make it ring."
Bea had always thought Elena was writing about patience.
Now she remembered the carved clock in the photograph.
The old event hall's clock was scheduled to ring at six every evening.
She forwarded the detail to Daniel, who passed it to the detective handling the report.
That night the building manager admitted there was a hidden compartment in the desk.
When detectives obtained consent to inspect it, the compartment was empty.
They did find one thing.
May you like
A torn paper bearing Bea's name and the date of her graduation.
