along one wall, a desk with two monitors, a framed photograph of a women's track team from what looked like the early '90s, faded at the edges.
Latimore was already there when Zoe arrived, the documents open on her screen, reading glasses on. She looked up when Zoe came in and gestured to the chair across the desk. Zoe sat, put the printed pages on the desk between them. "They named Marcus, too. " Zoe said. "I know.
He published facts, documented facts with sources. I know that, too. " Latimore took her glasses off. "The suit is almost certainly frivolous. Their legal argument has significant holes, but that's not the point of it. And Hector Walter's attorneys know it's not the point of it. " She set the glasses down.
"The point is the postponement. They filed the injunction arguing that the video's spread constitutes defamation, and the university's administration, worried about being named in subsequent action, used it as cover to freeze the disciplinary hearing pending legal clarity, which means my scholarship stays suspended, which means your scholarship stays suspended. You cannot register for next semester until the hearing concludes. " The words landed the way facts land when you already knew them, but needed someone to say them plainly, so you could stop hoping you'd misread. Zoe nodded once and looked at the filing cabinet on the wall for a moment. "There's something else. " Latimore said.
Her tone shifted slightly, careful in a way it hadn't been before. And Zoe looked back at her. Latimore's phone had rung that morning at 8:00 a.m. Selena Dalton, calling from Atlanta. Voice tight and controlled.
She had been watching the coverage from her office. She had been thinking carefully and seriously about the NDA and whether it held the weight Hector Walter's attorneys had always implied it did. She had consulted her own attorney over the weekend, and she had found something. A potential flaw in the agreement's enforceability. A misrepresentation made at the time of signing regarding Brody's disciplinary status at his previous institution.
If the foundational premise of the agreement contained a misrepresentation, the agreement itself might not hold. It was not certain. It was a possibility. But it was real. And then at 9:15 a.m.
A cease and desist letter had arrived at Selena Dalton's office from Hector Walters attorneys. Latimer had called Selena back at 10:00. Selena's voice had been different the second time. Quieter. Pulled inward.