Freshman Just Wanted Dinner — Until Three Bullies Made a Mistake That Cost Them Everything
Chapter 29
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Carol looked at her. "That is the sequence that the evidence supports. Yes," Carol said. "But there is something else."She turned one of the open folders toward Claire. "I looked into the call Tyler made.""You can see who he called?""Not through official channels, not yet. But I have a record of calls made from a campus landline in the men's restroom at Miller's Diner Friday night." She paused. "The diner uses a landline system for staff communication that routes through a shared building account. Tyler's personal cell made the call from the restroom, but the building's communication log recorded the tower ping."Claire looked at the folder. The call had been made to a number ending in four digits that meant nothing to her. Carol pointed to a line below it."That number belongs to James Weston," Carol said.The room was quiet."Tyler called his uncle," Claire said. "From the diner.""Before he did anything to you." Carol sat back. "This was not impulsive. Tyler saw your sticker, he called James, he got an answer, then he came back to the table and proceeded."Claire thought about the look on Tyler's face when he had first seen the sticker—that three-second expression of recognition, not surprise. Recognition."James Weston knows who I am," Claire said."He knows whose granddaughter you are," Carol said quietly. "And I believe that is precisely why you were targeted."Claire sat very still. "He wants to restructure the scholarship fund," she said. "That's what this is about."Carol looked at her carefully. "What makes you say that?"Claire opened her bag. She pulled out the manila envelope. She set it on Carol's desk."My grandmother left something for me," she said. "At the diner, thirty-five years ago."Carol opened the envelope. She read. She read slowly, carefully, the way lawyers read things: line by line. She read the letter first, and then the gift agreement, and then the codicil, and then she went back and read paragraph seven twice. She set the documents down. She looked at Claire."How long have you had this?" she said."Since Monday evening," Claire said. "I went to the diner after my afternoon class.""You have been sitting on this since Monday?" Carol said."I needed to understand what it meant before I used it," Claire said. "My grandmother's language in paragraph seven. Three students in eighteen months. Tyler calling James Weston on Friday night. It all points to the same thing: James wants to redirect the fund; he has been systematically clearing out scholarship students who might push back; and when I showed up, he had Tyler move on me before I could understand what I was standing in the middle of."Carol was very still. "Claire," she said."Yes?""What you have just described would constitute a deliberate breach of a legal gift agreement by a sitting member of the board of trustees." She paused. "And if it is a breach, the remedy clause allows the donor's heir to seek legal remedy."