This is serious criminal behavior. We could arrest her right now. Juvenile detention, a criminal record. Claudia looked at the emails with mounting horror.

Amara, what did you do? I didn't send those, Amara said immediately. I've never emailed her. This is fabricated, Detective Morrison gave her a skeptical look.

The emails came from an account that accessed public Wi-Fi networks near your school. The language matches the accusations you made at the Thornwell gala. You have motive and opportunity. But Amara was thinking fast.

She pulled out her phone, hands shaking, and opened the voice recording app. She had started recording everything after Marcus received his threatening text. Please, Dr. Vandermir, can you explain your authentication process?

What specific tests did you run on Mr. Pos's process? Thornwell's Monet to verify its age. Vandermir, confident in her position and dismissive of a child's questions, answered in detail, perhaps thinking it would make her look more credible to the officers.

She described testing procedures, referenced specific scientific methods, and then trying to demonstrate her expertise, began explaining why the accusations were nonsense. That child claimed the paint composition was wrong, but Leonard Price was a master craftsman. He knew exactly which materials to use. Amara's heart hammered.

Leonard Price, the supposed master forger. How did you know his name? His connection to the paintings was never made public. The officers looked confused.

Detective Morrison frowned at Vandermir. Ma'am, how did you know that name? Vandermir's face went pale as she realized her mistake. She had just revealed knowledge that she shouldn't have unless she was involved.

I read about him in reports the investigation. She was floundering now. He was There were rumors. Amara pressed further, her phone still recording.

And you just said he was paid well for his work before his unfortunate death, but officially there's no evidence he created forgeries. The NYPD ruled his death a suicide with no connection to art fraud. So, how do you know he was paid? How do you know about his work?

Vandermir lunged for Amara's phone, trying to grab it. The officers instinctively stepped between them, suddenly uncertain about who the real criminal was in this situation. Amara had already backed up the recording to cloud storage, her hands moving quickly across her phone. Dr.

Vandermir, breathing hard, straightened her designer suit and tried to regain composure. That recording is illegal. Whatever that girl thinks she caught, it won't hold up in any court. And she pointed a shaking finger at Amara.

You have no idea what you're dealing with. These people will destroy you. They have already destroyed you. You're just too stupid to realize it.

The officers escorted everyone outside to continue the discussion on neutral ground, but the dynamics had shifted. Detective Morrison was now looking at Vandermir with suspicion rather than deference. After they left, Claudia sat down heavily, her hands shaking. They're going to kill us.

People with that much power, that much money. They don't let people like us win. Marcus texted Amara minutes later. His apartment had been broken into. nothing taken except his laptop and all the physical research materials.

They knew exactly what to take, which meant they had been watching him closely enough to know what evidence he'd gathered. The threat was escalating from intimidation to violence. They were running out of time and options.

That night, lying awake in the dark, Amara made a decision. They couldn't fight this alone. They needed someone with power, with resources, with the ability to protect them. They needed someone who couldn't be bought or intimidated.

She thought of Sophia Laurent, an investigative journalist whose work she had followed obsessively. Laurent specialized in exposing white collar crime, particularly corruption in the art world. She had brought down auction house executives, exposed money laundering schemes, and revealed fraud at prestigious museums. If anyone could help them, it was Laurent.

Using a secure email account, Amara sent Laurent everything, the recordings, the documents Marcus had gathered, the information about Maya Price and her father's murder, the financial records showing the scope of the fraud. She included her own observations about the paintings, her linguistic analysis of the forged provenance documents, everything. Then she waited, knowing that this was either their salvation or their final mistake.

Two hours later, her phone rang from an unknown number. A woman's voice, crisp and professional, asked, "Is this Amara Bennett?" Laurent had gotten the message. Sophia Laurent turned out to be a sharp-eyed woman in her early 50s with silver streaked black hair and an intensity that reminded Amara of a predator.