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I took the paper and scanned it. This itself felt like an impossible task, because my anxiety was through the roof.
It was actually a letter, addressed to what looked like someone in the NYPD. Why had this never come to light? Especially given the circumstances?
Emory Abbot is the worst kind of predator a young girl can come across. It shames and scares me that you would do so little to protect students.
Working with Natasha Finch, Emory Abbot has established a neat little network of spies all over East Harbor.
I knew this the day a female student walked into my office after spending several nights in a drug-induced haze.
She could not speak or form proper words, but I knew she had been abused. It was a textbook case of PTSD . I raised the alarm then, and I was silenced for lack of evidence.
The incidents kept happening. These girls came to me with marks on their hands and faces. They told me they’d had unspeakable things happen to them. I cannot expect documentation and evidence when a young twenty-year-old is drugged out of her mind.
Neither should you. How could you sit in the plush comfort of your chair, knowing that every year, cases like these keep happening? Would you rest easily if it were your daughter?
Would you?
Emory Abbot will not stop targeting the young women at East Harbor. And with Natasha Finch catapulted into the position of the Board’s president, it will give him more power. If you cannot do anything, at least stop this promotion.
Don’t let them win. They may have bought your entire department and all the people sitting over your head. But I know you. I know that once, when you were new to this city, you had a heart. You wanted to do good.
If we, given our roles as guardians of the young, sat back and let evil perpetuate, there would be nothing left. Natasha Finch must be stopped.
Emory Abbot must be stopped.
I looked up as I read the last line. Tears were running down my face. I didn’t know who I was mad at.
Emory Abbot, his aunt, the nameless person to whom this letter was addressed.
I wasn’t even thinking of the professors any longer. This felt... bigger.
“My hunch is that this was addressed to the chief of the department. By the time Emma got embroiled in this case, it might have already reached that level.”
“Isn’t that Orville Butler? Didn’t he get promoted to Deputy Commissioner ?”
“He did. Not too long ago. I think we can both assume the coincidences are way too real and many to ignore.”
“How did Emma get involved? I’m guessing she caught Abbot’s attention.”
“Like a moth to the light. Noah Evans was the first person she went to when Abbot started showing his true colors. Ali told me Emma was in deep with Noah. They were engaged at one point, Rory. I’m sorry. I really am.”
Why did it feel like someone had stabbed my heart with a sword, pulled it out, and done it again, times fifty?
I tried to examine my feelings. It wasn’t because I felt so attached to Noah. I knew he came with a past. That didn’t bother me. What did was that he’d hidden something so stark from me.
Especially when I’d given himsomany opportunities to talk to me. I’d literally... he could have told me. You wouldn’t keep these things from someone you professed to care about, would you?
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re going down that road again, Rors. And I want you to stop. Blot it out until you know everything.”
It wasn’t easy. Not when I wanted to call Noah and whack him on the head.
I wasn’t bleeding because he’d kept a secret. No. It hurt becausehe was bleeding without me.I could have... I would have held him and told him it would be okay. Not okay, but that we’d figure out a way to destroy that monster together.
Because I’d already established that bit in my head.
I was going to destroy that man.
“What did he do to her?” I asked, my voice hoarse. The coffee tasted like something sour, putrid. It stuck to the back of my tongue. I felt like I’d be sick any second.
