“Aren’t you going to panic?”
I folded my hands.
“No,” I said. “I think someone else is about to.”…
At 8:17, someone pounded on the front door hard enough to shake the framed family photos in the hallway.
Lila’s face changed first.
Dad looked toward the door. “Who is that?”
The pounding came again.
“Open the door, Mara!” Professor Shaw’s voice thundered from outside.
Mom went pale.
I stood slowly.
Lila stepped in front of me. “You called him?”
“My phone is missing.”
Her eyes flicked toward the pocket of her robe.
That movement told Professor Shaw everything when Dad opened the door.
He wasn’t alone.
Beside him stood Dr. Evelyn Mercer, chair of the integrity committee, a university security officer, and Detective Renata Cole from the cybercrime unit.
Lila laughed.
“This is ridiculous.”
Professor Shaw looked past her and saw the broken glasses on the counter.
His expression hardened.
“Where is Mara’s phone?”
Nobody answered.
Detective Cole did not raise her voice. “This morning, an attempt was made to access a university repository using Dr. Voss’s credentials from this address.”
Lila’s smile disappeared.
I was not yet Dr. Voss, but I understood why Cole used the title. She was making it clear whose work mattered.
Dad recovered first. “There must be some mistake.”
“There have been several,” Dr. Mercer said. “Including an attempted transfer of confidential thesis data to an account connected to Miss Lila Voss.”
My mother grabbed the counter.
Lila stared at me. “You set me up.”
“No.”
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
She lunged for the roll of tape as if she suddenly needed something to do with her hands.
Professor Shaw stepped closer. “Mara, can you see well enough to travel?”
“Not safely.”
He nodded to the security officer, who handed me a hard glasses case.
Inside was my spare pair.
Lila looked stunned.
I put them on.
The room snapped back into focus.
“I keep a second pair in my lab,” I said. “Professor Shaw brought them.”
That was the first reveal.
The second came when Detective Cole asked Lila to hand over my phone.
She refused.
Then it rang from her pocket.
Nobody spoke.
She pulled it out.
Dad whispered, “Lila.”
Her voice sharpened. “I was trying to help her! She was going to sign everything away to the university.”
