Part 2 — THE GYM CLOSET

I stared at the tiny photograph.

My mind raced.

Mrs. Parker had acted completely oblivious in the supply closet.

She had been the one to point out the clipboard.

She had feigned outrage.

But this bracelet was hers.

I had seen it on her wrist during a parent-teacher conference last year.

I hadn't remembered until I saw her face in the locket.

She was in on it.

Or she was playing a different game entirely.

I snapped the locket shut and put the bracelet back in my pocket.

“Mom?”

Emily’s voice broke my focus.

“Can we go home?”

“Yes, sweetie. We’re going home right now.”

I drove carefully, keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror.

Dayton is a big enough city, but the suburbs feel small.

Everyone knows everyone.

When we got to our apartment, I locked the deadbolt.

It was 1:30 PM.

I called my boss at the manufacturing plant.

“Tom? It’s Laura. I have a family emergency. I won’t be back in today.”

Tom was a good man.

“Everything okay with Emily?”

“She’s fine. Just school drama. I’ll make up the hours this weekend.”

“Take your time.”

I hung up.

Emily was sitting on the living room rug, her empty backpack beside her.

I sat next to her.

“Listen to me,” I said gently. “You don’t have to go back to that school until this is fixed. Okay?”

She nodded, her shoulders relaxing.

“Are they going to put me in detention?”

“Never.”

I stood up and went to my laptop.

I work in payroll.

I spend forty hours a week tracking money, finding discrepancies, and following paper trails.

People think embezzling is complicated.

It isn’t.

It always leaves a shadow.

I opened a browser and went to the Dayton Community Foundation’s public tax records.

Non-profits have to file a Form 990.

It lists their largest grants and contractors.

I scrolled through the PDF for the previous year.

There it was.

Grant: Educational Support Initiatives — $125,000.

Recipient: West Dayton Elementary District.

A hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

That wasn't just some crayons and notebooks.

That was a massive budget.

And the distribution ledger at the school only accounted for a fraction of that.

Where was the rest of the money going?

I needed to know how the foundation purchased the supplies.

I cross-referenced the foundation's vendors.

One name stood out.

Apex Educational Supply LLC.

They had been paid $85,000 last year by the foundation.

I opened the Ohio Secretary of State business search.

I typed in Apex Educational Supply LLC.

The page loaded.

Registered Agent: David Dalton.

Mrs. Dalton’s husband.

I sat back in my chair.

The room felt suddenly cold.

It was a closed loop.

The Foundation gave money to the school.

The school ordered supplies from Apex.

Apex was owned by the teacher’s husband.

They were buying cheap, substandard supplies, billing the foundation for premium goods, and keeping the difference.

Then they were taking the extra supplies, marking them as "distributed" to kids like Emily, and loading them onto a truck to resell them online.

It was brilliant.

And disgusting.

But why the bracelet?

Why was Mrs. Parker’s bracelet dropped by the gym closet?

My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

I walked over.

Unknown number.

I almost didn't answer.

But my anger outweighed my caution.

“Hello?”

“Laura Bennett.”

It was a woman’s voice.

Low. Raspy.

“Who is this?”

“You took something from the loading pad.”

It was Mrs. Parker.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me, Laura. I saw you pick it up.”

I gripped the phone tightly.

“You’re the counselor. You’re supposed to protect these kids.”

She let out a dry, bitter laugh.

“You have no idea what you’ve walked into. You think this is about a few stolen pencils?”

“I think it’s about Apex Educational Supply. And David Dalton.”

Silence on the line.

Thick, heavy silence.

Then, she whispered.

“You looked it up.”

“I work in payroll, Mrs. Parker. I know how to read a ledger.”

“You need to stop.”

“Or what? You’ll give my daughter another fake red slip?”

“Laura, listen to me.” Her voice cracked. It wasn’t a threat. It was genuine panic. “Mrs. Dalton didn't leave the school because she was scared of you. She left because her husband found out the truck was empty.”

I frowned.

“What do you mean, the truck was empty? I saw the van drive away.”

“The van didn't take the boxes, Laura. The van brought the muscle.”

My heart stopped.

“What muscle?”

“David Dalton owes money to people far worse than the school board. That grant money? He lost it. All of it. The supplies in that closet were his last payment to keep them from hurting his family. But when they opened the door…”

She took a shaky breath.

“The closet was already empty.”

I looked at the window.

“I don’t understand.”

“Someone else took the supplies last night. Before the van got there.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” Mrs. Parker was crying now. “But David’s men think I took them. They’re looking for me. And they saw you at the loading pad.”

A heavy knock rattled my apartment door.

Emily jumped.

I froze.

“Laura?” Mrs. Parker whispered through the phone. “Are you there?”

The knock came again.