it in the middle of the drawer. She tugged it free and placed it on top of the other files.
Her stomach dropped when she opened the file and saw the photo there. It’s my dad. Her heart felt like it had jumped into her throat as she scanned the file and tried to make sense of what she had discovered.
All her life she had been told her father, a deaf man, had met her mother when she was nineteen and looking for work on the outer mining belts. This file proved it was a lie. Her father wasn’t born deaf. He had been injured during a training exercise at the Academy and lost his part of his hearing in his left ear.
Everything she had been told was a lie. Her father hadn’t been working in the mining belts when he met her mother. He had been an engineering instructor here. He was her teacher.
Maisie felt sick. Her father had been in a position of power over her mother. She did the math and realized her mother was only thirteen when her father, a twenty-three year old man, had started his job at the training facility. Her stomach revolted at the possibility that her father was a predator who had groomed a young, impressionable, lonely teenager.
She turned through the pages of the file, skimming the notes until she found the first mention of her mother. She swallowed hard and forced herself to keep reading, even as she feared what she would learn.
Instructor Crow was found in engineering lab after hours with Student Sandrine. Instructor Crow was cautioned and reminded of facility rules and regulations regarding fraternization between students and instructors. Student was disciplined and removed from engineering course.
Maisie looked at the date. Her mother would have been fifteen, almost sixteen, at the time the note was made. She shuddered and skimmed the rest of the notes. There were almost a dozen entries, all of them detailing illicit trysts between her very underage mother and her adult father.
The notes ended with a signed and stamped written warning and notification of an upcoming tribunal for misconduct with a student and misuse of educational funds. There was a receipt attached showing diverted money from the engineering department’s budget. It was a sizable chunk, enough for a new start in a different part of the galaxy.
Maisie’s mind ran wild with conjecture. Was this how her father had started his mining company? By embezzling money from here?
There were more notes attached to the embezzlement charge. Her eyes widened when she saw Randy’s name. He had been arrested by Shadow Force crossing the No Fly zone around the planet. In the cargo hold of his ship, there were stolen items from the school. Items Randy swore he had purchased from her father.
She looked around the destroyed facility and began to tie together snippets of information from her past. What was it her mother had said about Randy? That she owed him a debt? That he had been her father’s friend? Maisie’s stomach turned as she wondered if Randy had been double-crossed by her father. Had her mother paid the price for that? Given herself to Randy to clear that debt?
Maisie had come here looking for answers, but she was leaving with even more questions. She wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to these new questions. Maybe it was true what people said about leaving the past buried.
Confused and upset, she took both files. Out in the hallway, Maisie cautiously approached the wide angular hole in the wall on the far side of the third floor. From here, she could see into the half-collapsed building across the courtyard. At first glance, she didn’t see anything to garner concern. It wasn’t until the clouds shifted and allowed more sunlight into the ruined building that she saw the ship hidden there.
The active camouflage was only discernible because she could see the slight wave and glimmer of the projection in the sunshine. Her belly swooped as she realized they weren’t alone. Oh, shit.
Chapter Twenty-Four
She glanced at the roof but couldn’t see Terror. For a moment, she considered grabbing one of the smaller broken stones littering the floor around her and throwing it at the roof to get his attention. If she missed, the stone would make noise as it clattered to the ground. Drawing attention would be too dangerous.
Knowing she had to get to Terror to warn him they weren’t alone, she crept away from the wall and turned toward the