Page 74 of Anatomy of a Player

“I haven’t sorted through all the emails yet, and some didn’t have names attached, so they’ll need more digging.”

I looked at Dane’s name again. For all I knew, an email from Hudson was somewhere in the mess, too. The entire thing sent a sick heaviness tumbling through me, infecting every organ it touched.

“You can’t be sure every person paid once they found out how much it was, though,” I said. “Or that they even used the information.”

“No, not unless they said so in their emails. But all we need is enough proof to take it to the higher ups and they can deal with it. Telling them how we got the info gets tricky, since how I obtained it is slightly…”

“Illegal?”

“I was going to go with ‘frowned upon,’” Will said. “If I track him enough, though, I’ll find a way to catch him red-handed, don’t you worry.”

Was it bad to hope he couldn’t?

Will nudged my leg. “Where are my cheers? Smile, at least! This is the kind of article with the potential to go national, like all those other scandals Lindsay’s been rattling on about—she’s going to flip out when we tell her about this.”

“Can we not…tell her?”

Will’s fingers froze, and he slowly swiveled his chair to face me. “Come again?”

“I want to check out a few things first. I don’t want to ruin these people’s lives before we have all the facts. Just hold off telling her for a little while.”

“I don’t know, Whitney.”

Panic beat at my senses, and I struggled to find the right words to stop the freight train I’d started but needed desperately to stop. “Think about it. This doesn’t really tie directly into my story. This isn’t the college giving athletes preferential treatment. It’s a different story entirely.”

“Unless we expose it and the regular students get a harsher punishment than the athletes.”

“That’s really reaching, Will. And this could land us both in huge trouble.”

His shoulders slumped. “I know. I was so excited to crack it, though, and I’ve done all this work… I’m going to keep poking around to see if there’s a way to find proof in a more legal manner, but I’ll hold off on telling Lindsay.”

“Thanks.”

Maybe if I dropped the entire story, he’d stop. That was probably wishful thinking, but I was wishing for it anyway. I didn’t want to ruin a bunch of students’ lives. I didn’t like cheating, either, but I knew the pressure a lot of students were under. I’d felt that desperation after receiving a bad grade in a class. I was starting to feel like being a journalist meant dragging everyone down. Where were the stories with true corruption and evil? Where people were 100 percent bad? That would help ease any guilt over exposing their dirty secrets.

Lindsay strolled into the room, a big smile on her face. “Morning! Have you two seen what’s going on?”

I looked at Will and he looked back, and if I appeared anywhere near as guilty as he did, we were screwed.

“A bunch of students are picketing in front of the dean’s offices, demanding equal treatment.” Lindsay tapped my shoulder.“Youstarted this.”

Man, I really wanted to stop getting credit for these kinds of things. The comments online had grown out of control within a day; I could only imagine what would happen if a bunch of athletes went down there and a physical fight broke out. “Have the police been informed? In case it gets violent?”

“Just campus security for now,” Lindsay said. “I’m going to head down there in a few so I can cover it for Monday’s edition, right alongside your article. Are you almost done?”

“About that…”

For the first time, she took a good look at me. She cocked her head to the side. “Why do you look all…verklempt?”

If anything I was more disconcerted. Or guilt-ridden. Okay, I was a hot mess.

“Uh-oh,” Lindsay said. She jerked her head toward her desk. “Follow me.”

I did as instructed, glad it was far enough from Will’s that he wouldn’t hear what I said—he’d tell her about the emails and cheating for sure. She set down her coffee and perched on the edge of her desk so that she faced me. “Start talking.”

“I don’t want to turn all the students against each other,” I said. “That was never my goal. The comments on the survey are horrible and now people are protesting? It’s getting out of control.”

“You created a stir—it’s a good thing. It might mean the higher ups will try to hide a bit more, but we’re ready to go public. Just you wait till your article comes out, then you’ll see how fired up people get.”

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