Elena stared at the access log for a long time.
“That account shouldn’t exist.”
Tessa crossed her arms. “It exists.”
“I coached at Vale Athletics nine years ago. I left after one season.”
Maya looked between them. “You never told me that.”
“It wasn’t relevant.”
“Apparently it is now.”
Elena enlarged the login details. The account name was hers, but the access had come from a device registered inside Vale Athletics.
“I haven’t been inside that gym in nine years,” she said.
Tessa’s expression shifted.
“What?”
“My father said you were fired.”
Elena gave a humorless laugh. “Of course he did.”
Maya had heard the name Richard Vale for years. Former champion. Gym owner. Tessa’s father. A man commentators described as relentless, brilliant, impossible to please.
“What happened?” Maya asked.
Elena closed the laptop.
“Richard and I disagreed about how young athletes were being pushed. I left.”
Tessa’s face hardened. “That’s not what happened.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That you falsified training reports.”
Elena looked genuinely stunned.
Maya felt the story changing beneath her feet.
A security guard appeared at the far end of the hallway and asked them to clear the area. They moved into an empty practice room.
Tessa shut the door.
“My dad has been acting strange since the server breach,” she said. “He keeps asking whether I told anyone about the routine.”
Maya frowned. “Why would he care if you told people about your own choreography?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena opened the laptop again. “Can you access the raw server records?”
“My father can.”
“Anyone else?”
“Our operations manager. And me, technically.”
“Then someone with internal access used my old account as a mask.”
Tessa’s phone buzzed.
She read the message and went still.
Maya noticed. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Tessa.”
Tessa turned the screen over.
Too late. Maya had seen the sender.
DAD.
Tessa finally showed them.
The message contained one sentence:
DO NOT SPEAK TO ELENA WARD AGAIN.
Maya stared at it.
Then a second message arrived.
And definitely do not tell her what happened in Denver.
Elena’s face lost all color.
Maya looked at her coach.
“What happened in Denver?”