“Just come,” she said, and hung up.

I arrived at the school ten minutes later.

I slipped through the side doors, my boots squeaking on the linoleum.

The hallway was quiet, the students all in their third-period classes.

I found Mrs. Gable’s office. She was waiting for me at the door, her face pale.

She pulled me inside and locked the door behind us.

Sitting on her desk was a classic green marble composition notebook.

“A student left this in the computer lab yesterday,” Mrs. Gable whispered, her hands trembling as she pointed at it. “The teacher thought it was just a regular school notebook and brought it to me. I started flipping through it to find a name so I could return it.”

She opened the cover.

The first page was filled with detailed drawings of the school’s layout.

There were small red X marks next to the gym, the cafeteria, and the main entrance.

And on the next page, written in thick, black block letters, were lists of names.

Toby’s name was at the very top of the first list, circled in red ink.

But it was the handwriting that made my jaw lock.

It was the exact same handwriting from the yellow scrap.

The thick, heavy block letters, the way the “Y” had a slight curve at the bottom, the sharp lines of the “M.”

“Who does this belong to?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Mrs. Gable looked at the locked office door, then back at me.

“The student who wrote this notebook has been coming to see me for anxiety for months,” she said, her voice dropping even lower. “He’s been incredibly hostile lately. I tried to flag his behavior three weeks ago. I wrote a formal report and submitted it to the administration.”

She paused, swallowing hard.

“But the report was deleted from the school database. And the reason nobody caught this sooner is because the student’s mother is the vice principal. Diane.”

I stood there, and my brain genuinely stopped working for a second.

Diane.

The woman who had sat across from me and talked about my “unstable home life.”

The woman who was currently trying to expel my son to protect her own family’s reputation.

She had seen Mrs. Gable’s report three weeks ago.

She knew her son was struggling, that he was dangerous, and instead of getting him help, she had deleted the record.

And when she found out a threat note had been found, she had used my son as a convenient scapegoat to keep the spotlight off her own child.

“Where is Diane?” I asked, my voice suddenly very steady.

“She’s in her office,” Mrs. Gable said, looking terrified. “She doesn’t know I have the notebook yet.”

I didn’t wait.

I grabbed the green notebook off the desk, unlocked the door, and walked down the hallway.

I didn’t run, but I walked with a purpose I hadn’t felt in days.

I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the administrative office.

Diane’s secretary started to stand up, but I walked right past her and shoved Diane’s office door open.

She was sitting at her desk, typing on her computer.

She looked up, her expression immediately turning into that familiar, condescending smirk.