She gives me a deadpan look. “You and I both know that’s Doherty.”
“Harper’s not wrong,” Declan says.
I don’t doubt it either, actually.
Quin arrives thirty seconds later, and Declan looks at him with a frown. “You don’t ever run whenIneed something.”
Quin winks at him. “Sure I do.” Declan scowls at him. “I was at the café.”
Like I did with Harper, I wave him around behind my computer. Harper moves aside so he can read it. “Don’t confront him,” Quin says as he takes a step back, frowning at my screen.
“You think it’s Doherty too, don’t you?” Harper says.
Quin raises one shoulder. “Given what I’ve seen, yes. I don’t doubt there might be other reasonable suspects, but at the moment and given what everyone’s seen, I’d say it’s Doherty. However, we don’t know that for certain, and even if we did, this is a threat and needs to be dealt with as such.”
“It’s not a threat,” I begin.
“It’s a threat,” Quin says. “Just because it’s not a physical threat doesn’t make it any less of a threat.”
“Then what do I do? Tell me, because I’m so fucking wrung out and exhausted that whatever decision I make is going to be made on emotion, and that’s not what I need right now.”
Quin pulls one of the chairs around and sits. “Look at me.” It truly feels like a struggle, but I raise my eyes to him. “Do you have everything you need to prove your case printed?”
“Most of it, yeah.”
“Including moving some of your responsibilities with the team to Harper.”
“Yes. We wrote up a temporary transfer of responsibilities and both signed it,” I say.
“Good. Gather it all together and put it into an envelope.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
I hood my eyes but lean back and pull open my drawer. I print the email out as well as a couple documents that Roux sent me. Harper leaves the room to get a large envelope, and it isn’t long before I have it all together.
“I feel like I’m blackmailing someone,” I mutter.
“When in fact, you’re the victim of said blackmail,” Declan says.
Well, that feels heavy.
“Now listen to me,” Quin says, and I meet his eyes again. “I want you to go to the dean of athletics and give him much the same speech you gave the team—concise and only the facts that he needs to know. You’re also going to present the video from yesterday and the email from this morning. There’s only one thing you need to decide before you head there.”
I tense, knowing that I’m not going to like this.
“You need to have a plan for every scenario they might present you with as the outcome.”
I drop my face into my hands. Yep. I don’t want to hear that.
“You already know the answers to all of them,” Declan says. “You know what you’re willing to do and what you refuse to allow to happen. As for Doherty, I think you know how we all feel.”
Quin nods. “Remove him from the team, and if this email proves to be from him, charge him with harassment or blackmail or whatever it is you can charge him with. You have an entire team that needs to understand that there are consequences to their actions as well as what happens when you throw a fit when you’re not getting your way as an adult.”
“I really hate all of this. I wish I had a twin to do it for me.”
Declan snorts. “No, you don’t. Someday, ask him about theday Zarek yelled at him on campus because he thought Damon was me. Talk about awkward for everyone involved.”
