LOGIN"Clara, if we divorce I promise that you will never see Luke again!" A cold smile ran from ear to the other, curling my scarlet lips, "Who says I'm fighting for custody anyways? I'm kicking both you and your son out of my life." In a former life cut short, Clara Winston had been the perfect wife-obedience and selflessness wrapped with a ribbon of loyalty. But after eight years her husband's first love, her twin sister Cassie returns because she needed a kidney donor, both him and her stepson pressured Clara to offer hers. Then after she saved Cassie's life she bled to death losing her own. She opens her eyes to a second chance, a second shot at life and this time she will be no one's doormat.
View MoreClara's POVEdmund called at noon."Adrian has independently verified the discrepancy at all four anchor points," he said. "The fourth point shows progressive failure. He has already reported to the council chair and the infrastructure authority."I exhaled slowly."The barrier?" I said."The authority is sending an emergency assessment team today," he said. "Adrian is waiting on site. I have been asked to stay as well." He paused. "The site manager tried to ask me to leave when the calls started. Adrian told him I was there under research collaboration documentation and had the same access rights as any accredited researcher.""Good," I said."Mum," he said.“Yes.""If the authority confirms it," he said, "and if the original survey was falsified, eighty thousand people have been living under a compromised barrier for however many years since construction.""I know," I said.“Who does that?" he said. His voice was still very controlled but there was something underneath it that was n
Clara's POVAdrian called me at six in the morning.Not Edmund. Adrian. Which told me Edmund had called Adrian and Adrian had decided this was a call that needed to go above Edmund's head before anything else happened.“There is a situation," Adrian said. "I am driving to the site now. I need you and Silas to know what is happening before I arrive."He told me.I sat on the edge of the bed in the early morning quiet and listened and when he finished I sat with it for thirty seconds.Then I woke Silas."Edmund has found a discrepancy in the official geological survey of a coastal flood barrier," I said. "His data suggests the anchor foundations are in a fractured formation that the official report describes as consolidated clay."Silas was awake by the end of the first sentence."How many people?" he said.“The barrier serves a coastal city of eighty thousand," I said.He sat up."Adrian is on his way to the site," I said. "He is going to verify Edmund's data independently before anyth
Clara's POVThe Monday result publication brought something I had not anticipated.Not the attention. I had anticipated the attention. A competition result with a documented suppression attempt and a linked infrastructure inquiry was a story that the engineering press and then the national press picked up within hours.What I had not anticipated was the specific message that arrived in my personal email at eleven on Monday morning.It was from the chief judge of the competition.Not the academic secretary. The chief judge himself.His name was Professor William Hatch and he had been judging the competition for twelve years and his email was three sentences long.The first sentence said: "I want to be clear that I received no communication from any commercial entity regarding the results before, during, or after the judging process."The second sentence said: "The suppression contact was made to the host institution's board, not to the judging panel, and I was not informed of it until
Clara's POVAdrian drove to the program.Not because Eleanor and Edmund asked him to. Because when they explained what they had found he said: I am coming and ended the call and drove.He was there by one in the morning.He sat with the documents for an hour without speaking. Eleanor and Edmund waited. They had learned not to interrupt Adrian when he was reading something that required his full attention.At two in the morning he looked up."I know two of these projects," he said. "The northern flood barrier and the coastal road system. They went through the National Infrastructure Advisory Council review two years ago. I was on the assessment panel."Eleanor looked at him.“Did you approve of them?" she said."Yes," he said. "The documentation we received did not show the specification change. We assessed the final specification as submitted. The earlier version that showed the correct approach was not in the package we reviewed."“They gave the council a clean document," Edmund said












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