3. Rowan
ROWAN
Mom and Callie are at the kitchen table when I get home, which means they’ve already had the argument once without me.
Mom has a yellow legal pad, while Callie has her scholarship agreement and three financial-aid emails.
Harper shuts the apartment door behind me and stays by the entry.
Mom keeps both hands around her pen. “You went on television.”
I hang my coat on the chair. “I was in the press room. Television happened without my consent.”
Callie looks up from the scholarship pages. Her voice is raw, but she has the words in order. “You made Erik say if Dad was cleared, he’d say it publicly.”
Mom turns toward her. “Calista, that isn’t the point.”
“It’s the point.” Callie pushes the agreement away from her. “Everyone keeps talking about my tuition as if Dad’s name isn’t all over the news.”
I pick up the financial-aid email. It’s the same pending review language Harper already warned me about. “They haven’t canceled the award. They’ve frozen disbursement during the athletic suspension.”
Callie gives a short laugh. “Thank God. I was worried the wording might not be awful enough.”
Mom folds both hands around the pen. “Rowan, I need you to listen to me before you start fixing things.”
That sentence has never led anywhere relaxing, so I set the email down. “I’m listening.”
“Your father is gone.” Mom says it gently, which makes it worse. “This scandal has taken his name, our privacy, and maybe your sister’s scholarship. I can’t watch it take law school too.”
Callie’s chair scrapes back. “You want her to stop?”
Mom keeps her attention on Callie. “I want her to be careful.”
“No, you want us to let them do it.” Callie stands. “You want us quiet because quiet is easier for everybody else.”
Mom looks wounded, and I step between the argument before it gets worse. “Nobody is being quiet.”
Callie turns on me. “You told me not to talk to reporters, not to email the athletic director, and not to sign anything. Every time I try to do one thing for myself, you put me back on your list.”
I’ve had Callie on a list for eighteen months, her life sorted into tuition, housing, travel forms, and deadlines I could meet. I look at the scholarship agreement clutched against her shirt. “You’re not a line item.”
“Then stop handling me like one.” Callie gathers the scholarship pages against her chest.
Mom pushes her chair back more slowly. “I’m taking her home.”
Callie reaches for her backpack anyway. “My dorm is where I sleep. This is where everyone tells me what to do.”
I want to tell Mom I can do this without losing anything else.
I want to tell Callie that getting sloppy now gives Blackthorne exactly what it needs.
Neither one will help right now. I get the folder from the counter and slide the printouts into it.
“Don’t talk to reporters, don’t delete messages, and forward everything to Harper. ”
Callie pauses by the doorway. “You always make it sound reasonable.”
I pass her the folder. “Evidence beats catharsis. I love you, and I’m also right.”
She takes it because she knows that too. Mom touches my shoulder on her way past, and a minute later the apartment is quiet except for the radiator under the window.
Harper waits until their footsteps fade down the stairs. “You’re moving faster than the evidence.”
I lean back against the counter and close my eyes for half a second. Of everything said in this kitchen, that’s the one sentence I can’t argue with.
The next morning starts with Evelyn Grant intercepting me outside the student legal clinic before I make it to coffee. She holds her office door open. “Five minutes, Rowan.” Evelyn never says five minutes unless she has cleared twenty.
She wears a navy suit and carries a legal pad, which makes the meeting more formal than five minutes warrants. She closes the door, then points to the chair opposite her desk.
I stay standing beside it. “If this is about the press conference, Harper has already used all available facial expressions.”
“Harper isn’t responsible for your character and fitness review.” Evelyn sits and opens the legal pad. “I’m not your lawyer in this. I’m your professor. I’m also one of the people who will be asked whether you understand professional judgment.”
I sit because standing will make me look like I’m preparing an objection. “I asked a public official what evidence supported a public accusation.”
“You accused a sitting dean of using your dead father as a headline.”
I don’t deny it, and Evelyn doesn’t scold me. “Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Without proof, you gave him a clip of an emotional law student suggesting misconduct.”
“He named Dad first.” I keep my attention on her legal pad rather than thinking about Erik behind the podium, calm enough to let me come at him in front of cameras without once trying to embarrass me back.
“He did.” Evelyn’s tone stays even. “He has institutional counsel and a board prepared to call every word responsible disclosure. You’ve got your reputation, your transcript, and a bar application you’ll eventually sign.”
That gets through because Evelyn knows exactly which wall has the door in it. “You think I should retract it?”
“No.” She caps her pen. “I think you should stop creating statements you can’t support yet. What can you prove?”
I count through the list in my head. “The scholarship policy. The press statement. That Erik named Dad before he produced anything beyond signatures.”
Evelyn waits with her pen poised. “What else?”
“Nothing admissible.”
She gives me a brief nod. “Good. That means you know the difference.”
I grip the edge of the chair before making myself let go. “Knowing the difference doesn’t clear him.”
“No, but it keeps you in school long enough to do it.” Evelyn turns the legal pad toward herself. “Where are you keeping what you collect?”
I answer before I can make it sound better. “My laptop. A copy in Harper’s student advocacy drive for scholarship complaints.”
Evelyn sets down the pen. “No shared folders for evidence about your father unless privilege covers the work. Separate scholarship advocacy from any personal investigation. Keep originals, keep timestamps, and preserve the message that carried any file.”
It’s good advice. Dad would’ve liked it, which makes me hate needing it.
Evelyn’s expression eases by a degree. “You can be angry, but you can’t let anger become the version of events everyone else uses against you.”
I nod slowly. “I can be angry without giving them evidence of bad judgment.”
“Exactly.” Evelyn closes the legal pad. “That distinction may save you considerable grief.”
The cheer gym smells of rubber mats, floor tape, and the lemon cleaner facilities uses when donors are expected within forty-eight hours.
Vanessa Reed waits beside the captain’s clipboard while the squad pretends not to watch. “We need to discuss representation.”
I drop my duffel near the wall. “If this is about uniforms, my answer is no.”
A couple of freshmen laugh because they haven’t learned not to. Vanessa waits them out. “It’s about whether a captain whose father is at the center of a laundering investigation should represent the program.”
I take the clipboard and check the attendance sheet. “The program is suspended from competition, but we can still condition. The captain still runs practice unless Coach replaces me.”
Vanessa doesn’t move. “You don’t see the conflict?”
I set the clipboard down between us. “I see you trying to turn my father’s name into a leadership vote because you never liked sharing captain.”
Tyler Garcia chooses that exact second to come through the side door from the weight corridor with two football players behind him. “Everything okay?”
I point my water bottle toward the side door. “Practice. Wrong door.”
He sends the football players back through the corridor and stays without an invitation. “I heard about the scholarship freeze. If you need support with the team, I can talk to some people.”
Vanessa looks delighted by the thought of a quarterback opinion entering evidence.
I shake my head. “No.”
Tyler steps closer and lowers his voice. “I mean it. Nobody should be coming after you for what your dad supposedly did.”
“Don’t say supposedly if you plan to help.” I move toward the mat line.
Tyler blinks at me. “I was agreeing with you.”
“You were making Dad a rumor with better manners.” I pick up my water bottle. “No.”
Vanessa folds her arms. “That isn’t a professional way to speak to someone trying to help.”
“It’s been a long ninety seconds.” I look back at Tyler. “Is there a second thing?”
He hesitates just long enough to make me regret asking. “Dinner. Not tonight. Whenever things are less insane.”
There’s nothing wrong with Tyler. He’s good-looking, friendly, and age-appropriate enough that nobody would question my judgment. None of that creates even a fraction of the unwanted awareness I had standing too close to Erik Danilov yesterday.
That realization annoys me enough to make the answer sharper. I point toward the door with the water bottle. “Also no. That one was faster.”
Tyler reddens, but he leaves without making me say it again. Vanessa watches him go, then gives me a fresh, calculating look.
I face the squad. “Lines of four.” This time, they move.
Harper is waiting outside the gym after practice with her laptop open and a campus directory printout trapped under one elbow. “You should check your missed calls.”
I take my phone from the side pocket of my duffel. “If this is about unknown numbers, reporters have been calling since yesterday.”
“One of them isn’t a reporter.” Harper points at my screen after I unlock it. Four missed calls sit under the same unsaved number, spread across yesterday. “Aaron Whitaker.”
Blackthorne’s directory gives me the title, which isn’t a title that belongs in my missed calls. Aaron Whitaker is the senior staff accountant for athletic and donor accounts.
I look from the printout to the phone. “Why was Aaron Whitaker calling me?”
Harper taps the last call. “He left a voicemail.”