8. Erik
ERIK
Serena Voronova tells me to move away from Rowan before she finishes opening the medical kit.
I stay beside the kitchen counter while Rowan sits at the end of the dining table with her torn sleeve pushed above the cut. The wound runs several inches along her forearm. It's shallow and already slowing beneath the gauze Makari wrapped around it at the storage unit.
Serena glances over her shoulder at me. "You're blocking the cabinet."
I move two steps to the left. "The cabinet is clear."
"You're still too close." Serena reaches for antiseptic and points toward the kitchen doorway, so I move again while Rowan watches with obvious satisfaction.
"I like her. She's been here three minutes, and she already understands the assignment." Rowan winces when Serena begins unwrapping her arm.
"You usually like people who tell me what to do."
"That may be my most consistent character trait." She keeps her arm where Serena placed it even when the gauze catches near the middle of the cut.
Across the room, Makari photographs the material recovered from the storage unit before setting each item on the dining table.
Jeremy's ledgers take up most of one end, with Aaron's legal pads beside them, along with the donor photograph and the copied files from Jeremy's phone.
Liya has her laptop open across from Harper, while Peter refuses the remaining chair as if sitting would imply cooperation.
Serena cleans the cut beneath the lamp. "You don't need stitches. Adhesive strips will hold it."
Rowan looks toward me. "I could've told him that four hours ago."
"You aren't the doctor."
"Neither are you." Serena presses the first strip into place. "That's why you're staying over there."
Rowan smiles at her. "I definitely like her."
Peter checks his watch. "Are we nearly finished?"
Serena doesn't turn around. "You can leave if waiting for medical care offends you."
Peter looks at me for support and gets none.
Serena secures the final strip, covers the wound with fresh gauze, and lowers Rowan's sleeve carefully.
"You can shower tomorrow if you keep this covered.
You should call me if the redness spreads or you get drainage.
I'd also recommend sleep, although I can already tell nobody in this house intends to take that advice. "
"The first two sound manageable." Rowan slides off the chair while Serena closes the medical kit.
Serena looks toward me before carrying the used supplies into the kitchen. "You shouldn't make her arm worse."
Rowan points after her. "You were doing so well."
"I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker." Serena disappears through the doorway before Rowan can answer.
I take the chair at the head of the table. Rowan sits beside me and keeps her bandaged arm away from the nearest ledger. "If anyone starts telling me to rest instead of reading, I'm leaving."
Peter glances at the dressing. "You were attacked today."
"I was present during an attack. The shelving did more damage to me than Rahil." Rowan reaches for Jeremy's newest ledger.
Makari looks up from his camera. "That's technically true."
Harper pulls one of Aaron's legal pads closer. "I'm writing down the first time you agree with Rowan tonight."
Makari moves the pad back to its marked position before she disturbs the photograph sequence. "You should conserve paper."
"I'll risk it." Harper reaches for a loose sheet, and I open Jeremy's newest ledger before their argument becomes its own project.
The first marked entry dates to thirteen months before his death. A donor-collective deposit enters an athletic account, then exits under a vendor number tied to Zaitsev Athletic Management. Liya compares the date against her spreadsheet before turning the screen slightly toward us.
"This matches the first foundation loss we identified."
Rowan leans closer to the ledger. "Dad copied the original amount into the margin. There's another figure underneath."
Harper checks the page from her side of the table. "The second number matches a later correction."
The difference is twelve thousand dollars. Jeremy's notation matches the amount returned to the university account eleven days after the original transfer.
I turn three pages forward. "This one leaves through the same intermediary."
Rowan traces the line without touching the paper. "Part of it comes back before reconciliation."
Peter takes the older ledger and compares the dates. "He could've been correcting his own transactions."
"He could've been." Rowan opens Aaron's notes to the same month. "We need timing before motive."
She's right, and Peter knows it. His silence is as close as he gets to admitting anything.
I work through the next entries. Jeremy's annotations change ten weeks before his death. Earlier pages record outgoing amounts, destinations, and vendor numbers. After that date, he begins adding return entries, internal transfer numbers, and the employees who processed them.
Makari comes around the table and studies two marked pages side by side. "He stopped recording and started interfering."
Liya pulls up the account history for the first marked reversal. "This transfer returned before the monthly reconciliation closed."
Rowan checks a second entry while Harper searches Aaron's notes. "The next one did too. Dad was reversing selected transfers before the monthly totals hid them."
I compare the third example. Jeremy's authorization appears on the original payment, and two days later, the same authority sends part of the money back. "He found the route and started taking pieces out of it."
Peter studies the dates again. "Ten weeks before his crash."
Nobody answers immediately. Jeremy Bennett didn't build the system and panic near the end. He spent more than a year copying it, then started dismantling selected transfers without alerting the people who kept using the accounts.
Rowan turns another page. "A full stop would've exposed what he knew."
"Somebody inside Blackthorne could also restore anything he froze." Liya rotates her laptop toward us. "The same accounts continue after his death."
The first post-Jeremy entry is wrong by nine hundred dollars, with a correction three days later. Makari pulls Aaron's pad closer and points to a notation in the margin.
"Aaron marked that correction."
Harper searches ahead until she finds the next one. "He marked this one too. The handwriting matches."
Rowan looks across the table at me. "Somebody kept correcting Orell's errors after Dad died."
"Which means Jeremy wasn't the only person who understood the system." I turn another page and compare the authorization numbers. "The inside person survived him."
Peter closes the older ledger halfway. "Richard had enough access."
"He had access." Liya checks another line on her laptop. "That doesn't prove he maintained Orell's accounts."
Peter pushes the ledger toward her. "He benefits from keeping the scandal contained."
"That gives him motive to bury embarrassment. It doesn't prove he maintained the routes or paid the detective handling Aaron's case." Rowan takes the ledger back and studies the authorization field.
Peter watches her. "You defend him quickly."
"I'm defending the difference between suspicion and proof." She returns her attention to the page, ending that argument before he can make it personal.
I continue through the approval list. Five university positions could authorize or correct these transfers without Jeremy.
Richard sits above all of them. Two compliance officers held delegated authority during budget close, a former athletic director retained emergency access after retirement, and foundation staff could initiate grant corrections through a separate route.
Too many people had access for access alone to solve anything.
Harper pulls Aaron's second legal pad closer and begins matching abbreviations against Jeremy's entries. "DD is donor distributions. FC is facilities construction, and EA is equipment and apparel. This one looks like AR-seven."
Liya leans over to read it. "Athlete recovery?"
"That was my guess." Harper turns the notebook toward her.
Peter finds the matching line in Jeremy's ledger. "It's medical billing."
A private rehabilitation service billed twelve athletes during summer training. The amount is high without being unusual for Blackthorne, and Liya's vendor search shows that it clears through athlete services instead of any of the routes we've concentrated on tonight.
Harper taps the abbreviation once. "Aaron wrote AR-seven beside three charges."
"Medical bills repeat." Peter returns to the larger transfers.
Liya closes the vendor search. "We've got clearer routes."
Harper leaves the page open another second before moving on. Rowan is already comparing an equipment contract and doesn't add the abbreviation to the notes beside her. I read the code once, then return to the entries in front of me.
By midnight, the sequence is clear enough to work with.
Jeremy copied transactions for thirteen months.
Ten weeks before the crash, he began reversing selected payments before monthly reconciliation.
Aaron continued documenting the same accounts after Jeremy died, while somebody inside Blackthorne kept the routes operating after both men interfered with them.
Richard remains possible, along with two compliance officers, a former athletic administrator, and a foundation employee with university access.
Harper closes Aaron's first pad and studies the authorization columns. "We're still missing the inside person's actual access path. One employee shouldn't have routine authority over donor distributions, facilities, medical billing, equipment contracts, and construction draws."
Makari looks from Harper to the ledgers. "Jeremy did."
"He was the final financial chokepoint." Harper indicates the corrections after his death. "His signature explains why everything converged on him. It doesn't explain whoever came after him."