9. Rowan
ROWAN
Two days after the apartment breach, I'm in Erik's penthouse because the safe house stopped being enough. Makari called it a security upgrade. Erik called it temporary. I agreed only after Erik handed me the elevator code, the garage code, and the right to leave without asking permission.
Apparently, somebody forgot to tell the rest of his operation.
I open the guest-room closet and find my clothes arranged by category. My jeans occupy one section, sweaters sit folded on shelves beside the work clothes I packed myself, and shoes line the bottom in pairs. Somebody even collected the sneakers I left at Harper's apartment.
A new phone waits on the dresser in its box, already charged. Beside it sits a printed schedule with my classes, practice times, study blocks, security departures, and three meals I never agreed to eat at designated hours.
I carry the schedule into the kitchen, where Erik sits at the island with coffee and a tablet. He's dressed for campus in a dark suit that suggests he has no idea he's about to spend breakfast explaining himself. Makari stands near the windows with his phone.
I put the paper in front of Erik and start reading before I sit.
"Eight-fifteen, vehicle departure. Eight-forty, Fenwick Hall.
Twelve-ten, lunch at the faculty club. One-forty-five, athletic complex.
Four-thirty, return to the penthouse. Six-fifteen, dinner.
" I turn the page toward him. "Seven to nine, document review.
Nine-fifteen, security briefing. Ten-thirty, personal time.
I'm especially interested in personal time.
Is that supervised, or do I get to choose my own recreational activity? "
Makari looks down at his phone when Erik turns toward him. "I made the schedule. He approved it."
"I approved the transportation times." Erik sets down his coffee.
"You changed two of them." Makari doesn't look remotely sorry.
I pull out the stool opposite Erik. "Did either of you consider asking the person whose life you scheduled?"
Erik picks up the paper, tears it in half, then tears it again before dropping the pieces beside his coffee. "You're right."
The argument I prepared on the walk from the bedroom becomes useless before I can deliver any of it. I look at the pieces, then at him. "That was suspiciously easy."
"It was also necessary." Erik turns his tablet around and opens a security screen. "The building code is six digits. You choose your own. The garage uses a separate code, and I'm giving you access to the safe."
Makari leaves the windows and comes closer. "The building code controls the private elevator, service elevator, garage entry, and secured stairwell. The safe requires your code plus biometric confirmation."
I look between them. "Why would I need access to your safe?"
"Because your father's phone is inside it when we aren't working on it. The storage-unit originals are there too." Erik leaves the tablet in front of me while I consider what he's offering.
"You're giving me independent access to all of it, even if you're not here."
"Yes." Erik doesn't attach a condition to the answer.
I wait anyway.
He takes another drink of coffee before laying out the only terms. "Makari reports any material security change directly to both of us. If he learns something about your family, you don't hear it after I make a decision."
Makari gives me a brief look. "That applies both directions. If you receive something relevant, I get it too."
"I can agree to that." I choose a building code on the tablet and enter it twice before turning to the question bothering me almost as much as the schedule. "Who arranged my closet?"
Makari looks at Erik, and Erik looks back at him.
I point between them. "That reaction suggests guilt has become collective."
"House staff moved what was recovered from your apartment and Ms. Vasquez's place." Makari puts his phone away.
"Without asking."
"You were asleep when the decision was made." His tone suggests he knows the explanation won't save him.
I turn toward Erik. "That isn't helping."
"It won't happen again." He doesn't defend the choice or tell me why it was reasonable.
The concession bothers me more than another argument would have. I know how to fight an order. I haven't developed a useful response to Erik hearing the objection and changing course before I have to drag him there.
I finish setting the codes while he pushes the shredded schedule aside.
By ten, I'm back at Fenwick Hall with two Danilov operators outside the building and neither one following me past the front doors.
Erik asked before assigning them. I agreed to the exterior coverage because Rahil has already stood across from this building once, and pretending I don't know that would be idiotic.
Harper has taken over the largest worktable in the student legal clinic by the time I arrive. Jeremy's copied ledger pages are spread across one side, Aaron's notes cover the other, and my laptop sits between them.
She looks at my coffee. "You live with a billionaire-adjacent crime family and still stopped at the student union."
"It's familiar." I put the cup beside my bag.
Harper eyes it. "That isn't the word I'd use for their coffee."
"Erik's kitchen has a machine that asked whether I wanted a ristretto."
She looks up from Aaron's notes. "Did you know what that was?"
"I said coffee until it gave up." I sit beside her and wake my laptop.
Harper smiles and turns her screen toward me. "I matched twelve of Dad's reversals to Aaron's later notes. Whatever Aaron found after the crash, he wasn't starting from nothing."
"He may have found Dad's storage unit." I open the ledger index.
"Or Dad brought him in before the crash." Harper pulls one page closer and indicates two dates. "Aaron's handwriting appears beside two reversals dated before Jeremy died."
The first note is three weeks before the crash. The second is four days before.
I enlarge the scan and compare the writing against the later pages. "Dad trusted him."
"Enough to show him part of it." Harper lays Aaron's later notebook beside the earlier page so I can compare them.
Before I can answer, Evelyn appears in the clinic doorway with a folder under one arm. She closes the door behind her and takes in the materials covering our table before stepping closer.
"How much of this is copied from the storage unit?"
The question is practical, and after our earlier conversation I already know why she's asking. "Everything on this table is a working copy. The originals are off campus."
Evelyn sets her folder beside my laptop. "Where?"
I hesitate only because Erik's safe doesn't need to become university gossip. She catches the pause and sits across from us.
"You don't need to give me an address. I need to know whether the originals are somewhere Blackthorne employees can access them."
"They aren't."
"Good." Evelyn takes a pen from her folder. "Keep them there."
Harper closes Aaron's notebook. "What happened?"
Evelyn removes an access report. "Somebody accessed sealed clinic files connected to athletic complaints overnight. Three student matters were opened with faculty-level credentials. Two involve scholarship appeals. One involves a vendor complaint tied to athletics."
I take the report and check the timestamps. "Whose credentials?"
"The system records the access as mine." Evelyn taps the workstation number before Harper can ask the next question. "I wasn't in the building at two-seventeen this morning. The clinic logs show my credential used remotely through a university session."
I look from the workstation number to her. "Can someone spoof that?"
"Yes. They can also steal a token or use an existing session." Evelyn folds the report in half. "IT is preserving the logs."
I look at the evidence spread across our table. "You're telling us somebody is opening sealed files, then suggesting I work here."
"I'm telling you this room gives us a record of every access." Evelyn keeps her attention on me. "Your apartment was breached with a key, and the storage facility was compromised with a valid gate code. Somebody is succeeding because they already belong where they're going."
Harper glances toward the clinic door. "What makes this place different?"
"Every entry is logged, every workstation is assigned, and I can make sure the records are preserved if somebody tries again.
" Evelyn slides the access report toward me.
"If you're going to work on university documents, I'd rather you do it where privilege and clinic controls give you some protection. "
It's sensible advice. It also means Evelyn wants to know which material I'm bringing through the clinic, but that doesn't seem strange enough to outweigh the protection she's offering. She's been teaching me evidence since long before Dad's case gave me a reason to need the lesson outside class.
"Working copies only." I return the report. "The originals stay off campus."
Evelyn accepts that without pushing. "That's the right answer."
She gathers her folder but remains beside the table another moment. "If you find a link between the athletic complaints and your father's records, I need you to tell me before you act on it. You can't afford another evidence decision like the phone."
"I know." I close the report and hand it back.
"You're too close to graduating to let one bad night define your judgment." Evelyn tucks the report into her folder and leaves us with the door open.
Harper waits until she reaches her office. "That was ominously supportive."
"She's my professor." I reopen Dad's ledger.
"Those things aren't mutually exclusive." Harper picks up Aaron's notebook.
I glance at her. "You're becoming suspicious of everyone."
"I'm spending time with you." She returns to the notes before I can argue.
Twenty minutes later, Vanessa Reed appears at the clinic door carrying her phone and enough irritation to make the student volunteer at the reception desk move farther away.