19. Rowan
ROWAN
Harper and I are sitting across from the restaurant manager before one, with the photograph Orell sent open on my phone between us.
Erik and I spent most of the morning pulling every usable detail from it.
The reflection in the window gave us part of a restaurant sign, an old event calendar narrowed the city, and Harper found the place after fifteen minutes of searching photographs online.
Erik offered security before I left. I accepted a driver without arguing about the other vehicle following us, which probably qualifies as personal growth for both of us.
The manager recognizes Dad before I finish explaining why we're here.
He takes my phone carefully, enlarges the photograph, then turns toward the front windows.
Lunch has mostly cleared, leaving two occupied booths and a server wiping tables near the bar.
The restaurant was renovated last year, but the narrow windows and exposed brick behind Dad still match the photograph.
"That table used to sit over there. I worked lunch here for twelve years, and your father came in three times near the end of that summer. "
Harper already has her notebook open. She moves her coffee away from it before turning in her chair to follow his gesture. "Was he with this man every time?"
"Twice." The manager taps Orell's image. "That man talked more. Your father mostly listened."
I write the dates we already know along the top of the page, leaving space between them. Dad met Orell more than once, which makes the photograph harder to dismiss without making it proof of whatever Orell wants me to believe. "What happened on the third visit?"
The manager glances toward the side hallway while he thinks. "Your father came alone. Another man joined him later. Gray hair, glasses, thinning up here." He touches the top of his head. "That one kept checking the front window."
Harper looks at me. I already have Aaron Whitaker's university photograph open by the time she shifts closer, and the manager nods as soon as he sees it.
"That's him." He gestures toward the hallway beside the kitchen. "They left together through the side door. He had a car out back."
The hallway runs past the kitchen toward a rear exit hidden from the street. I turn far enough in my chair to see it clearly. Dad could've entered through the front, sat where he could watch the dining room, then left with Aaron without crossing the restaurant again.
I pull Orell's photograph back up. Dad is angled toward the room while Orell sits with his back partly toward it. "Did my father seem comfortable with either of them?"
The manager puts my phone on the table instead of answering immediately. "With the gray-haired man, yes. They knew each other. With the blond man, no."
"Orell."
"If that's his name." He points toward Dad. "Your father watched the room every time they met. This man sat back, talked, drank wine. Your father barely touched his coffee."
That sounds more like Dad than the photograph does.
He listened when people thought they were winning.
Callie could talk herself into a disaster at our kitchen table while Dad waited with his coffee, then he'd ask one question that made her start over.
People at Blackthorne described his budget meetings the same way.
He wasn't loud. He made other people explain themselves until their numbers stopped making sense.
I shift my notebook closer. "Did Dad ever bring documents?"
"Once. A folder." The manager studies the picture another moment. "Not that day."
I explain that outside counsel is documenting contacts connected to Jeremy's financial work and ask whether he'll give the same account to them.
He agrees. Harper gets his name, number, and permission to follow up while I note the rear entrance and the approximate dates.
By the time the manager disappears through the kitchen doors, we have more than a photograph.
I keep my notebook open. "Dad wasn't working with Orell."
Harper picks up her coffee, though she doesn't drink it. "It doesn't look that way."
"He met him more than once, and Aaron joined him here through the back entrance." I draw a line between the restaurant dates and the period when Dad began reversing transfers. "Dad was already copying the accounts. He had to stay useful long enough to learn how the route worked."
Before I can start another column, Harper reaches across the table and closes my notebook under two fingers. "You have the sequence."
"I have the beginning of one."
"You have enough to stop for five minutes." She leaves her fingers on the cover when I look at her. "You're turning it into another timeline because that's easier than dealing with the rest."
The restaurant is warm from the kitchen, but the coffee in front of me has gone cold.
I let Harper keep the notebook shut and look toward the side door Dad used with Aaron.
"He lied to Mom. He lied to me and Callie.
He let us spend eighteen months thinking his biggest secret was whether he approved transfers he shouldn't have. "
Harper doesn't try to repair it for him. She leans back, giving me room instead. "He probably thought keeping you ignorant kept you safe. You don't have to like what he did."
Dad asked whether I bought my evidence textbook that summer.
He reminded Callie twice about her oil change, argued with Mom over a gutter contractor, then drove to New Haven and sat across from Orell Zaitsev without telling any of us.
I knew the man who made Sunday breakfast and color-coded tax receipts.
I didn't know this part of him, and finding out now hurts without erasing everything else.
Harper nudges my coffee toward me. "You did something differently this morning."
"You're going to tell me what it was."
"You showed Erik the picture before we came here." She finally releases my notebook. "A few weeks ago, you would've gone home, built three timelines, stayed awake until two, then decided what the photograph meant before anyone else got near it. This morning, you asked him to look at it with you."
I stare at her over the rim of the cup. "I still reserve the right to build three timelines and stay awake until two."
"I know." Harper smiles when I take a drink and immediately regret the cold coffee. "It's irritating, isn't it?"
"Deeply." I pull the notebook back toward me, but I don't add another column.
By two, the manager's statement exists in three places, the original Orell photograph is preserved, and Harper has sent the witness information to outside counsel. I return to Blackthorne with enough time to collect the spirit-program reinstatement record before class.
Vanessa is standing in the administration lobby when I enter. Her phone comes up as I cross toward the private elevators, and she lowers it too late.
I change direction.
Vanessa looks at the screen as if notifications suddenly require her full attention. Students move around us toward the stairs, while a campus-tour group gathers near the information desk.
"Show me the last picture you took."
She locks the phone. "I was photographing the lobby."
I scowl at her. "You pointed it at me."
"I'm allowed to take pictures in a public building."
"That wasn't my question."
Vanessa looks toward the elevator bank before unlocking the phone. She opens the gallery and holds it out.
The most recent photograph centers me near the private elevator to Erik's suite. Yesterday's timestamp sits beneath it. I swipe once and find another image of Erik walking beside me toward the garage. The next catches Makari handing me a folder outside Fenwick. There are four more.
I return the phone. "Why?"
Vanessa puts it against her hip. "The program is back."
"I noticed."
"The captaincy shouldn't become automatic because you held it before suspension." She shifts her bag higher. "Your father is still connected to the investigation, and you're living with the dean who shut us down. If you keep captain, I want the review documented."
The accusation is cleaner than I expected. "You're looking for favoritism."
"If there is any."
I take out my phone and pull up Erik's recusal. The document has been saved locally since Evelyn made me start carrying it. "He filed this before the reinstatement review. He has no authority over my scholarship, the spirit program where I'm concerned, my grades, or academic discipline."
Vanessa reads enough of the screen to confirm the date. "I know what recusal means."
"Then what exactly are you photographing?"
She steps closer so the tour group can pass behind us. "You have personal access to him that nobody else on the team has. If I challenge the captaincy, I want a record showing how much."
For a second, anger is easier than the answer. Then I understand what she actually has. Vanessa doesn't need to prove Erik changed a decision. She only needs enough photographs to make people ask whether he did.
I lock my phone. "You're collecting material in case the captaincy becomes contested."
"Yes." She doesn't apologize or soften it.
At least the answer is useful. "You could've asked for the reinstatement file."
Vanessa tosses her hair. "I intend to."
"Then do that." I move around her. "Photographs of me using an elevator don't establish who approved a scholarship."
She sneers. "They may establish access."
I keep walking.
Evelyn is outside the clinic when I reach Fenwick, a folder tucked under her arm. One look at me is enough to make her open the office door. "You look like you're preparing a complaint."
I frown. "I'm considering several."
Her office smells faintly of printer toner and coffee. I sit across from the desk and show her Vanessa's photographs, then explain the captaincy issue while she pulls my conflict file from the cabinet.