23. Rowan
ROWAN
Harper circles the athlete-recovery abbreviation for the second time before I understand that I've seen it before.
We've taken over the largest worktable in the student legal clinic, which means everyone else has been working around us since nine.
Jeremy's decrypted folder occupies my laptop, Aaron's notebook lies open beside Harper, and three sets of university financial records cover enough of the table that I've started stacking completed pages on an empty chair.
Evelyn works in her office with the door open, taking calls between meetings while the clinic printer spits out somebody else's housing appeal behind us.
I enlarge the payment chain on my screen. "Dad traced all five."
The donor collective, camps, facilities contracts, sports medicine, and construction all return to the same authorization structure.
Dad's signature appears on all of them.
Months ago, seeing Dad's name on all of them would've scared me. Now I understand why it's there.
"He kept signing while he collected evidence, staying useful long enough to map the route." I put the New Haven restaurant timeline beside the transfer dates.
Harper looks between the two records. "Aaron joins him before the reversals start."
"Eleven weeks before Dad dies." I open another file and move the restaurant timeline aside. "Then somebody keeps correcting the movement after Dad is gone."
Harper taps Aaron's notebook with her pen. "The inside person."
"Yes."
Jeremy found the laundering structure, Aaron documented what continued after his death, and someone inside Blackthorne kept Orell's system running.
I open the property list. One company name appears repeatedly under sports-medicine payments, and the ownership chain leads through two holding companies before ending at Zaitsev Athletic Management.
Harper reads the address from my screen. "That's forty minutes north."
"It's billed as rehabilitation and executive retreat space." I open the property listing in another window. The lakeside conference center has six buildings, private access roads, and enough acreage that the photographs show more trees than structures.
"That sounds respectable enough to disappear inside a sports-medicine account.
" Harper gets up to retrieve another printout from the printer, stepping around two clinic students arguing quietly over who has the stapler.
She comes back with the page and drops into her chair. "How much money went through it?"
I check the payment totals. "Just under eight hundred thousand across four years, but that's only what Dad tagged. There could be more under a different vendor."
"Eight hundred thousand dollars in athlete recovery." Harper looks toward the clinic hallway. "For a university whose training room still has an ice machine held together with tape."
"That's an unfair characterization."
"You kicked it last semester."
I nod. "It responded, didn't it?"
Harper smiles before returning to Aaron's notebook. She has been here long enough that her coffee is cold, and the paper cup has migrated behind the laptop to make room for evidence. "Your father put the property company beside three transfers."
I pull Aaron's notebook closer instead. His handwriting deteriorates near the end, with words crowding the margins and abbreviations replacing names he wrote out on earlier pages. Several notes list access points we've already investigated.
Richard's office.
Foundation staff.
Shipping contacts.
Beside those, Aaron wrote the same athlete-recovery billing abbreviation we found at the safe house.
Harper circles it again.
"You already circled that."
"I know." She flips backward through the notebook, finds an earlier page, then turns two more. "It repeats across three properties."
I lean over the notebook. One reference belongs to a private rehabilitation provider. Another points to a recovery service used during recruitment weekends. The third abbreviation appears beside a payment code without a complete address.
"Probably another medical vendor." I turn back to Jeremy's property file. "We need to finish the shell-company chain before we start chasing every abbreviation Aaron invented."
Harper keeps her pen beside the letters. "Maybe."
Evelyn comes out of her office carrying a preservation form before Harper can keep digging. She pauses beside the table to let one of the clinic students squeeze past with a box of files, then pulls out the chair at the end.
"I need both of you for five minutes." She puts the form near my laptop. "If this property chain is complete, you should create a duplicate of the full record before you move anything else."
"We already have encrypted backups." I save the ownership document and close the public property listing.
"I mean a legal duplicate." Evelyn rotates the form toward me. "The clinic can hold one under the same protections covering your working files. If somebody challenges chain of custody later, you have an independently maintained copy with a separate access record."
I read the form. The advice is good enough that I almost sign it before reaching the final section. The clinic would control the duplicate.
That would've been exactly what I wanted a month ago, before Erik's house, Aaron's death, the storage unit, and the credential breach taught me how many respectable systems Orell can reach.
"I'm giving the duplicate to Makari."
Evelyn doesn't move for a second. "Erik's security chief?"
"He maintains an evidence vault outside university infrastructure." I push the unsigned form back toward her. "The copy stays encrypted, and Makari can document receipt without accessing the files."
Evelyn folds the form once. "The clinic is safer."
"Maybe from Erik." I close Aaron's notebook so the loose pages don't shift when Harper moves her laptop. "I'm more concerned about whoever copied Dad's folder after we opened it."
We learned about the duplicate access this morning. Erik didn't accuse anyone, and the clinic credential group was broad enough to prove nothing by itself.
Evelyn sets the folded form beside her legal pad. "You've made your decision."
"I have."
She looks at the closed notebook, then at me. "I wish you hadn't."
Four words. Nothing dramatic follows them.
Evelyn gets up, returns the chair beneath the table, and carries the unsigned form back to her office. A second later, her phone rings and she answers it before closing the door halfway.
Harper waits until Evelyn is speaking to somebody else. "That went well."
"She disagrees with me."
Harper frowns. "She taught you evidence preservation."
I nod. "Which is why she knows I'm not wrong."
Harper opens Aaron's notebook again. "You could both be right."
I grunt. "That would be inconvenient."
"It usually is."
I gather the files for Makari's copy and start the encrypted transfer.
The progress bar crawls across the screen while Harper checks our index against the paper records.
By the time it finishes, my shoulders hurt from sitting over the laptop and the clinic has emptied enough that I can hear Evelyn moving around her office.
I send Makari the transfer hash through the secure channel Erik installed, then close the computer.
Harper checks the time. "You have Serena at three."
"I know."
"You've checked the time six times."
"I have other obligations."
"You have an ultrasound."
"That qualifies."
Harper packs Aaron's notebook into the evidence case. "I'm coming."
"I know that too."
She points at me with the pen before putting it away. "You're difficult when you're nervous."
I flash a smile. "I'm difficult when I'm awake."
"That explains a lot."
We leave Evelyn with the clinic copy of Tyler's preservation material and none of Jeremy's decrypted folder. She waves from her office while she stays on the phone, professional enough that the disagreement could've happened last week instead of twenty minutes ago.
Vanessa is waiting outside Fenwick Hall.
She stands near the edge of the quad with a leather tote over one shoulder and her phone in her hand. Students cross between us on their way to afternoon classes, forcing her to wait until Harper and I come down the steps.
Harper sees her and slows. "Do you want me to stay?"
"Yes."
Vanessa's mouth hardens when she hears the answer. "I wasn't asking for privacy."
"Then we're all happy."
She ignores me and looks at Harper. "Richard told me what they found."
Harper stops beside me. "That covers several disasters. You'll need to narrow it down."
"The donor schedules." Vanessa moves out of the main pedestrian path, and we follow because three students are already watching us. "They know I accessed them."
"I heard." I shift my bag higher on my shoulder. "You told Erik you were building a favoritism file."
"I was."
"You also photographed us."
Vanessa looks at me without pretending she doesn't understand. "Yes."
The admission should make me angrier than it does. Maybe I've used up my available outrage on dead accountants, Russian criminals, and university administrators.
Harper folds her arms. "Why?"
Vanessa puts her phone into her tote. "I wanted leverage."
I frown. "Against me?"
"Against him." She looks toward the administration building across the quad. "The spirit program had been suspended for weeks. You were living with the dean who ordered the shutdown, and you kept telling everyone there wasn't anything you could do about the review."
"I couldn't."
"I didn't know that." Vanessa turns back toward me. "I thought if the program stayed closed, I could show him I had photographs. I figured he'd rather restore us than explain why a dean was sleeping with a student."
Harper stares at her. "That's blackmail."
She hunches her shoulders. "I didn't use them."
"That doesn't improve the plan."
Vanessa looks irritated rather than ashamed. "I know what it was."
I step away from a group of students coming down the Fenwick stairs. Vanessa follows, which puts us near one of the benches beside the path. "Did you send the photographs to anyone?"
"No."