29. Rowan #2
Rahil moves off the wall when I step closer, but I stop before he reaches us. I have no interest in giving him another reason to touch me.
Evelyn looks back at me. "I knew you loved him too."
"That didn't stop you."
"No."
I walk toward the bathroom, then turn before I reach it. "Was any of it real?"
Evelyn stays in the chair. "My opinion of your work was real. My recommendation would have been real. Every time I told you to protect your legal future, I meant it."
I scoff. "Yet you arranged for Rahil to take me."
"Yes."
"You used Mom and Callie to do it."
"Yes." She doesn't ask me to separate her affection from what she did, which is probably why I can believe the affection existed. Evelyn presses her shoulders into the chair back. "I wanted you to become the lawyer I thought I was going to be."
"You are a lawyer."
"I learned the law, and I teach it well." She looks toward the files that aren't here and the desk holding nothing except tea and my food. "Then I spent ten years explaining compromises after I made them."
I hate that I understand what she means. Understanding isn't forgiveness, and it doesn't make her betrayal less complete. I walk back to the window. "How long have you known I'm pregnant?"
Neither Evelyn nor Rahil moves for a moment.
I turn around. "You knew at the conference center."
Evelyn sits straighter. "Yes."
"How?"
"I saw the referral and preauthorization entry."
"Through Serena's office?"
"No. Serena did nothing wrong." Evelyn leans forward. "Your appointment authorization passed through a university-linked benefits portal before reaching her private practice. Orell already had access to compromised university credentials."
I glare at her. "You saw my medical information."
"I saw the referral code, provider, appointment authorization, and pregnancy designation. I didn't have access to Serena's medical record."
It was still enough. I remember Evelyn telling me that neither scandal nor pregnancy would erase my legal future. At the time, I thought she had read me better than I wanted. She had read an authorization entry.
I move away from the window because standing near the glass makes me want to break it with the chair. "You knew my classes, my clinic hours, Mom's schedule through the memorial, Callie's schedule, and my appointment. You didn't build that trap around a stolen phone. You built it around my life."
Evelyn doesn't defend herself.
Rahil checks his watch. "You have five minutes."
I look at him. "Does Orell schedule betrayal in billing increments?"
"He schedules transportation." Rahil's gaze moves to the hallway before he seems to register what he gave me.
Evelyn catches it too.
"Where are you moving me?" I ask him.
Rahil opens the door but doesn't answer.
I turn back to Evelyn. "What happens next?"
She takes enough time that I know the answer will matter. "Orell wants Jeremy's original evidence."
"He already has copies."
She nods. "He believes your father kept an original record outside the material Aaron recovered. He expects Erik to trade whatever he has for you."
I think about the storage unit, Dad's phone, the encrypted folder, and the documents Jeremy distributed because trusting one location would have defeated the purpose. "Erik doesn't have anything I haven't seen."
"Orell believes he has enough."
I almost laugh. "He'll come anyway."
Evelyn closes her eyes briefly.
The reaction tells me what I need before I ask. "What happens when Erik comes?"
She looks at me again. "Orell intends to kill him."
Rahil waits in the open doorway without reacting. I make myself ask the rest because Evelyn taught me not to leave the obvious question unasked. "What happens to me after that?"
Evelyn stands. "You know."
"I want you to say it."
"He won't leave either of you alive. Erik knows too much, and you can testify to enough of the university operation to make keeping you a risk." She sounds sad but resigned, as though she's already mourning me.
Rahil steps into the hallway. Evelyn reaches for her shoes beneath the chair and puts them on, the heels making the same hard sound against the floor that I heard in the conference-center lobby. At the doorway, she turns back. "I'm sorry, Rowan."
I look at the professor I expected to use as a professional reference for years. "You taught me apologies don't cure conduct."
Evelyn grips the edge of the door for a moment, then releases it. "Yes." She walks out. Rahil follows her and locks the door.
I stay near the center of the room until their footsteps disappear, then cross to the desk and inspect the food.
The water bottle is sealed, the bread is untouched, and nothing about the soup smells wrong.
If they wanted me unconscious again, Rahil already proved he had easier methods.
I eat half the soup, the bread, and the banana, then finish the water.
I need strength more than I need the satisfaction of refusing anything Orell provides, and the babies need me making smarter choices than that.
Once the tray is empty, I start with the window. It opens less than three inches before a concealed stop catches, while security screws hold the lock housing in place. Reinforced glass rules out the chair unless I want several men arriving before I get through it.