Chương 13
“Protective.”
“Of the university?”
“Of facts.”
That answer irritated me because Cho would have liked it.
Patel returned.
“The number is active, but nobody answered.”
“Can you trace it?” I asked.
“With legal process if necessary.”
“So not now.”
“Not instantly, no.”
She handed my phone back.
“Preserve the messages.”
The phone rang before I could lock it.
Same number.
Patel and Alvarez exchanged a look.
“Answer on speaker,” Patel said.
I accepted the call.
“Hello?”
Breathing.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Mara?”
I recognized it immediately.
Celia Grant.
Her usual conference-call voice was polished and faintly impatient.
Now she sounded as though she had been running.
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Who is there?”
“Campus police, university counsel, and Professor Hale.”
Silence.
Then Celia said, “That’s probably better.”
Patel stepped closer.
“Ms. Grant, this is Sergeant Nisha Patel with campus police.”
“Oh.”
“Are you in immediate danger?”
“No.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“I’d rather not say on this line.”
Patel’s expression tightened.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who has access to our corporate phone records anymore.”
Alvarez said, “Celia, this is Renee Alvarez.”
Celia exhaled audibly.
“Renee.”
“You know me?”
“I know who you are.”
“Did you send the texts to Dr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because someone needed to warn her before Voss turned this into a data-theft allegation.”
My hand closed around the edge of Hale’s desk.
“What does Julian know?”
Celia hesitated.
“I need you to understand that he didn’t create the original account.”
“Which account?”
“Eleanor’s.”
“You know it was hers?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I found the old onboarding record this morning.”
“This morning?”
“You weren’t the only person who noticed unusual activity.”
Patel said, “Start earlier.”
Celia gave a strained laugh.
“That could take years.”
“Start with why you contacted Dr. Mercer.”
Another pause.
“At six forty-eight this morning, my director received an escalation from Martin Voss alleging Mara had exceeded her research authorization and extracted identity-linked historical records.”
I looked at Alvarez.
She was writing quickly.
Celia continued.
“The allegation included screenshots from her internal research notes.”
My stomach dropped.
“My notebook?”
“I don’t know where they came from.”
“What screenshots?”
“Photos of handwritten pages.”
The missing pages.
I stopped breathing for a second.
Patel said, “Can you preserve those images exactly as received?”
“Yes.”
“Do not forward them casually.”
“I know.”
“Who received them?”
“My director, legal, and security.”
“From Voss?”
“From his office.”
“That distinction matters.”
“I know.”
I leaned toward the phone.
“Did Julian send them?”
Celia went quiet.
“Celia.”
“I don’t have the transmission log.”
“But you think he did.”
“I think Julian had access to the materials.”
My fingers began trembling again.
“What does that mean?”
“He called me yesterday.”
“What time?”
“About four thirty.”
I remembered Julian texting me near five, asking whether I would be home for dinner.
“What did he want?”
“He asked whether the anomaly cluster was in your final presentation.”
My skin went cold.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I couldn’t discuss your dissertation.”
“Did he ask about Eleanor’s credential?”
“Yes.”
The room disappeared around the edges.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He asked whether a dormant legacy credential could still appear in retrospective logs after termination.”
Hale whispered, “Jesus.”
Celia continued.
“I thought he was asking a technical question.”
“He wasn’t.”
“No.”
“When did you realize?”
“This morning, when Voss’s allegation arrived with photographs of your notes.”
Patel asked, “How do you know Julian was aware the credential belonged to Eleanor?”
“Because he told me.”
I pressed my palm to my forehead.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the identifier was probably his mother’s old account and that its appearance would be misleading.”
“Misleading how?”
“He said she had been retired for years.”
“That part is true.”
“Yes.”
“But somebody used the account.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Celia took a breath.
“Repeatedly.”
Nobody moved.
“After she retired?”
“Yes.”
“How repeatedly?”
“At least eleven authenticated sessions over six years.”
The number sat between us.
I had expected one mistake.
One forgotten login.
Maybe some old automated process nobody had cleaned up.
Eleven sessions meant somebody had returned.
“What did those sessions do?”
“I don’t know everything yet.”
“Then what do you know?”
“Three correspond to the manual exports your model identified.”
My mouth went dry.
“And the others?”
“Contract administration, credential provisioning, archive access.”
Alvarez interrupted.
“Celia, stop there.”
“Why?”
“Because you may be describing records subject to internal investigation.”
“They’re already being used against her.”
“That does not erase process.”
Celia laughed without humor.
“Process is what buried this seven years ago.”
Alvarez’s expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
Silence.
“Celia?”
“The credential was flagged in 2019.”
Hale sat down slowly.
Alvarez said, “By whom?”
“Internal security.”
“And?”
“It was marked resolved.”
“On what basis?”
“I haven’t found the full report.”
“Who closed it?”
“I found an approval record.”
“Whose?”
Celia hesitated long enough that I knew before she said it.
“Martin Voss.”
Hale swore under her breath.
Patel asked, “Where is this record now?”
“In our archive.”
“Can it be altered?”
“Not easily, but yes, administrators with elevated access could modify metadata.”
“Preserve it.”
“I already exported a read-only copy.”
Alvarez said, “Do not take further action outside your company’s legal process.”
Celia’s voice sharpened.
“I tried legal process.”
“This morning?”
“For three years.”
That changed the room again.
“What happened three years ago?” I asked.
“I found irregular access while migrating historical records.”
“Did you report it?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“My supervisor.”
“And?”
“I was told the account belonged to an approved university administrator.”
“Eleanor had been retired for four years.”
“I said that.”
“What did they tell you?”
“That identity synchronization sometimes preserves legacy ownership names.”
“Does it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Was that what happened here?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because somebody logged in with a password and second-factor token.”
My stomach tightened.
“So whoever used it had more than an old username.”
“Yes.”
“They had authentication.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
May you like
“I don’t know.”
Patel said, “Could Eleanor herself have retained those credentials?”
