Chương 14
“Technically?”
“Yes.”
“Possibly.”
I hated the answer.
Celia continued.
“But one session occurred when she was documented as attending a procurement conference in another state.”
“That doesn’t exclude remote access,” I said automatically.
Hale glanced at me.
Even now, my brain refused convenient conclusions.
“No,” Celia said.
“It doesn’t.”
“Then we still don’t know who used it.”
“No.”
A new thought came.
“Did Julian have access?”
Celia did not answer immediately.
“Not to Eleanor’s token, as far as I know.”
“As far as you know.”
“He did have administrative access through Institutional Partnerships.”
“To what?”
“Credential exception requests.”
The room went very still.
Alvarez asked, “Since when?”
“According to the role history, late 2019.”
Three months after the review closed.
Exactly as the text message had said.
I closed my eyes.
The pieces were connecting, but not into a shape I trusted yet.
“What would that let him do?”
“Approve continued access for external or legacy stakeholders under certain partnership programs.”
“Could he keep Eleanor’s credential active?”
“He could submit an exception.”
“Did he?”
“I haven’t found one.”
“Could he delete it?”
“Not without leaving another trail.”
Patel raised her hand slightly, stopping my next question.
“Celia, have you spoken with Julian today?”
“No.”
“Martin Voss?”
“He called me twice.”
“Did you answer?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he suspended my archive permissions ten minutes after I accessed the 2019 records.”
Alvarez stood.
“Your permissions were suspended?”
“Yes.”
“By Voss?”
“The request came from his university office to our partnership administrator.”
“That should not give him authority over your employment systems.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then why was it honored?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
A knock sounded at Hale’s door.
No one responded at first.
It came again.
Hale crossed the room and opened it.
Professor Cho stood outside holding a printed sheet.
His face was more severe than usual.
“I apologize for interrupting.”
“What happened?” Hale asked.
Cho looked at me.
“Your dissertation submission portal has been placed on administrative hold.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
“I passed.”
“Yes.”
“You said the result stands.”
“It does.”
“Then what is this?”
“A filing hold.”
“Requested by whom?”
Cho handed me the page.
At the bottom was the same office that had suspended my research access.
Institutional Partnerships.
This time, however, Martin Voss’s name was not listed.
The requestor field showed Julian Mercer.
And beside his name was an authority code I had never seen before.
Celia was still on speakerphone.
When I read the code aloud, she inhaled sharply.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
“That role was retired in 2020.”
“What role?”
Her answer came quietly.
“Delegated compliance officer.”
Alvarez took the paper from me.
“Julian isn’t a compliance officer.”
“No,” Celia said.
“He isn’t.”
I looked at the code again.
“Then why does the university system think he is?”
No one answered.
My phone buzzed with another incoming message.
This time Julian’s name appeared on the screen.
I almost ignored it.
Then the preview loaded.
You should have stayed home.
A second message followed.
Now they’re going to make you prove you didn’t steal your own research.
Patel read it over my shoulder.
Her face hardened.
“Do not respond.”
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Then one more message appeared.
Mom warned me you’d destroy everything if you ever found out who paid for your project.
I read Julian’s message twice before the meaning settled into place.
Not because I did not understand the words, but because I understood too many possible versions of them.
“Who paid for my project?”
Hale’s face went pale.
Alvarez reached for the phone.
“Do not answer him.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
This time I meant it.
Celia was still on speaker.
Her voice came quietly through the phone.
“Mara, your project received supplemental infrastructure funding in its second year.”
“I know.”
“The university listed it as an unrestricted research support allocation.”
“That’s what the paperwork said.”
“It wasn’t unrestricted.”
Hale closed her eyes.
I turned toward her.
“You knew.”
“I knew there was supplemental funding.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Her voice was low.
“I did not know Eleanor was connected to it.”
Celia said, “She wasn’t officially.”
Alvarez spoke sharply.
“Celia, be precise.”
“I’m trying.”
“Then tell us what you know, not what you suspect.”
A pause followed.
“The money came through a vendor partnership pool managed jointly by Institutional Partnerships and the procurement office.”
“Which vendor?”
“The same one that supplied the dataset.”
My stomach tightened.
“That still doesn’t mean Eleanor paid for anything.”
“No.”
Celia took a breath.
“But I found a historical approval memo this morning.”
“Signed by her?”
“No.”
“By Voss?”
“Yes.”
Hale looked toward the floor.
“What did it approve?”
“Research support targeted to projects likely to increase institutional adoption of the vendor’s infrastructure.”
I stared at the amber lines still visible on my laptop screen.
My dissertation had never been designed to sell software.
I had built the first version of the model on university servers that barely survived routine maintenance.
The vendor’s infrastructure arrived later, when the project outgrew what the lab could provide.
“Did they choose my project because of Julian?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because of Eleanor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what exactly did Julian mean?”
“I don’t know that either.”
The repetition frustrated me, but Celia was doing what I had demanded from myself all morning.
Refusing to turn implication into fact.
Patel said, “Dr. Mercer, we need the phone.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough to preserve the messages properly.”
I handed it over.
The act felt more intimate than giving a blood sample.
Patel placed it in an evidence pouch but left the top open.
“You can still receive calls with us present.”
“That sounds fun.”
Nobody laughed except Hale.
It was a small, tired sound.
Alvarez stood.
“I’m going to freeze the administrative holds where I can.”
“Where you can?”
“I cannot guarantee restoration today.”
“My submission deadline is tomorrow.”
May you like
“I know.”
“So if Julian triggered the hold and the university lets it stand, he still gets what he wanted.”
