Chương 5
BISHOP: TOO CLEAN.
Then a third.
BISHOP: CHAD KENSINGTON HAS TWO SEALED UNIVERSITY CONDUCT MATTERS.
David read the words twice.
Bishop should not have known that.
Sealed university records were not public records.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
He typed one sentence.
HOW DID YOU GET THAT?
The reply came immediately.
WE DIDN’T.
David stared.
Another message appeared.
SOMEONE SENT IT TO US.
Cole noticed his face.
“What?”
David turned the screen toward him.
Cole read the messages.
“Who’s Bishop?”
“A friend.”
“The strange-hours friend?”
“Yes.”
Cole pointed at the phone.
“Who sent him sealed conduct information?”
“We don’t know.”
“That’s a problem.”
“It is.”
“You sound surprisingly calm about that.”
“I’m not calm.”
The phone rang.
Bishop.
David answered.
“What happened?”
“We got an email eight minutes after activation.”
“From?”
“Anonymous relay.”
“Traceable?”
“Probably eventually, but not by doing anything stupid tonight.”
David glanced at Cole.
“He’s learning restraint,” he said.
Bishop ignored that.
“The sender included document numbers, dates, and two administrator initials.”
“Documents?”
“Not the records themselves.”
“Good.”
“Not good.”
Bishop’s voice hardened.
“One of the matters was closed three days after Nora’s complaint.”
David looked toward his daughter.
“Same complaint?”
“We can’t establish that.”
“Then don’t assume it.”
“I’m not.”
Bishop paused.
“There’s something else.”
David waited.
“The anonymous sender included a sentence.”
“What sentence?”
Bishop read it.
“Ask why Garage C went dark seven minutes before Nora entered it.”
Cole went completely still.
David looked at him.
“What?”
Cole reached for his phone.
“Campus security told me the outage started at eleven twenty-six.”
David checked the clock on the wall.
Nora had arrived at the hospital shortly before midnight.
“What time did she enter the garage?”
Cole was already dialing.
“I was told eleven thirty-one.”
Five minutes after the cameras failed.
David looked at Nora.
Her face had gone rigid.
She lifted the whiteboard.
With painful care, she wrote one final sentence.
THEY WERE WAITING FOR ME.
David read the sentence once, then again, because accepting it too quickly felt dangerous.
Cole stopped dialing and looked at Nora.
“You’re sure?”
Nora’s eyes hardened.
David stepped between them before the question could become an accusation.
“She said they were waiting.”
“I heard her.”
“Then don’t make her prove it with her face.”
Cole closed his mouth.
For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was the soft hiss of oxygen from another patient’s bay beyond the wall.
Then Nora reached for the marker again.
David almost stopped her.
Instead he moved the board closer.
She wrote carefully.
WYATT SAID YOU TOOK LONG ENOUGH.
Cole read the words over David’s shoulder.
“That matters.”
Nora added another line.
BRANTLEY HAD MY BAG.
David looked down at the clear evidence bag containing her cracked phone.
“What bag?”
Nora pointed weakly toward the chair where her torn sweatshirt had been placed earlier.
Then she wrote.
BACKPACK.
NOT HERE.
Cole swore under his breath.
“Was it recovered?”
David turned to him.
“You tell me.”
Cole was already calling somebody.
This time he walked into the hallway before speaking.
David watched him through the glass.
His gestures grew sharper with each sentence.
Nora touched David’s wrist.
He looked down.
Her board showed three words.
DON’T TRUST HIM.
David crouched until they were eye level.
“I don’t.”
She searched his face.
He added, “But I don’t know yet whether that means he’s compromised or scared.”
Nora frowned.
“Those are different problems.”
Her expression changed slightly.
It was an old conversation between them wearing new clothes.
When she was fourteen and came home furious because a teacher had accused her of plagiarizing a paragraph, David had made her separate what she knew from what she suspected.
She had hated him for nearly two days.
Then the school discovered three students had submitted versions copied from the same website.
Nora had not.
She still occasionally brought it up as evidence that he was irritating even when useful.
Now she wrote.
YOU ALWAYS DO THAT.
“What?”
MAKE LISTS.
David glanced at the board.
Despite everything, a corner of her mouth twitched and immediately hurt.
She winced.
“Don’t laugh.”
Her eyes accused him.
“That was almost a joke.”
She lowered the board and shut her eyes.
The moment vanished as quickly as it came.
Cole returned carrying a look David disliked.
“The backpack never made it into evidence.”
“Where is it?”
“Campus security log says no backpack was collected.”
Nora’s eyes opened.
She shook her head violently.
David steadied her shoulder.
“Easy.”
She grabbed the marker.
I HAD IT.
“I believe you.”
BLACK.
RED KEYCHAIN.
Cole nodded.
“We’ll look.”
Nora wrote harder.
CHAD TOOK IT.
“When?”
PARKING GARAGE.
Cole’s phone buzzed again.
He checked it, then looked toward David.
“My lieutenant wants me back at campus.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Convenient.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
David studied him.
Cole looked angry enough to be useful.
Maybe that was unfair.
Maybe useful was simply what David needed people to be tonight.
Cole slipped his phone into his pocket.
“I’m going to Garage C.”
“Your lieutenant said campus.”
“He didn’t say which building.”
That earned the smallest nod from David.
Cole started toward the door, then stopped.
“If anyone comes in here claiming to be university staff, attorneys, investigators, victim advocates, whatever, get names.”
“And don’t sign anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Cole looked at Nora.
“I’m sorry I asked if you were sure.”
Nora stared at him.
He nodded once as though that was answer enough and left.
David waited until the elevator doors closed.
Then he called Bishop.
“Backpack missing.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask.”
“She needs rest.”
Bishop did not answer immediately.
David could picture him sitting somewhere with one ankle over the opposite knee, fingers drumming against a desk.
Bishop had always used silence as a form of criticism.
“Say it,” David muttered.
“You called us because you believe evidence is disappearing.”
“I called you to observe.”
May you like
“And observations get less useful after people start moving pieces.”
David looked at Nora.
