Chương 11
Dr. Simon Vale denied ordering any destruction. Elaine Voss hired a criminal defense attorney and took administrative leave.
Bradley announced that the Aegis project was suspended.
For Daniel, the announcements brought no relief. Grant remained missing. Every vehicle slowing near the house tightened his chest. He checked locks twice, then three times. He installed motion lights and offended a delivery driver by meeting him at the curb.
Lily noticed.
“YOU ARE MAKING THE HOUSE SCARED,” her tablet said.
“Houses don’t get scared.”
“THIS ONE DOES.”
She wanted to return to her dorm to collect clothes and books. Daniel refused.
The tablet spoke, “NOT YOUR DECISION.”
“There is an armed patrol outside because the man who attacked you is missing.”
“THEN POLICE COME.”
“You’re not going.”
Lily’s eye hardened.
Karen stepped between them, not physically but with her voice. “She is going eventually.”
“Not while Grant is out there.”
“You can’t lock her inside until trial.”
“I can keep her safe for one week.”
“You don’t know it will be one week.”
Daniel looked at Lily. “This is reasonable.”
The tablet answered, “IT IS ALWAYS REASONABLE WHEN YOU DECIDE.”
Lily went to the dorm the following day with Soto, two officers, Karen, and Daniel’s absence.
He sat at home for three hours, angry at everyone, including himself.
When they returned, Lily carried a cardboard box on her lap. Inside were clothes, textbooks, a chipped mug, and a small blue case containing laboratory safety goggles.
She placed the case on the dining table and typed, “NEED SOTO.”
Soto had already left.
Daniel asked, “Why?”
Lily opened the case. Beneath the goggles was an empty indentation in the foam.
Her tablet said, “CARD WAS HERE.”
“What card?”
“MEMORY CARD.”
Karen sat down slowly.
Lily typed that she had copied raw Aegis data onto a microSD card two days before the attack. She hid it beneath the foam in the goggles case because she did not trust the university server. She had told no one.
The card was gone.
“Who knew about the case?” Daniel asked.
Lily typed, “NO ONE.”
“Did you check before today?”
“NO.”
Karen said, “Someone searched the room.”
Lily shook her head.
The tablet spoke, “ROOMMATE.”
“Tessa?” Daniel asked.
Lily typed, “ASK.”
Tessa arrived that evening with her father, an insurance adjuster who spoke too loudly and appeared furious that anyone had asked his daughter to come.
“She’s already been traumatized by this,” he said in the entryway.
Lily sat in the living room, bruising faded to yellow along her cheek.
Tessa looked at her and began crying.
“I took it,” she said.
Her father turned. “Took what?”
“The memory card.”
“When?” Daniel asked.
“The morning after Lily was attacked.”
“Why?”
“Campus security called our room. A woman said officers needed to collect anything connected to the Vale lab. She knew about the goggles case.”
“Who knew?”
“I don’t know. She said Lily had listed me as someone authorized to help.”
“You believed that?”
Tessa covered her face. “I was scared.”
“What did you do with the card?”
“I gave it to a security officer.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his name.”
Daniel’s voice rose. “You handed the only copy of the evidence to someone you can’t identify?”
Tessa’s father stepped forward. “Back off.”
Lily struck the tablet screen.
“STOP.”
The synthetic voice filled the room.
Daniel turned away.
Karen asked Tessa to describe the officer.
“A woman,” Tessa said. “Forties, maybe. Black coat. She showed me a badge.”
“Campus badge or police badge?” Karen asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What did she say?”
“That the university needed to preserve evidence before students contaminated it.”
Daniel looked at Soto, who had arrived halfway through the explanation and stood near the doorway.
“No university officer reported collecting the card,” Soto said.
Tessa’s father rubbed the back of his neck. “My daughter needs a lawyer.”
“She may,” Soto said. “Not because she’s in trouble, but because someone manipulated her into surrendering evidence.”
“Can you identify the woman?” Daniel asked.
Tessa nodded uncertainly. “Maybe.”
Soto opened a photograph array on her tablet.
Tessa studied it for less than a minute before pointing to Elaine Voss.
The missing memory card transformed the case.
Voss had not merely worried about publicity. She had entered Lily’s dormitory under false pretenses and removed evidence hours after the attack.
Her attorneys claimed she had acted under the university’s emergency preservation policy and later transferred the card to Wade Rusk. No documentation supported the claim.
Rusk, through his attorney, denied receiving it.
Prosecutors offered him limited consideration if he cooperated fully.
For two days, he refused.
Then his wife visited him in jail.
Afterward, Wade Rusk asked to speak.
He admitted disabling the Carver cameras. Elaine Voss had told him Lily possessed stolen research files that could destroy a major agreement and expose private medical information. Rusk believed he was helping recover university property.
He had met Grant Ellison in the east stairwell.
When Lily arrived, she refused to surrender her phone. Rusk grabbed her sleeve. She tore the temporary badge from his jacket. Grant took a steel-bodied flashlight from Rusk’s belt and struck her.
Rusk claimed the first blow shocked him.
He claimed the second happened too fast.
By the third, he was no longer shocked. He was afraid Grant would turn on him.
He stood there while Lily fell against the wall and raised both hands over her face.
He stood there while Grant struck her again.
When Grant stopped, Rusk helped search Lily’s pockets. Grant took the phone. Rusk found no memory card. They carried Lily outside because blood and water were collecting on the stairwell tile. Grant left through the service tunnel. Rusk called an ambulance, restored the camera system, and returned to the security office.
“Why go to the hospital?” Daniel asked Soto after she summarized the statement.
“To determine whether Lily could identify him.”
Daniel looked toward the kitchen, where Lily was learning to drink through a modified cup.
May you like
“And Voss?”
“Rusk says she ordered the camera shutdown and evidence recovery. He says she did not order violence.”
