Chapter 3 - THE MAN INSIDE THE UNIVERSITYThree knocks.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Whitaker and Maya both looked at the door.
I closed the folder containing the anonymous records.
“Who is it?”
“Campus Police.”
A man’s voice.
Whitaker visibly relaxed.
I didn’t.
Nathan Cole’s message repeated in my head.
Please don’t call campus security. Someone inside the university is helping him.
Maya whispered, “Should I open it?”
“No.”
I walked around the desk.
“Officer, identify yourself.”
“Chief Nolan.”
That made Whitaker stiffen.
Chief Peter Nolan had run St. Jude’s campus police department for fourteen years.
I had met him twice during my hiring process.
He was polite.
Competent.
And according to the file I had read before taking the job, his department’s operating budget had increased 340 percent over a decade.
Much of that increase came from Mercer-funded “public safety grants.”
Interesting.
“What do you need, Chief?”
“There’s been an incident involving a university employee.”
“What employee?”
“Nathan Cole.”
My eyes met Whitaker’s.
“What happened?”
“May I come in?”
“No.”
Silence.
Then Nolan said, “President Bennett?”
“I asked what happened to Nathan Cole.”
“He was involved in a traffic accident.”
“When?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“And you know this because?”
Another pause.
“We were informed by city police.”
“Which hospital?”
“St. Catherine’s.”
I opened my laptop and typed a message to Maya through the internal chat.
CALL ST. CATHERINE’S. VERIFY. DO NOT SPEAK.
She glanced down at her screen.
Then quietly stepped toward the window.
I continued talking.
“Is Mr. Cole alive?”
“Yes.”
“Conscious?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To brief you.”
Through the glass panel beside my office door, I could see Nolan’s outline.
There was another person behind him.
Then another.
Three officers.
For a traffic accident.
Maya’s phone buzzed.
She looked at me.
Then shook her head.
I understood.
No Nathan Cole at St. Catherine’s.
My heartbeat remained steady.
Years earlier, while serving as provost during a campus shooting threat, I had learned something important.
Panic is contagious.
So is calm.
“Chief Nolan,” I said, “I’m currently in a confidential board meeting. Email me your report.”
“I think we should speak directly.”
“I disagree.”
“President Bennett—”
“That will be all.”
Silence.
His shadow remained outside for five more seconds.
Then disappeared.
Whitaker exhaled.
“What the hell is happening?”
I turned to Maya.
“Hospital?”
“They have no patient named Nathan Cole.”
Whitaker sank into a chair.
I picked up my phone and called Detective Lena Ortiz of the state financial crimes unit.
Lena and I had worked together three years earlier during a university procurement fraud investigation.
When she answered, I didn’t waste time.
“I need help.”
Within fifteen minutes, everything changed.
Lena told me not to leave the building.
She sent state officers to Nathan’s home, his office, and the address in his email.
Then she gave me another instruction.
“Elizabeth, don’t use university email.”
“Why?”
“If somebody inside the administration is involved, assume your network is compromised.”
I looked at Maya.
She was already unplugging my desktop computer.
“You hired the right assistant,” Lena said when I told her.
“I know.”
At 12:31, we received news.
Nathan had been found.
Alive.
Not in a hospital.
He had been discovered unconscious in a parking structure three blocks from campus.
His car had struck a concrete barrier.
But investigators immediately saw something strange.
There were no skid marks.
And Nathan had bruising around one wrist.
“Someone put him in the car,” Lena told me.
“Can you prove it?”
“Not yet.”
“His records?”
“Missing.”
I closed my eyes.
The originals.
Gone.
“But,” Lena added, “his phone wasn’t.”
That mattered.
Because Nathan had sent me an email less than an hour earlier.
If someone had tried to silence him, they might not know what he sent.
Not yet.
By two o’clock, the campus was in chaos.
The dress video had surpassed four million views.
News vans lined the front gate.
Students had created memes.
One showed Alyssa pointing at me with the caption:
WHEN YOU ASK TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER AND SHE OWNS THE BUILDING.
I would have found it funny under different circumstances.
Instead, I was sitting in a secure conference room while Lena Ortiz placed photographs across the table.
Nathan’s car.
A broken office lock.
A trash bin containing shredded financial statements.
And a black SUV recorded leaving the garage.
“Registered owner?” I asked.
“Mercer Development subsidiary.”
Whitaker whispered a curse.
Lena looked at him.
“You didn’t hear that from me.”
“Understood.”
A knock came at the door.
This time, two state troopers were standing outside.
Between them was Chief Nolan.
He looked furious.
“I’m being removed from my own department?”
“Temporarily,” I said.
“On what authority?”
“Mine.”
“You can’t—”
“I can, and I did.”
Nolan pointed toward Lena.
“This woman has no jurisdiction over campus operations.”
Lena smiled.
“Attempted homicide is a state matter, Chief.”
His face changed.
Just enough.
I saw it.
“You said it was a traffic accident,” I reminded him.
“It was.”
“How do you know?”
He stared at me.
Behind him, one officer shifted uncomfortably.
Nolan realized his mistake.
Too late.
I stepped closer.
“Until further notice, your administrative access is suspended.”
“This is insane.”
“Your department also cannot destroy, transfer, edit, delete, or remove any records.”
“I’ve protected this university for fourteen years.”
“Then you should welcome an investigation.”
His eyes hardened.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“People keep telling me that today.”
He leaned close enough that only I could hear.
“Your father didn’t know either.”
Every muscle in my body went still.
“What did you say?”
Nolan smiled.
It was small.
Ugly.
Then he allowed the state officers to escort him away.
Lena waited until he was gone.
“Well,” she said, “that was stupid.”
“For him?”
“For whoever trained him.”
I turned to Whitaker.
“You knew Nolan knew my father?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
His shoulders dropped.
“I knew they had argued.”
“About what?”
“The Mercer contracts.”
There it was again.
Always Mercer.
I walked to the window.
Students moved across the quad below.
To them, this campus was classrooms, football games, exams, friendships.
They had no idea that beneath it all might be a ten-year conspiracy.
Then my personal phone buzzed.
A text message.
From Alyssa Mercer.
We need to talk.
I stared at it.
Another message appeared.
My father just told me to withdraw from St. Jude immediately.
Then:
My mother is crying and won’t tell me why.
And finally:
I found something in my dad’s safe. Your name is on it.
I called her.
She answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
Her breathing was uneven.
“My parents’ house.”
“Is Grant there?”
“No.”
“Your mother?”
“Upstairs.”
“What did you find?”
She was quiet.
“A letter.”
“From whom?”
Alyssa whispered:
“Your father.”
I gripped the phone.
“What does it say?”
“I haven’t read all of it.”
“Read it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
Her voice broke.
“Because it starts with, ‘Grant, if anything happens to me, Elizabeth gets everything.’”
I stopped breathing.
Everything.
Not evidence.
Not documents.
Everything.
“Alyssa,” I said carefully, “take a photograph of every page.”
“I already did.”
“Send them to me.”
There was silence.
Then she whispered:
“Someone just came into the house.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
A door slammed in the background.
Alyssa gasped.
“Alyssa?”
Footsteps.
She whispered, “They’re downstairs.”
“Lock the door.”
Another sound.
Closer.
“President Bennett…”
For the first time that day, there was no arrogance in her voice.
Only fear.
May you like
“Please help me.”
Then the call ended.
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