Danny shut off the screen. The rain was heavier when she left campus. She had missed the bus connection toward West End and stood beneath a narrow shelter beside a wet four-lane road, listening to tires hiss through standing water. Her Corolla was at a repair shop after its alternator failed that morning. Of course it had.
Some days seemed determined to collect every debt at once. A city bus groaned past without stopping. Danny pulled her jacket tighter. You look terrible. Rachel stood at the other end of the shelter holding an umbrella.
Danny glanced at her. Journalism teach you bedside manner? No. My mother did. Rachel sat beside her. For a while, neither woman spoke.
Traffic lights reflected red and green across the wet pavement. Finally, Rachel said, I found a name. Danny turned. Who's? Lisa Grant.
Should I know her? No. Rachel opened her bag and removed several photocopied pages protected inside a plastic sleeve. She was a Hawthorne student three years ago. 26 then. 29 now.
Danny took the papers. What happened? She filed a complaint against Tyler. The traffic noise seemed to fade. Rachel continued.
After a donor event, Tyler allegedly followed her into a corridor near the old athletic wing. She said he physically restrained her when she tried to leave and threatened her when she told him she would report it. Danny looked down at the page. There was no complete complaint. Only an index reference.
A date. Lisa's name. Tyler's initials. Then nothing. Where's the rest?
That's the problem. Rachel pointed to the document. The complaint existed. Past tense. It was entered into the system.
What happened to it? I don't know. Danny looked at her. Did Lisa withdraw it? No record of that either.
Then where is she? Rachel's expression darkened. She left Hawthorne before the semester ended. A cold feeling moved through Danny that had nothing to do with the rain. Did you talk to her?
Not yet. Find her. I'm trying. Danny looked again at the fragment. Three years, same family, same university, same silence.
Does Professor Miller know? Rachel nodded. He's searching archived faculty records. As if summoned by the words, Rachel's phone rang. Professor Miller, she answered on speaker.
David, I found it. His voice was low and urgent. Danny leaned closer. The Lisa Grant complaint? Part of it.
There's an old faculty review reference from three years ago. It shows student affairs opened a case involving Tyler Blake. Rachel's eyes widened. Can you download it? I'm trying.
They heard keyboard clicks, then silence. Miller, another click. That's strange. What? My access just changed.
Danny looked at Rachel. Professor Miller spoke again. I can see the index, but the linked file is gone. Gone how? It was there 30 seconds ago.
Rain hammered the metal roof above them. Rachel stood. Take screenshots. I already did. Try the audit history.
More typing. Then Miller went quiet. David? When he answered, his voice had changed. They revoked my archive permissions.
Danny felt the hair rise along her arms. While you were inside the file? Yes. Rachel paced beneath the shelter. Could that happen automatically?
No. Professor Miller's answer came immediately. Someone changed my permissions. The three of them fell silent. A bus approached in the distance, headlights glowing through the rain. Danny looked at Lisa Grant's name on the photocopy.
Yesterday, she had thought Hawthorne was protecting the blakes because Charles Blake gave the university millions of dollars. Now the possibility was darker. Maybe they had done this before. Maybe Danny's suspension was not an exception. Maybe it was a method.
The bus pulled to the curb with a hiss of brakes. Its doors folded open. Danny stood, but did not board immediately. Rachel. Yeah?
If Lisa agrees to talk, don't promise her anything. Rachel frowned. What do you mean? Don't promise justice. Don't promise the university will listen.
Danny folded the photocopies carefully. Just promise we'll listen. She boarded. Rachel remained beneath the shelter as the bus pulled away. Across town, Professor Miller sat alone in his office staring at a screen that now denied him access to records he had been able to view minutes earlier.
Then another notification appeared. His faculty archive access had been suspended entirely. Miller slowly reached for his phone. Before he could call Rachel back, an email arrived from Dean Robert Hayes. Professor Miller, please report to my office tomorrow morning regarding unauthorized review of restricted student records.
Miller read the message twice. Then he looked toward the dark campus outside his window. Danny had been right. The problem was no longer whether Hawthorne believed the brakes. Someone inside the university was actively protecting them.
Someone inside the university was actively protecting them. And if a three-year-old complaint could disappear while Professor Miller was looking at it, there was no telling how many other voices had already been erased. Professor Miller was waiting outside Dean Hayes' office at eight the next morning. The administration building smelled faintly of furniture polish and burnt coffee. Rain streaked the tall windows, turning the campus beyond them into a blur of gray stone and wet leaves.
Hayes opened the door exactly on time. Professor Miller entered. The meeting lasted 12 minutes. When he emerged, his face looked older. Rachel was waiting near the elevator.
What happened? Miller glanced back toward Hayes' closed door. He told me my job is to teach, not investigate donor families. Rachel's jaw tightened. He said that?
Not in those words. Of course not. Miller held up a printed warning. He called it unauthorized access to confidential records. Said, if I continue helping Danny, there could be disciplinary consequences.
Rachel stared at the paper. So they erased a complaint, lock you out while you're looking at it, then punish you for noticing. Miller folded the page. That appears to be the sequence. Rachel pulled out her phone.
I'm going to my editor. Be careful. She looked at him. About what? Miller's eyes moved toward the Blake Pavilion across the rain-soaked quad.
People who can make records disappear usually know how to make reputations disappear too. By 1030, Rachel understood what he meant. Her editor, Paul Bennett, 58, sat behind a cluttered desk in the basement newsroom of Hawthorne's journalism building. A printed letter lay between them. Three pages.