Chapter 3 · The Notebook in Her Hand
Julian Reyes waited outside Ashbourne’s east gate in a black coat and no expression.
Two campus security guards stood between us.
Dean had sent them to “preserve university property.” That meant my laptop. My phone. My student ID. Anything that could prove what they had done.
One guard held out his hand. “Miss Hart, your lab key.”
“No.”
“Dean Caldwell says you’re suspended.”
“Then he can freeze my access remotely,” Julian said.
The guard turned.
Julian showed his ID. “Northbridge Institute legal compliance. Miss Hart submitted research materials to us before tonight’s award. If you seize her personal devices without written order, we will treat it as evidence interference.”
The guard lowered his hand.
I liked Julian immediately.
Dean came down the steps with an umbrella held over him by a trembling student volunteer.
“Mr. Reyes,” he said, “you cannot interfere with internal discipline.”
Julian glanced at the iron gate. “I am outside your campus.”
Someone behind me snorted.
Ethan stood near the hall entrance, rain soaking his shoulders.
“Ava,” he called. “Stay tonight. Please. Let me help.”
I turned.
“You had my passwords.”
His mouth opened.
“You gave Sophie access to Lab B.”
“I didn’t know she would use it that way.”
“You never asked me.”
He flinched.
Good.
I took out my student ID and held it up to the cameras behind us.
“This card connects to access logs. I am not surrendering it without written documentation.”
Dean’s smile disappeared.
Julian opened the car door. “Northbridge has arranged secure storage and a hotel room under your name. You may decline both.”
“Why help me?”
His face changed, barely.
“Because Mara Hart once helped me.”
My mother’s name cut through the rain.
Dean went still.
Julian looked at him. “Northbridge has reason to believe Dr. Hart’s final archive was transferred into Ashbourne’s private donor repository after her accident.”
Professor Wren, standing behind me with the sealed drive, turned sharply. “What?”
Dean said, “That is defamatory.”
“No,” Julian replied. “That is a preservation notice.”
He handed Dean a folded document.
Dean did not take it.
I stepped toward the car.
Ethan reached for me, then stopped before touching my arm.
“If you leave with him,” he said, “I can’t protect you.”
I looked at him.
“You still think that’s what you were doing?”
He had no answer.
I got into the car.
As we pulled away, my phone buzzed.
Unknown sender.
A photo loaded slowly.
My dorm room.
Drawers overturned. Mattress slashed. Books scattered across the floor.
Then another photo.
My mother’s blue research notebook.
In Sophie’s hand.
A message followed.
Looking for this?
I stopped breathing.
Julian read the screen.
For the first time, his calm cracked.
“Where is that notebook now?”
I stared at Sophie’s fingers curled around the faded blue cover.
“She has it,” I said. “And she knows what it’s worth.”
