A single black challenge coin lay between us on the yellowed Formica, its tarnished edges catching the gray light from the window. Raymond picked it up, his thick, grease-stained fingers turning the heavy metal over and over.
He adjusted his plain black wristwatch, the cheap rubber strap clicking against his wrist. His gravelly voice sounded like dry stones sliding down a hill.
“You kept this,” Raymond said.
“I kept it,” I said.
“Lily is nineteen, Daniel. She is not part of the unit.”
“She is in room four twelve with her jaw wired shut.”
Raymond placed the coin back on the exact center of the table, lining it up with a deep scratch in the laminate. He looked at my hands, then down at his own.
“How is she doing?” he asked.
“She tried to speak this morning,” I said, my voice flat. “But they have her on a liquid diet, and she cannot move her mouth.”
“She is tough,” Raymond said, his voice softening slightly. “She always had her mother’s stubborn streak.”
“The three names on her paper are Ethan Cole, Brandon Hale, and Tyler Vance,” I said. “I need to know everything about their families.”
Raymond stared at the black coin, his thumb tracing the worn insignia of our old command. He did not look up.
“If we dig this grave, Colonel, we both go back under,” Reyes said.
“The shovel is already in the dirt,” I said.
Raymond let out a low, raspy sigh that sounded like sandpaper on pine. He reached into his flannel shirt pocket, pulled out a small notepad, and wrote down the names.
“Cole is the contractor’s boy,” Raymond said. “Hale’s mother is the state senator. What about Tyler Vance?”
“He is the campus detective’s nephew,” I said.
Raymond stopped writing, his pencil hovering a fraction of an inch above the paper. He tapped the lead against his thumb.
“We need to check the school’s money,” I said. “Start with the new science building.”
Raymond stood up, his heavy boots creaking on the old linoleum. He did not say yes, but he did not leave the coin behind. He slid it into his pocket and walked out to his truck.
I watched him back down the gravel driveway, his exhaust leaving a thin trail of blue smoke in the damp air.
At four in the afternoon, the smell of copper wire and cold grease filled my nose inside Raymond’s metal salvage shed. The corrugated tin walls rattled as a truck rumbled past on the state highway outside, and the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden ceiling.
A single computer terminal hummed in the corner of the workspace, casting a pale green light over several rusted engine blocks. Raymond stood over it, his broad shoulders hunched as he scrolled through rows of financial logs.
“The university science building fund is public record, but the sub-accounts are locked behind three firewalls,” Raymond said. “I had to route the query through an old server in Toledo.”
He tapped the keyboard with two thick fingers, bringing up a ledger of outgoing transactions. The screen flickered, reflecting green lines across his calloused hands.
“Look at the dates,” I said.
“August twelve, September three, and October fifteen,” Raymond said. “Three transfers of exactly two hundred thousand dollars each.”
“All going to the same place?”
“An offshore account registered to a holding company called Great Lakes Logistics,” Raymond said. “But the authorization came from inside the administration building.”
He pointed his grease-stained finger at a string of letters and numbers stamped next to the October transfer.
“A private bank transfer code,” I said. “Zero nine four two delta.”
“That code requires two separate digital signatures to clear the university’s main bank,” Raymond said.
“Whose name is on the second line of the bank transfer?” I asked.
Raymond clicked the mouse, but the screen went dark. A solid red warning box flashed twice in the center of the monitor.
“The Toledo server just went offline,” Raymond said, his jaw tightening.
“Did they trace the query?”
“No,” Raymond said, looking at the dead screen. “But someone just pulled the plug on the campus side.”
“Then we go to the campus,” I said.
I parked my truck near the campus quad at five in the afternoon. The damp yellow leaves on the pavement stuck to the soles of my boots as I walked toward the red brick administrative offices, passing students holding paper coffee cups and laughing.
The lobby was quiet, smelling of floor wax and old paper. A young clerk with wire-rimmed glasses sat behind a high oak counter, sorting a stack of blue folders.
“I need the academic and disciplinary records for Ethan Cole, Brandon Hale, and Tyler Vance,” I said.
The clerk stopped sorting. He looked at my face, his eyes darting to my jaw and then back to my eyes.
“Those records are private under federal law, sir,” the clerk said.
“I am Lily Walker’s father,” I said. “Two of those boys are suspect in her assault.”
The clerk’s collar looked tight against his neck. He glanced toward a heavy wooden door to his left, where a campus security guard stood with his arms crossed over his chest.
“I cannot help you without a formal request from the dean,” the clerk said.
“Is the dean in?”
“The dean is at a conference in Columbus until Thursday,” the clerk said.
He slid a blue guest log across the counter toward me, his hand slightly unsteady.
“You have to sign in anyway,” the clerk said. “Visitor policy for after-hours inquiries.”
I picked up the heavy metal pen, the cold steel hard against my fingers. I wrote my real name, Daniel Walker, and my home phone number on the empty line.
The clerk took the log back, his eyes lingering on my name before he quickly closed the leather binder. The security guard stepped six inches closer to the counter, his hand resting near his belt.
“You should leave now, sir,” the guard said.
I turned and walked out of the office, the heavy oak doors clicking shut behind me.
By five thirty, the sky was turning a dark, bruised purple. I sat in the driver’s seat of my car, watching the students walk past the library, their faces illuminated by the screens of their phones.
My old phone vibrated in my jacket pocket, the screen lighting up with Raymond’s number. I pulled it out and answered without greeting him.
“Go,” I said.
“I found the transfer route,” Raymond’s voice rasped through the speaker. “The private bank transfer code zero nine four two delta is linked directly to a local construction account.”
“Whose account?” I asked.
“It is registered to Cole Construction,” Raymond said. “But there is a second line on the transfer. A recipient line.”
“Name it,” I said.
“The system is heavily encrypted on that end,” Raymond said. “But the transaction went through the day before the safety lights on the campus plaza were turned off.”
“Who authorized the transfer?”
“I am still digging,” Raymond said. “Be careful, Daniel. They are already looking for you.”
I hung up the phone and placed it on the dashboard. Across the parking lot, the tall metal poles of the campus safety lights began to hum.
I dialed a number on my old phone and watched the campus lights flicker on.
Reyes did not say hello. He just listened to the hum of the line.
Reyes cleared his throat, the sound like dry gravel sliding down a chute.
“They are at the Oak Ridge Country Club,” Reyes said. “The Cole boy has a lunch reservation at one.”
“I will go talk to him,” I said.
