Read Chapter 26: A Fragile Alliance

The Travelodge bathroom smelled of cheap citrus soap and antiseptic. Eleanor had raided the first-aid kit from her car and spread its contents across the cracked porcelain sink—gauze, tape, a tube of antibiotic ointment, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide that had probably been sitting there since the Thatcher years.

Marcus sat on the closed toilet lid, his shirt peeled away from his left shoulder. The bullet had grazed him—she'd seen enough crime dramas to recognize the difference between a graze and a through-and-through, and this was mercifully the former. But it was still an open wound, still leaking, still needing more care than she could give him in a budget hotel bathroom with a flickering fluorescent light.

"This is going to sting," she said.

"Everything stings today."

She tipped the peroxide onto a wad of cotton. Marcus hissed through his teeth but held still while she dabbed at the raw furrow along his deltoid. The wound was angry red, surrounded by bruising that had already bloomed purple and yellow.

"You should see a doctor."

"I should be dead." He watched her work, his eyes tired but steady. "Eleanor, about what I did—"

"Don't." She pressed the gauze harder than necessary. "We both know what you did. We both know why. And we both know I'm not ready to talk about it."

He nodded, jaw tight. She wound the bandage around his shoulder, securing it with tape, then helped him back into his shirt. His face was pale, and he leaned on the sink for a moment before straightening.

"I need to check the upload," she said, stepping into the main room. "Priya said the last batch finished. But if the firm knows about the server—"

"They don't. Not yet." Marcus followed her, moving stiffly, cradling his arm. "Hale was too focused on getting the physical diaries back. She thought that would be the end of it."

"Thought." Eleanor sat on the edge of the bed and opened her laptop. "The operative word being thought."

---

The files were there. All forty-seven photographs of the chancellor's diary, taken inches from the fragile pages, each detail crisp enough to make out the fibers of the paper. Priya had organized them chronologically, with her own annotations, cross-referenced against the decoy diary Eleanor had transcribed from her father's code.

"It's live," Eleanor said, exhaling. "Priya's server in Iceland. The public version went up an hour ago."

Marcus leaned over her shoulder, reading the timestamps. "Then it's done. The evidence is out there. They can't un-make it public."

"Unless they make it disappear." Eleanor stared at her screen. "They have the originals. If they can prove the digital copies are forgeries—and with the originals in their possession, their experts will say whatever they're paid to say—then the story becomes about fabrications, not the truth."

"That's why we need the college records." Marcus pulled a chair beside the desk, moving with visible care. "The bursar's correspondence. The minutes from the board meetings. Any document that shows the college knew about the land grant, about the peer's family connection, about what they've been hiding for two hundred years."

"The files are on the college server." Eleanor's stomach dropped. "I've seen them, you've seen them—but they're protected by the college's system. If the firm gets wind of what we're doing, if they have anyone with network access—"

"Then they'll erase everything." Marcus was already reaching for his phone. "How long does it take you to break into a university server?"

Eleanor blinked at him. "Excuse me?"

"You're a historian. You're not a hacker." He was already typing. "But I know someone who is. A bloke from my cricket days. Works in cybersecurity now. He owes me enough favors to fill a lifetime."

"Forget hacking." Eleanor grabbed her own phone. "I have legitimate access. Professor-grade credentials. I can log into the college's document management system from anywhere—it's just a matter of remote desktop and a stable connection."

She stopped. Looked at him. The thought arrived with a cold, sharp clarity.

"Marcus. What time does the college's IT department run backups?"

He understood immediately. "You think they'll scrub the server."

"If the firm knows what's on it—and they must know—they'll move fast. Whitmore's office has been in contact with them from the beginning. He knows what documents exist. He knows which ones would connect him to the fire, to the ransacking, to everything."

Marcus's jaw tightened. "The bursar."

"Yes." Eleanor pulled up her email client. "And I've just realized something else. The bursar has been hiding his tracks through the college's internal IT systems. But what if he's been careless somewhere else?"

She typed quickly, accessing the college webmail archive. It was a little-used feature, buried in the administrative portal, but historians were trained to find hidden archives. If Whitmore had ever sent a message from his personal account through the college's server—

There. A thread from eighteen months ago. The sender address was a Gmail account: j.whitmore.lawson. The subject line: "Discretion required."

Eleanor clicked. The email was brief, barely three sentences. But it was enough.

*Dear Mr. Hale, Following our initial consultation, I trust this confirms our arrangement. My interest lies solely in protecting the college's archival integrity and my family's legacy. As discussed, a certain document in the chancellor's collection must never come to light. I understand your firm's methods have achieved similar results elsewhere. I will cooperate fully with any requests you may have regarding access protocols.*

*Signed, James Whitmore.*

Eleanor stared at the screen. Her hands were trembling.

"He did it." Her voice came out barely a whisper. "He's the one who hired them. He's the one who had my office ransacked. He's the one who set the fire in the archive."

Marcus read over her shoulder, his expression darkening. "And his son's inheritance was tied to a bequest that the diary would have invalidated. The land grant dispute—if the college lost that claim, the Whitmore family's hold on the property would collapse."

Eleanor scrolled further down. There was another email, sent three days ago, from the same Gmail address to the same Hale firm.

*A change of circumstances. The documents have been located. Additional measures may be required. Please advise on your standard protocols for ensuring long-term confidentiality.*

She highlighted the text. "Long-term confidentiality." The phrase felt like ice water down her spine. "That's code for killing someone, isn't it?"

Marcus's face was pale. "I've seen Hale's invoices. 'Consultation fees.' 'Travel expenses.' 'Discreet handling.' It's all euphemism. The firm's clients pay extra for clean endings."

Eleanor's gaze snapped back to the screen. Without thinking, she began copying every email in the thread, every attachment, the full metadata trail that connected the bursar's personal account to the firm's institutional address.

"We need to get this off the college server." She worked furiously. "If Whitmore knows we've been looking—"

"Already gone." Ethan's voice came from the doorway.

They both spun. Eleanor's heart hammered against her ribs. Ethan leaned against the frame, a small flash drive dangling from his fingers. He was pale, exhausted, but there was a grim satisfaction in his expression. His laptop bag hung over one shoulder.

"The college server is a house of cards," he said. "I've been watching it since Priya got me access. Ten minutes ago, someone logged in with administrative credentials and started purging files. The diary-related correspondence, the archival records, the board's historical committee minutes—everything."

"Whitmore." Eleanor's mouth went dry.

"That's the thing." Ethan came into the room, holding up the flash drive. "The admin account they used belongs to the college's IT director. But the IT director is on sabbatical in Crete. And the login originated from inside the bursar's office suite."

Marcus was on his feet now, swaying slightly, hand pressed to his wounded shoulder. "We have the copies?"

"I pulled everything I could before the purge hit." Ethan tossed him the drive. "But there was something else." He pulled out his phone, swiped through screens. "A deleted email. Whitmore thought he'd scrubbed it. He didn't know about the backup archive."

Eleanor grabbed his phone. The screen showed a message, dated three weeks ago, from Whitmore to the same Gmail address that had contacted Hale.

*Mr. Hale, I have done everything you asked. The insider at your London office provided you with the necessary access. Simply tell me—when will it end? I have children to protect. You said the diary's existence would be enough. You never said anything about fire.*

She read it twice. Three times.

The insider at your London office.

Eleanor's gaze rose slowly to meet Marcus's. He was already staring at her, his face going grey.

"Margaret Hale's office," Eleanor said. "She had someone inside. Someone who knew about the diary even before I found it."

Marcus shook his head slowly. "Not Hale. She's the director. But there was someone else at the firm who knew I was working with you. Who fed information to Whitmore."

"Who told them where you were every night."

"Who knew about my mother."

He reached for the flash drive Ethan was still holding—and froze. His phone buzzed on the table. Eleanor glanced at the screen.

The contact name read simply: *MUM*.

Marcus stared at it as if it were a cobra. His hand shook as he reached for the phone.

Eleanor touched his arm. "Don't."

But he was already swiping to answer.