Page 112 of Fractured Devotion
“And no one listened.”
There’s a long silence before I speak again. “Let’s cross-reference the Veritas logs with admin access records. If someone scrubbed Harper’s notes, they had to log in somewhere. Find the anomaly.”
Reyes nods. “On it.”
I leave the office with the notebook still in my hand, Harper’s final notes burned into my brain. Whatever she was on to, it got her killed.
And whoever did it is still inside these walls.
I step into the archive bay down the hall, pressing my ID badge against the reader until it clicks open. It’s cold inside, metallic. It’s the kind of place that smells like old wires and decisions no one wants to admit to.
The logs Reyes found were only partial. If Harper used her clinic credentials, they’d be time-stamped here too. I sift through rows of access panels and pull up the raw admin reports.
As I scan the list, something jumps out—an access ping from Harper’s ID at 3:42 a.m., just two days before her death. The node accessed? A restricted analytics port tied to system behavior modifiers.
That’s not standard. That’s not even supposed to be visible to interns.
I tag the entry and send it to Reyes.
His reply comes fast, and it says, “That terminal’s in the executive diagnostics suite.”
Which means she was either escorted in, or someone gave her access.
My pulse tightens. I scroll backward. Someone else used that terminal less than five minutes after her. The entry is masked, the ID scrubbed. But the timing’s too tight to be a coincidence. Harper found something, and someone followed.
I pull up the audit log for the suite’s camera. It cuts out the moment Harper enters. There’s just static.
And then nothing.
The file is labeled CORRUPTED.
I exit the archives with a bitter taste in my mouth.
Whoever killed Harper didn’t just silence her. They erased her.
But they missed a breadcrumb.
And I’m going to follow it to hell if I have to.
I find Celeste outside her office, speaking to one of the interns with that clipped tone she uses when she’s running low on patience but pretending not to be. Her face is composed, unreadable, but her eyes flick toward the hallway where Kade stands too close, too casual.
He leans in to say something, and she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t smile either, but the lack of recoil is enough to make my stomach churn.
She notices me and excuses herself quickly, murmuring something I can’t hear before approaching me with that straight-backed stride that always reminds me of a battlefield surgeon—efficient, practiced, and worn.
“Alec,” she says. Her voice is neutral. Guarded.
“I was coming to check on you,” I say. “See how you’re holding up.”
“I’m fine.” Her mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “As fine as one can be after knowing a colleague fell off the roof.”
She tries to pass me, but I step aside just enough to hold her there. “I’m serious, Celeste.”
“I know,” she says. Her voice is a bit tender now. “But I’m not ready to be dissected today.”
I nod slowly. “You saw the footage?”
“There was no footage,” she says, her tone clipped. “Convenient, isn’t it?”
