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“Still empty,” I say, closing the file I have in hand.

The system has given us nothing useful. No donor list, no clean trail of funding, nothing that makes sense for a school with this many protections around it. Which means the information was being withheld.

She exhales slowly, then says, “Tell me exactly what the headmaster said to you.”

That pulls my attention fully to her. “He didn’t say much,” I tell her. “Just that his donors are private, protected, and above scrutiny apparently.”

Her jaw tightens slightly at that, like she expected something like it and still didn’t like the confirmation. “Above scrutiny,” she repeats. “That’s not an explanation.”

She shifts slightly on my lap without thinking about it, grounding herself there the way she always does when her thoughts start moving faster than anything around her.

“What if it’s not about the donations at all?” she says.

I don’t answer right away. I watch her closely now, the way her mind is running too many questions all at once. Mireya Vitelli is one of the smartest people I’ve met and she doesn’t even realize it. There is something disarming about how easily she disappears into her own mind. “What if he’s protecting something else entirely?” she adds.

“Like what?”

Her eyes finally lifts to mine. “What if he owes the killer something?”

“The only thing the headmaster cares about,” I say slowly, “is his role here.”

Something brightens in her expression at that. “Oh,” she says. “That could be it. If he owes the killer something significant enough, it wouldn’t be financial. It would be structural, mostly tied to position and authority.”

Her fingers tap lightly against my leg as she speaks, absent-minded. “Maybe he didn’t just get this job,” she continues. “Maybe someone helped him with it. And that’s why he keeps protecting them. Because whatever this is, it started before the murders.”

“So you think they knew each other before all of this?” I ask.

“Or long enough for leverage to exist,” she says immediately.

I reach for my phone, because I know who can help with this. “I’m calling the team.”

The call connects after a few rings, speakerphone filling the quiet space with the tired sound of someone in Virginia who definitely hasn’t been awake long enough for this.

“Please tell me this is not about the case,” Kyle says. “Because if it is, I’m quitting.”

“You better wake up and get ready, we have a theory,” I say, shaking my head

“Wait… are you with your student?”

I don’t answer, but Mireya does. “Hi,” she says casually.

That earns me a slow laugh on the other end. “Oh, I get it. This is the woman who’s been keeping you from fully going emotionally unavailable.”

“I’m gonna end this call,” I reply as I’m met with a smile from her.

“Alright, alright,” he says, still amused. “What do you need?”

“I need the exact date the headmaster Spencer Porter started at St. Ellesta”

“Why?”

“Because it lines up with the earliest gap in the killer’s activity pattern,” I say. “If he was present before the first confirmed murder, we may be dealing with overlap or influence, something like internal protection.”

I hear him type on the other side of the screen. After a few minutes of him cursing his laptop down, he speaks again. “I’ve got it. He started a year after the first known case to work there, but became headmaster after ten years.”

Beside me, I feel her shift before she speaks. “That’s too close,” she murmurs.

Kyle continues, “There’s more. I’m seeing fragmented archival references to student records from around that era. Specifically a graduation cohort from 1972. The scans are incomplete, but the class book exists.”