Chapter 96 Everything He Dried

Inside, the grand foyer was packed with antique furniture, oil paintings, and glass cases full of ceramics that probably cost more than her whole yearly salary.

"Would you care for some water, Miss Crawford?" A middle-aged woman in a crisp apron came over with a tray, her face warm and welcoming. She gestured toward the sofa. "Sit, make yourself at home."

Eira took the cup with a polite nod. "You know who I am?"

The woman blinked, then recovered fast. "Miss Lila mentioned you. And, well, I might’ve caught a photo somewhere."

Luna Seraphina showed her, more like it.

"You can call me Mrs. Jones," the woman added. "Been looking after Alpha Killian for years now."

"Mrs. Jones," Eira repeated.

Mrs. Jones lingered nearby, watching Eira with a look that could only be called doting. It was a little much, honestly, a little unsettling even.

"Mrs. Jones." Alpha Killian’s voice cut through the moment sharp as a blade.

The housekeeper backed off, reluctant, clearly still cataloguing something about Eira in her head.

When Eira heard him coming down the stairs, she stood up fast.

He was carrying her box.

Her heart jumped. She rushed over, dropped down right there, and started pulling everything out piece by piece, laying it all across the floor.

The box itself looked rough, warped and wrinkled from water damage.

Panic flashed across her face. If the box looked this bad, what about everything inside it?

But when she unfolded one of her hand-bound sketchbooks, the pages came apart clean, no sticking. Some of the ink had bled a little, colors smudging at the edges, but the pages themselves held up fine.

She reached for one of the letters next. The envelope had already been opened.

The paper inside was dry. A little warped, but readable.

She looked up fast.

Alpha Killian met her eyes. "I don’t make a habit of reading other people’s business."

Eira got it instantly. He’d dried everything out, piece by piece, by hand.

"Thank you." Her eyes went a little glassy.

Alpha Killian thought, out of nowhere, that her eyes right then beat out anything he’d ever seen through a telescope.

"You owe me."

"I know, I know." Eira let out a small laugh, packing everything back into the box. She stood, looked him straight in the eye. "Seriously though, Alpha Killian. Thank you. The hotel, Sebastian, now this. You’ve had my back more than I probably deserve."

Alpha Killian’s eye twitched.

"Oh my gosh, so that’s Miss Crawford’s box!" Mrs. Jones came flying back into the room, clapping her hands together like she’d just found out her favorite couple on Bridgerton finally got together.

"Last time Alpha Killian brought it home, he spent the whole afternoon out on the balcony drying every single page. Wouldn’t let me touch a thing. Said he didn’t want anything ruined."

Luna Seraphina had been crystal clear about this: Killian’s great at annoying people and hiring good staff. Romance, though? Hopeless. If you ever meet Miss Crawford, help him out.

And Mrs. Jones fully intended to help.

She’d read every Colleen Hoover book on her shelf twice and rewatched Bridgerton more times than she’d admit out loud. She knew a slow burn when she saw one.

"You know you’re the first woman he’s ever brought home, right? In all my years working here."

Alpha Killian’s jaw tightened. "Mrs. Jones. That’s enough."

Eira blinked, thrown off completely. She’d spent most of her life in labs and lecture halls. Reading romantic subtext wasn’t exactly her specialty. And besides, her divorce had just gone final. Whatever this was supposed to be was the last thing on her radar right now.

"Mrs. Jones, don’t you have something else to do?" Alpha Killian’s voice had gone ice cold.

Mrs. Jones backed off, reluctant, already halfway to texting someone about this.

Eira turned to leave.

Her phone started buzzing, hard, over and over. Not a call. An alert. From the lab.

She pulled it out. The screen was lit up red, notifications stacking on top of each other.

She set the box down fast, on the coffee table this time instead of the floor, and looked up at Alpha Killian, urgency written all over her face.

"Sorry, I gotta run. Can I leave this here for now? I’ll grab it later."

She didn’t even grab her bag.

Alpha Killian didn’t waste time arguing. The car that dropped them off had already left, so he got on the phone and called his guy to swing back around, fast.

Eira didn’t wait around either. She rattled off an address near the lab, then fired off a text to Professor Davies and Claire, her assistant.

Eira: someone got into my workstation. need you both there NOW

Professor Davies and Claire both scrambled to get there.

When the car pulled up to the address, Eira thanked the driver and hopped out. She ducked into a nearby alley, using it to slip out of sight.

The driver waited a second, then called Alpha Killian.

"Alpha Killian, I dropped Miss Crawford off. Don’t think that was actually where she was headed, though."

"Understood." Alpha Killian hung up. He didn’t push for more.

--

Eira had a pretty good idea who’d been snooping around her desk.

On her way to the lab, she swung by a corner store and grabbed a black mask, the kind that covers half your face, then pulled her hair forward to hide her profile. Straight-up disguise mode.

The guard at the gate nodded. "Dr. Crawford."

"Has Serena Winthrop been here tonight?" Eira kept her voice low, sharp.

The guard nodded.

A few minutes later, Professor Davies’s car rolled up. He cracked the window and asked the exact same question.

The guard nodded again.

Professor Davies rolled the window back up, sat with it a second, jaw tight, like he hated what he was about to do.

He handed Claire his phone anyway. "Text this to Dr. Victor Winthrop. Word for word, exactly what I say."

Claire hesitated. "Wait, seriously? Shouldn’t we be reporting this straight to campus security, or the board? Why loop in her grandfather at all?"

"Because the second this hits the board, it’s already over." Professor Davies let out a tired, disgusted sigh. "Winthrop’s name is on half the funding in this building. You really think anyone up top is gonna side with Eira over him? They’ll bury the report, and Eira’s the one who ends up looking like she caused a scene over nothing. This isn’t the smart move, Claire."

"Oh." Claire looked down, finished typing, and handed the phone back, clearly not thrilled about it either. "Sent."

They dropped their phones off at the entrance and headed for the lab building.

Sure enough, lights were on inside.

The two of them hurried in. Not a soul in sight, just the inner lab door hanging wide open.

Professor Davies and Claire stepped through. For a second, neither of them clocked who was actually sitting at the desk.

If it weren’t for the fact that her fingers were flying across the keyboard without tripping a single alarm, she could’ve passed for some rich kid who wandered in on a family connection.

"What’s going on?" Professor Davies came closer, eyes on the screen. Surveillance footage. Eira was pulling a copy onto a flash drive.

The grainy black-and-white clip showed Serena’s face, clear as day.

Professor Davies’s face dropped. Of course it was her.

"Cameras in here got cut for a few minutes," Eira said, calm, steady. "But I’ve got a mini cam wired into my own setup. Caught everything."

She reached to fire the footage straight off to the institute’s board.

Professor Davies grabbed her hand before she could hit send.

"Not yet. Besides, she never actually got into the real data. Go after her now and you’ll hit walls everywhere you turn. Even if she gets bounced off this project, she lands on the next one, easy. She’s not going anywhere. Her grandfather makes sure of that. Her name stays spotless. Yours won’t. People will start ghosting you just to stay in his good graces."

Eira’s hand stayed locked on the mouse.