Chapter 7 - Project Northbridge
The university meeting the next morning began with a document that had my signature at the bottom.
Not a digital approximation.
Not a copied image.
A handwritten signature in blue ink.
For one terrible second, I thought it might actually be mine.
Dr. Ward placed the original beneath a clear protective sleeve.
The document was titled Student Research Participation Certification.
Project code: NORTHBRIDGE-14.
Date: March 11 of the previous year.
Research participant: Elias Jonathan Vale.
Hours certified: 612.
Compensation: $74,400.
I stared at the number.
"I never received that."
Dana sat beside me.
"Do you recognize the signature?"
"It looks like mine."
"Did you sign it?"
I studied the page.
The E was right.
The V was right.
Even the way the last stroke dragged slightly upward looked right.
Then I noticed the date.
March 11.
I knew where I had been that day.
I had presented a paper at an economics conference in Denver.
Professor Shaw had been there.
So had three hundred other people.
"No."
I looked at Dr. Ward.
"I was in Colorado when this was signed."
Dr. Ward made a note.
"We have confirmed your conference attendance."
Dana leaned closer to the document.
"Where was the certification signed?"
The university attorney answered.
"It was scanned and uploaded by Mercer Strategic Holdings."
"Do you have the original envelope or transmittal record?"
"We have electronic submission records."
"Who uploaded it?"
Dr. Ward turned another page around.
The upload credentials belonged to a company compliance officer named Roland Pierce.
I knew Roland.
He had attended family Christmas dinners twice.
He was Grant's chief financial officer.
My stomach tightened.
"How many documents like this exist?"
Dr. Ward placed a stack on the table.
"Twenty-three."
The room seemed to get smaller.
Twenty-three certifications.
Twenty-three signatures.
Twenty-three declarations that I had performed work I had never done and received money I had never seen.
The total compensation exceeded four hundred thousand dollars.
It almost exactly matched the payments shown in the VRS spreadsheet.
Dana did not look surprised.
She looked angry.
That frightened me more.
"And the research token?"
Dr. Ward nodded.
"Your token accessed supporting files for sixteen of these certifications."
"From my mother's house and Mercer headquarters."
"Correct."
"And Julian's hotspot."
"Correct."
I leaned back.
For the first time, I could see how elegant the scheme was.
The university paid or credited work to a company bearing my name.
The company moved funds through an account bearing my name.
My research token touched the files.
My signature appeared on the certifications.
If anyone investigated, the paperwork pointed in one direction.
Mine.
Dana asked, "What was Northbridge supposed to study?"
Dr. Ward looked at the university attorney before answering.
"Transportation corridor efficiency and regional job creation."
I knew the project immediately.
Not by name.
By the work.
During junior year, Grant had asked me to analyze freight traffic patterns for a proposed distribution complex near the state line.
He told me it was practice.
He gave me raw data and asked me to model economic impact under several scenarios.
I spent three weekends on it.
He paid me eight hundred dollars.
The final report I produced was thirty-eight pages.
I had assumed it stayed inside the family company.
"I did some of the analysis."
Dana turned toward me.
"How much?"
"A model. Maybe three weekends."
Dr. Ward asked, "Were you told it was grant-funded research?"
"No."
"Were you told your work would support public incentive applications?"
"No."
"Were you told you were being compensated seventy-four thousand dollars for that phase?"
I almost laughed.
"Definitely not."
The university attorney closed one folder and opened another.
"Mr. Vale, we also found your writing in portions of the final Northbridge report."
"Because Grant asked me to write analysis."
"Did you know the report claimed twelve student researchers participated?"
"No."
"Did you know six of those students deny participating?"
My mouth went dry.
"No."
"Did you know two of the listed students were not enrolled during the period claimed?"
"No."
Dana raised a hand.
"We are moving beyond an internal academic interview."
The university attorney nodded.
"We agree."
That was when he told us the university had referred suspected financial misconduct to the state inspector general's office and federal grant authorities.
No accusations had been filed against me yet.
But my name was all over the evidence.
Dana requested copies of everything legally available.
Dr. Ward agreed to provide the academic records and preserve the rest for investigators.
Then she turned to me.
"There is another issue."
I almost smiled from exhaustion.
"Of course there is."
"Your brother submitted a second statement last night."
Dana's pen stopped.
"After he knew his degree was on hold?"
"Yes."
"What does it say?"
Dr. Ward slid it across the table.
Julian now claimed I had recruited him into a broader scheme involving falsified research certifications.
He said I convinced him the family company could route payments through Vale Research Services as legitimate consulting income.
He said he did not understand the details.
He said he trusted me because I was the academically gifted twin.
He said he became frightened when I announced I was moving to New York.
That was why, according to Julian, he reported me anonymously.
I read the final paragraph.
He had turned my decision to leave into evidence of flight.
Dana leaned toward me.
"Do not react."
"I'm fine."
"You are gripping the paper hard enough to tear it."
I loosened my fingers.
Dr. Ward spoke carefully.
"Mr. Vale, Julian also provided a recording."
My stomach tightened.
"Of what?"
She pressed play on a laptop.
My own voice filled the room.
"Once I leave, none of this is my problem anymore."
Then Julian's voice.
"You can't just walk away after everything you did."
My voice again.
"Watch me."
The clip ended.
I stared at the laptop.
I remembered the conversation.
It happened six weeks earlier in Grant's garage after dinner.
We were arguing about the family company.
Julian wanted me to stay and work for Grant after graduation.
I told him I was done fixing his reports, attending company dinners, and pretending our future belonged to the same family plan.
Once I leave, none of this is my problem anymore.
That was what I meant.
The recording made it sound like a criminal saying goodbye to his accomplice.
"Is there more?"
Dr. Ward nodded.
"Julian says that is the complete relevant portion."
"That wasn't my question."
She looked at the university attorney.
"We received a forty-three-second file."
Dana spoke.
"We want the original device and full recording examined."
The attorney nodded again.
"Law enforcement will determine that."
I thought of Julian's phone held casually in his hand that night.
I had never noticed he was recording.
Maybe because I had never imagined I needed to watch my twin brother like an adversary.
That version of me was disappearing quickly.
After the meeting, Dana and I walked to a coffee shop across from campus.
Professor Shaw joined us.
She had learned enough from the university to know Northbridge was involved.
When I told her about my three weekends of modeling, she closed her eyes.
"Elias, I remember that work."
"How?"
"You showed me a regression problem because one variable was behaving strangely."
I remembered.
It had been late October.
I had brought her a stripped-down dataset without company names.
She helped me identify a multicollinearity issue.
"Do you still have our emails?"
She nodded.
"Yes."
Dana leaned forward.
"Those emails may establish what Elias believed he was working on and when."
Professor Shaw opened her laptop right there.
The messages were still in her archive.
My email said Grant had given me a family-business modeling exercise.
I described it as unpaid practice at first, then later mentioned he gave me a small check.
Nothing about grant funding.
Nothing about subcontracting.
Nothing about a seventy-four-thousand-dollar payment.
Dana forwarded the thread to herself with permission.
Then my unknown texter returned.
Unknown: They know you asked about Northbridge.
I showed Dana immediately.
Unknown: Roland is cleaning files today.
Dana's expression sharpened.
"Whoever this is has internal access."
Another message arrived.
Unknown: He is not doing it for Grant.
I read that twice.
"What does that mean?"
Dana typed nothing.
She told me not to engage until she had the number checked.
Then the unknown sender sent one more message.
Unknown: Your stepfather is not the top of this.
For the first time since graduation, my fear changed shape.
I had spent two days thinking Grant had built the trap.
May you like
Now someone inside his company was telling me he might be trapped too.
