Catherine’s account had been used to create the template before Rusk altered the final agreement. It might have been stolen, duplicated, or deliberately misattributed.
But until the investigators understood how it happened, the person who had fought hardest to expose the truth could also be made to look like the person who had manufactured the lie.
And Victor Sloane knew it.
For two days, Ironclad Academy felt like a building waiting for a verdict.
Master Ward barely left his office. Julian worked with the investigators to reconstruct the archive timeline. Adrian reviewed his old correspondence. Marcus and Derek continued training, but neither could concentrate for long.
Lena kept returning to the same question.
Why would Catherine’s account appear on the earliest version of the forged template?
The simplest explanation was that Catherine had helped create it.
But the simplest explanation was not always the correct one.
Dr. Morris arrived on the third morning with an update from the forensic team.
“The account record is authentic,” she said. “But that doesn't mean Catherine personally created the file.”
Elias looked up.
“Explain.”
“The server log identifies the account used, not the person at the keyboard. We found evidence that the archive credentials were accessed remotely during a period when Catherine was not at the office.”
Julian leaned forward.
“Can you identify who accessed it?”
“Not conclusively yet. But the login came from a device registered to the tournament’s executive office.”
Elias closed his eyes.
“So someone used her account to make it look as though she was responsible.”
“That is one possibility. We need more corroborating evidence.”
The investigators had also recovered an earlier version of the document from a backup drive. Unlike the forged agreement, it contained no signatures from Lena, Adrian, or Catherine. It was a blank liability form intended for ordinary training activities.
The disputed version had been built from that form, with a new paragraph added after the incident.
That paragraph claimed the participants had knowingly accepted responsibility for a private sparring session.
It was the foundation of the lie.
Yet another discovery complicated the case.
The original template had been created three weeks before Adrian’s injury. Someone had prepared a blank version containing the additional paragraph in advance, but there was no proof that it had been used until after the incident.
The investigators were now examining whether the document had been prepared as part of a broader strategy to protect the tournament organization from liability.
The evidence against Sloane was substantial enough to warrant further scrutiny, but it did not establish every detail of the scheme. He continued to deny directing the alterations.
Then Martin Vale called.
“I remember Catherine mentioning a backup account,” he told Julian. “She was worried someone might misuse her credentials. She created a separate archive to preserve copies of important documents.”
“Where is it?” Julian asked.
“I don't know. But she said the location was somewhere she could reach without entering the tournament office.”
Julian thought of the storage unit.
They searched the remaining boxes that afternoon. Beneath a false bottom in an old equipment case, they found a small envelope containing a handwritten note and a key.
The note read:
If the official record ever contradicts itself, look for the version that existed before anyone needed it to change.
The key opened a small lockbox in the storage facility’s administration office. Inside was an old portable drive and a sealed letter.
The drive contained archived copies of several documents, including the original agreement and a series of emails between Catherine and an independent compliance officer.
The emails were dated weeks before Adrian’s injury.
In one message, Catherine had written:
I found a draft liability clause that appears designed to transfer responsibility for unsanctioned promotional activities onto the athletes. I have not approved it. I am preserving a copy because I believe the document may be used later to justify events that were never properly authorized.
In another, she identified the executive office as the source of the revised template.
But the final email was the most revealing.
If this becomes public, people will ask why I kept copies instead of immediately going to the authorities. The answer is that I do not yet know who I can trust. I need evidence strong enough that it cannot be dismissed as a personal dispute.
The message had been sent two days before Catherine’s death.
Elias read it with tears gathering in his eyes.
“She was trying to be careful,” he said. “She knew they would attack her credibility.”
Lena placed the recovered drive beside the investigators’ materials.
“Now they can compare the original versions.”
The forensic review proceeded quickly once the missing archive had been found.
It confirmed that Catherine’s account had been used without her authorization to create a preliminary template. Daniel Rusk had later modified the document and inserted the false consent language. The final agreement had then been added to the tournament records after Adrian’s injury.