Ipull into the mining compound parking lot at exactly eight a.m.
Slept maybe three hours. Spent the rest of the night cross-referencing the trafficking routes from yesterday's camp with mining road access points. Every route leads here. Arctic Ridge Mining sits at the perfect junction for moving people through wilderness that doesn't show up on tourist maps.
The drive up here took forty minutes through mountain passes that ice over without warning. The same roads Emma drove five days a week. Same curves. Same blind spots where a black truck could force a car off the edge and disappear before anyone noticed.
I grip the steering wheel tighter. Three years of dead ends and buried reports, and now two trafficking cases in two days. Both connected to this facility.
Emma drove roads like these. If she saw something she wasn't supposed to see, this operation is why she's dead.
The main office is a single-story prefab building near the equipment yard. Lights are on inside. Through the window I can see movement. Harlow Kane, probably. Waiting like she said she would.
I kill the engine and step out into morning cold. The sun hasn't cleared the mountains yet. Everything is gray and frozen and quiet except for the diesel generators running backup power.
The door opens before I reach it.
Harlow stands in the doorway, coffee mug in hand. She's traded last night's security uniform for jeans, work boots, and a thermal shirt under a canvas jacket. Hair still pulled back in that no-nonsense ponytail. No makeup. All business.
"Sheriff."
"Ms. Kane."
"It's Harlow." She steps back to let me in. "Coffee's fresh if you want some."
"Thanks."
The office is basic. Desk, filing cabinets, wall map of the mining operation, and a space heater working overtime against the cold. She pours coffee into a chipped mug and hands it to me. Black. No sugar, no cream. Like she already knows I don't want anything that complicates it.
I take a sip. Strong enough to strip paint. Perfect.
"I pulled employee records going back six months," she says, gesturing to a stack of files on the desk. "Cross-referenced them against the security logs. Found some inconsistencies."
The files are organized with color-coded tabs. Notes in neat handwriting mark specific pages. This isn't someone who threw paperwork together to look busy. This is methodical investigative work.
I set my coffee down and flip open the top file. Standard employment paperwork for a worker named Viktor Petrov. Except the hire date is three weeks ago and there's no corresponding security badge activation in the system.
"He never checked in," I say.
"Not officially. But someone with administrative access created his employee record. Backdated it to make it look legitimate."
"Can you trace who?"
"Working on it. The system logs show the entry came from the main office terminal, but that doesn't narrow it down much. Six people have access to that computer."
Smart. Thorough. She's already done the preliminary work most investigators would take days to figure out.
I flip through more files. Three other names jump out. All hired within the last two months. None with corresponding security badge activations. All showing up in employee records but not in any of the actual facility access logs.
Ghost employees. Paper workers who exist in the system but never actually worked here.
"Someone's using your company's infrastructure to create cover identities," I say. "Probably for trafficking victims they're moving through the area. Give them fake employee status, and suddenly they have a reason to be on mining roads if anyone questions them."
Harlow nods. "That's my assessment. And if they can create fake employee records, they can also manipulate shift schedules and access logs. Make it look like people are working when they're actually being moved."
"You said six people have administrative access. Who are they?"
She pulls out a list. "Site manager, assistant manager, HR coordinator, two shift supervisors, and me."
"You trust any of them?"
