My stomach dropped.
Barbara Channing had been the town clerk since I was in middle school. She’d been at every council meeting, every town hall, every “we care” press conference after Gwen disappeared. Always composed, always efficient, always the gatekeeper of paper and permission.
The email was politely cold.
Thank you for your request.
* * *
Pursuant to applicable public records statutes…
* * *
Certain materials have been withheld or redacted…
Four attachments. Only four.
I clicked the first PDF, heart thudding like I could will it into being useful.
Black bars. So many of them it looked like someone had taken a Sharpie to my hope.
Names removed. Addresses removed. Dates blurred into vague ranges. “Ongoing investigation.” “Pending review.” “Referred to appropriate agency.”
I scrolled faster, desperate for any scrap that wasn’t sanitized.
There were references to “an incident,” “a complainant,” “a witness statement.” Whole paragraphs where the only readable words were “the” and “and.”
The second PDF was worse. A single-page memo explaining why additional records were exempt.
The third looked promising until I realized it wasn’t even for the case I’d requested—an unrelated call log that technically fell under the same umbrella of “public safety documentation.” A compliance trick. Give me something so they could say they’d responded.
The fourth was an itemized list of withheld documents, like a menu of everything I wasn’t allowed to see.
Interview notes. Supplemental reports. Evidence logs.
All marked WITHHELD.
I sat very still.
The boat shifted gently under me, as if nothing in the world had changed. As if the air didn’t suddenly feel thinner. As if a person could read “WITHHELD” a dozen times and not want to tear something apart with her teeth.
Rios had warned me yesterday. He’d said it with that maddening calm, like he’d seen this movie before and already knew the ending.
Don’t get your hopes up.
I’d nodded like I was reasonable and experienced and not still—still—hoping with some part of me that the system would accidentally tell the truth if I asked the right way.
I stared at the screen until my eyes burned. Then I slammed the laptop shut hard enough that the whole boat seemed to flinch.
“Fuck you,” I whispered to no one.
Not Barbara. Not even Carson.
The machine. The whole gleaming apparatus of procedure and policy and we can’t comment at this time that existed to protect itself first, always.
Because this wasn’t a delay. This wasn’t bureaucracy.
This was a deliberate chokehold.
