“Don't lie to me. I have the financial records. I know Webb paid you. I know Harrow was involved. I just need you to confirm how it worked.” I leaned closer. “My partner was investigating Harrow's network. He found something, something that got him killed and made to look as though he'd eaten his gun out of guilt. So tell me: what evidence did you suppress?”
Chen's hands were trembling badly now. “The crime scene photos. The original ones. They showed—they showed it couldn't have been self-inflicted. Wrong angle. Wrong powder pattern. The scene was staged.”
The words landed like bullets. I'd suspected, had known it in my gut, but hearing it confirmed made the rage in my chest crystallise into something colder and much more precise.
“What else?”
“Witness statements. Someone saw a car leaving the scene and described the plates. That statement disappeared before it could be officially logged.”
“And the ballistics?”
“Altered. The weapon found at the scene, your partner's service pistol, didn't match the bullet that killed him. That detail got removed from the final report, and a different weapon was logged as evidence. Same calibre, close enough that nobody questioned it.”
“Who did the alteration?”
“Same process as the Rourke case. Harrow's instructions through Webb, but a different pathologist. Dr Eleanor Hayes. She's still in London. Still working.”
“Why?” My voice came out rougher than I'd intended. “Why did Harrow need James dead?”
“I don't know the specifics. Just that your partner had gotten too close to something, had evidence about cases Harrow had manipulated, and was going to expose the whole network.” Chen looked at me with something that almost passed for pity. “Harrow couldn't risk it, so he made it look as though the detective had been corrupt all along, that he'd killed himself out of shame. Destroyed his reputation along with his life.”
“And you helped.”
“I processed the paperwork. Same as always.” The shame in his voice was thick. “I didn't ask questions. Didn't want to know. Just did my job and took the money and told myself I was only following orders.”
“How much?” I asked. “How much did my partner's death cost?”
“Thirty-five thousand. Total. For all the suppression work.”
I had to stand. Couldn't sit there looking at Chen's guilty face without wanting to put my fist through it.
“Two lives,” I said quietly. “Both murdered. Both cases manipulated. Both covered up by the same network of people who thought they were too important to face consequences.” I turned back to him. “You're going to testify about all of it. Both cases. Every detail. Every person involved.”
“They'll kill me.”
“Probably. But you'll be remembered as the person who helped bring down Harrow instead of just another bureaucrat who enabled murder for profit.” I moved to the door. “Think about which legacy you prefer.”
“What about you?” Chen asked, his voice small. “What happens to you when this is over?”
“I don't care. As long as Harrow pays for what he did, as long as James and Lily get the truth they deserved.” I opened the door. “That's all that matters.”
I left him sitting there and drove back to Ravenswood with my mind racing, building connections, seeing the full picture of how they'd dismantled both cases, Lily's and James's, with the same machinery, the same people, the same cold and methodical design.
But one piece was still missing. The name. The person Harrow had been protecting, the reason Lily had been targeted and James had gotten too close.
That wasn't in Chen's knowledge, and it wasn't in Webb's. Harrow had kept that detail locked down tight.
Which meant going after Harrow directly. No more intermediaries. No more patience.
I went straightto Dom's quarters and found him there.
“I have it,” I said. “The full chain. Judge Reeves to DA Brennan to Webb to the evidence handler to the pathologist who altered the autopsy.”
“Good.” Dom looked up from his laptop. “Dmitri's been working through the phone data. He's found additional names.”
My phone buzzed.
Handler
