“Wait.” I caught his wrist, felt muscle and heat and the particular tension of a man holding himself back from violence. “We photograph everything. We don't take originals unless absolutely necessary. We need this to be admissible if it ever goes to trial.”
“Trial.” His voice was hollow. “You think this goes to trial.”
“I think we build the case properly or we waste everything we're risking.” I released his wrist, pulled out my phone, started photographing. “Help me document this. Every page. Every exhibit label. Every chain of custody form.”
We worked in silence. Dom holding evidence boxes open while I photographed contents with methodical precision. Case files that showed gaps. Witness statements that contradicted each other. Forensic reports with sections redacted. The architecture of corruption laid bare in paper and ink.
While Dom focused on Lily's files, I moved to the adjacent cabinet. The one with different date ranges. Different case codes. Looking for Crawford, James. Detective Inspector. My partner's name that should have been filed under suspicious death investigations.
Nothing.
I checked the next drawer. The next section. Ran my fingers along file tabs, looking for any variation of his name, his badge number, his case reference code.
Still nothing.
“Cal?” Dom's voice pulled me back.
“Just checking something.” I forced my hands to stop shaking, returned to photographing. But the absence sat in my chest like a stone. James's file should have been here. Should have been buried in the same archive where they stored all their inconvenient truths.
Unless they'd destroyed it completely. Unless James had gotten close enough to something that they couldn't risk even the sealed evidence existing.
The thought made bile rise in my throat.
“You were looking for your partner's file,” Dom said quietly.
“It's not here. Nothing with his name. Nothing with his case reference.” I kept my voice level through practice. “Which means either it was never sealed, or it was removed entirely.”
“They destroyed it.”
“Maybe. Or it's stored somewhere else. Somewhere even more restricted.” I returned to Lily's files, forced myself to focus on what we could document rather than what we'd lost. “Doesn't matter right now. We're here for your sister.”
But it did matter. It mattered that James's death had been erased so thoroughly that even the buried evidence didn't exist. It mattered that Harrow's network was efficient enough to make an entire investigation disappear.
It mattered that I might never prove what really happened to him.
Dom's hand settled on my shoulder. Brief. Grounding. “We'll find it. Whatever they did with his file, we'll find it.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and went back to work.
And then I found it. The thing that made everything click into place.
A log entry. Timestamped the night Lily died. Security footage from a camera that was supposed to have malfunctioned. Except the footage wasn't corrupted. It was deleted. Deliberately. By someone with administrative access.
And the access code used belonged to Harrow's office.
“Dom.” My voice came out strained. “Look at this.”
He moved beside me, close enough that I could feel his body heat, smell that scent that made my focus waver. He read the document over my shoulder, his breathing getting heavier as comprehension settled.
“He deleted the footage,” Dom said. Voice deadly quiet. “Harrow personally ordered evidence destroyed.”
“Yes. Which means he knew something was on that footage. Something that contradicted the narrative he was building.” I photographed the log entry from three angles, pushing down the frustration of not finding James's files. At least we had this. At least Lily's case was giving us something. “This is proof. Direct proof. Not conspiracy theory. Not speculation. Evidence that Harrow actively corrupted your sister's case.”
Dom's hand shot out, gripped the edge of the filing cabinet hard enough to make metal groan. “Who was he protecting?”
“I don't know yet. But this gives us a thread to pull.” I pocketed my phone, started returning documents to their proper places. The empty space where James's file should have been felt like an accusation. “We need to get out of here before someone realises we've accessed restricted materials.”
We cleaned up, restored everything to how we'd found it, slipped back through the hidden door and repositioned the cabinet. By the time the clerk returned to escort us out, we looked like two bored lawyers who'd wasted an hour on tedious research.
