Morrow spun around. His expression hadn’t changed, but his silence was suddenly razor-edged. “Matches what, Miss Solstice?”
“The ‘Purge Cases’… the cold case,” Faye swallowed, shrinking beneath the weight of his attention. “From twenty years back. The burn mark. It’s a direct correlation.”
My heart gave a hard, irregular beat. ‘Purge Cases’, the name sounded familiar.
“Coincidence,” Morrow repeated, the word rolling off his tongue like a stone. “Yes. Most likely.”
He walked over to her, looming. He kept his voice low, a razor-edged whisper that carried more threat than a shout.
“Speculation is a luxury we avoid, Faye. We process. If you find a correlation in the approved archives, you may file a report. Until then, keep the investigation clear of ghost stories.”
He stared at her until she nodded, looking like she might be sick.
“Pack it up,” Morrow ordered. “And Faye? Take the Detectives’ statements before they leave. I want their arrival times and observations logged before they step off the property.”
He turned back to the body, dismissing her. The lie was smooth, practised; he didn’t even blink. Faye had struck a nerve. He knew exactly what that sigil meant, and he had just silenced her in front of witnesses.
Vesper moved past Dane, deliberately checking his shoulder with hers. She reached for the laptop, her hand hovering over the lid.
“Log them out, Faye,” Vesper said, voice like grinding glass. “And make it quick.”
Faye snapped the laptop shut, killing the glitching image. She turned to us, face drained, and steered us towards the exit as a flimsy shield against Morrow’s icy stare.
Every instinct I had screamed to plant my feet and demand why he was suppressing the evidence, but the terror in Faye’s eyes held me back. Pushing him now would only crush her. I allowed her to herd me out, keeping my gaze fixed on Morrow’s back—marking him as an obstacle rather than an authority. The ACD was trying to erase the truth, and I was the only one left to stop them.
“Badge,” she whispered, holding up her tablet with a trembling hand. “I need the transfer codes.”
I tapped my badge against the reader. The device chimed—a cheerful, bureaucratic sound, obscene in the damp warehouse.
“I’m sorry,” Faye breathed, the words rushing out as she hurriedly tapped the screen. She glanced back at Morrow, who was already barking orders at the containment team. “I… I had to. When the Director sees a code like this, he… he closes ranks. He stops listening.”
“He’s burying it, Faye,” Dane said, voice rough. “You know that.”
She hesitated, eyes meeting mine behind the wire-rimmed glasses. The fear there was genuine. “He’s… managing it. That’s what the ACD does.”
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“Faye!” Vesper’s voice cracked like a whip from across the warehouse.
Faye jumped. She shoved a digital receipt into my hand.
“You’re processed out,” she said, voice pitching up to a professional, if shaky, register. “Please vacate the scene immediately.”
She turned and hurried back towards the safety of the perimeter without looking back.
“She’s terrified,” Dane murmured, watching her go.
“She’s not the only one,” I said, pocketing the receipt. “If the ACD is this rattled, then the timeline is tighter than we thought. We need to get to the station before Morrow locks us out completely.”
We steppedout into the daylight, and the storm hit us instantly. The reprieve inside the warehouse had been a lie; out here, the rain was torrential, hammering against the corrugated iron roofs of the docks with a deafening industrial roar.
The storm had dragged the sky from morning grey back to slate-black. The river smelled of oil and churned-up mud.
Mira was waiting by the cordon line, leaning against the side of her van, water streaming off her coat. She was furiously packing her kit, slamming lids shut with unnecessary force, ignoring the rain soaking her auburn hair flat to her skull. She spotted us and marched over, face tight with rage.
“They locked me out,” she snapped. “Remote kill-switch. As soon as Faye logged the device seizure, my tablet went black. They scrubbed the local cache.”
“Did the upload finish?” I asked, stomach tightening.
