For a few minutes, no one discussed the investigation. Daniel let that small silence belong to the family, even as the blue watch and the blocked camera view waited at the edge of his thoughts.
Officer Colin Mercer gave his first detailed interview with a lawyer seated beside him. The interview concerned possible criminal conduct and was kept distinct from the department's administrative process, a separation Cole explained before asking a single question about the park.
Mercer said he had believed Daniel was entering a restricted area. He described the event coordinator's message, a possible theft suspect, and a movement toward the bag that he interpreted as a threat.
Cole asked him to place those events in order. Mercer moved the supposed theft information from before his arrival to shortly after it, then said he could not remember whether it had come by radio or in person.
“Who provided it?”
“There were several people talking.”
“Name anyone you remember.”
His lawyer requested a pause. When they returned, Mercer said Nolan Vance had mentioned a man carrying something that did not belong to him.
That was different from an official theft alert. Cole asked why Mercer's report had described a dispatch notice, and he said he might have used the wrong term under stress.
The investigators did not argue with the explanation. They compared it with the report's precise language, his radio traffic, and his request to search a particular pocket after the confrontation.
“How did you know about that compartment?” Cole asked.
“I could see it.”
“You called it the narrow pocket behind the outside compartment. What made it significant?”
“People conceal things.”
The answer supplied a general possibility and no particular fact. Cole let it stand in the record, then asked about his early arrival and his contact with Vance at the warehouse.
Mercer admitted knowing the contractor through off-duty security work. He said the warehouse equipment had been moved for service and denied knowing of any false invoices.
His lawyer ended the interview after Cole asked whether Vance had contacted him the night before the reception. The decision did not prove guilt, and the investigators recorded it without treating silence as an answer.
Elsewhere, a court authorized access to specified communications and business records based on the evidence already collected. Cole's team also sought records connected with the threatening message, while acknowledging that identifying a sender could require several steps.
Daniel did not witness any of it. He learned only that interviews were continuing and that the investigation would not be finished by the end of the week.
The waiting exhausted him. Every time his phone rang, he expected a conclusion, and every ordinary appointment felt like proof that the world had moved on while he remained at the railing.
His first counseling session took place in a room with a plant that needed water. The counselor asked what happened in his body when he remembered the impact, and Daniel found himself describing the shame of being unable to protect his daughter rather than the pain in his shoulder.
“You turned so she would not hit the rail,” she said.
“I should have kept it from happening.”
“How?”
He had no answer. He had obeyed instructions that were never clearly given, anticipated threats he could not anticipate, and carried a responsibility no parent could fully meet.
On the way home, he stopped at the river but did not get out of the car. The walkway looked ordinary from across the road, and that seemed almost offensive.
He stayed for two minutes, breathing as the counselor had suggested, then drove home before the exercise became a test he could fail.
Tessa met him at the door. Cole had called Rachel with an update: investigators had found messages confirming that Vance and Mercer discussed Daniel before the reception.
“What did they say?” he asked.
Tessa shook her head. “She didn't give details yet.”
At the counselor's suggestion, he had begun keeping brief notes about sleep and the situations that startled him. He did not record every unhappy thought, only enough to notice when a day had become easier. Looking back that evening, he found two nights with fewer interruptions than the week before. The improvement did not feel dramatic, but he showed Tessa anyway and let her be pleased.
Daniel felt both relief and frustration. Somewhere, a record existed that might explain why a morning with his daughter had become a nightmare, but for now all he could do was put down his keys and let Tessa hold him carefully around the injured side.