Back at Harborside, the case remained open under the appropriate classification and supervision. The closure figures for the month looked worse than the previous month.
Celeste read the performance report without attempting to improve it by removing the unresolved work.
At the bottom, she added a note requiring context with the numbers.
An open file was not automatically a failure.
Sometimes it was evidence that someone had finally started doing the job.
The integrity review found that Drake's account accessed Leah's file after the recorded closure and after he left Harborside command.
Some access remained authorized for specified transition duties.
The relevant questions concerned purpose, scope, and what happened to the information afterward.
Investigators preserved the audit records, checked system behavior, and compared activity with assignments and communications. They did not treat an account label as a confession.
Then they found messages between Drake and a Harborline manager.
The messages referred to a client update and a support contact associated with Leah's report.
Payment records linked Harborline consulting fees to a business Drake operated outside his department role.
Outside employment was subject to rules and authorization. A permitted business did not make every task performed through it lawful.
The combination required a criminal assessment as well as administrative action.
Drake's access was restricted appropriately. Relevant material was secured. Investigators sought additional records through the proper legal process.
Celeste received what she needed to protect the active investigation while remaining outside decisions that could be affected by her command conflict with her predecessor.
Price made the division explicit.
“You run the station,” she said. “You don't decide the evidence against the man whose chair you're using.”
“Agreed.”
The searches and records requests reached beyond Leah's case.
Several other reports involved people who wanted contact information protected from particular individuals. Harborline had commercial reasons to locate people, some legitimate and some not supported by the authority its staff claimed.
The inquiry distinguished those categories.
Being a client did not automatically make someone a criminal.
Being a private company did not make police data available for whatever a paying person wanted.
One analyst found a pattern in the timing: inquiries from Harborline, access to a police record, then a message describing a location or contact as confirmed.
The pattern was tested against independent material rather than presented as proof by itself.
It held in several instances.
One technical reviewer brought the team an apparent exception. An access entry looked suspicious until the underlying assignment showed a legitimate inquiry involving a different person with a similar name.
The finding was corrected before any public allegation was made.
Celeste was told about it because the operational team needed to understand which assumptions could no longer be used.
She thanked the reviewer instead of treating the correction as a threat to the broader case.
“If it's legitimate, keep that clear,” she said.
The reviewer looked relieved.
People could become invested in a pattern once it explained several disturbing facts. It took discipline to preserve the exceptions instead of making them disappear for the sake of a cleaner presentation.
The independent team continued comparing account activity with communications and actual duties. It asked staff how requests arrived, which approvals were expected, and what information they believed they could disclose.
Some employees had asked questions and been reassured by rank. Others exceeded instructions or accepted explanations they did not verify.
Those distinctions shaped the review.
For people whose information had been misused, the notice and follow-up arrangements were handled carefully. They needed accurate explanations and practical support, not a sudden alarming letter full of conclusions nobody could yet support.
Grace helped identify how earlier callers wanted to be contacted. The original notes recorded preferences omitted from later summaries.
She did not know those lines would matter when she typed them.
She had simply believed the caller's request belonged in the record.
The review also examined the closed cases. Some were neglected without any evidence of a financial connection. Others overlapped with improper information requests.
The failures did not all have one motive.
That made the work harder and the answer more honest.
June asked Celeste whether the station could explain the distinction publicly when the time came.
“We have to,” Celeste said. “Otherwise we tell ourselves removing one person repairs everything.”
Grace supplied original contact messages showing what callers actually asked to be kept private. Her records were ordinary, sometimes incomplete, and often more informative than the summaries above them.
She looked uncomfortable when an investigator thanked her.