Grace told her the update arrangement existed so she would not have to apologize.
Celeste watched the contact entry appear in the file.
One closed incident had already required more actual thinking than the station's closure figures suggested.
She wondered how many other people were waiting behind reassuring numbers.
Wade expected Celeste to call him into her office about the morning's embarrassment.
Instead, she asked him for the factual basis of Leah's closure.
The question unsettled him more.
He arrived carrying the printed summary, already prepared to explain that the new captain did not understand the volume Harborside handled.
Celeste pointed to a chair.
“Begin with the first report.”
“We had an adult with a relationship dispute.”
“That's a description. What did Tess report?”
He looked at the paper.
“Concern about whereabouts.”
“What made her concerned?”
“The partner gave us history.”
“Former partner. What did the reporting person say?”
He put the summary down harder than necessary.
“I've done this work for years.”
“Then you understand why I need the information, not your length of service.”
His face reddened.
Celeste kept the conversation focused on records, not the confrontation at the counter. If his decisions required formal review, that process would protect his rights and establish the evidence independently.
For the immediate operational question, she needed to know what had and had not been checked.
Eventually he acknowledged that nobody spoke directly with Leah before the closure.
He had accepted Orton's explanation and relied on the classification Drake's command team encouraged for similar adult-absence reports.
“Encouraged how?”
“Don't keep cases open when there's no verified crime.”
“Were there unresolved safety concerns?”
“There are concerns in half the reports we take.”
He sounded angry, but beneath the anger was something Celeste recognized: a person defending a system because admitting one file was mishandled might require rereading years of his work.
That fear could explain resistance.
It could not decide the outcome.
She documented the operational account and referred the review questions through the appropriate channel rather than improvising discipline inside an active search.
Wade left without the public apology he had prepared himself to resent.
At his desk, he opened the original report.
June's note sat beneath the closure summary.
Further contact recommended. Reporting sister identifies specific threats and planned meeting missed without explanation.
He remembered seeing it.
There had been a photograph attached to one message: damage beside a doorway Leah said Orton had blocked during an earlier dispute. Wade had not assessed what it established or what further questions it required.
He remembered thinking the file would take the rest of the afternoon if he let it.
Then Orton called, spoke in complete sentences, and offered a familiar explanation.
Wade accepted the relief before he recognized it as a choice.
At a foundation event months earlier, Orton helped arrange extra equipment for a community demonstration. He remembered officers' names and asked about shift patterns as though their work mattered to him personally.
Wade liked that.
He had been less generous toward Tess, whose first impression was distress and whose questions created work rather than compliments.
He opened her messages again and read them from the beginning.
The repetition was uncomfortable because the information was not new. The file did not need him to become an expert on her life. It needed him to identify what remained unverified before deciding there was nothing left to do.
He began a separate note about what he actually reviewed at the time and what he was only reading now. He would provide it through the formal process if required, with the appropriate advice and protections.
He did not backdate certainty into his original decision.
For once, making the record accurate meant allowing it to look worse for him.
That was worse than discovering somebody had hidden it.
Harlow approached with an update from the terminal team.
“Anything we need to know about the former partner?”
Wade almost repeated the description from his summary.
Difficult relationship. Repeated absences.
Then he looked at the original messages Tess provided.
“He said he consulted for a security company,” Wade answered. “Harborline Risk Services.”
Harlow stopped writing.
“The company that helped with the foundation fundraiser?”
Wade nodded.
Harborline's name appeared on a banner in the station's community room. Its staff supplied event support, sponsored equipment, and knew several supervisors socially.
Familiarity had made Orton sound credible before Wade checked what he said.
He looked toward Celeste's office, where the woman he told to find a coffee machine was coordinating three teams.