For the first time that day, his discomfort had less to do with who she was.
It had to do with what he had chosen not to read.
June Alvarez had worked at Harborside for four years.
She was thirty-four, patient with witnesses, blunt with colleagues, and tired of being described as naturally suited to cases involving upset women.
She was suited to investigations requiring people to be heard.
That was not the same assignment.
The note on Leah's file came from an interview June conducted while temporarily covering another detective's workload. She saw the messages, asked follow-up questions, and recommended additional contact.
Before she could complete the next task, she was sent to a burglary scene. The file moved through supervision without returning to her for a final assessment.
When she questioned the closure, a lieutenant told her to stop treating every difficult relationship as a missing-person emergency.
She recorded the disagreement.
Then she went back to the cases she had been assigned.
Celeste asked her about that choice during a short review that afternoon.
“Did you escalate further?”
“No.”
“Why?”
June leaned back.
“Because I thought the answer was already decided.”
“That may be true. I still need the sequence.”
June supplied it, including the point at which exhaustion became part of her reasoning. She was working late, handling extra files, and accustomed to being told she was overcomplicating decisions supervisors had already made.
Those pressures were real.
June remembered the evening she wrote the recommendation. Her dinner had gone cold beside the keyboard, and the station was trying to cover two unexpected absences.
A supervisor asked whether the file could be marked complete before the weekly numbers were sent upstairs.
“Not on what we've got,” she answered.
He said he would review it.
The phrase sounded like the responsibility had moved somewhere with more authority. June let herself believe that because she needed to finish another assignment and because challenging every reassurance had begun to consume the shift.
Later, the closed classification appeared.
She wrote her objection, then accepted the practical fact that her name was no longer attached to the next task.
Celeste listened without demanding June describe the situation as either helplessness or a personal failure detached from workload.
“Who had authority to direct further work?” she asked.
June named the supervisor.
“Who knew your recommendation hadn't been completed?”
She supplied the names she could support and identified the conversations she only remembered generally.
They recorded those distinctions.
For the first time, June felt the sequence was being examined rather than used to decide which employee should carry all the embarrassment. That did not remove her own decision from the record.
It made it possible to discuss it honestly without pretending the rest of the station had been functioning perfectly around her.
So was the person still missing after the conversation ended.
Celeste did not offer an easy absolution merely because June had written the most careful note in the file.
She also did not pretend a detective could solve a broken process by caring harder without support.
They identified what had to change immediately: a named case lead, documented outstanding tasks, and a decision-maker responsible for explaining any closure while material risk questions remained unanswered.
“Put that in writing,” June said.
“I will.”
She studied Celeste for a moment, trying to decide whether the promise belonged to a real plan or another first-week speech.
Celeste recognized the look.
“You don't have to trust the announcement,” she said. “Watch what happens when someone disagrees.”
The opportunity came sooner than either wanted.
An evening supervisor objected to resources being committed to a report that might end with Leah choosing not to speak to her family.
Celeste asked him to distinguish that possibility from evidence she was safe.
He repeated that adults could leave.
“Yes,” Celeste said. “We need to establish whether she was able to.”
The tasks continued.
June heard the exchange from the next room and went back to her witness statement without having to argue the point again.
At seven, the support organization arranged a conversation with a qualified advocate, Sharon Bell, after confirming the officers' identities and purpose.
Sharon could not confirm a current location. She could confirm Leah expressed fear that someone connected with Orton knew where she planned to seek help.
Leah asked whether police information could reach private companies.
Sharon told her safeguards existed but did not promise every individual always followed them.