The question made June sit forward.
At the end of the call, she opened the case-access history and requested a review through the authorized technical process.
She expected to find ordinary police activity.
One account appeared repeatedly after the closure.
It belonged to Captain Victor Drake.
The flowers arrived just after eight the next morning.
White lilies in a glass vase, accompanied by a card congratulating Captain Bennett on her new command.
The sender was Adam Orton.
Grace brought the delivery information to Celeste rather than place the arrangement on her desk.
“He called earlier,” she said. “Asked whether you settled in.”
“Did anyone tell him about the search?”
“Not through this desk.”
Celeste asked that the contact be documented and the flowers handled under the applicable gift and evidence-preservation considerations. She did not call them a confession. She also did not accept them as an innocent social gesture that erased his relevance to an active inquiry.
The timing required examination.
Grace kept the delivery note with the contact record and asked a supervisor how the arrangement should be handled. She had worked enough front desks to know that a gesture could be described differently depending on who sent it.
A bouquet from a familiar donor became kindness.
A gift from somebody the station disliked became suspicious.
She wanted the actual rule applied before the sender's relationship decided the answer.
Celeste agreed.
The preservation decision was documented, and the flowers did not remain on display in the command office as a sign that Orton had an easy route to its occupant.
An officer passing the desk joked that the new captain was making even congratulations complicated.
Grace replied that the sender was connected to an active case.
The officer stopped smiling.
The context did not prove the bouquet carried a threat or bribe. It explained why accepting a social interpretation without assessment would be careless.
Celeste heard about the exchange later and thanked Grace for asking through the process instead of quietly making the problem disappear before anybody had to decide.
Orton worked for Harborline as an operations consultant. The company provided private risk assessments, event support, and information services to commercial clients.
Some work was legitimate.
Its contracts did not entitle staff to protected police information or to locate people seeking safety from them.
The review of Leah's case-access history needed proper technical interpretation. An account name did not automatically establish whose hands used a system. Logs, assignment records, authorization rules, and interviews would matter.
Celeste requested the material be preserved and notified Price of the potential conflict involving the former commander.
Price assigned an independent integrity team to assess possible information misuse while June's team continued the missing-person inquiry.
Those processes would share relevant facts through controlled channels.
Neither would depend on Celeste privately accusing the man whose office she inherited.
Orton arrived at the precinct that afternoon with an attorney after being contacted about an interview. He wore an expensive blue suit and greeted two officers by first name.
Wade was one of them.
The greeting sounded friendly until Wade realized how carefully others noticed it.
In the interview room, Orton described Leah as emotional and impulsive. He said he respected her choice to take time away.
June asked about the terminal.
He said he had only tried to check on her.
“She asked you to leave her alone?”
“People say things during difficult conversations.”
Celeste, observing through the authorized process, recognized the phrase from Tess's account of Wade's explanation.
Repetition did not prove coordination.
It showed how readily Orton's framing had become the station's.
The attorney intervened at appropriate points. Questions were clarified. Orton declined some answers and supplied others that investigators would test against the records.
He denied knowing where Leah was.
He also mentioned a support organization she had not told him about in the messages investigators had reviewed.
June asked how he knew its name.
“Leah talks to people.”
“Which person told you?”
His attorney requested a break.
The interview resumed without a satisfying explanation, then ended after the agreed scope of questioning.
Outside the room, Orton asked whether the captain received his flowers.
Celeste met him in the corridor with another officer present.
“The contact is documented.”
His smile shifted.
“I hoped we'd start on a constructive footing.”
“Then provide accurate information through your counsel.”
He looked at her uniform, her rank, and the office nameplate now installed beside the door.
The attention was familiar.