You have met this person.
You have spoken to this person.
And you may already have trusted this person.
There is one final thing you must understand.
The arrest of Marcus Bell was not an isolated mistake.
Bell witnessed an exchange that he was never supposed to see.
He was arrested because someone wanted to silence him.
The evidence was removed because it could identify the people involved.
And the investigation was closed because someone made sure the wrong people were asking the questions.
Do not stop until you find the original recording.
It contains the truth.
Samuel Porter."
Evelyn lowered the letter.
Harris was watching her.
HARRIS: "What does it say?"
EVELYN CARTER: "Porter is alive."
HARRIS: "What?"
EVELYN CARTER: "He says he left because he was threatened. He also says Lawson wasn't the person controlling everything."
Harris looked at the letter.
HARRIS: "Then who was?"
Evelyn looked at the final paragraph.
EVELYN CARTER: "The person with authority over every transfer and internal review."
HARRIS: "Mitchell."
Evelyn shook her head.
EVELYN CARTER: "Possibly. But Porter says we've already met and trusted this person."
She paused.
Then she remembered the photograph.
The three people standing outside the station.
Harris.
Herself.
And Richard Lawson.
But there was another detail.
A person standing just outside the frame.
Someone whose reflection could be seen in the glass entrance.
Evelyn took the photograph from her folder and examined it closely.
She moved it toward the light.
Then she noticed the reflection.
A fourth person was standing behind them.
The image was blurry, but the outline was recognizable.
It was Thomas Blake.
Evelyn's own colleague.
She stared at the photograph.
HARRIS: "What is it?"
EVELYN CARTER: "Blake was there."
HARRIS: "Your colleague?"
EVELYN CARTER: "Yes."
HARRIS: "Then perhaps he's the person Porter was warning you about."
Evelyn slowly put the photograph down.
EVELYN CARTER: "We need to find him."
They returned to the city.
During the drive, Evelyn received a message from her security team.
Daniel Reed and his mother had been safely moved to a secure location.
There had been no direct contact from the person who left the note.
That was reassuring.
But the next message was not.
Thomas Blake had failed to report to his office.
His telephone was switched off.
And his apartment appeared to have been empty for several hours.
Evelyn read the information twice.
Then she called the number of the last person who had worked with him.
A colleague named Sarah Collins answered.
SARAH COLLINS: "Evelyn?"
EVELYN CARTER: "Where is Blake?"
SARAH COLLINS: "I was about to ask you the same thing."
EVELYN CARTER: "When did you last see him?"
SARAH COLLINS: "Yesterday afternoon."
EVELYN CARTER: "Did he say anything unusual?"
SARAH COLLINS: "He asked me whether the Marcus Bell investigation was still active."
EVELYN CARTER: "What did you tell him?"
SARAH COLLINS: "That it was being handled by you."
EVELYN CARTER: "Did he seem concerned?"
SARAH COLLINS: "Very."
EVELYN CARTER: "Did he mention a recording?"
There was a pause.
SARAH COLLINS: "Yes."
Evelyn stopped walking.
EVELYN CARTER: "What did he say?"
SARAH COLLINS: "He asked whether you had listened to the entire recording."
Evelyn felt a chill run through her.
EVELYN CARTER: "What do you mean?"
SARAH COLLINS: "He said the file you received was incomplete."
For several seconds, Evelyn could not speak.
The recording had been the foundation of the investigation.
She had listened to it dozens of times.
But if it was incomplete, then someone had deliberately provided only part of the evidence.
EVELYN CARTER: "Did he tell you where the original was?"
SARAH COLLINS: "No. But he said something strange."
EVELYN CARTER: "What?"
SARAH COLLINS: "He said the truth was hidden in the silence between the voices."
Evelyn closed her eyes.
She understood.
The recording had been edited.
The missing section was not necessarily an absence of information.
It could contain the sound of another person entering the room, a telephone ringing, a door closing, or something that identified the location.
EVELYN CARTER: "Thank you, Sarah. Don't discuss this conversation with anyone."
SARAH COLLINS: "Evelyn, what's happening?"
EVELYN CARTER: "Something we should have discovered a long time ago."
She ended the call.
Back at the office, her technical team began examining the original audio file.
They discovered that the recording had been compressed several times.
A section lasting approximately forty-seven seconds had been removed.
The cut was clean, but not perfect.
There was a small difference in the background noise before and after the missing section.
An audio specialist isolated the remaining sounds.
Then he looked at Evelyn.
TECHNICIAN: "There's something interesting here."
EVELYN CARTER: "What?"
TECHNICIAN: "The recording contains an electronic announcement in the background."
EVELYN CARTER: "Can you identify it?"
TECHNICIAN: "We're working on it."
They increased the volume and filtered out the main voices.
A faint announcement became audible.
It mentioned a parking level, followed by the name of a building.
The team compared the sound with several public recordings.
Eventually, they identified the location.
It was the underground parking garage of the regional administrative headquarters.
Evelyn looked at the technician.
EVELYN CARTER: "When was the recording made?"
TECHNICIAN: "The file metadata suggests approximately two years ago."
EVELYN CARTER: "Can you recover the deleted section?"
TECHNICIAN: "Not from this copy. But if the original recording still exists, we may be able to recover it."
Evelyn looked at the photograph of Blake.