She immediately forwarded the message to Eleanor.
Then she contacted the state investigation team and requested that the location be checked.
But something inside her told her that Thomas was running out of time.
At 8:15 p.m., Victoria arrived near the industrial building.
She parked several streets away and walked toward the address.
The building stood behind a damaged metal fence. Most of its windows were broken, and weeds had grown through the cracks in the concrete.
A single light was visible on the second floor.
Victoria approached the entrance.
"Thomas?"
There was no answer.
She tried again.
"Thomas Miller! It's Victoria Hayes!"
A few seconds later, a door opened.
Thomas appeared in the darkness.
He looked thinner than she remembered. His clothes were dirty, his face was unshaven, and his eyes moved constantly toward the street.
"You shouldn't have come," he whispered.
"You asked me to."
"I didn't think you'd actually do it."
Victoria stepped inside.
"Where is File 17-B?"
Thomas closed the door behind her.
"Safe. For now."
He led her upstairs to a small office containing an old desk, a broken computer, and several cardboard boxes.
On the desk sat a black external hard drive.
Thomas pointed toward it.
"Everything is there."
Victoria approached the desk.
"What exactly did you recover?"
"The original body-camera recording from the night Samuel Collins died. The dispatch audio. Internal messages. And a copy of the evidence transfer records."
Victoria looked at him.
"How did you get access?"
"I worked in the department's records division for eleven years. I knew how the archive system operated. When Mitchell ordered the original files removed, I kept copies."
"Why didn't you report this earlier?"
Thomas laughed bitterly.
"Because I was afraid."
He sat down.
"I had a family. A mortgage. A daughter who was still in school. I knew what Mitchell could do to someone who challenged him."
Victoria understood.
"But you contacted our office two weeks ago."
"Because I couldn't live with it anymore."
Thomas connected the hard drive to the computer.
A folder appeared.
FILE 17-B β ORIGINAL INCIDENT RECORDS.
Victoria opened it.
The first file was a body-camera recording.
She pressed play.
The video showed a dark street illuminated by the headlights of a police vehicle.
Daniel Brooks was standing beside a young man.
Samuel Collins.
Samuel appeared frightened but conscious.
His hands were raised.
"Officer, I already told you. I don't know anything about the stolen equipment."
Daniel approached him.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I'm just trying to get home."
"Then why were you near the warehouse?"
Samuel shook his head.
"I work there. You can call my supervisor."
Daniel grabbed his jacket.
"You're going to tell me what I want to know."
Victoria watched without moving.
Then another vehicle entered the recording.
Captain Mitchell stepped out.
He walked toward Daniel and spoke to him.
The audio was unclear, but the body camera captured several sentences.
Mitchell said:
"Where is the original list?"
Samuel replied:
"I don't have it."
Daniel pushed him against the side of the vehicle.
"Stop lying."
The recording continued.
Then the camera suddenly tilted toward the ground.
There was a struggle.
A loud impact.
And a voice shouting:
"Get him up!"
Thomas paused the recording.
Victoria looked at him.
"Why did you stop?"
"Because the next part is the reason they deleted it."
He opened another file.
It contained the original emergency dispatch recording.
A dispatcher could be heard asking for an ambulance.
Then a male voice responded.
"Stand by. We have a situation."
The voice belonged to Daniel.
The dispatcher asked whether the injured individual was conscious.
Daniel replied:
"He's breathing. We'll handle it."
Victoria felt her stomach tighten.
The recording continued.
A second voice entered the conversation.
Captain Mitchell.
"Do not report this as a use-of-force incident. Understand?"
Daniel answered:
"Understood."
Victoria slowly stepped away from the computer.
"How long was Samuel left there?"
Thomas looked down.
"According to the dispatch records, the ambulance wasn't called until seventeen minutes later."
"Why?"
"Because Mitchell wanted to control the situation before anyone else arrived."
Victoria stared at the screen.
Samuel had been alive.
He had needed medical assistance.
And the people responsible for protecting him had delayed the emergency response.
She continued watching.
The final portion of the recording showed Daniel speaking quietly to Mitchell.
"We need to make sure nobody sees this."
Mitchell responded:
"Nobody will. The report will say he lost control of the vehicle."
Victoria closed the video.
For several seconds, neither person spoke.
Then she turned toward Thomas.
"This is enough to reopen the entire case."
Thomas shook his head.
"It's worse than you think."
He opened another folder.
Inside were financial documents showing payments made to several individuals connected to the police department.
One company appeared repeatedly.
Meridian Security Solutions.
The company had received contracts for managing digital evidence, maintaining storage systems, and providing technical support.
But the payments were unusually large.
Victoria examined the records.
"These transactions don't appear to be legitimate service payments."
"They weren't," Thomas replied.
"Where did the money go?"
"Some went to accounts connected to Mitchell. Others went through companies that didn't appear to have any employees."
Victoria looked at him.
"Who else was involved?"
Thomas took a breath.
"Kevin Shaw. Two supervisors. And someone from the state prosecutor's office."
Victoria felt the room become cold.
"Are you certain?"
"I saw the authorization records."
Before she could ask another question, a loud sound came from downstairs.
Thomas immediately turned toward the door.
"What was that?"
Victoria reached for her phone.
Another sound followed.
Footsteps.
Someone was coming upstairs.
Thomas grabbed the hard drive and handed it to her.
"Take this."
"Thomas, we need to leave."
"There's another exit at the back."
The office door suddenly opened.
A man stood in the doorway.
It was Kevin Shaw.
His face was expressionless.
"Ms. Hayes," he said.
Victoria stepped backward.
"Officer Shaw."
Kevin looked at the hard drive in her hand.
"You're making a very serious mistake."
Thomas moved between them.
"Leave her alone."
Kevin gave a small, humorless smile.
"You should have stayed quiet, Thomas."
Victoria immediately understood.
Kevin hadn't come to negotiate.
He had come to recover the evidence.
Then Kevin reached inside his jacket.
Victoria shouted:
"Don't move!"
A second later, the lights went out.
The room fell into darkness.
Someone crashed into the desk.
Glass shattered.
Victoria heard Thomas shouting.
Then she heard footsteps running toward the back exit.
She clutched the hard drive and moved toward the stairs.
When she finally reached the street, she saw headlights approaching.
Two unmarked vehicles stopped near the building.
Members of the state investigation team stepped out.
They had received her location.
But when they entered the building, Thomas was gone.
Kevin was gone too.
Only a broken chair and a small pool of blood remained.