At the beginning of the video, before Daniel approached her, another man could be seen standing near the entrance of the apartment building.
He was wearing a gray jacket.
He appeared to be watching the street.
Victoria paused the footage.
She enlarged the image.
The man's face was partially visible.
She recognized him.
It was Thomas Miller.
A former employee of the Westbridge Police Department who had contacted her office two weeks earlier.
Thomas had claimed that several officers were altering incident reports to conceal excessive force.
He had disappeared before giving his formal statement.
Victoria immediately called Eleanor.
"Do you remember Thomas Miller?"
"Yes. The former records technician?"
"He's in the video from today."
Silence followed.
"Are you certain?"
"Absolutely."
"Victoria, listen to me. Do not approach him alone."
Victoria stared at the frozen image.
"I wasn't planning to."
She saved the screenshot.
Then another notification appeared on her laptop.
An unknown email address had sent her a message.
There was no subject line.
Only one sentence.
STOP INVESTIGATING DANIEL BROOKS IF YOU WANT TO STAY SAFE.
Victoria read it twice.
She felt a chill move down her spine.
Someone knew what she was doing.
Someone had been watching her.
And someone was frightened enough to threaten her.
She closed the email.
Then she opened a new document.
At the top, she typed:
URGENT β POSSIBLE OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION.
For the first time that evening, she smiled faintly.
The person who sent the threat had made one serious mistake.
They had confirmed that she was looking in the right direction.
And Victoria Hayes had never been afraid of following the truth.
CHAPTER 4: THE HIDDEN TRUTH
The following morning, Victoria arrived at the State Office of Police Accountability before eight.
Her office was located on the sixth floor of a government building downtown. It was a quiet place filled with investigators, legal advisers, and analysts who spent their days examining complaints against public officials.
On her desk sat a thick folder.
Eleanor Price had left it there.
A handwritten note was attached.
YOU NEED TO SEE THIS BEFORE THE MEETING.
Victoria opened the folder.
Inside were financial records, internal communications, and a list of officers connected to several closed investigations.
Daniel Brooks was near the top.
But the name that caught her attention was Robert Mitchell.
Captain Mitchell had approved almost every disciplinary recommendation involving Brooks during the previous eighteen months.
In some cases, he had personally requested that complaints be closed.
Victoria continued reading.
Then she discovered something unexpected.
Three years earlier, Daniel Brooks had been investigated for an incident involving a young man named Andre Collins.
Andre had been stopped while walking home from work.
According to the original complaint, Brooks had accused him of carrying stolen property.
The young man denied the allegation.
An argument followed.
Andre was arrested and later released without charges.
But his injuries required medical treatment.
The department's official report claimed that Andre had fallen while attempting to escape.
The hospital photographs told a different story.
Victoria examined them carefully.
There were bruises across his shoulder and back.
His medical report described injuries consistent with significant blunt-force trauma.
Yet the investigation had been closed.
The final document contained a signature from Captain Mitchell.
Victoria picked up her phone.
"Find Andre Collins," she told her assistant.
"Any particular details?"
"Twenty-four years old at the time of the incident. Arrested by Daniel Brooks three years ago. I need his current contact information."
Her assistant promised to investigate.
An hour later, Victoria received a call from an unfamiliar number.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Hayes?"
"Yes."
"My name is Andre Collins. I was told you were looking into what happened to me."
Victoria sat upright.
"Thank you for calling. Are you somewhere private?"
"Yes."
"I would like to hear your account of the incident."
Andre was silent for several seconds.
Then he began speaking.
He described the night Daniel Brooks stopped him.
He had been returning from a restaurant where he worked as a kitchen assistant. He was carrying a backpack containing his work uniform and a small amount of cash.
Brooks stopped him near a gas station.
The officer demanded to search his belongings.
Andre asked why.
Brooks became angry.
Within minutes, Andre was on the ground.
He remembered the handcuffs.
He remembered the pain.
But what he remembered most clearly was the officer saying something while helping him into the patrol car.
"He told me nobody would believe me," Andre said.
Victoria wrote the sentence down.
"Did you file a complaint?"
"Yes. My mother helped me."
"What happened?"
"They said the officer acted within department policy. They said I had resisted."
"Did anyone investigate the injuries?"
"The hospital sent records. But the department said the medical evidence didn't prove anything."
Victoria looked at the report on her desk.
"Would you be willing to provide a formal statement?"
Andre hesitated.
"Will it actually make a difference?"
Victoria didn't want to make promises she couldn't guarantee.
"I can't promise what the final outcome will be. But I can promise that your statement will be documented and independently reviewed."
Andre sighed.
"All right. I'll talk."
After the call, Victoria looked at the photograph attached to Andre's complaint.
Something about the case troubled her.
The officer's description of the encounter was almost identical to the description Daniel had given of their confrontation.
The same accusations.
The same justification.
The same claim of resistance.
It was becoming clear that this wasn't an isolated incident.
That afternoon, Victoria met Eleanor in a conference room.
"I think we have a pattern," she said.
Eleanor examined the documents.
"Brooks and Mitchell?"
"Yes. But I suspect there are others."
Victoria displayed a chart showing the officers involved in the closed complaints.
Several names appeared together repeatedly.
Eleanor leaned forward.
"How many cases?"
"At least fourteen that deserve another review."
"Fourteen?"
"Possibly more."
Eleanor looked worried.
"That means this could involve an entire unit."
Victoria nodded.
"Exactly."
Before the meeting ended, her assistant entered carrying a printed email.
"Victoria, this came through the office's secure reporting system."
Victoria opened it.
The sender was listed as anonymous.
The message was short.
I KNOW WHERE THE MISSING RECORDS ARE.
Below it was an address.
A storage facility on the outskirts of Westbridge.
Victoria read the message again.
"Do we know who sent it?" she asked.
"No. The sender used an encrypted connection."
Eleanor shook her head.
"This could be a trap."
"Maybe."
"Victoria, we need authorization before visiting that location."
Victoria looked at the address.
Then she noticed something written at the bottom of the email.
ASK ABOUT FILE 17-B.
She froze.
File 17-B was mentioned in one of the old complaints.
It referred to a missing body-camera recording from the night Andre Collins was arrested.
The department had claimed the footage had been corrupted.
But the original technical report had never been included in the investigation.
Victoria slowly closed the laptop.