“They didn’t know I’d spent months studying their behavior.”
The first inspector suddenly shouted from across the road.
“This is ridiculous!”
Everyone turned.
“I want my lawyer!”
Victoria didn’t react.
The inspector pointed at her.
“You set this up!”
Victoria shook her head.
“No.”
She walked toward him.
“You set this up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You followed me.”
“We had a reason.”
“What reason?”
He said nothing.
Victoria waited.
Then she asked:
“Who gave you the license plate?”
The man’s face changed.
Just slightly.
But Elena noticed.
“So you already knew her vehicle?” Elena asked.
The officer looked away.
Victoria smiled sadly.
“Exactly.”
She turned to Captain Morris.
“That’s what I wanted.”
“What?”
“The first crack.”
Elena frowned.
Victoria held out her phone.
“Play this recording.”
Elena pressed the screen.
A few seconds of audio played.
The first officer’s voice came through clearly:
“That’s the one. Same car. Same plate. Follow her.”
Elena looked up sharply.
The officer’s face went white.
“You recorded that?”
Victoria nodded.
“Before you stopped me.”
“How?”
“I heard your radio.”
The inspector shook his head.
“No. That’s impossible.”
Victoria looked at him.
“Nothing is impossible when people become careless.”
Then another voice appeared in the recording.
Not one of the officers.
A man’s voice.
Deep.
Calm.
And familiar.
“Make sure she doesn’t reach the city.”
Elena’s expression changed immediately.
“Who is that?”
Victoria looked at her.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The captain replayed the audio.
Everyone listened.
The voice came again.
“Make sure she doesn’t reach the city.”
Silence followed.
Then the first inspector whispered:
“We never heard that.”
Victoria turned toward him.
“Yes, you did.”
“No.”
“You heard it before you stopped me.”
The inspector looked terrified.
Victoria’s voice became quieter.
“And now I know something I didn’t know this morning.”
“What?”
She looked at him.
“You weren’t trying to intimidate me because I questioned you.”
She paused.
“You were trying to keep me from reaching the city.”
The officer said nothing.
Victoria turned to Captain Morris.
“Take them in.”
“On what charges?”
Victoria looked at the evidence box.
“Official misconduct. Unlawful detention. Evidence tampering pending investigation.”
Elena nodded.
But before the officers were taken away, Victoria noticed something.
The first inspector kept looking toward the road behind them.
Not toward the city.
Not toward the patrol car.
Toward the trees.
Victoria followed his gaze.
Nothing appeared to be there.
But then she noticed a small flash between the branches.
A reflection.
Metal.
Or glass.
Someone was watching them.
Victoria’s instincts immediately sharpened.
“Captain.”
Elena turned.
“Don’t move.”
Everyone froze.
Victoria reached for her phone.
The flash appeared again.
This time she saw it clearly.
A camera lens.
Someone was recording them from the trees.
Then the figure disappeared.
Victoria ran toward the tree line.
“Stop!”
Elena followed.
They pushed through the bushes.
But whoever had been there was already gone.
On the ground, however, Victoria found something.
A small black envelope.
She picked it up carefully.
There was no name on the front.
Only four words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT.
Victoria stared at it.
Elena stood beside her.
“What does that mean?”
Victoria didn’t answer.
She turned the envelope over.
There was a symbol stamped into the wax seal.
The same symbol she had seen on one of the documents in her investigation.
Her face became completely still.
Elena noticed.
“You recognize it.”
Victoria nodded.
“Yes.”
“Who does it belong to?”
Victoria looked back toward the road where the two officers were being placed into separate vehicles.
Then she whispered:
“The person I’ve been trying to find for three months.”
Elena’s eyes widened.
“Who?”
Victoria closed her fingers around the envelope.
“I don’t know his name.”
“Then how do you know it’s him?”
Victoria looked at the empty trees.
“Because he just told me to leave.”
She paused.
“And people don’t threaten me unless they’re afraid of what I’ll discover next.”
PART 4
Victoria stood beneath the trees, the black envelope still in her hand.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The afternoon wind pushed through the branches, making the leaves whisper above them.
Captain Elena Morris looked at the message again.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT.
Then she looked at Victoria.
“Are you afraid?”
Victoria considered the question.
“Yes.”
Elena seemed surprised.
Victoria gave a faint smile.
“Being afraid doesn’t mean you stop.”
She carefully placed the envelope inside an evidence bag.
“Take this to the lab.”
Elena nodded.
“What about the officers?”
“Keep them separated.”
“Why?”
“Because one of them knows more than he’s saying.”
Elena glanced toward the patrol cars.
“And the other?”
Victoria looked at the first inspector.
“He knows who gave the order.”
They walked back toward the road.
The two officers were sitting separately in different vehicles.
Victoria approached the first one.
He immediately looked away.
She knocked on the window.
He reluctantly lowered it.
“Where did you get my license plate?”
“I already told you. We were checking vehicles.”
“No.”
Victoria leaned slightly closer.
“You were given my plate number before you saw me.”
The inspector remained silent.
“Who gave it to you?”
“No one.”
Victoria nodded.
“All right.”
She stepped away.
The inspector looked relieved.
Then she stopped.
“Oh, one more thing.”
He looked at her.
“The woman in the blue jacket.”
His face changed.
Victoria saw it.
She knew she had hit something.
“There was a woman standing near the gas station yesterday,” Victoria continued. “You spoke to her.”
The inspector’s eyes narrowed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Her name was Sarah Bennett.”
His jaw tightened.
Victoria smiled.
“Thank you.”
She walked away.
The inspector suddenly shouted:
“Wait!”
Victoria turned.
“She has nothing to do with this.”
Victoria’s expression became serious.
“I didn’t say she did.”
The man realized his mistake.
He lowered his head.
Victoria turned to Elena.
“That’s the connection.”
“Who is Sarah Bennett?”
“A witness.”
“To what?”
Victoria looked at the evidence box.
“To the first disappearance.”
Three months earlier, a young man named Daniel Cross had disappeared after filing a complaint against several police officers.
His vehicle had been found abandoned beside a rural road.
His phone was gone.
His wallet was still inside the car.
His family had been told that Daniel had probably left voluntarily.
Victoria hadn’t believed it.
She had spent three months reviewing every report connected to his disappearance.
And she had found something strange.
Every time someone got close to the truth, the investigation suddenly changed direction.
Files disappeared.
Witnesses withdrew statements.
Evidence was mislabeled.
Officers were transferred.
And then there was Sarah Bennett.
Sarah had claimed she saw Daniel being forced into a dark vehicle the night he disappeared.
She had given investigators the license plate.
Two days later, she withdrew her statement.
Then she vanished from the area.
Victoria had been searching for her ever since.
Until yesterday.
Victoria had finally found Sarah working under a different name at a roadside gas station.
Sarah had been terrified.
She had refused to talk.
But before Victoria left, Sarah had whispered:
“The man who ordered it isn’t a police officer.”
Victoria had asked:
“Then who is he?”
Sarah had looked around nervously.
“Someone the police obey.”
Now Victoria knew the two traffic officers were connected.
But she still didn’t know who was giving the orders.
That changed that evening.
At 8:15 p.m., Victoria sat in a small interview room.
The first inspector sat across from her.
His name was Mark Dalton.
His partner, Eric Cole, was being interviewed in another room.
Victoria placed a recorder on the table.
“Let’s start again.”
Mark rubbed his face.
“I’ve already told you everything.”
“No.”
She pushed a photograph across the table.
It showed Daniel Cross.
Mark stared at it.
Victoria watched his reaction.
“You know him.”
“No.”
“You just looked at his photograph like you recognized him.”
“I’ve seen his picture in the reports.”
“Then you know why I’m here.”
Mark leaned back.
“I didn’t hurt him.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t ask whether you hurt him.”