The car left the parking lot without speeding, turning onto the main road and disappearing into the evening traffic.
At the federal operations room, Walsh received the report and requested the lobby footage be preserved.
Evelyn stood beside her.
“Do we know who sent him?”
“Not yet. We're verifying his identification and the law firm's connection to the case.”
“Could he have been sent by Voss?”
“It's possible. But we need evidence before drawing that conclusion.”
Evelyn looked toward the courthouse records on the table.
“Everyone connected to this case seems to know what we are doing before we do it.”
“Someone may be sharing information,” Walsh said. “We need to review who had access to the preservation request and the records involved.”
“Carefully,” Evelyn added. “We cannot assume that every person in the county administration is compromised. But we also cannot allow access to sensitive information to remain uncontrolled.”
Walsh agreed.
The investigation was becoming more dangerous, but the danger itself offered information. Someone was reacting to the recovery of the notebook, the recordings, and the transfer records. The threats suggested that the old evidence still mattered to people who had spent years trying to keep it hidden.
The question was why.
At 9:18 p.m., a federal team arrived at the old courthouse.
The building stood beneath a row of bare trees, its brick facade dark against the night sky. Temporary fencing surrounded the side entrance, where contractors had begun preparing for a scheduled inspection. A county vehicle sat near the loading bay.
The team confirmed the identity of the courthouse staff and began documenting the archive's condition. Miriam Foster met them near the records room, holding a folder against her chest.
“I made copies of the index,” she said. “I haven't touched the original files since I spoke with Agent Walsh.”
“Thank you,” the lead investigator replied. “We'll document everything before we proceed.”
Miriam led them to a narrow corridor behind the public records office. At its end was a steel door marked ARCHIVE STORAGE.
The lock had recently been replaced.
One investigator photographed it.
Another checked the authorization records.
The door had been opened earlier that afternoon using a temporary access credential assigned to the county administrator's office.
Inside, shelves held boxes of tax records, property deeds, closed civil cases, and administrative files dating back decades. A faint smell of dust and paper filled the room.
Miriam pointed toward the rear wall.
“The sealed packets were stored in that cabinet.”
The cabinet stood open.
Several boxes remained inside, but one space was empty.
A label on the shelf read:
SAMUEL REED — ADMINISTRATIVE TRANSFER — SEALED
The investigators exchanged looks.
Walsh, listening over the secure line, asked for the label and the empty space to be photographed before anyone touched the cabinet.
“Check the movement log,” she instructed.
An investigator examined the printed record attached to the cabinet door.
There was an entry at 4:03 p.m.
The packet had been removed under the authority of the county administrator.
The destination field contained only three words.
External legal storage.
Evelyn closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Someone had taken the packet.
But the removal had been documented. There was a time, an access credential, and a destination, even if the destination was incomplete.
The evidence had not vanished without a trace.
Walsh's voice came through the line.
“Secure the access records. Preserve the cabinet and the remaining boxes. We need the complete chain of custody, and we need to identify who authorized the removal and where the packet went.”
Miriam stood pale and silent in the corridor.
“Is it gone?” she asked.
The lead investigator looked at the empty shelf.
“For now, we don't know where it is.”
Walsh added, “But we know someone removed it. That gives us a new line of investigation.”
Evelyn stared at the label.
Twelve years ago, the missing evidence had been hidden behind official paperwork. Now, as the federal investigation approached the truth, someone had repeated the same pattern.
An important record had been removed.
An official authorization had been used.
And the person responsible had assumed that a bureaucratic explanation would be enough to conceal the act.
This time, however, the removal itself had become evidence.
As the investigators began tracing the temporary credential, a new message arrived on Walsh's secure phone.
It was a photograph taken inside the courthouse archive earlier that evening.
The image showed the cabinet before the packet had been removed.
On the shelf beneath the sealed file was a small envelope that had not appeared in the initial inventory.
Someone had circled it in red.
Beneath the photograph was a single sentence:
You are searching for the wrong document.
Walsh read the message twice.
Then she enlarged the photograph.
The envelope bore a handwritten label.
R.C. — ORIGINAL AUTHORIZATION.
For the first time that night, Walsh felt certain that the investigation had reached a point someone had desperately wanted to prevent.
The missing packet might explain what happened to Samuel Reed's evidence.
But the envelope could reveal who had ordered the transfer in the first place.
And whoever had sent the photograph knew exactly what the investigators were looking for.