Ronan stopped moving.

“That’s the amount on Evelyn’s deposit slip.”

“Yes.”

“Can we call the treatment center?”

“If they’re involved, calling warns them. If they aren’t, privacy law keeps them from confirming she was ever there.”

“Can we go there?”

“Not with a vest and a charming personality.”

“So you admit it’s charming.”

“I admit it may constitute probable cause in several states.”

His mouth tilted, but his eyes stayed on Kara’s picture.

“What can we do?”

I requested the original call log and dispatch audio from the night Kara vanished. The system returned an access restriction: record sealed by supervisor order.

Supervisor: D. Mercer.

The joke left the room again.

I called the public-integrity investigator overseeing Mercer’s suspension and asked for an emergency preservation request, not a search warrant. We had enough to prevent deletion, not enough to invade a medical facility. He approved the request while I was still on the phone and assigned an analyst to obtain the archived dispatch copy from the county server.

Ronan watched me work.

“You hate them,” he said when I hung up.

“Who?”

“Cops like Mercer. You hate them more than you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

The answer came too quickly.

His eyebrows rose.

“Do not make that face.”

“I’m trying to identify the face I was making when you announced you don’t hate me.”

“It was unbearable.”

“That narrows nothing.”

The analyst called twelve minutes later.

The archive had survived because Mercer had sealed the report, not deleted the raw emergency call.

A woman’s voice filled the conference-room speaker.

She was whispering.

“My name is Kara Wells. My boyfriend is Deputy Scott Ames. He took my keys. He says if I call again, he’ll tell them I’m crazy.”

A door slammed in the recording.

Kara gasped.

“Please don’t send his friends.”

The call ended.

Dispatch sent Bell.

Bell’s report claimed the residence was empty.

His body camera had been turned off.

Two hours later, Nolan signed the psychiatric hold.

No ambulance record existed, but North County Recovery logged a patient-transfer number matching Grant’s deposit.

Ronan’s chair scraped backward.

“Where is Deputy Ames now?”

I searched the personnel roster.

“Still working.”

“Of course he is.”

“Sit down.”

“Briar—”

“If you visit him, he calls his friends. His friends call the facility. Whatever records remain disappear, and any woman inside gets moved before we arrive.”

His hands flattened on the table. The leather cuff on his injured arm shifted, revealing the angry red edge of the burn.

“Then tell me where I help.”

Not where he could hit someone.

Where he could help.

I turned the monitor toward him.

“The recovery company used a private transport fleet. Your club repairs motorcycles, trucks, and half the county’s vehicles. I need invoices, service histories, drivers who talk, anything obtained without trespassing or threats.”

“No threats at all?”

“You may be disappointing.”

“Cruel, but clear.”

He sat.

That mattered more than I wanted it to.

I opened the next numbered transfer.

Then the next.

Five dates matched women reported missing after domestic calls involving police officers or county employees. Three reports had been closed as voluntary departures. Two children had entered emergency foster care within forty-eight hours.

Every report had passed through Mercer’s desk.

Every medical hold had Nolan’s signature.

And every time a woman disappeared, somebody got paid.

“Briar.”

Ronan had reached the final page of the bank return.

He turned it toward me.

One transfer had not happened yet.

It was scheduled for Friday.

The patient number was already assigned. The acquisition fee had already been authorized. A handwritten note had been scanned with the payment instruction.

FEMALE, 32. ONE CHILD. POLICE FAMILY.

Friday was tomorrow.

Ronan pushed my good coffee within reach and picked up his phone.

“Tell me the rules,” he said.

I looked at the scheduled transfer, then at the man waiting to hear how I wanted this done.

“No heroics. No warning Silas until we know whether someone inside his club is leaking information. No approaching the woman before we identify who is watching her.”

“And if they try to move her?”

I closed the file.

“Then we make sure the wrong vehicle reaches the handoff.”