Chapter 14 Investigation

POV: First Person (Samuel Reed)

"This concerns Ethan Cross," Marcus said, and behind me I heard the office door open, June stepping out with a dish towel still in her hands, Jake coming around from the second bay wiping grease off his fingers, Clara's car already pulling into the lot like she'd heard the sirens from three blocks away.

"What about him," I said.

"He's filed a formal complaint against you," Marcus said, unfolding the papers slowly. "Fraud. Intimidation. Tampering with municipal records. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you're willing."

"He's lying," Jake said, stepping up beside me. "Sam hasn't done anything to that man except stand up to him."

"I understand you're upset," Marcus said, calm and even, not raising his voice at all. "But I need to hear this from Samuel directly."

I studied him a moment, the way he stood, the way he held the papers loose instead of like a weapon, and something about him felt different from every other official who'd walked onto this lot in the last few weeks.

"Ask whatever you need to," I said.

We sat in the office, my father's photo watching over both of us from the wall, and Marcus went through it methodically, question after question, timeline after timeline. Where was I the night the violations were filed. What exactly did I say to Ethan during our confrontation. Had I ever paid him, threatened him, or pressured any city official on his behalf.

I answered every one honestly, no shortcuts, no half truths, just the plain version of what actually happened. When he asked about the confrontation in the garage, I told him exactly what I'd said, admitted I'd pushed hard, admitted I'd made Ethan uncomfortable on purpose. I didn't dress it up to sound better than it was.

"Jake was here for that conversation," I said. "Maria Alvarez can speak to the eviction. A customer named Danny Reyes watched the whole thing at the supplier warehouse if you want a witness there too."

Marcus wrote it all down without comment, and one by one he checked, stepping outside to call Jake in briefly, then Clara, both of them backing up my version of events without a single detail contradicting what I'd already told him. Little by little I watched Ethan's complaint lose weight in the room, thinner with every witness who confirmed the same story.

Something settled in my chest as it happened, quiet and unexpected. Winning like this, through nothing but the plain truth, felt different than winning through fear ever had. Cleaner. Nothing sitting uneasy underneath it afterward.

"emotion scan active"

"marcus doyle, stress fifty four percent"

"suspicion, high"

"hostility, three percent"

"integrity, extremely high"

I filed that away carefully. Marcus wasn't corrupt. He wasn't working an angle, wasn't hunting for a bribe or a reason to look the other way. He was simply doing his job, thoroughly and fairly, and that made me want to be just as straight with him as he was being with me.

"Ethan seemed unusually nervous when he filed this," Marcus said, almost to himself, flipping back through his notes. "Insisted we investigate today. Wouldn't wait until tomorrow."

"That doesn't sound like him," I said. "He's usually the one making other people nervous."

"No," Marcus agreed. "It doesn't."

He closed his notebook and looked at me for a long moment, weighing something I couldn't quite read.

"At this point," he said, "I don't have enough evidence to charge you with anything."

Jake let out a breath behind me, and June's shoulders dropped with relief by the office door.

"But I'm not closing the investigation," Marcus added, and the room went quiet again just as fast as it had eased.

"Why not," I asked. "You just said."

"Because something about this doesn't add up yet," he said. "Not on your side. On his."

He left with that unfinished thought hanging in the air, climbing back into his patrol car without another word, and I stood there in the lot watching his taillights disappear down Main Street, the relief I'd felt only seconds ago already curdling into something else entirely.

Clara found my hand without saying anything, and for a moment we just stood there, June and Jake close behind us, none of us quite ready to call this a victory.

The call came a few hours later, just after we'd finally started closing up for the night.

"Samuel!" Maria's voice came through fast and breathless when I picked up. "Turn on the news, or just, someone needs to tell you, they're saying Ethan broke into Town Hall."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"What did he take," I asked, already knowing the answer wasn't going to be good.

"The inspection files," she said. "All of them. Every record from the last two years."

I stood frozen in the middle of my own garage, the phone still pressed to my ear, my heart pounding loud enough that I barely heard Maria still talking on the other end.

Those files were the only proof left that my garage had passed every inspection before Ethan ever walked through that door with his folder of lies. They were the only thing that could prove he'd falsified every violation himself, the only thread connecting him directly to whatever Whitfield had paid him to do.

And now they were gone, taken by a man with nothing left to lose and every reason in the world to make sure the truth disappeared with them.