"That's what people say when they're caught with restricted property."
Maya turned to Rebecca. "Was the search recorded?"
"Yes."
Lena answered at the same time: "Not all of it."
Rebecca looked at her. Lena opened the body camera entry. The file showed a recorded search, but the source information was incomplete. One segment ended, another began later. A third had been exported separately and labeled as original evidence.
Maya asked, "Where is the uninterrupted source file?"
Lena shook her head. "It should be there. It isn't."
Mercer stepped closer to the monitor. "A missing file doesn't mean evidence was altered."
Maya nodded. "Correct."
His expression showed brief surprise.
She continued, "Which means we don't assume anything. We find the original record."
Lena looked at her notes. "That's why I contacted the federal office."
Rebecca turned sharply. "You did what?"
Lena did not look away. "I reported what the system was doing."
Maya closed the case window and addressed the technicians: "Preserve Nathan Cole's entire evidence chain: every version, every export, every administrator event tied to it."
One technician asked, "Priority over the procurement files?"
"Same priority."
Maya looked at the screen again. The investigation had begun with missing money and a system that could not account for its own history. Now there was a 25-year-old man whose detention depended on a video record that no longer existed in its original form.
She turned to Lena: "Show me what Asheford paid for."
The red indicator on Maya's coded case changed to green after the FBI technical team completed remote authentication. One of the internal locks released with a quiet click. Rebecca watched from the doorway as Maya opened the case for the first time. Inside were sealed preservation orders, clean storage drives, tamper-evident bags, chain of custody forms, and several authorization packets. There was no equipment that could be used to enter Asheford's network.
Maya removed one preservation order and handed it to Chief Mercer. "This covers the systems and records identified in the federal review. Your department remains operational. We are preserving evidence, not taking over police functions."
Mercer read the first page carefully. "And the case?"
"Federal evidence material."
Rebecca looked at its contents and said nothing. Maya closed the case and turned back to Lena.
"You said the installed system doesn't match what the city paid for."
Lena returned to her workstation and opened the procurement database. "The project was approved in phases: body cameras first, then encrypted evidence storage, off-site backup, and dispatch redundancy."
"How much was paid?"
Lena entered another menu. The total appeared on the monitor. The project had cost several million dollars, combining city funds with federal grant money.