No one answered.
By the time the federal team finished the preliminary inventory, enough serial numbers had been matched to establish that the discrepancy was not limited to one box or one shipment. Maya did not announce fraud. She ordered the annex sealed for controlled access, assigned an agent to remain with the inventory, and returned to the police building with Mercer and Rebecca.
Lena was waiting in the digital evidence office. "You need to see something from the Cole file."
Maya removed her coat and placed it over the back of a chair. "What did you find?"
Lena opened Nathan Cole's case and placed two video records side by side. "The official evidence archive treats this one as the original body camera sequence."
A video showed Nathan standing near a municipal service entrance while an Asheford officer checked his identification and belongings. Nathan appeared frustrated but cooperative. The video stopped. A second segment began later: an officer held up a restricted municipal access card and identified it as having been found among Nathan's possessions.
Maya watched both clips without interrupting. "What's missing?"
"The source continuity." Lena enlarged the file information. "A body camera generates identifiers through the entire recording session. This first section has the correct source information. The second one doesn't."
Rebecca stood behind them. "That doesn't mean the evidence was planted."
Maya answered without turning around: "No, it doesn't."
Rebecca seemed surprised by the agreement.
Lena continued: "The second clip was exported later, then placed back into the case archive. The system labels it as original, but the file history doesn't support that."
Mercer moved closer to the screen. "Could normal processing cause that?"
"Not this way."
"Could a software migration?"
"We didn't migrate the system during that period."
Maya asked, "Where is the uninterrupted source recording?"
Lena shook her head. "Not in the visible archive."
"Was it ever there?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"I saw the original entry before it disappeared."
Maya looked at her. "When?"
"Shortly after Nathan was detained."
"And what did the original show?"
Lena chose her words carefully. "I didn't watch the entire recording. I checked it because Nathan filed a complaint about the missing section. At that point, the continuous file existed."
Rebecca said, "A complaint doesn't make him right."
"No," Maya replied. "But an original file disappearing after the complaint makes the file important."