"Motive."
"For what?"
"For everything. She knew there was a dispute. She knew I was looking for department material. She knew how the evidence system worked. She had already been questioned about improper access. Now suddenly there's a mystery card and a room full of people ready to believe her."
Maya said nothing. Price did. "Those facts may matter."
Brett looked satisfied; Price continued: "But they don't automatically make your version true."
His expression changed. She turned back to Maya.
"What you've told me so far creates a problem for you. You may have had access. You may have had a grievance. You may have known something was going to happen tonight. Those are not small details."
"No."
"Then why are you still protecting the card?"
Maya met her eyes. "Because the card isn't the part Brett is really afraid of."
Price studied her for several seconds. That answer did not clear Maya; it made her more difficult to understand. And for the first time that night, Price had to consider two possibilities at once: Brett might be abusing his authority, and Maya might have crossed lines of her own to uncover whatever he was trying to keep hidden.
Price walked back toward the counter and asked one of the patrol officers to bring her a clean evidence envelope. The officer returned with one, but Price left it unopened on the counter.
Brett noticed. "You think you're taking possession of something?"
"I think I'm preparing in case something is produced."
"That would be premature."
Price looked at him. "Preparing an evidence envelope is premature?"
"Treating an unknown object as evidence before establishing where it came from can create problems."
"I'm aware."
Brett folded his arms. "Then you know the chain of custody is already compromised if this card has been sitting here with civilians."
Price did not answer immediately. Maya watched him from the table.
Brett continued, "You don't know who created it. You don't know who carried it here. You don't know who handled it. You don't know whether the data was copied accurately, altered, or assembled from different sources."
Price nodded once. "All true possibilities."
"And she had access to the system," Brett said.
"Past access," Maya said. "Enough to know how records are organized. That still doesn't prove I created anything."
"I didn't say it proved it."
Price looked from Brett to Maya: that was the difficulty. Brett did not need to prove Maya fabricated the card; he only needed to create enough uncertainty around it that no one could treat it as reliable without further verification.
Brett looked toward Daniel. "His recording has the same problem."
Daniel frowned. "How?"
"It starts after I entered. It doesn't show what happened before he began recording. And everyone in this diner has been listening to everyone else talk for the last hour."
Daniel stood straighter. "The recording shows what you said."
"It shows part of what I said."
Price stepped in before Daniel answered. "Both points are noted."
Brett continued, now speaking to Price: "You have witnesses who discussed the event in the same room. You have an employee with a prior dispute involving evidence access. You have a civilian who physically intervened in a detention. You have a partial recording, and somewhere, supposedly, there is a memory card nobody can authenticate."
Price looked at him. "You've thought this through."
"I know how evidence works."
"So does Maya."
Brett glanced at her. "That's exactly the problem."
Price opened her notebook. "You also know there are different issues here."
"Such as?"
"Your conduct in this diner is one issue. The card is another. Whatever underlying department record may exist is a third."
Brett shook his head. "They're connected."
"Maybe. But connected does not mean identical."
"If she was holding stolen or copied department data, that changes why I was here."
"It may explain why you came. It does not automatically explain how you acted once you arrived."
Brett's mouth tightened.
Price continued, "And if the card turns out to be unreliable, that still does not erase witness statements about what happened in this room."
"Witness statements with credibility problems."