Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Jordan POV

I went to the records room the way other people went to confession.

Not because I thought it would absolve me of anything. Just because the truth—if it existed—was probably sitting in a manila folder somewhere behind a counter, waiting for someone stubborn enough to ask for it the right way.

Also, I was already downtown for my noon meeting with Mercer, and if I was going to walk into a glass conference room with a mysterious billionaire who ran half the county through “security” contracts, I wanted my head clear. I wanted facts. I wanted leverage.

Grief is messy. Leverage is tidy.

The county records department lived in the basement of the administration building, where the ceiling was low enough to make you feel like you’d been grounded. Fluorescent lights flickered in a slow, exhausted rhythm. The air smelled like paper, toner, and a faint trace of despair.

There was a sign by the door that said:

PUBLIC RECORDS: CIVILITY REQUIRED

Which was funny, because it implied civility wasn’t required anywhere else in the building.

I walked in with my purse on my shoulder and my attorney face already in place. Calm. Pleasant. Competent. Like I hadn’t spent the last several moments thinking about Darren Kline and my father and Mercer land and the way Silvia Smith’s name on a case could turn a city into a hunting ground.

Two employees sat behind the counter, separated from the public by thick glass that had seen things. One was a woman with gray-streaked hair and reading glasses perched so low on her nose they looked like they were trying to escape. The other was a younger guy who was chewing gum like it had personally offended him.

The woman looked up first. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I need to request a file.”

Her eyes flicked down my blazer and back up, assessing. “What kind of file?”

“Incident report and associated attachments,” I said. “From eight years ago.”

Gum Guy made a face like I’d asked him to do physical labor.

The woman slid a form toward me through the slot at the bottom of the glass. “Name. Date. Case number if you have it.”

“I don’t,” I said. “But I have the incident date and the responding agency.”

She nodded once, like that was acceptable.

I took the form and moved to one of the little standing counters along the wall. The building hummed around me. A printer whirred. Someone coughed in a way that suggested they were trying to hack up their soul. A man in a reflective vest argued quietly with his phone in the corner.

I stared at the blank spaces on the form for a beat longer than necessary.

SUBJECT NAME:

DATE OF INCIDENT:

REPORTING AGENCY:

REQUESTOR NAME:

PURPOSE OF REQUEST:

That last one always made me laugh. As if anyone ever wrote, Because I have the right. Or, Because I can’t sleep anymore.

I wrote carefully:

SUBJECT NAME: Officer Daniel Carter

DATE OF INCIDENT: October 11, 2017

REPORTING AGENCY: County Sheriff’s Office / Joint Response

REQUESTOR NAME: Jordan Carter

PURPOSE OF REQUEST: Family record review / personal legal documentation

I paused, then added, in smaller print: Next-of-kin.

I didn’t add: Because the story never made sense and now a dead trafficker’s name is crawling out of the past like it owns me.

When I brought the form back to the counter, the woman took it and scanned it with slow, practiced eyes. Her expression shifted slightly at my father’s name.

“Officer Carter,” she said.

“Yes.”

She didn’t say I’m sorry, which I appreciated. People always said it like they were paying a toll.

Instead, she typed the name into her computer. Her fingers moved fast. She knew the system. The screen reflected in the glass like a dim mirror—grids of numbers, dates, case tags.

Gum Guy leaned over, curious despite himself.

The woman’s brow furrowed. She typed again. Clicked. Typed again.

Then she looked up at me, and I recognized the look immediately.

It was the look people got when they wanted to be helpful but weren’t allowed.

“I’m going to need you to sign in,” she said, sliding a clipboard toward me. “And I’m going to need identification.”

“Of course.” I handed her my driver’s license. “Do you need my bar card too, or is this a family-only party?”

A tiny smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “Not necessary.”

I signed in. She took my license, made a copy, then returned it.

“Okay,” she said, and her voice turned slightly more careful. “This file isn’t in the public archive.”

I blinked once. “It should be. It’s an incident report.”

“It’s flagged,” she said.

“Flagged how?” I kept my tone light, like we were discussing a parking ticket. My heart was not light.

She hesitated, then angled her monitor just enough that I could see the screen if I leaned forward.

I leaned forward.

The file entry was there—my father’s name, the date, a case identifier I’d never seen. But next to it, in bold red letters:

RESTRICTED ACCESS — ADMIN APPROVAL REQUIRED

Underneath that, smaller text:

EXEMPTION: ACTIVE INVESTIGATION / OFFICER SAFETY

I stared at it.

“Active investigation?” I repeated.

The woman gave a small shrug that said, I’m not the one who makes this nonsense. “That’s what it says.”

“My father has been dead for eight years,” I said quietly.

Gum Guy shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. The woman’s eyes softened.

“I know,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’m not saying I agree with it. I’m saying it’s not in the stack I can pull for you.”

I straightened slowly. “Who has approval authority?”

She tapped a couple keys. “Records supervisor. Or the sheriff’s office.”

“Okay.” I nodded, like this was an inconvenience and not a punch in the ribs. “So if I go upstairs and request it through the sheriff’s office—”

“They’ll tell you the same thing,” she said gently.

I held her gaze. “Have you seen this before? This particular file?”

Her lips pressed together. “I see a lot of things.”

“That’s not an answer,” I said, still polite.

She sighed, the kind of sigh that came from years of people asking for things she wasn’t allowed to give.

“Listen,” she said. “I’m going to tell you what I can tell you. The file exists. It’s not deleted. It’s not ‘missing.’ It’s locked behind a restriction code. When files get coded like that, it’s usually because… someone high up didn’t want it accessed without someone else knowing.”

Heat crept up the back of my neck. Not anger yet. Not fully.

Suspicion.

“And if I request it,” I said, “someone will know.”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

I nodded slowly. “Okay. That’s useful.”

Gum Guy, who’d been silent, leaned forward slightly. “Do you have a case number?”

“No,” I said.

He clicked his tongue. “If you had the case number, you could try—”

The woman shot him a look. He shut up.

I turned back to her. “Is there a log? For who accessed it? Who flagged it? When?”

Her eyes flickered. That was the moment. The moment she made a decision about whether she liked me enough to risk being helpful.

She glanced over her shoulder as if the fluorescent lights might be reporting on her. Then she typed something, fast. Clicked. Typed again.

Her mouth tightened. “There’s a note attached.”

“What does it say?” My voice stayed even.

She hesitated, then turned the screen slightly more toward me.

The note was short, like someone had written it in a hurry.

NEXT-OF-KIN REQUESTS MUST BE ESCALATED. DO NOT RELEASE WITHOUT SUPERVISOR APPROVAL.

Under it, a date.

And then, below that, something that made my stomach go cold:

LAST ACCESSED: MONDAY — 9:03 A.M.

Today.

I stared at the screen. “That means someone opened it this morning.”

The woman nodded once.

“Who?”

She shook her head immediately. “That’s not… I can’t—”

“I’m not asking you to violate policy,” I said, because I wasn’t an idiot. “I’m asking if the system shows a name or a badge number or a department code.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. She looked down at her keyboard, then back at me.

“It shows a user ID,” she admitted quietly. “But I’m not allowed to give you that.”

I smiled, small and soft, like I wasn’t about to make this very annoying. “Okay. But you could tell me whether it’s internal records staff, or sheriff’s office, or DA’s office.”

She didn’t answer immediately.

That was an answer.

My pulse kicked up.

“Was it the DA’s office?” I asked.

Her eyes flicked to the side—just a fraction.

Not enough for plausible deniability. Enough for me.

“Okay,” I said, voice still calm. “So someone in Silvia Smith’s orbit is digging into my father’s file.”

Gum Guy cleared his throat and looked suddenly fascinated by his stapler.

The woman leaned closer to the glass, lowering her voice to nearly nothing. “I didn’t say that.”

“No,” I agreed. “You didn’t.”

I stepped back and breathed through my nose. Counted to three. My mother used to say I had my father’s temper, which meant if I didn’t manage it, I’d end up putting someone through drywall with my words.

I wasn’t going to lose my composure in a basement.

Not today.

“Is there any portion of the file that’s not restricted?” I asked, shifting to problem-solving mode.

She typed again. Clicked. Shook her head. “The whole entry is locked.”

“And if I filed a formal request?” I asked.

She gave me that same helpless look. “It would go to the supervisor.”

“And then?” I prompted.

“And then,” she said carefully, “someone would review it and decide what you’re allowed to see.”

“Which could take weeks,” I said.

“Or longer,” she confirmed.

I stared at my father’s name on the screen again. Daniel Carter. A man who had spent his life believing in systems, believing rules mattered, believing if you did the right thing it would mean something.

And now his file was locked away like it was a weapon.

I felt something sharp and ugly twist in my chest.

“Can you print me the basic entry at least?” I asked. “Date, case number, restriction code.”

She hesitated.

I leaned in slightly, keeping my voice friendly. “You’re not releasing the report. You’re printing the log line. That’s not the same thing.”

Gum Guy opened his mouth like he might object, but the woman cut him off with a look that said, If you speak, I will end you with paperwork.

She typed. The printer behind her whirred.

A moment later, she slid a single sheet through the slot.

On it were the bare bones:

Officer Daniel Carter

Incident Date: October 11, 2017

Case ID: 17-10-11-CR

Status: Restricted Access

Exemption: Active Investigation / Officer Safety

Last Accessed: Monday 9:03 A.M.

I took the paper like it was fragile, even though it was just ink. Evidence. A breadcrumb.

“Thank you,” I said softly.

The woman nodded once. “I’m sorry.”

I looked up. “Don’t be. You didn’t do this.”

She studied me for a second, then said, “If you push for this… be careful who you push against.”

I gave her a small smile. “That’s sweet.”

“It’s not sweet,” she said flatly. “It’s real.”

I tucked the paper into my folder, then slid my license back into my wallet.

As I turned to leave, my phone buzzed in my purse. I didn’t have to check the screen to know it was Nina, because Nina only called when she couldn’t text something.

I answered as I walked out into the hallway. “Tell me you found something interesting.”

“I did,” Nina said, voice tight. “And you’re not going to like it.”

“I’m already in a basement, Nina,” I said. “My day is basically committed.”

“The Mercer meeting—” she started.

“I’m still going.”

“Okay,” she said. “Fine. But Jordan… I ran Silvia Smith.”

“Yeah?”

“She was assigned to the Mercer body case this morning,” Nina said. “Officially.”

My steps slowed.

I stopped near the stairwell, where the concrete walls made everything echo.

“Okay,” I said carefully. “That tracks.”

“And,” Nina continued, “she pulled one of your old case dockets. Not public. It’s in the internal access log.”

My grip tightened on my phone. “Which docket?”

“The one involving your dad’s file,” Nina said. “The restricted one.”

My stomach dipped.

I stared at the paper in my folder—the log line, the timestamp.

9:03 A.M.

Silvia Smith had been assigned this morning.

And within hours, someone had accessed my father’s file.

I forced air into my lungs. Slow in. Slow out.

“Jordan?” Nina asked.

“I’m here,” I said.

“What are you going to do?”

I looked at the stairwell door, then at the exit sign, then at my reflection faintly in the glass panel—professional, composed, a woman in a blazer like she didn’t feel like the floor had shifted under her.

I kept my voice light, because if I didn’t, it would crack.

“I’m going to meet Mercer,” I said. “And I’m going to find out why my past suddenly became interesting to the district attorney.”

There was a pause. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” I lied again.

I ended the call, tucked my phone away, and headed toward the elevator.

As the doors closed, my reflection stared back at me—calm on the outside, mind racing underneath.

Someone had opened my father’s file this week.

Today.

And whoever it was, they weren’t doing it out of curiosity.

They were doing it because my father’s death wasn’t as buried as everyone wanted me to believe.

Who’s digging my past?