Chapter 1: Smoke on Barlow Row

Greyhaven’s Docklands carried smoke the way old stone carried salt. Even on clear nights, the air tasted of burnt oil and damp brick. When the call came in, it was just after midnight: a row building on Barlow Row, half boarded and half lived in, the kind the city remembered only when it lit up.

Inspector Yara Venn arrived with the Special Cases Unit van as fire crews finished their last sweep. Hoses lay across the street like shed skins. Blue strobes painted the wet cobblestones, and a crowd pressed behind the cordon with phones raised, hungry for a story.

“Seal the perimeter,” Yara told the first uniform she spotted. “Log every name, firefighter, volunteer, bystander. Everybody.”

Mira Sable stepped carefully around a puddle that reflected the building’s blackened ribs. She watched how soot climbed one corner of the doorway in a tight plume, as if the fire had been fed from a single mouth. Grell Marr, the unit’s fire analyst, crouched near the threshold and traced the burn line with a gloved finger.

“Not a drift fire,” Grell said. “Too concentrated. It ran like it knew where to go.”

Elias Quill, SCU tech, photographed the entrance and the waterlogged debris with steady patience. Celeste Rook, records lead and liaison, spoke quietly with a shelter volunteer who had arrived breathless, face gray with shock.

Inside, the building smelled of wet ash and melted plastic. The air stung the back of Mira’s throat. A firefighter guided them down a corridor where plaster had blistered and fallen like skin.

“We found the kid in the rear room,” the firefighter said, voice strained. “No ID. We got him out fast, but…” He swallowed and looked away.

Yara’s shoulders tightened. “Any name? Anything from the scene?”

“One squatter said he’d seen him around. That’s all.”

They entered what had once been an office. Now it was a hollow box of char and steam. Grell studied the room without stepping too far in, eyes measuring soot patterns the way other people read handwriting.

Mira spotted something that did not fit: a cheap charm bracelet on a low shelf, oddly clean compared to the rest, as if it had been placed there after the worst of the smoke. A star, a fish, a tiny stamped key.

“That’s… too visible,” Mira said, keeping her voice low.

Yara followed her gaze. “Photograph in place,” she told Elias. “Then bag it. If it’s sentimental, it matters. If it’s bait, it matters more.”

Outside, the crowd’s murmur sharpened into accusation. Someone shouted, “Where were you?” Another voice called, “SCU only shows up when it’s too late.”

Yara turned toward the noise, expression controlled but hard. “We do this clean,” she said to her team. “No shortcuts. Not with a child.”

Mira watched smoke drift from the roofline in thin ribbons, already trying to disappear into the rain. The scene felt arranged, not just burned. And she could not shake the sense that someone had wanted the fire to erase more than wood and paint.

Chapter 2: The Trap Beneath the Boards

Morning brought a cold drizzle that turned Docklands gray and slick. Under a temporary canopy, SCU and fire investigators moved through the building’s remains with slow, deliberate care. Every step creaked. Every touch risked destroying what little the fire had spared.

Grell knelt in the rear office and tapped along the warped floorboards with a probe. “Origin point is here,” he said. “Heat gradient drops off too sharply. This isn’t a wandering flame.”

Yara crouched beside him. “So it was fed. Accelerant?”

“Worse,” Grell replied. “It was directed.”

Elias set up his camera rig and took close shots of the floor and skirting, capturing soot trails and water patterns. Mira watched his hands. He worked as if precision could keep grief at bay.

They pried up the boards slowly, lifting each piece and marking it. Beneath the floor, a cavity reeked of chemical sweetness and wet rot. Grell reached in with tweezers and drew out an ugly assembly wrapped in scorched cloth.

A pressure plate. A bent spring. A contact strip that would close a circuit under weight. Cloth soaked in accelerant wrapped around a small heating element scavenged from some cheap appliance.

“A booby-trap,” Mira said, the words rough in her mouth.

Yara’s eyes flicked toward the corridor. “Designed for whoever stepped in,” she said. “Including a child.”

Grell nodded once. “Placed where someone would shelter. It’s predatory, whether it had a specific target or not.”

Elias labeled and bagged the components, then paused at a section of wall where plaster had collapsed. Something dark and melted was lodged in the cavity. He eased it out with careful fingers.

“A phone,” he said. The casing was blistered, the screen gone, but a memory chip clung stubbornly to the board. “Heat-damaged, but not pulverized.”

Mira felt a hard twist of anger. “A timer? Remote trigger? Or someone filming.”

“Or someone keeping proof,” Elias said. “People record their justifications.”

Yara straightened under the canopy as rain ticked on her jacket. “Chain of custody now,” she said. “Elias, you escort that phone to the lab. Grell, full fire mapping and accelerant testing. Celeste, I want missing child reports, outreach notes, shelter logs. A child doesn’t end up here by accident.”

Celeste, already typing, nodded. “Docklands records are thin, but I’ll pull Hollowbrook too. Kids drift between districts.”

A uniform approached with a wary look. “Inspector Venn, press is asking for a statement. They want to know if it was arson.”

Yara’s mouth tightened. “Tell them we’re investigating a fatal fire and we will release verified information. Not rumors. Not guesses.”

As the uniform left, Mira stared back at the rear office. The bracelet, the trap, the phone hidden in the wall, it all felt like a hand arranging pieces. Someone had not only killed. Someone had tried to control the story afterward.

“Who builds a trap in a ruin?” Mira asked.

Grell answered without looking up. “Someone who expects a particular kind of footstep.”

Elias sealed the phone in a padded container. “And someone who thought fire would erase the rest.”

Chapter 3: A Child’s Name, A City’s Silence

Greyhaven’s official machines moved quickly when they wanted to contain shame. By afternoon, a municipal spokesperson had already issued a sterile statement about “an unfortunate fire in an unsafe structure.” No mention of arson. No mention of a child. The city’s language was designed to make tragedy sound like weather.

In the SCU bullpen, Celeste Rook built a map out of scraps: shelter sign-in sheets, outreach notes, school absentee lists, clinic logs. She worked with the stubborn focus of someone who had learned that missing data was not the same as missing truth.

Mira stood beside her, smoke still caught in her hair despite two showers. “Anything on the bracelet?” she asked.

“Not directly,” Celeste said, eyes flicking between screens. “But I found an outreach teacher’s note from Hollowbrook. A boy named Lio Marrow, ten. Missed weeks of school, then appeared at a pop-up class near Spring Market. The teacher wrote: ‘Wears bracelet, star and fish. Won’t remove.’”

Mira’s stomach dropped. “Lio Marrow. So he wasn’t Docklands.”

Celeste shook her head. “Last recorded contact two days ago in Hollowbrook. Guardian listed as cousin, Rena Marrow. Parents not on file.”

Yara entered with a folder and the posture of someone returning from a fight she had not been allowed to win. “Chief Sykes wants daily briefings,” she said. “He wants them short and reassuring.”

“Reassuring to who?” Mira asked.

Yara tossed a newspaper onto a desk. The Verrowind Herald’s front page screamed about SCU failure, with a photo of flames on Barlow Row and a blurred image of firefighters carrying a small body. The public had been given a picture to rage at, and rage was always easier than patience.

“They printed that without permission,” Mira said, jaw tight.

“They’ll claim public interest,” Yara replied. “Greyhaven FM is running call-ins. People are naming suspects they invented. They’re saying we’re covering for someone.”

Elias rolled over in his chair, holding an evidence receipt. “The phone is queued for recovery. It’s heat-damaged. I can run Cindertrace, but it will take time.”

Time was what the city refused to grant. The SCU’s reputation was still bruised from old corruption scandals, and even though the unit had been rebuilt, distrust lingered. Half the city saw them as the last line against rot. The other half saw them as rot with better suits.

Mira tapped the outreach note. “If Lio came from Hollowbrook, someone will try to keep that quiet. Hollowbrook officials hate being linked to Docklands.”

“Let them hate it,” Yara said. “A child is dead. We follow facts.”

A junior officer appeared at the glass wall. “Inspector, Chief Sykes wants the first briefing in an hour. Also, the Herald wants comment on whether SCU is ‘ignoring known arson offenders.’”

Mira watched Yara’s face. Anger lived there, but so did restraint. Yara had learned that outrage could be used against you like a weapon.

“We brief Sykes on what we know,” Yara said. “Arson indicators. Booby-trap device recovered. Victim likely Lio Marrow pending confirmation. No suspect named.”

Mira nodded, but unease crawled under her ribs. In Greyhaven, names were leverage. The city was already deciding which names it wanted to say out loud, and which it wanted to swallow.

Chapter 4: A Convenient Arsonist

The first “lead” arrived too neatly, as if it had been waiting in a drawer for the right headline. A witness from a nearby basement club told uniforms they had seen Kellan Rusk near Barlow Row with a fuel can. Rusk was a familiar name in SCU files: Docklands drifter, small fires, trash bins, abandoned cars, always messy, always public, always the kind of offender people liked to imagine when they heard the word arson.

Yara and Mira found him by the canal under a tarp, nursing a cup of bitter tea. He looked up with weary recognition.

“You again,” Rusk said. “What did I do this time?”

Mira kept her voice steady. “We’re investigating the Barlow Row fire. A child died.”

Rusk’s face tightened, as if the words hit a bruise. “I don’t burn kids.”

Yara did not soften. “Where were you last night?”

“Here,” he said, pointing with the cup. “Then soup line by Old Quarter. Ask them.”

They brought him in for a formal interview anyway. Procedure demanded it, and procedure was also a shield against accusations of favoritism. The interview room was small, paint peeling at the corners, the air stale with old confessions.

Yara slid a photo across the table: the trap components laid out in a lab tray. “Have you seen anything like this?”

Rusk leaned forward, squinting. “That’s not my kind of fire.”

“What’s your kind?” Mira asked.

“Fast and stupid,” he said. “Bottle, rag, spark. That thing is planned. Someone wanted a person, not a building.”

Yara’s eyes narrowed. “A witness saw you with a fuel can.”

Rusk snorted. “Everyone has a fuel can in Docklands. For heaters, generators. That’s not evidence. That’s winter.”

Outside, Elias waited with a tablet. When Yara stepped into the hall, he lowered his voice. “The witness said ‘ten past midnight.’ But the emergency call came in at 11:41. Fire crews arrived 11:52. Ten past midnight is when Greyhaven FM runs ‘Docklands Watch.’”

Mira felt anger flare, sharp and clean. “So the witness is parroting the broadcast.”

“Or someone coached them,” Elias said.

Back inside, Mira asked Rusk, “Did you know Lio Marrow?”

Rusk’s gaze snapped up. “The kid with the bracelet? I saw him once. He asked for food. I gave him half my bread. That’s all.”

Yara glanced at Mira. Rusk knew the bracelet detail, which meant either he had seen Lio, or the detail was already spreading through Docklands faster than the SCU could control.

When the interview ended, Yara paused in the corridor, jaw tight. “Celeste, I want background on the witness and on Jeremy Flint at Greyhaven FM,” she said into her phone. “Mira, get Lio’s last known route in Hollowbrook. This story is too easy.”

Mira watched Rusk being led away for processing, shoulders hunched, face set. The city wanted him to be the answer. The media wanted him to be the monster. And if the SCU let that happen, the real arsonist would vanish into the cracks Greyhaven pretended were not there.

Chapter 5: Hollowbrook’s Clean Hands

Hollowbrook looked like the version of Greyhaven shown in municipal brochures: brighter storefronts, cleaner sidewalks, banners that had not faded into rags. The decay here was quieter, tucked behind policy and polite smiles. Mira felt the difference in the way people watched her and Yara, as if SCU presence itself was a stain.

They started at the pop-up classroom near Spring Market. The outreach teacher, a tired woman with ink on her fingers, pulled out an attendance sheet and a folder of notes.

“Lio was bright,” she said. “Skittish, but bright. He hated being talked down to. Said he was ‘just staying for a bit.’”

“Did he mention anyone besides his cousin?” Mira asked.

The teacher hesitated. “He talked about a ‘van person.’ Someone in a city van. He said they asked where he slept. He didn’t like it.”

Yara’s eyes sharpened. “Municipal services? Shelter outreach?”

“Maybe,” the teacher said. “He said they acted helpful, but he didn’t trust them.”

They walked the route from the classroom to the bus stop. A shop owner remembered a boy with a charm bracelet buying a pastry with coins counted twice. A bus driver recalled a child running late, waving, breathless. Each small memory built a fragile timeline, and Mira held onto it like a thread through smoke.

Celeste called in through Mira’s earpiece. “I pulled a community watch feed from a pole camera near Whitebriar Woods,” she said. “It’s grainy, but you should see it. I’m sending it to Elias too.”

They stopped at a small municipal office to view the footage. On the screen, Lio appeared near the edge of frame, arguing with an adult beside a municipal service van. The adult’s face was obscured by the camera angle, but the van’s side panel showed a faded compliance decal. Lio’s hands moved sharply, defiant. Then the adult grabbed his wrist. The image stuttered as someone crossed in front of the camera, and the moment vanished.

Mira’s mouth went dry. “That’s him.”

Yara leaned closer. “Freeze it on the decal.”

The clerk shifted uncomfortably. “We can’t release municipal logs without formal request. Council legal will want to review.”

Yara’s tone stayed calm, but it carried steel. “A child is dead. You can either cooperate now or explain later why you delayed.”

Outside, a Hollowbrook council aide approached with a practiced smile. “Inspector Venn, we sympathize, but you must understand the sensitivity. Hollowbrook does not want to be implicated in Docklands crime.”

Mira’s patience frayed. “This isn’t about districts. It’s about Lio.”

The aide’s smile tightened. “Public perception matters.”

Yara stepped closer, voice low. “Public perception is why a dead child is being used as a headline. We will request van logs, contractor assignments, compliance schedules. If you interfere, it will be documented.”

As they returned to the SCU van, Mira stared at the clean sidewalks and manicured planters. Hollowbrook wanted to keep its hands clean, but Mira had seen the grip on Lio’s wrist. The case had crossed into the polished part of the city, and the rot there wore a uniform badge.

Chapter 6: The Wrong Arrest

By the time they returned to headquarters, cameras crowded the lobby. The Herald’s photographer stood across the street like a hunter. Greyhaven FM’s van waited at the curb, antenna raised, ready to broadcast whatever the SCU fed it.

Chief Sykes called an emergency meeting. The room smelled of stale coffee and impatience. A screen looped footage of Barlow Row flames, already reduced to a symbol.

“We need an arrest,” Sykes said. “The city is boiling. Council is calling. The Ministry is asking why the SCU cannot control a simple arson.”

Yara’s posture stiffened. “We have a booby-trap device and a heat-damaged phone. We have footage suggesting municipal involvement. We do not have probable cause for a clean arrest tied to that yet.”

Sykes’s gaze shifted to Mira. “We have Kellan Rusk. Known offender. Witness statement. Partial print on a scorched bottle. The public understands that story.”

Grell cleared his throat, rare in meetings. “Chief, the fingerprint is compromised. Heat distortion warps ridge detail. It’s not reliable as primary evidence.”

Sykes’s expression hardened. “We cannot sit and watch public confidence collapse.”

Mira heard her own heartbeat. “If we arrest Rusk as a placeholder, we lose time and credibility. We also risk letting the real offender disappear.”

Yara’s voice sharpened. “This is not theater.”

Sykes leaned back. “It is always theater. You work inside it, whether you like it or not.”

The decision landed like a slammed door. Rusk was charged and walked through the lobby where cameras caught his hunched shoulders and set jaw. The Herald got its villain. Greyhaven FM got its segment. The city exhaled, satisfied for the moment.

In the bullpen, the team sat in tense silence. Mira stared at the evidence board, at Lio’s name, at the bracelet tag, at the still-unnamed municipal van.

Grell spoke quietly. “This will backfire.”

“I know,” Mira said.

Yara paced near her desk, fists opening and closing. “They’re forcing a narrative,” she muttered. “They want closure, not truth.”

Elias approached with a tired look. “I’ll prioritize the phone recovery,” he said. “If there’s anything usable, it can cut through the noise.”

Celeste’s voice was low. “Internal chatter is already ugly. People are saying we’re either covering for someone or incompetent. Either way, knives are out.”

That night, Mira went to the holding cells. Rusk sat on a bench, arms wrapped around himself. When he saw her, his eyes flashed with something like betrayal.

“You know it wasn’t me,” he said.

Mira swallowed. “I’m working on it.”

“You better,” Rusk replied. “Because once they’ve got me, they stop looking.”

Mira left the cells with a sick weight in her chest. The wrong man was locked up, and somewhere in Greyhaven the real arsonist could be watching the city chew on the easy story, exactly as intended.

Chapter 7: Cindertrace in a Small Room

Elias’s lab was a cramped space behind the forensic suite, filled with salvaged parts, old terminals, and the faint smell of solder. A small warded plate hung near his bench, a standard stabilizing charm used in Verrowind labs to prevent fragile electronics from degrading further while handled. It was mundane, regulated, and essential.

He set the melted phone under a magnifier. “All right,” he murmured. “Show me what you kept.”

Cindertrace combined careful hardware recovery with sanctioned sparkcraft designed to read heat-scarred storage patterns. It did not conjure data that had never existed. It only coaxed surviving traces into legible form. Elias ran the process slowly, watching the readout crawl from nonsense into fragments.

Mira stood behind him, arms folded tight. “Any chance it gives us something solid?”

“There’s always a chance,” Elias said. “Just not always the kind you want.”

Corrupted file names appeared like half-burned paper. Time stamps jumped backward, a sign of a clumsy wipe. A folder label resolved into “VID” and then garbled characters. Elias clicked into a metadata pane and frowned.

“Someone deleted a folder,” he said. “Then someone tried to wipe the deletion traces later. That’s panic, or sloppiness.”

Grell leaned in the doorway. “Later than the fire?”

Elias nodded. “Later than the last power event. The phone was used, damaged, then handled again.”

Mira felt cold clarity settle. “So someone went back for it.”

Elias tapped another pane. “GPS cache fragments. It pings between Hollowbrook and the Old Quarter. Repeated stop near a municipal depot.”

Yara entered, face tight. “Internal Affairs requested our evidence logs,” she said. “They’re claiming we rushed the Rusk arrest and contaminated the scene.”

Grell muttered, “We didn’t. Politics did.”

Elias pointed at the screen. “There’s also a login token. Municipal contractor access, the sort used for compliance portals.”

Mira’s breath caught. “That ties to the van.”

“It ties to someone with legitimate credentials,” Elias said. “Not a drifter with a fuel can.”

Celeste’s voice came over speaker from her desk outside. “Hollowbrook is stonewalling,” she said. “They say contractor logs require council legal review.”

Yara’s jaw set. “Then we request formally and document every delay. We do not let them bury time.”

Elias stared at the screen as a tiny thumbnail appeared, blurred and damaged but unmistakably a video still. “There was a file,” he said. “And someone wanted it gone.”

Mira felt a mix of hope and dread. “Can you reconstruct it?”

“I can try,” Elias replied. “But whoever wiped this understood enough to be dangerous. They just didn’t understand heat.”

Outside the lab, the building hummed with tension: cameras waiting, an innocent man in a cell, Internal Affairs circling. Inside, a half-melted phone offered a thin line of truth, stubborn as a coal that refused to die.

Chapter 8: The Witness and the Broadcast

Mira scheduled the re-interview with the Docklands witness, Nessa Vale, because she could not ignore how neatly Nessa’s statement fit the media’s timeline. Re-interviews were rarely clean. People reshaped truth to survive, and Greyhaven rewarded whichever version made the city feel safe.

Nessa sat across from Mira in a small room that smelled of disinfectant, twisting a napkin into shreds. Mira placed her EchoPen on the table, its light steady.

“This is recording,” Mira said. “You know that.”

Nessa nodded quickly. “I told you what I saw.”

Mira kept her voice calm. “You said you saw Kellan Rusk at ten past midnight with a fuel can. But the emergency call came in at 11:41. Fire crews arrived before midnight.”

Nessa’s eyes flicked toward the door. “I got the time wrong.”

Mira slid a transcript across the table. “Greyhaven FM’s ‘Docklands Watch’ airs at ten past midnight. The phrasing in your statement matches the host, Jeremy Flint, almost word for word.”

Nessa’s face flushed. “I listen sometimes.”

“Did Flint speak to you before you spoke to police?” Mira asked.

Silence stretched. Nessa’s breathing quickened. Her shoulders trembled.

“He said people needed to know who did it,” Nessa whispered. “He said if I had information, I should share it. He offered cash. My cousin’s rent is late. He said he could help.”

Mira’s stomach tightened. “Did you actually see Rusk with a fuel can?”

Nessa’s eyes filled. “I saw someone with a can. I thought it was him. Or I wanted it to be him. Because then it’s simple. Because then it’s Docklands doing Docklands.”

Mira leaned back slightly, giving space without letting go. “A child died. I need what you truly saw.”

Nessa pressed her palms to her eyes, then dropped them. Tears cut lines through soot smudges. “Earlier that day,” she said, voice breaking, “I saw a kid running near Spring Market. And a municipal van rolled up slow. The driver leaned out and called him by name. Lio. I heard it. Lio froze like he’d been caught.”

Mira’s throat tightened. “Why didn’t you say this?”

Nessa’s hands shook. “Because the driver looked at me. Just a glance. Like they knew where I lived. And Flint, he said people like me only get heard if we give them what they want.”

Mira’s anger rose, not only at Nessa, but at the machine that had used her fear. “Flint paid you,” she said.

Nessa nodded. “He told me what time to say so it would stick. He said it would ‘line up with the show.’”

Mira exhaled slowly. “Tell me everything you remember about the van.”

“Gray,” Nessa said. “City gray. There was dust on the step, pale like stone powder. And the driver wore heavy boots. The kind that leave a mark.”

When Mira left the room, Yara waited in the hallway. Mira’s voice was tight. “The witness was coached by Jeremy Flint. She saw Lio with a municipal van earlier. Dust on the step, stone powder. Heavy boots.”

Yara’s eyes hardened. “We’re not just chasing an arsonist,” she said. “We’re chasing a narrative that wants us blind.”

Chapter 9: Internal Affairs at the Door

Internal Affairs arrived without spectacle, which made their presence feel like a knife slid quietly onto a table. Two investigators in neat suits stepped into SCU headquarters and asked for evidence logs, interview recordings, and chain-of-custody documentation. They did it in the hallway, where everyone could see the SCU being examined.

Mira watched Investigator Halden speak to Chief Sykes near the elevators. Sykes’s posture was relaxed, but his eyes were sharp. When he noticed Mira, he gestured her over.

“Internal Affairs has concerns,” Sykes said. “They believe the SCU may be mishandling evidence, and targeting municipal workers without cause.”

Mira kept her voice controlled. “We have a municipal login token recovered from a phone at the scene. We have footage of Lio with a municipal van. That is cause to request records and identify drivers.”

Halden smiled faintly. “Request, yes. Accuse, no. The city cannot afford reckless insinuations.”

Yara joined them, her presence changing the air. “Reckless is arresting a man because the media wanted a face,” she said.

Sykes’s expression cooled. “Watch your tone, Inspector.”

Yara did not blink. “Watch your priorities, Chief.”

The hallway held a brittle pause. Halden spoke again, polite as a paper cut. “We will review the decision-making behind the Rusk arrest. Also, any further action involving municipal personnel should be coordinated through proper channels.”

Mira felt heat rise. “So we need permission to investigate the people who may have killed a child?”

Sykes’s voice sharpened. “You will coordinate. You will not freelance. The SCU has already taken public damage.”

After Internal Affairs moved on, the bullpen felt smaller. Conversations dropped when Mira passed. The department conflict, once a low simmer, had become open distrust.

Celeste pulled Mira aside near the records wall. “I found something,” she said quietly. “That municipal token format matches a batch issued years ago. There’s a sealed complaint file tied to a compliance inspector named Maren Dalt. Allegations of selective enforcement and bribe pressure. It never went anywhere, but it exists.”

Mira’s pulse quickened. “Dalt is publicly known as a crusader against Docklands slumlords.”

Celeste nodded. “Which is why this is sensitive. If Dalt is involved, Hollowbrook will fight us hard. The city will prefer the Docklands drifter story.”

Yara approached, face set. “Sykes wants another briefing,” she said. “He wants to keep Rusk in custody until we have something else. He’s afraid to admit error.”

Mira looked toward Elias’s lab door. “Then we need Elias’s recovery,” she said. “If we can show what was deleted, it changes everything.”

Yara’s voice lowered. “We protect the chain, and we protect the truth. Internal Affairs can audit all they want. They cannot audit reality.”

Outside, rain washed soot into gutters. Inside, the SCU stood between a dead child and a city that only wanted the truth if it arrived packaged as a simple villain.

Chapter 10: The Video That Survived

Elias looked like he had not slept. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hands marked with graphite and flux. On his screen, a video timeline stuttered in jagged fragments, rebuilt from scraps that should have been gone.

“I got a reconstruction,” he said, voice rough. “Not pristine. Audio is damaged. But it’s real.”

Mira, Yara, Grell, and Celeste crowded into the lab. No one spoke. The room felt too small for the weight of what they were about to see.

Elias hit play.

The video began in darkness with the muffled hum of an engine. Then dim shapes resolved: the interior of a municipal service van, filmed low as if the phone lay on a seat or in a small hand. A child’s breathing came in quick, frightened pulls.

A child’s voice trembled. “Please. I didn’t take it. I just saw it. I just saw the book.”

An adult voice answered, tight and strained, close to tears or rage. “Don’t make me do this.”

The van jolted. The camera shook. There was a scuffle, the scrape of fabric, a sharp inhale. Then the adult voice, panicked, not theatrical, snapped: “Get off the step. Lio, get off the step, you’re going to fall.”

Lio’s voice rose in fear and anger. “You’re lying. You said you help kids.”

The phone dropped. For a second, the frame showed the van floor. Then it tilted toward the open door. A boot stepped into view, heavy and practical, tread deep in a cross-hatch pattern. Pale dust clung to the sole and toe, like quarry-stone powder.

The image broke into corrupted pixels and froze.

Silence filled the lab. Mira felt her throat tighten as if smoke had returned. Yara’s face was stone, but her eyes burned.

Grell spoke first, voice low. “That dust is quarry-stone. Not Docklands soot. Stoneford supply yards, construction runs, municipal paving.”

Celeste nodded slowly. “Stoneford supplies Hollowbrook’s drainage upgrades. Their depot sits near the Old Quarter. That matches the GPS fragments.”

Mira looked at Elias. “Any plate number? A face?”

Elias shook his head. “Not from this fragment. But the file metadata gives us a timestamp. The device pairing log shows access to a municipal portal. Whoever handled this phone had legitimate credentials.”

Yara straightened. “We take this to Sykes with full documentation,” she said. “And we do it in a way Internal Affairs cannot pretend is speculation.”

Mira stared at the frozen boot. “The adult voice sounds scared,” she said quietly.

Grell’s expression was tired. “Self-defense can be real and still turn into a crime. Fear doesn’t explain building a trap.”

Elias saved the reconstructed file to a secured drive, then made two verified copies under protocol, each logged and sealed. “They tried to erase it twice,” he said. “Fire didn’t finish the job, and neither did they.”

Mira felt the case shift, slow tension turning into sharp direction. They had the file. Now they had to make Greyhaven look at it, even if the city hated what it saw.

Chapter 11: The Conscience of Greyhaven

Maren Dalt arrived for the interview wearing a municipal badge on a neat jacket, hair pulled back, hands clasped as if the posture alone could keep them safe. Dalt’s reputation preceded them: compliance inspector, praised in council meetings for “courage,” quoted in the Herald as Greyhaven’s conscience when speaking against Docklands slumlords. The kind of person the city liked to point to as proof it could still be clean.

Mira sat across the table with Grell beside her. Yara stood near the wall, arms folded, watching every flicker of expression. The room was quiet enough to hear the building’s vents.

Dalt’s voice was controlled. “I’m here to cooperate. I heard a child died. It’s terrible.”

Mira placed a still image on the table: the boot from the recovered video, dust pale against dark rubber. “Do you recognize the tread pattern, or the stone dust?”

Dalt’s eyes flickered. “Many inspectors visit sites. Dust is common.”

Grell slid forward a photo of the booby-trap device components. “This was under the floorboards at Barlow Row. Pressure trigger, accelerant cloth, heating element. It ignited when someone stepped in.”

Dalt swallowed. “That’s monstrous.”

Mira kept her tone even. “We recovered a phone from the wall cavity. It contained a deleted video from inside a municipal van. We reconstructed part of it.”

Dalt’s hands tightened. “Municipal vans are standard.”

Yara stepped forward slightly. “The phone also contained a municipal login token issued to your compliance account.”

The color drained from Dalt’s face, then returned in a flush. “That’s impossible. My account is secure.”

Mira watched the calculation behind Dalt’s eyes, the quick search for a version of events that might still fit inside legality. She leaned in, voice low.

“In the video, the adult says, ‘Don’t make me do this.’ That doesn’t sound like someone chasing thrill. It sounds like someone cornered. Tell us what happened.”

For a moment, Dalt stared at the table as if it might open. Then their voice broke. “I called it in,” Dalt whispered.

Yara’s eyes narrowed. “You called what in?”

“The fire,” Dalt said, tears gathering. “I called for help. I thought it would be contained. I thought someone would get there in time.”

Mira felt a chill. “You called the emergency line, after setting it?”

Dalt nodded, shaking. “I didn’t know he was still inside. I swear.”

Grell’s voice stayed steady. “That does not explain building a device designed to ignite underfoot.”

Dalt’s shoulders sagged, and the confession came in fragments, as if each piece hurt to carry.

“I kept records,” Dalt said. “Ledgers. Not just mine. Bribe pressure, selective passes, contractor kickbacks. I kept them to protect myself. Lio found them in the van. I was supposed to take him to a shelter liaison. He saw the bag, he opened it, and he said he’d tell.”

Mira’s chest tightened. “A ten-year-old.”

“He wasn’t threatening,” Dalt sobbed. “He was furious. He said I pretended to help while taking. We stopped, he tried to jump out. I grabbed him. He hit me, I panicked. I told myself I was defending myself, that he would ruin me, that he would bring people after me.”

Yara’s voice was hard. “So you rigged a trap in the place he slept.”

Dalt nodded, eyes squeezed shut. “I thought it would flare and smoke him out. I thought he’d run and never come back. I didn’t want him returning for the ledgers. I didn’t want him talking before I could fix it.”

Mira’s voice shook despite her effort. “You didn’t fix it. You killed him.”

Dalt’s sob turned small and broken. “I went back after,” they whispered. “I tried to wipe the phone. I couldn’t leave it. I couldn’t let anyone see.”

The twist settled like ash: the city’s trusted voice, the praised inspector, had been the one cornered enough to choose fire. The person who called for help had been the person who lit the trap.

Chapter 12: After the Fire, After the Story

Rain fell in a thin, steady sheet the morning the SCU cleared Kellan Rusk. Greyhaven’s streets looked washed, but nothing felt clean. Yara signed the release paperwork herself, then went to the holding cell because she refused to let the system hide behind clerks.

Rusk stood when she arrived, eyes sharp with exhaustion. “So,” he said. “Was I your villain long enough for them?”

Yara met his gaze. “You’re free. You were used. I’m sorry.”

Rusk let out a bitter breath. “Save your sorry for the kid.” He stepped closer to the bars. “Just don’t do it again. Don’t lock people up because it makes the city feel better.”

Mira waited in the corridor. When Rusk walked past her, he paused, voice lowered. “Find the kid’s people,” he said. “Tell them the truth, not the city’s truth.”

The press briefing was controlled and tight. Yara confirmed arson. She confirmed an arrest. She confirmed evidence recovery and asked for restraint and dignity for the victim. She did not play the reconstructed video. She refused to turn Lio’s last recorded fear into public entertainment.

The backlash arrived anyway. The Herald pivoted, furious at losing the easy Docklands monster narrative. Greyhaven FM’s Jeremy Flint ranted about secrecy and “SCU spin,” ignoring his own role in shaping a false witness statement. Internal Affairs lingered, now claiming SCU had embarrassed municipal leadership and mishandled public messaging.

Mira’s hardest task came in a quiet Hollowbrook flat that smelled of laundry soap and stale tea. Rena Marrow sat across from her, eyes swollen from crying but voice steady.

“Tell me what happened,” Rena said. “No soft words.”

Mira folded her hands to stop them shaking. “Lio died in a fire set by a booby-trapped device,” she said. “The person responsible claims it began with panic and fear, but they chose to build a trap afterward. That choice killed him.”

Rena’s face crumpled, then hardened into something fierce. “Self-defense,” she repeated, tasting the words like poison. “Against a child.”

Mira’s throat tightened. “He saw something wrong. He didn’t accept it.”

Rena pressed a fist to her mouth, shoulders trembling. “He always asked why,” she whispered. “Even when it made people angry.”

Back at headquarters, Yara stood before the evidence board, staring at Lio’s photo and the bracelet tag. “They’ll want this closed fast,” she said. “They’ll want it simple.”

Celeste’s voice was quiet but firm. “The recovered file points beyond one person. The ledgers Dalt mentioned, the complaint file, the contractor links, it’s a trail. We can follow it without turning this into a spectacle.”

Mira looked at her team: tired, bruised by pressure, still divided by the department’s politics, but standing. “A file survived a fire,” she said. “That means someone failed to erase the truth.”

Yara nodded once. “We keep doing the work inside the city we have,” she said. “Even when the city prefers ash.”

Mira thought of the bracelet, staged or not, a small object that refused to disappear. “Then we keep going,” she said. “For Lio.”