No verbal case identification.
Walk to booking.
Ask for Lieutenant Vance.
Observe.
If nobody reacted, continue.
If someone identified the specific seeded description…
Claire's trap would close.
Malik had expected subtlety.
Maybe Blake asking why he had Whitaker evidence.
Maybe a suspicious call.
Maybe surveillance.
He had not expected the sergeant to shove him into a counter within ninety seconds.
That was almost too easy.
Malik distrusted easy.
After Claire's team locked down the station systems, he told her.
“He gave himself up fast.”
Claire sat across from him in an unused interview room.
“You're complaining?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because guilty people usually lie better.”
Claire smiled.
“Maybe he isn't good.”
“Or maybe he isn't the top.”
That removed the smile.
Claire leaned back.
“You think he's a messenger.”
“I think a sergeant doesn't design procurement fraud spanning four years by himself.”
“Agreed.”
Malik rubbed the back of his knee.
Sore.
Claire noticed.
“Medical.”
“No.”
“Malik.”
“Later.”
“You're forty-one, not invincible.”
“I'm aware.”
“You still train like you're twenty-five.”
“Because twenty-five-year-olds annoy me.”
Claire ignored that.
She slid a tablet toward him.
“Initial network preservation.”
Malik looked.
Blake had accessed Whitaker case records eleven times after the accountant's death.
Some access could be legitimate.
He supervised parts of booking and evidence transfer.
But three entries occurred after midnight from a workstation assigned to administrative review.
One access session lasted nineteen seconds.
Malik frowned.
“What was opened?”
“Witness list.”
There.
A restricted witness list.
“When?”
Claire gave date.
Two hours before the confidential Northstar witness disappeared.
Malik looked up.
“That's our leak.”
“Maybe.”
Claire always said maybe until the evidence stopped allowing alternatives.
“What about Vance?”
“Accessed it too.”
“When?”
“Six hours earlier.”
“So either.”
“Yes.”
“Maya?”
“No.”
“Chief?”
“No.”
Malik stared at the screen.
“What about export logs?”
“None.”
“Could photograph screen.”
“Yes.”
“Print?”
“No record.”
Claire took the tablet.
“We have warrants pending for Blake's personal devices.”
“You think he'll cooperate?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Claire raised an eyebrow.
“Why good?”
“Cooperation makes me suspicious.”
“That's unhealthy.”
“Occupational.”
She stood.
“Go see medical.”
Malik remained seated.
Claire stopped at the door.
“That's an order.”
“You don't have rank over me.”
She smiled.
“No.”
“But I do control whether you get the fun assignments.”
Malik stood immediately.
Claire laughed.
Even in murder investigations, people remained themselves.
That mattered.
Owen Blake asked for a lawyer before noon.
Good decision.
The investigators stopped questioning him.
They did not need confession.
They needed records.
His department phone contained little.
Too little.
Factory reset seven weeks earlier.
Reason listed as operating-system failure.
His workstation history showed frequent access to case management outside his assignment.
Again, not proof.
His personal phone warrant became more important.
By evening, Claire got the call.
“Burner contact.”
Malik sat beside her in the temporary command room established inside the county administration annex.