Those facts were important because the defense would later try to make the situation seem like a misunderstanding caused by secret military technology.
It wasn't.
An investigator had become overdue.
A piece of authorized equipment had stopped communicating normally.
And a concerned agency had asked local authorities to help determine whether its employee was safe.
The equipment's warning tone was only one small part of that sequence.
But the vehicle examination revealed something else.
The damaged driver's-side door contained a small portion of material caught near the broken glass.
At first, investigators believed it came from Garrett's uniform or baton.
Then they examined the exterior security recordings obtained from nearby businesses.
The footage showed the black pickup from Westbrook Recovery making an earlier pass along the service road before the official tow request was discussed.
The pickup had arrived in the area unusually quickly.
It had not simply been dispatched after the damage occurred.
It appeared to have been waiting nearby.
Investigators obtained records from the towing company's communications system.
The timing confirmed that a driver had been placed on standby before my traffic stop began.
When I learned that, I sat in silence for almost a minute.
Thomas watched me.
"Renata?"
I looked toward him.
"They knew."
He nodded.
"Someone knew the vehicle was going to be stopped."
I thought about Garrett pulling my seat belt against my shoulder.
The hot pavement.
The handcuffs.
The baton.
Ruth standing behind her fence.
Then I looked up.
"Was the tow driver supposed to take the car before anyone else arrived?"
Thomas hesitated.
"That's one of the possibilities being examined."
I leaned forward.
"And if he'd gotten it?"
Thomas didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "We might have been dealing with a compromised evidence chain, missing equipment, or an entirely different kind of incident."
I felt cold.
Because I suddenly realized how narrowly the situation might have avoided something worse.
If Miles hadn't called for help, Garrett could have continued holding me on the shoulder.
If Ruth hadn't recorded, he might have believed there was no independent witness.
If the state patrol hadn't arrived when it did, the tow company might have gained control of the Phantom.
And if the secured communications unit had been removed without proper documentation, the people behind the operation could have tried to use whatever they found to identify sources or interfere with the investigation.
The black case itself did not contain the original evidence from my meeting.
But the conspirators apparently didn't know that.
They believed it might.
And that misunderstanding may have been one of the things that saved the source's records.
The real documents had already been secured elsewhere.