But the financial records alone would not prove every crime.
They needed testimony.
They needed original documents.
They needed people willing to explain how the scheme operated.
And they needed to protect those people.
Simone became both a civilian specialist and a cooperating witness, providing her original findings, firsthand observations, and testimony concerning her own brother's case.
Her role was carefully defined.
She was not a law-enforcement officer.
She possessed no arrest powers.
She was not authorized to direct police operations.
She was a civilian whose knowledge had become dangerous to people with influence.
Federal investigators arranged protective measures after a vehicle began appearing outside her apartment.
Then someone broke into her office.
Nothing valuable was stolen.
Only an external hard drive containing copied financial records was missing.
Two days later, someone left a photograph of her brother's grave beneath her windshield wiper.
Her federal contact, Caroline Hayes, advised her to relocate temporarily.
Simone resisted.
She had already lost her brother.
She did not want to lose her home, her work, or the ordinary freedoms she had spent years building.
But when a stranger followed her mother through a supermarket parking lot, Simone agreed.
For a time, she disappeared from public life.
She lived in a furnished apartment under controlled arrangements.
Her communications were restricted.
Her meetings were scheduled carefully.
Her movements were assessed for risk.
And the federal investigation continued.
By the beginning of spring, investigators had accumulated enough evidence to prepare search warrant applications.
They had not yet identified every participant.
But they were getting closer.
What nobody anticipated was that Bradley Matthews would personally bring Simone into the department he had helped corrupt.
On the morning of the Riverside Park incident, Simone woke shortly after six.
She stood beside the kitchen window of her temporary apartment and watched a garbage truck move slowly down the street.
The weather forecast promised warm sunshine.
For the first time in weeks, she wanted to do something ordinary.
Not review documents.
Not discuss witness statements.
Not sit in a windowless room listening to recordings of men casually dividing money they had taken from frightened citizens.
She wanted to run.
Running had been part of her life since college.
She liked the rhythm of her footsteps, the way breathing became predictable, the clarity that arrived after the first difficult mile.
Her federal contact had approved a limited outdoor routine with precautions.
The location was not classified.
The exact timing was not public.
The park was considered a relatively low-risk environment.
Simone chose Riverside because its paths were wide, its sightlines were open, and it attracted enough visitors that she could blend into the crowd.
She dressed in her dark-brown athletic tracksuit.
She pulled the light-blue headband over her hair.
She placed her wireless headphones around her neck, packed a water bottle and spare shirt in her gym bag, and drove to the park.
Before leaving the car, she sent a short check-in message through her approved communication channel.
Then she began running.
For forty minutes, nothing happened.
She passed a father teaching his daughter to ride a bicycle.
She watched two elderly women walking arm in arm.
She smiled at a dog that seemed delighted by the existence of every passing stranger.
Near the end of her run, she bought a green smoothie from a vendor parked beside the public entrance.
She slowed to a walk.