Dana listened.
"We'll need forensic preservation of the device and any connected storage."
"Exactly."
She paused.
"Is there a reason to believe the files still exist?"
"Only that a prior scan may have been cached."
"Understood."
I ended the call.
Then looked toward Evelyn.
"You did the right thing by telling us."
Her eyes filled.
For a moment, she seemed embarrassed.
Then she whispered, "I should've spoken sooner."
I shook my head.
"You reported the discrepancies. You kept asking questions."
She looked down.
"Nobody listened."
I studied her.
"Somebody is listening now."
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she looked up.
And asked a question that told me how much pressure she had endured.
"Can they fire me for helping you?"
I answered carefully.
"I can't promise no one will try to retaliate. But there are protections and reporting processes available, and we'll document any interference or threats."
She nodded slowly.
Then whispered, "I've given this department thirty years."
I looked toward the door.
Her voice trembled.
"I didn't spend thirty years keeping evidence safe so somebody could steal it and tell me the paperwork was inconvenient."
"Then let's find out what happened."
The scanner did contain remnants of the original job.
Not a neat, complete file waiting conveniently on the desktop.
That would have been too easy.
The machine had been used hundreds of times since the ledger was scanned.
Its internal storage was nearly full.
Routine maintenance had overwritten portions of older temporary files.
But after a forensic examiner preserved the relevant storage and reconstructed available data, we recovered several partial page images.
Most were irrelevant.
Old property receipts.
Routine inventories.
Equipment records.
Then we found an image showing the top half of page 187.
The page number was visible.
So was the date.
And beneath it, the beginning of the South Harbor Auto Exchange entry.
I stood behind the examiner, watching the image appear on the workstation.
Dana stood beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
The image was incomplete.
The bottom portion had not been recovered.
But the surviving entries showed three separate property items.
Item A: Currency package — $117,400.
Item B: Currency package — $100,000.
Item C: Digital recording device and associated storage media.
I felt my pulse quicken.
The two currency amounts totaled $217,400.
Exactly the amount recorded on Elena Brooks's original seizure receipt.
The digital device matched the missing item listed in the initial inventory.
Dana leaned closer.
"That establishes the original property breakdown."
"Assuming the image authenticates."
The examiner looked toward us.
"The metadata is consistent with the scanner's records, and we have a matching scan sequence from the surrounding pages. I'll document the recovery process and run the necessary validation."