I smiled.
“Actually, no.”
He followed my gaze across the room.
“Program isn't perfect.”
“It never will be.”
“We've still got complaints.”
“You're supposed to.”
He frowned at me.
I explained.
“A place with no complaints usually doesn't mean nobody has problems.”
“What does it mean?”
“They don't trust the complaint system.”
He nodded slowly.
“Your father teach you that?”
“No.”
I looked over at him.
“That one I learned here.”
Vance smiled.
Then he held out a folder.
“There's one last item from the investigation.”
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph of the pink plastic tiara.
I stared at the image.
“What is this?”
“Evidence return.”
“You're giving it back?”
“Apparently it belongs to you.”
“I don't want it.”
Vance laughed.
“Neither does evidence storage.”
I lifted the photograph from the file.
A note was printed on the back.
Item recovered from Mitchell locker. Fingerprint analysis completed.
My stomach tightened.
I looked up.
“You tested it?”
“Standard once the broader investigation started.”
“Did you get a match?”
His expression shifted.
“That is the strange part.”
I waited.
“The fingerprints weren't Briggs'.”
“I assumed that.”
“Not any of his friends either.”
“Then whose?”
Vance passed me another sheet.
I read the name printed there.
And stopped breathing.
Commander Daniel Hayes.
Chapter 6: THE PINK TIARA
I stared at Vance.
“Hayes put the tiara in my locker?”
He shook his head.
“We asked him.”
“What did he say?”
“He admitted touching it.”
“Why?”
Vance looked uneasy.
“He said he removed it from your locker.”
I stared at him.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“He says he found it before you did, picked it up, then put it back.”
“Why would he put it back?”
Vance's expression changed.
“He said he wanted to see what you'd do.”
Cold spread through my chest.
One last test.
Even after he had begun to suspect my real purpose.
Even after warning me about Briggs.
Hayes couldn't stop himself.
He had transformed everything into an experiment.
I looked down again at the fingerprint report.
Then I noticed there was another entry.
A partial match.
A different person.
I pointed toward the line.
“Who's this?”
Vance didn't immediately respond.
My eyes moved along the page.
The name was familiar.
Very familiar.
Petty Officer First Class Mara Ellis.
I looked at him sharply.
“Mara?”
Vance nodded.
“She admitted it.”
“What?”
“She planted the tiara.”
For a moment, the entire room felt unsteady.
“That doesn't make any sense.”
“Actually,” Vance said quietly, “it does.”
He handed me a sealed written statement.
I opened it.
Mara had written it two weeks earlier.
Avery,
You were never supposed to find out unless the investigation succeeded.
I began reading faster.
When I heard they were sending someone into the program, I asked who.
They wouldn't tell me.
Then I saw you arrive.
I knew immediately.
Not because anyone briefed me.
Because you looked exactly like your father.
My hands started trembling.
I continued.
Your father was the officer who convinced me not to resign after my first complaint disappeared.
I had never known that.
My father had contacted Mara?
Six years earlier?
For a moment, the dates didn't fit.
Then they did.
Her first complaint.
Not the recent one that triggered the investigation.
There had been another incident years before during a different course.
Mara had known my father.
I kept reading.
He told me that someday people might need proof the culture was still alive.
So when I learned you were there, I came onto the installation as a civilian contractor and put that stupid tiara in your locker.
I stared at the sentence.
Briggs' friends had never planted the crown.
Mara had.