"My father didn't slip." I stopped at the exact spot my father had described. The corner booth. The steel counter right beside it. I looked at the floor. The ceramic shards were gone. The heavy mug was gone. But there was something Pete hadn't managed to scrub away yet.
Under the overhang of the steel counter, cast in deep shadow, the metal was dented. And just below that dent, a fine spray of crimson droplets coated the steel paneling. It was high-velocity blood spatter. You don't get that from a man falling to the ground. You get that from an impact wound at standing height.
I pulled out my phone and turned on the flash.
"Sarah, please," Pete begged, finally standing up, his apron soaked with dirty water. "Hollister took the security tape. He walked into the back office, ripped the DVR right out of the rack, and put it in his trunk. He told me the camera system was evidence in a municipal safety investigation. If he catches you in here..."
"He took the video," I confirmed, snapping three high-resolution photos of the blood spatter under the counter rim. "Because he turned his own body camera off."
"I didn't see anything," Pete said, taking a step back, reciting a script he had clearly been ordered to memorize. "I was in the kitchen. I heard a crash. I came out, and Walter was on the floor. The Sheriff was just trying to help him."
"The Sheriff ordered a plate of sunny-side-up eggs while my father was bleeding on the linoleum," I countered, looking Pete directly in the eye. "I know, because I was on the phone with him."
Pete’s face drained of color. His jaw worked silently for a moment. He looked at the floor, then at the door, paralyzed by a lifetime of living under a badge that operated like a cartel.
"What time did Hollister call the ambulance, Pete?" I asked quietly.
"I... I don't know."
"Look at me, Pete. What time did the paramedics arrive?"
Pete swallowed hard. "Around seven-thirty. After Hollister finished his coffee."
I checked the timestamp data logged on my phone from the audio file. The assault occurred at 7:02 AM. Hollister had let a seventy-two-year-old man bleed on a diner floor for nearly half an hour while he ate his breakfast, then filed a report claiming he had just walked in and found him.
Hollister had the medical staff terrified. He had the local business owners scrubbing his crime scenes. He had the county dispatch routing everything through him, ensuring no local record of his brutality existed. He thought he was untouchable because he controlled the ground.
But he didn't control the federal servers at Naval Base Coronado. And he couldn't erase a timestamp that had already bounced off a military satellite.
"Stop scrubbing, Pete," I said, turning toward the door. The time for waiting in the shadows was over. Silence and apologies wouldn't protect my father, and they wouldn't break Hollister's grip on this town. I had the physical contradiction. I had the audio proof.
It was time to introduce the Sheriff to the consequences of a digital footprint.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
Only two EMTs had been on shift this morning: a kid named Miller and a veteran paramedic named Sarah Jenkins. I knew Sarah from high school. She was tough and fiercely protective of her patients. If Hollister had intimidated anyone, he would have met resistance from her.
I drove to the cinderblock rescue station. The bay doors were open, the single ambulance smelling of bleach and diesel exhaust. Sarah was in the back, violently scrubbing a dark stain off the vinyl gurney mattress. My father's blood.
"Sarah," I said, stepping into the shadow of the bay.
She jumped, dropping the brush. Her eyes darted toward the dispatch radio, then back to my face. "Maya. I heard about your dad. I did everything I could to stabilize him."
"I know you did," I said, keeping my voice low and steady. I stepped closer, blocking her view from the open street. "I also know you didn't get the call until seven-thirty."