The sheriff could conduct internal review.
Camille could focus only on her daughters.
Then she thought about Carlos Mendoza.
The Reynolds family.
The children in Hollis’s complaint history.
The twelve calls.
The response-time disparity.
The next child.
Her phone lit up.
Hannah.
Call me. I found bodycam audio from before Hollis approached the girls.
Camille called immediately.
“What did you find?”
Hannah sounded more careful than usual.
“Hollis spoke with Evelyn before approaching Amaya and Nia.”
Camille became still.
“What did she tell him?”
“That she watched them leave the house.”
Camille closed her eyes.
“She admitted it?”
“Yes.”
“And he still questioned whether they lived there?”
“Yes.”
Hannah paused.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Your office requested the full bodycam file Monday.”
“I know.”
“The sheriff’s liaison told your staff the file was partly corrupted.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t.”
Camille sat straighter.
Hannah explained that access records showed the recording existed and could be viewed. A commander inside Professional Standards marked the county administrative request unavailable because of a technical problem.
An independent media request later produced the full recording.
“Who signed the response?”
“Commander Steven Mallory.”
Camille knew the name.
The case changed again.
Hannah sent the audio.
Camille put on headphones.
Footsteps.
Car door.
Evelyn’s voice.
“Thank you for getting here so fast.”
Hollis asked what happened.
“Those girls have been outside for half an hour.”
“Were they removing items from the property?”
“I watched them come out of the house carrying them.”
Camille stopped the recording.
Rewound.
Listened again.
I watched them come out of the house.
Then Hollis asked, “You saw them leave the residence?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t think they live there?”
A pause.
Then Evelyn’s answer.
“Because the family in that house doesn’t have children who look like them.”
Camille’s hands became cold.
Hollis did not challenge it.
He did not ask what she meant.
He did not walk to the front door.
He approached the girls.
Hannah published the transcript Sunday morning.
The story exploded.