I will, and when it turns out this signature is forged, I expect this precinct to look just as hard at who did it. If that's what the evidence shows, Osmar said, that's exactly what will happen. Alice didn't believe her. Not for a second. She walked out of the office and down the stairs, her mind racing.
Corbin and Miller were getting desperate, which meant they were getting careless, too. Somewhere in this building, there was proof of who actually forged that signature, who actually handled that evidence log the night it went missing. She just had to find it before the review board found a way to end her career using a lie with her name signed at the bottom. Back in her office, Alice pulled out a fresh folder and began writing everything down. The date, the forged signature, every detail of the conversation with Osmar.
Whatever came next, she wasn't going down without dragging the truth into the light with her. Officer Toby Gordon sat alone in his apartment that night, an old phone resting on the coffee table in front of him like it was something dangerous. He hadn't touched it in months. He kept it charged out of habit, tucked away in a drawer, telling himself he'd delete the video someday, and never quite doing it. Tonight, with rumors spreading through the precinct about a forged signature and a formal review against Captain Vincent, something in him had finally cracked.
He picked up the phone and opened the video. There he was, 6 years younger, laughing behind the camera while Corbin cut Alice's hair off in the breakroom. He watched his own laughter on the recording and felt sick listening to it now. Back then, it had felt like nothing. A joke.
Everybody was doing it. Everybody thought it was funny. So, he'd filmed it without thinking twice. He didn't feel that way anymore. Gordon had watched what happened over the past few weeks, watched Corbin and Miller whisper in hallways, watched grievances pile up against Alice for no real reason, watched the tension in the building grow tighter every single day.
He didn't know exactly what they'd done to get Alice suspended for evidence tampering, but he had a feeling. He always had a feeling with those two. His thumb hovered over the delete button. If this video disappeared, nobody could ever prove what really happened that day. Corbin's story would win.
It always won. Before he could press it, his phone buzzed with a text. Can we talk? Gordon set the old phone down slowly, and answered his other phone instead. A few minutes later, Dove Whitlock was standing in his doorway, arms crossed, studying him carefully, like she already knew what he'd been about to do.
"You still have it," Dove said. "It wasn't a question. " Gordon glanced at the old phone sitting on the table. "I was about to get rid of it. " Don't, Dove said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. Tabby, don't you dare. It doesn't matter anymore, Gordon said, sitting down heavily on his couch.
It happened 6 years ago. Nobody cares. Vincent cares, Dove said. And so do I. That video is the only proof of what really happened in that breakroom.