She turned back to her own computer, pretending to work while her mind churned through possibilities.
Shaw on personal leave. Keller pointing fingers. Wyatt hiding something. Kevin's files being deleted by someone with access.
Too many pieces. Not enough pattern.
But the pattern was there. Buried somewhere in all the noise, waiting to be found.
Jo pulled up the case files and started reading again from the beginning. Somewhere in here was the thread that would unravel everything.
She just had to find it before someone else did.
Kevin setthe trap that evening.
His apartment was quiet, the only light coming from his computer screen. He’d pulled the blinds, checked the locks twice, made sure his VPN was active before he started.
Old habits from a past he didn’t talk about.
He created the document first: a fabricated witness statement connecting the Binding Chain to the case. He made it look official—proper formatting, realistic details, the kind of thing that would make someone sit up and take notice if they were looking for exactly this kind of information.
Then he saved it. Three copies in three different locations on his desktop. Timestamped. Logged.
He ran a search for “Binding Chain case 2015-7742” and let the results sit on his screen for a full minute. Long enough for anyone monitoring to see it.
Then he closed everything down and sat back.
Waited.
The apartment felt different now. Smaller. The shadows in the corners seemed deeper, the silence heavier. Kevin found himself checking the window, the door, listening for sounds that shouldn’t be there.
He thought about Bridget. About the fear in her eyes when she’d told him what she’d done, what she’d been running from. About the organization that killed people for knowing too much.
If they were watching his searches, they knew someone was looking.
The question was whether they knew who.
Kevin didn’t sleep well that night.
The next morning, Kevin was at his computer before dawn.
He navigated to the first location. Empty.
Second location. Empty.
Third location. Gone.
All three files, deleted overnight. Not moved. Not quarantined. Erased completely, like they’d never existed.
Kevin sat back, his chest tight.
Confirmed.
Someone was watching. Someone with access to his system, someone who knew their way around police files. And whoever it was, they were looking for exactly what he’d been searching for.
The Binding Chain.
Kevin got dressed, got in his car, and drove to the station.
Jo was already at her desk when Kevin walked in.