Francis turned, scanning the block. The sedan was gone now, but he didn't doubt her. Regina didn't spook easy. She'd spent fifteen years managing a hospital floor, used to chaos, used to keeping her head when other people lost theirs.
If she said something felt wrong, it was wrong. "Probably nothing," he said, though he didn't believe it himself. They went inside together, and over dinner, Regina kept glancing toward the window, toward the street outside gone dim with evening. "They apologized in front of everyone," she said.
"And now you can't even get a case number without a fight. That doesn't sit right." "It's not supposed to," Francis said. "That's the whole point. They want this to feel impossible. They want me tired before I even start."
And the car. Francis set his fork down, the food in front of him forgotten.
"Could be nothing. Could be somebody checking to see if I'm the kind of man who backs down." Regina reached across the table and took his hand the same way she had the night before, like she needed the contact to steady herself. "You're not," she said.
It wasn't a question this time either. It was a fact, stated plain, the same way she'd said it a hundred times across fifteen years of marriage. Francis squeezed her hand and looked out the window at the quiet street, the porch light glowing soft against the gathering dark. "No," he said.
"I'm not." He didn't sleep much that night. Long after Regina had drifted off beside him, he lay awake listening to the house settle, thinking about the stamped paper on his desk, the gray sedan that had vanished by the time he looked for it, and the case number that hadn't come yet, and might never come at all, unless he forced it. Three days passed quiet on the surface, the kind of quiet that made Francis more nervous than noise would have.
No case number, no call back from Vanji, just the slow grind of waiting while his complaint sat buried somewhere in a stack of paper at the station. It was Regina who found the post. She was scrolling through the neighborhood social media page Wednesday night, the one half the block used to trade lawn care tips and lost cat flyers when her face went pale in the blue light of her phone screen. Francis.
Her voice had an edge to it he didn't like. You need to see this. He crossed the living room and sat beside her, reading over her shoulder. The post was anonymous, posted under a username that gave nothing away, concerned neighbor 82, and it had already gathered forty comments.
"Heard the real story behind Saturday's incident on Maple Court. Turns out the FBI agent got aggressive with officers responding to a legitimate call and used his badge to intimidate them into backing off. Maybe think twice before assuming our police are always in the wrong." Francis felt something cold settle in his chest.
He read it twice, then a third time. Like rereading it might change the words. "This is a lie," Regina said. "A flat-out lie. I have video."
"I know." Francis scrolled through the comments, watching strangers argue with each other under a story built from nothing. A few people defended him, citing the footage that had circulated days earlier.