"He was reaching outside Milfield," she said.
"He knew the department couldn't investigate itself fairly," Sarah answered. "That's important, but don't turn it into proof of how he died. We still need to establish what happened to him separately."
The reminder was difficult and necessary. Maya had spent eight years believing that Thomas had been killed or pushed beyond endurance by the people he was investigating, but belief could not distinguish one from the other. Both possibilities deserved examination, and neither justified announcing a conclusion they could not support. She opened a fresh page in her notebook and wrote two lines: What Thomas proved. What we still have to prove.
Their first unexpected visitor was Alex Rodriguez, Maya's college friend and a computer-security specialist who had become a consultant for hospitals and small businesses. Maya had contacted him after Sarah recommended independent help with verifying file histories and protecting the copies from alteration. Alex arrived with an apologetic smile, a box of breakfast pastries, and the impatience of someone who preferred difficult technical questions to emotional conversations. He accepted Sarah's ground rules before opening his laptop.
"No breaking into somebody else's system," Sarah said. "No improvised evidence collection that leaves us defending our methods instead of the facts."
"Understood," Alex replied. "I can inspect the files your family owns, compare dates, and help preserve what you already have. If we need records belonging to someone else, lawyers and investigators can obtain them the lawful way."
Within an hour, Alex had confirmed that several folders on Thomas's device had not been modified since shortly before his death. Maya watched him explain the result and felt a complicated relief. Nothing on the screen identified who had sent drugs through Clearwater or who had attacked her father, but the files were real, organized, and old enough to refute any claim that the sisters had invented them in response to Olivia's arrest. That was a beginning they could carry into an official inquiry.
Sarah began charting payments while Maya built a list of people who could provide independent testimony. Thomas had documented recurring movements near Unit Seventeen of Westside Storage, a warehouse complex close to the riverfront where trucks could enter and leave without passing through the commercial center. Several service companies connected to Clearwater had received unusually large amounts despite maintaining few employees or public contracts. Some payments aligned with police evidence seizures and with the dates of arrests Olivia had already flagged.
"If the state confiscates narcotics during a legitimate operation," Sarah said, "the movement, handling, and disposition of that evidence should create a record. A missing record can be an error. Repeated missing records attached to the same people demand an explanation."
Maya studied the chart. "You think they're stealing drugs from evidence and selling them again."