“Text messages?”
“Not from Voss.”
“Another officer used to call.”
“Who?”
“Dane sometimes.”
“The young one?”
“Yes.”
Curtis’s hands tightened together.
“First few times, I told myself it was the cost of staying open.”
“Then they wanted more.”
“Then more.”
“When I missed one payment, code enforcement showed up three times in ten days.”
“Fire marshal?”
“Twice.”
“Health inspector?”
“Four times.”
“They find real problems?”
“Everybody has something.”
“A label.”
“A cracked tile.”
“A sink temperature.”
“But they wrote everything like the place was poisoning people.”
“Did you go to city council?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“They referred me to internal affairs.”
“Ellison?”
Curtis looked at her.
“You already know.”
“I know enough.”
“He took my statement.”
“Then?”
“Nothing.”
“Three weeks later Voss came in.”
“He knew exactly what I’d told them.”
That mattered.
Celeste leaned forward.
“Exactly?”
“Word for word.”
Curtis’s eyes filled.
“He said, ‘You told Ellison you felt coerced.’”
“I’d used that word.”
“Nobody else knew.”
Celeste sat back.
A complaint system was not merely ineffective.
It appeared compromised.
“What happened after?”
Curtis looked around the dark restaurant.
“What does it look like?”
At the bakery, owner Helen Park admitted paying twelve thousand over fourteen months.
Omar Haddad at the pharmacy eventually told Celeste he had paid nearly nineteen thousand.
A salon owner named Darlene Brooks had paid until she sold her car.
Then she closed.
A small appliance shop had relocated to another county.
An independent electrician had left town.
Patterns emerged.
Different amounts.
Same language.
Security fee.
Community support.
Priority patrol.
Sometimes Voss collected directly.
Sometimes Dane.
Sometimes another officer.
Internal complaints disappeared through Sergeant Ellison’s office.
City administrators apparently knew businesses were complaining but treated each case separately.
Celeste wrote everything by hand in a black notebook.
Name.
Date.
Amount.
Officer.
Retaliation.
Documents available.
Potential witness.
She did not secretly enter buildings.
Did not hack phones.
Did not tell victims to provoke officers.
She preserved what people voluntarily gave her.
Bank records.
Letters.
Receipts.
Photographs.
One former business owner had recorded a voicemail from Dane.
“Lieutenant says you’re behind again. Don’t make us come down there.”
Another had a text from a prepaid number:
TUESDAY. SAME AMOUNT. SAME PLACE.
None of it alone proved the entire conspiracy.
Together it formed shape.
On the second evening, Celeste returned to Ward’s Market after closing.
She went to the back room.
Moved the invoices.
Pulled out the metal box.
The lid opened with a faint scrape.
She lifted the beret.
Time compressed.
She remembered aircraft interiors illuminated in red light.
Briefing rooms without windows.
Maps on walls.