He turned toward Zariah, addressing her by name with a familiarity that suggested history between them. "Miss Mercer," he said, and she gave a small nod in return. "We don't have much time," Quaid told her. Coulson, unable to contain his confusion any longer, demanded to know exactly who this woman was. Quaid studied him for a moment before answering, his voice low enough that it seemed meant only for Coulson, though everyone heard it clearly. "That," he said, "is precisely the problem."
With those words, the entire shape of the encounter shifted. Four officers who had arrived expecting a routine stop now stood in the middle of something none of them had names for yet. Quaid explained without ceremony that Zariah was not the target of any investigation, but rather the one conducting it. An independent investigator brought in to examine a pattern of irregularities that had been quietly accumulating for months.
Files had gone missing from department records. Reports had been altered after the fact. Dates shifted, details softened, or erased entirely. Evidence that should have existed in the system simply did not, as though someone had reached into the archive and pulled out exactly what they needed before anyone could notice. And the most troubling incident of all, Quaid said, had occurred not far from the very land where Zariah now sat on her horse.
Coulson pushed back immediately, insisting this was an internal matter that had no business being handled this way. "Not anymore," Quaid answered, his tone leaving no space for negotiation. Zariah finally swung down from the saddle, her boots meeting the dirt road with a quiet certainty, and reached into the inner pocket of her jacket to produce a small drive, no larger than a matchbook. "This is why I'm here," she said, holding it up so all four men could see it clearly.
Coulson stared at the object as though it might explain everything on its own. "Where did you get that?" he asked. "From inside your own archive," she answered. The silence that followed was different from the ones before it. Heavier, tinged with something closer to disbelief. Nolan asked if she had broken in, and she told him no. "Then how did you get inside?" he pressed. "Someone opened the door for me," she said simply.
Quaid's eyes moved instantly to Coulson, a flicker of suspicion passing between them that none of the deputies missed. Zariah continued, laying out what the drive contained: records that had been quietly rewritten by someone with access far beyond an ordinary officer's clearance, someone positioned high enough in the department to move information without leaving fingerprints. Coulson, despite himself, began to understand the shape of what she was describing, and he asked her directly who she suspected.
She did not answer immediately, letting the question sit until the weight of it pressed on him from every side. Then she looked at him and said his name. Coulson's expression hardened into disbelief. "Are you accusing me?" he demanded. "I haven't said you're the one behind it," she replied evenly. "Then why say my name at all?" he shot back. "Because you were the first one sent to stop me," she said, and the simplicity of the answer somehow made it worse.