She still felt angry.
But anger had learned complexity.
“When can we get them?”
“Tomorrow.”
Federal investigators met Voss at the bank.
Naomi did not go inside.
She waited outside with Ethan.
An hour later, an investigator emerged carrying a sealed evidence case.
His face told her enough.
“What?”
He looked toward Ethan.
Then Naomi.
“There are photographs.”
“Of the harness?”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“We need analysis.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Naomi.”
“How bad?”
He hesitated.
Then:
“Bad enough that I would not have released the aircraft.”
Ethan looked away.
Naomi stared at the bank doors.
Another warning.
Another human being who knew.
Another moment where the system had chosen movement over pause.
The investigation reopened again.
For the second time in Marcus Brooks’s death.
News exploded.
This time Naomi did not speak publicly for eleven days.
Reporters camped near her office.
Old footage of seven-year-old Naomi clutching the photograph returned everywhere.
Headlines connected everything.
THE PILOT WHO WARNED TWICE
NEW EVIDENCE IN BROOKS CRASH
SECOND DEFECT MAY HAVE PRECEDED FLIGHT 608 DISASTER
Naomi hated all of them.
The technical findings eventually showed something unexpected.
The actuator failure had initiated the flight-control emergency.
That part remained true.
But the electrical fire had not begun afterward.
Thermal damage in the forward wiring bundle existed before takeoff.
During the emergency, vibration and hydraulic-fluid contamination accelerated deterioration.
Insulation failed.
A short circuit ignited material already heat-damaged.
The fire therefore became worse, sooner, because of a preexisting condition hidden from the crew’s official maintenance record.
Would the aircraft still have crashed without that damage?
Possibly.
Would Marcus have survived longer?
Possibly.
Would evacuation have had more time?
Possibly.
Investigators refused certainty.
Naomi respected that.
The truth did not need exaggeration.
It was already bad enough.
Victor Hale, now elderly and ill, was interviewed again.
This time under oath.
He admitted Bay 14 existed.
Admitted using undocumented diagnostic work.
Denied intending to conceal safety-critical defects.
Then investigators showed him Voss’s thermal photographs.
He stared at them for a long time.
Finally:
“I don’t remember these.”
The investigator asked:
“Would you have released an aircraft if you had seen them?”
Hale said:
“No.”
“Then either you saw them and released it anyway, or your process was structured so you could authorize release without seeing the evidence.”
Hale did not answer.
That sentence mattered.
For years, the public story had focused on whether Victor Hale was a bad man.
Naomi had once wanted the answer to be yes.
It would have been easier.