Chapter 13 - The Video He Buried

Ellis did not deny filming the confrontation.

He closed his office door and sat down as if gravity had doubled.

“I told myself I was preserving evidence,” he said.

Hale stood across from him. “Where is it?”

Ellis opened a locked drawer and removed an old encrypted drive.

“Here.”

“Yes.”

“Why wasn’t it in the case file?”

Ellis looked older than he had the day before.

“Because I failed.”

The full video played on Hale’s screen.

Derek followed, laughing.

He caught her wrist.

Colter stepped into the doorway.

Major Pryce appeared at the far end.

Pryce said, “Everybody calm down.”

Derek grabbed her again.

Then the official clip began.

The part everyone had seen.

Hale turned off the screen.

“Why?”

Ellis’s voice was barely audible.

“Rusk called me.”

“General Rusk?”

“He said the post couldn’t survive another misconduct story. Said Maya would get a clean discharge if we kept the case narrow.”

Reed’s anger flashed. “So you kept the video.”

“I told myself I was saving her from a worse fight.”

Lena, standing near the wall, felt something inside her burn.

“You didn’t save her.”

Ellis looked at her.

“You saved yourself from having to choose.”

Lena’s voice shook now, not from fear but from months of swallowed rage.

“Everybody keeps saying they were protecting somebody. The command. The unit. Their career. Her future. But every time somebody ‘protected’ something, the same people got hurt.”

Ellis lowered his eyes.

Hale dismissed everyone except Reed.

Her hands were trembling.

“I thought Ellis was different.”

Rina answered softly, “Maybe he is.”

Rina continued. “Good people can still make cowardly choices. That’s what makes it dangerous. If only monsters did this, we’d know who to avoid.”

An hour later, CID contacted Maya again.

They told her the full video had been recovered.

Then she started crying.

Not loudly.

“Do you know,” she said, “how many people told me I remembered it wrong?”

Reed closed her eyes.

Maya took another breath.

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“I’m coming to Halbrook.”

Then she added, “And this time I want everybody in the room.”