Chapter 3 - The Interrogation of Agnes
The precinct was quiet at 11:30 a.m.
Emma had been taken to a private, comfortable room in the victim advocacy wing, where Helen was currently holding her while a specialist gently helped her wash the heavy makeup from her face. I had refused to leave the building, sitting in the hallway outside the interrogation room where Agnes was being held.
Marcus Vance stepped out of the room, holding a cup of black coffee. His face looked gray.
"She’s not talking," he said, leaning against the cinderblock wall beside me. "She’s got her lawyer there—some high-priced corporate fixer from downtown. They’re claiming it was a harmless modeling portfolio shoot. They’re saying you’re an overprotective, paranoid father who is trying to weaponize a grandmother's help to gain leverage in some imaginary family dispute."
I stood up, my fists clenching in my pockets. "A modeling shoot? Marcus, she was using a disused warehouse with a security system, using false names, and hiding it from us for months! She was dressing my six-year-old daughter up like an antique doll under hot lights!"
"I know, David," Marcus said, his voice quiet and heavy. "But legally, unless we can prove the images were being distributed for illicit or exploitative purposes, her lawyer is going to argue that a grandparent has the right to take their grandchild to a commercial photography session. Especially since Agnes has been a registered co-guardian on several of your school and medical forms."
"We never gave her permission for this," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "Never."
"But you gave her keys," Marcus countered gently. "You let her live on your property. You let her pick Emma up from school. To a judge who doesn't know the dynamics, it looks like a family disagreement that got out of hand. We need to find out where those photos were going. If they were being sold on the dark web, or if they were part of some high-end, unregulated children's fashion broker ring in Europe."
"The computer," I said suddenly. "The kid who was trying to pull the flash drive. What was on it?"
Marcus took a sip of his coffee. "Our digital forensics unit is working on it now. The kid's name is Leo Croft. He’s a twenty-four-year-old freelance digital tech. He’s terrified. He’s already offering to talk if we promise to keep him out of the main block. He says he was just hired to manage the file transfers."
"Let me in there," I said.
"No way, David. You're the father. It’s a conflict of interest."
"Marcus, I’m a documentary filmmaker," I pleaded, grabbing his arm. "I know how these indie crews work. I know the software they use, the hosting sites, the metadata protocols. Your tech guys are going to look for standard file paths. I know where they hide the raw caches. Let me sit in the observation room at least."
Marcus looked at me for a long, silent moment. He knew I was right. In the world of modern digital crime, the police were often three steps behind the people who lived and worked in the production industry.
"Fine," Marcus said. "But you don't say a word. You sit in the dark, and you write down whatever you see."
He led me through a heavy door into the small, darkened observation room. Through the one-way glass, I could see Leo Croft. He was sweating, his eyes darting toward the metal table where his laptop and several external hard drives sat in plastic evidence bags.
Beside him sat a detective named Ross, who was tapping a pen against a yellow pad.
"Look at the drive partition, Ross," I whispered to the glass, as if he could hear me. "Look for the hidden volume. They never transfer these files over standard FTP. They use encrypted peer-to-peer networks."
As if hearing my thoughts, Marcus leaned into the intercom to the interrogation room. "Ross, ask him about the server destination. Ask him about The Gallery."
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When the words "The Gallery" echoed through the small speaker in our room, Leo Croft’s head snapped up. His face went entirely white, his lips trembling as he looked directly at the one-way glass.
"I didn't send them there," Leo whispered, his voice cracking. "I swear to God, I didn't send them to the main catalog yet. Agnes... she was the one who had the key. She’s the one who manages the private collection."
