I found photographs of firefighters kneeling beside a broken window, a row of emergency vehicles, and a crowd waiting behind yellow tape.
I looked for the ambulance assigned to Jonah.
The photograph showed only part of a rear door.
A serial number was visible on the bumper, enough to distinguish the vehicle from another in the company fleet.
I wrote it down and compared it with the number on the copied dispatch record.
They matched.
I could not determine when the picture was taken.
But someone had placed the vehicle at the scene while the company log claimed it was somewhere else.
A timestamp on a news photo suggested another discrepancy.
I forwarded the public photographs and my notes to Munroe rather than posting a theory online.
At ten forty, someone knocked on my front door.
I checked the camera first.
A woman in a gray hooded jacket stood on the porch holding a plastic grocery bag.
Her shoelaces were bright green.
I opened the door only after she stepped back into the light.
Isabel Wynn looked older than her news photograph.
Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes kept moving toward the street.
I wanted to ask a dozen questions.
Instead I said the police were looking for her.
I know, she replied.
She handed me the bag.
Inside was a wrapped sandwich and a handwritten note with Maren’s number.
I didn’t come to give you more evidence, Isabel said.
I came to tell you not to trust everything that sounds like my voice.
I stared at her.
What do you mean, I asked.
A dispatcher can be made to sound as though she sent a unit somewhere, Isabel answered.
A call recording can be edited, and a log entry can be copied.
You need the original equipment clock and the transmission sequence.
I said the police had found a memory card in Lorraine’s whistle.
Isabel shut her eyes.
Then she whispered that the card was only half of what Warren preserved.
The other half was inside an old plastic ambulance radio, and Paul Kessler had spent two weeks trying to find it.
Before I could ask where the radio was, Isabel stepped away.
If I stay, the men following me will know you matter, she said.
They already know, I answered.
She stopped at the porch steps.
Then you need to stop worrying about me and start worrying about what they expect you to sign, she said.
