Kelly was frustrated. It was not even caused by her ouster by the higher-ups. In fact, she had always expected this. She always had this impression of hitting an invisible barrier at her job. The more she put effort in pursuit of the truth, the farther from it she was thrown. She was thankful for Morell for looking out for her in tough times though she wished he would assert his weight a bit more.

His former colleagues had told her he was quite active in his prime and was hands-on with his assignments. He was ambitious. He had since mellowed down after his house was vandalized in retaliation when he levied charges on an influential criminal. He had to send his family away. He had considered to leave everything behind. She would have done the same thing. At least he stayed on in a diminished role which helped her not lose her job. Bills don't get paid by itself.

She was not going to give up like that. First, Victor and Mark escaped prison, then people got killed on live TV. She was surprised that the news stayed on air for the whole week, an incredible feat, considering attention span and competition for ratings. Even though the police have historically used far more force in their response for things that merited half of what has happened, things have been kept surprisingly hush. Considering the utter lack of back-up provided for her by the department in the investigation, she had nagging suspicion that there were moles everywhere. Her removal from the case made her a little bit happy in a way. To be proven right is always a delight.

She had told Morell to out her for placing the tracking device on Will's vehicle, if a situation should arise putting all of them in trouble. She needed contacts. Her people on places she needed. She didn't mind being branded bad at her job if she needed to do it well. She was on the phone.

"Hi Finn, it's me, Kelly"

"I know... I can sense your call even before it happens at this point". He let out a chuckle. His tone then turned serious "I've been looking into the systems. Victor... Mark... their files are above my clearance level. It requires higher approval. It doesn't make sense... I can still access files of similarly notorious cases no problem. I am privy to whatever Morell is"

It was not the time to invoke hierarchy. The sourness in his voice was palpable. He had always thought of Morell as a cowardly loser. Deadweights bring down the morale of the force. He did not hate Morell personally which was why he reluctantly accepted to help who Morell referred to as the best in his team. He wanted to see for himself.

"Could you please tell me about the entry records?"

"Looks fine to me. No unusual visitors to Mark's cell before he moved to Victor's or after"

"What do you mean by that?"

"See, I got in touch with this guy, Collin, the cell guard who got fired after the incident. He's as much an incompetent fool as I expected, but he had an interesting detail. He was asked to not guard the cell one day. Was told it was usual circumstances and they had it under control"

"When was this?"

"Three months before Mark moved cells."

"That bastard killed many officers who were on duty. I thought that was why he was locked up. And to not guard that? Yeah, totally normal" Kelly fumed.

"May I know why you are fixated on Mark?"

"I am fixated on a lot of things at this moment. Mark is just one of them. Not only because he embarrassed us all by escaping in a police car. He is just a savage. You see him and it shows. He is not the kind to be scheming and diplomatic and have connections high enough to escort him to safety. Thanks to him, we are a joke. I used to be on his guard before Morell picked me for his team a couple of years ago. Watching that animal day in and day out only made me want to do better with what I have to keep everyone safe. Sorry for getting carried away"

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"I like your spirit if I say so myself" Finn said. Maybe Morell did have a point or two after all.

"Thanks Finn," said a slightly distracted Kelly. She turned her attention back to the pressing matters

"Do we have any footage of the people or their vehicle or anything of some sort? Entry records? I know three months is a huge data set. But isn't it theoretically possible to deduce our suspects from the absurd amount of CCTV cameras that we have around all the streets... I mean, the police station is not in the middle of nowhere."

Though he was impressed, Finn was not the kind of person who would feel good about himself if a junior ranked officer was taking bit too much of a spotlight than what he thought was acceptable.

"We have a unique problem that we made for ourselves here. It's the law. You should be knowing that it isn't permissible to install a CCTV equipment directly facing a government facility. It is for the security of course, but in our case, this means that we cannot truly know which vehicle could've had the people of interest in this case. Someone could've directly parked at the entrance or dropped of our people and left."

I have looked into the footage beforehand. One vehicle matches our scenario. I was looking for the vehicles which vanish from the station's vicinity and gets picked up by cameras outside the premises. I wanted to check for vehicles that remain suspiciously hidden from the footage and there was one which did for 30 or more minutes, which is absurd."

"Why go through all this trouble when we have devices of our own at the entrance... the security division should have a ton of footage."

Finn thought he was gaining an edge in this conversation. As pompous as he could be at times, he did really like his job and was proficient at it. It did pain him a bit to admit this to his subordinate. At least it was while looking good.

He said "I love an early check-out for a movie just as much as the next person but this was not that straight-forward. It really baffled me. An hour of footage from our side around the same interval when the car was hidden from the camera footage, is missing. With this and the fact that they would lock out someone like me from case documents... there is something going on here that we do not know for sure. My source from the security would reveal only this much and more snooping around would cost him."

"You don't think the missing footage was a coincidence?" Kelly asked.

Finn smiled. "It could not have been. The entry records are blank for the same period."

Finn might have thought he had won the conversation. But moles being there wasn't news to Kelly. She led him on to admitting that things are not how they are supposed to be, so that one day when need arises, with Finn's authority, she can regain her job.

"There is no way this vehicle would be recognizable now. This is rigged against us"

"Exactly. Especially with the useless people we have in our government who can't even pass a ban on dark tinted cars. So much for individual freedom and horseshit. I miss the days when we were respected, you know. Nowadays all the pricks behave as if they wrote the constitution themselves. Can't even show their damn IDs. And all the rage of policing us with cameras on our gear... Not that there have not been instances... but still"

Kelly cringed a bit but did not attempt to show it. After all the man had given her the insights that she needed. She could relate to him in a conceptual level but not the implication. She remembered her days of watching the caged beast with seething anger and righteousness that thrust her career forward. It has now stagnated as she saw her views become more jaded as time went by. She was the type who would've stuck a camera in a bathroom if she had to, in order to ensure that a beast remained shackled. She used to think that the prison wasn't a resort. It was punishment.

"Thanks for your time, Finn. With the security footage and entry records being tampered, I have no hope for the prison cameras... I want to know who is behind all this... one day I will. Out of curiosity, can I see the user interface which denies you the authority to Mark's case files?"

Finn tried several criminal names on the police archive management system – heinous bastards to petty crooks... some beyond his authority and then tried on Mark's. The user interface locked him out with an error message.

"I will charge a disappointment fee for this. I'm sick and tired. You can take my password for free for all I reckon." Finn sighed from the screenshare application.

"I won't deny you a good tea break Finn. I'll leave you at peace now. Thank you." said Kelly as she ended the call.

She played back the recorded session multiple times.

She checked the error screen for a criminal's case file that was beyond Finn's authorization. She looked at Mark's. There was something unusual that Kelly couldn't point a finger at. She paused and played it for a long time. Played back in quarter times speed, really intent on the screen...

Then she could see it... a faint blink-and-you-will-miss-it kind of a thin colored outline around the error message. She was not sure it was a breakthrough. She didn't even trust her eyes. As a last stretch of effort before she was going to hit the gym, she did some web searching and came to know about the magic, that is website developer tools in a browser. And there she found the outline mark-up element

Color: #BAB86C. Hex code for olive green.