The Mayor’s Backup

Claire slid one photo across the table. It was a still from the precinct camera: a white utility van in the loading bay, rear doors open, a man with his face half turned.

Miller glanced at it and closed his mouth.

“Recognize it?”

He leaned back a fraction. “I see a van.”

“You see the van that runs the off-site wipe route from Sub-Basement B to the fiber bridge on Ash Street.”

His jaw worked. Vance shifted, just a little.

Claire tapped the photo. “You can keep pretending, or you can tell me whose key opens the server cage.”

Miller laughed under his breath. It sounded dry and mean. “You think I’m taking that kind of fall for Martin Vale?”

“So no?”

His eyes dropped to the table. “Chief says a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like keep my head down. Like my pension’s safer if I don’t ask questions.” He swallowed. “Like if I’m smart, I’ll still get out with something.”

Claire waited.

Miller’s fingers flexed. Arthritis made them stiff, but they still moved toward the pad in front of her, then stopped. “That kid Travis, he was never just moving cars. He was moving paperwork too. Seizure forms, titles, receipts. Anything with a hole in it, he’d drag it downstairs.”

Claire wrote one line on the pad.

Miller saw it and winced. “You know that boy thinks he’s protected?”

“He isn’t.”

“No,” Miller said, almost to himself. “He’s just loud.”

He looked up then, straight at Claire. “If you want the big one, you need the mayor’s house on North Ridge. There’s a route out there. Backup copy.”

Vance’s head came up. Claire kept her face still.

“What route?”

Miller’s mouth tightened. “Ask for the old man’s study. Ask for the drive that stays off the books.”

He pushed his chair back half an inch and stopped. “And if you’ve got any sense, you’ll get there before they finish wiping it.”

Claire stood. “Who’s ‘they’?”

Miller’s eyes went to the mirror again. “The people who told Travis he was the smart one.”

Outside the room, a phone rang twice and cut off.

Claire was already moving for the door when Vance touched the folder against his palm. “We go now,” he said.