One account belonged to a consultant connected to Grant’s brother.
Another belonged to a former county procurement manager.
A third belonged to an unnamed person using a private trust.
Victoria studied the documents.
Then she noticed something.
The payments began shortly after Northstar won its largest public contract.
And the first unexplained payment occurred just two weeks before Grant and Miller were hired into the traffic division.
The investigators began tracing the entire network.
What they found suggested that Northstar had built a system designed to protect itself.
Public money entered through contracts.
The money moved through consulting companies.
The consulting companies paid individuals.
And anyone who came too close to the truth was discouraged, threatened, or quietly removed from the process.
The traffic stop had not been random.
Victoria believed the officers had been sent to intimidate her before she could meet Peter Walsh.
But there was still one question.
Who had ordered them to do it?
The answer came from an unexpected source.
Peter Walsh’s daughter contacted Victoria.
She had found her father’s laptop hidden inside a locked storage box.
“I don’t know what happened to him,” she said. “But before he disappeared, he told me that if anything went wrong, I should contact the investigator named Victoria.”
Victoria arranged for the laptop to be transferred through official channels.
Inside were spreadsheets, scanned invoices, and recorded conversations.
One file contained a list of names.
At the top was the CEO of Northstar Highway Services.
Below him were several executives.
Then county officials.
Then law-enforcement personnel.
Beside each name were dates and payment amounts.
Grant Holloway.
$18,000.
Daniel Miller.
$11,500.
The payments were labeled as consulting fees.
But neither officer had provided consulting services to Northstar.
The file also contained a short audio recording.
A man’s voice could be heard saying:
“She’s asking too many questions. Make sure she understands that this investigation can become very unpleasant.”
Another voice answered:
“What if she doesn’t back off?”
The first man replied:
“Then we remind her that people with authority have ways of creating problems.”
Victoria recognized the first voice.
It belonged to Northstar’s CEO, Richard Vale.
The second voice belonged to a county official.
But the recording didn’t prove who had ordered the traffic stop.
For that, they needed the officers themselves.
Grant and Miller were placed on administrative leave while the investigation continued.
