Claire sent Maya a secure copy of the photographs. The first showed the factory's basement corridor, its concrete floor covered in dust and fallen plaster. The second showed a rusty access panel beside the abandoned boiler. The third revealed a cavity behind the wall, but the metal box Samuel described was missing.
Someone had reached the hiding place before them.
"Could Richard's people have taken it?" Maya asked.
Claire refused to speculate.
"The photographs are anonymous. We don't know who took them or when the compartment was opened."
Still, the discovery changed their approach.
Claire requested additional safeguards to protect whatever historical records remained at the property. She also asked the sender to contact her through a confidential channel if they had information relevant to the case.
Two days passed without a response.
Then Jordan noticed something unusual.
He'd been examining the factory photographs on his laptop, comparing them with Samuel's maintenance diagrams. In the background of one image, a small red label appeared on a storage cabinet.
He enlarged the picture.
The label read BELLHAVEN MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES.
Maya leaned over his shoulder.
"Why would a cabinet in the factory have that label?"
Jordan shrugged.
"Maybe the city stored something there."
They contacted Samuel.
He recognized the cabinet immediately.
"That was used during the factory's closure," he explained. "City inspectors collected documents when the building was declared unsafe."
"Where did those records go?"
"Probably into municipal storage."
Maya called Claire.
The attorney began checking the city's archival inventory and discovered that a collection of records from Bellhaven Textile had been transferred to offsite storage eleven years earlier.
Some were scheduled for routine review and possible disposal.
Claire requested that the records be preserved while their relevance was assessed.
Meanwhile, Maya continued working at the food program. The job brought her into contact with families facing the same pressures she experienced: unpaid bills, rising rent, and the constant calculation of which necessities could wait.
One afternoon, a grandmother named Ruth brought two children for lunch.
She lived in one of the apartment buildings scheduled for redevelopment.
"They told us we'd have sixty days to move," Ruth said.
Maya frowned.
"Did you speak with a housing counselor?"
Ruth shook her head.
"I wouldn't know where to start."
Maya gave her contact information for the local tenants' assistance organization.
Then she realized something important.
The factory investigation might take months or years.
But families needed help immediately.
That evening, Maya proposed organizing a neighborhood meeting.
Nora offered the courtyard behind her building.
Jordan volunteered to distribute flyers.
Samuel promised to contact former factory workers.
And Thomas, still recovering in the hospital, asked Adrian to attend on his behalf.
For the first time, the four witnesses' unfinished work was becoming a community effort.