Radic returned to the Bureau at 17:23, her coat soaked through, the receipt still burning in her pocket. The building had taken on a different quality in the fading light—darker, more oppressive, as though the walls themselves were closing in on her. She walked past the security desk without acknowledging the guard, her mind already running through the sequence she would present to the Commission.
She had thirty hours left. Thirty hours to turn a tangled web of lies into a coherent case. Thirty hours to find a killer who might not even exist—not as a single person, but as a confluence of selfishness, fear, and institutional rot.
She found Kolarov waiting for her in the corridor outside her temporary office. His face was drawn, his notebook clutched to his chest like a shield.
"Magistrate, we have a problem."
Radic stopped. "I have too many problems to count. Which one are you talking about?"
Kolarov lowered his voice. "The Commission has sent a special liaison. A man named Borislav Gajic. He is here to 'oversee the integrity of the investigation'—his words."
Radic felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach. Gajic was not a liaison. He was an enforcer—a fixer who had spent twenty years burying scandals for the Electoral Bureau. His presence meant that the Commission was no longer just pressuring her; it was actively intervening.
"Where is he now?"
"In the registrar's office. He has already reviewed our evidence logs and requested copies of all witness statements."
"What did you give him?"
Kolarov's eyes flickered with something between defiance and fear. "I gave him the preliminary statements—the ones from Danica Vlasic and Filip Zoric. I did not give him the janitor's testimony. I did not give him the envelope from Krasic's office. And I did not give him the receipt from the bank."
Radic allowed herself a small, grim smile. "Good. You are learning."
"I have been in this job long enough to know when a case is being buried from above." Kolarov stepped closer, his voice a whisper. "Magistrate, I think Gajic is here to shut this down. If he gets his hands on the sealed envelope or the receipt, he will claim chain of custody violations, jurisdictional issues, anything to keep the truth from coming out."
Radic nodded slowly. She had known this moment would come. The Commission had given her forty-eight hours not as a deadline, but as a leash. They expected her to produce a tidy report—accidental death, cardiac arrest, case closed. They did not expect her to uncover memory card tampering, sealed envelopes, and twenty-thousand-veridian payments.
"I need to see Gajic," she said. "Before he starts dismantling our work."
Kolarov led her to the registrar's office, where a tall, silver-haired man sat behind Vukovic's desk as though he owned it. Gajic was impeccably dressed, his suit charcoal grey, his tie a subdued burgundy. He radiated the kind of calm authority that came from decades of getting what he wanted.
"Magistrate Radic," he said, rising to shake her hand. His grip was firm, dry, and brief. "I have heard excellent things about your work. The Commission is grateful for your diligence."
Radic did not return his smile. "The Commission is grateful for a quick resolution. I assume that is why you are here."
Gajic's smile did not waver. "I am here to ensure that the investigation proceeds smoothly. There have been some—concerns—about the scope of your inquiries. The electoral process is fragile, as I am sure you understand. Public confidence must be protected."
"Public confidence," Radic repeated, her voice flat. "Is that the official term for 'suppressing the truth'?"
Gajic's smile flickered, just for a moment. "Magistrate, I did not come here to argue semantics. I came here to review your findings and offer guidance."
"Then let me offer you a finding." Radic stepped closer, her eyes locked on his. "I have a deceased tally officer with a broken neck, a forged logbook, a shredded diagnostic request, practice signatures in a supply closet, a disabled surveillance camera, an erased hard drive, a sealed envelope containing instructions for election tampering, and a bank receipt showing a twenty-thousand-veridian withdrawal by a key witness. What guidance do you have for me?"
Gajic's composure did not crack, but Radic noticed a muscle twitch in his jaw. "That is a serious list of allegations."
"They are not allegations. They are facts."
"Facts that have not been corroborated by any independent source, as far as I can tell." Gajic sat back down, folding his hands on the desk. "The janitor—Petar Radoslav—is elderly, with a documented history of confusion. The bank receipt is uncorroborated and could have been planted. The sealed envelope—which, I must note, you found without a proper search warrant—could be a forgery. And the practice signatures could belong to anyone."
Radic felt the anger rising in her chest, but she forced it down. "You are going to discredit every piece of evidence I have collected."
"I am going to ensure that the investigation does not spiral into a public relations disaster," Gajic corrected, his voice still calm. "There is a difference."
"Is there?" Radic leaned over the desk, her palms flat on the polished wood. "Let me tell you what I think is happening here. I think someone in this Bureau—someone above Krasic, above Vukovic, above everyone I have interviewed—ordered the tampering of the rural district machine. I think Horvat discovered it. I think he was killed to keep him quiet. And I think you are here to make sure that the person responsible is never identified."
Gajic met her gaze without flinching. "That is a very dramatic theory, Magistrate. But theories are not evidence. And without evidence, you have nothing but a dead man and a lot of speculation."
"I have a witness who placed Tomic and Zoric at the scene."
"An elderly janitor with unreliable eyesight."
"I have a receipt that suggests a payment was made."
"A receipt that anyone could have dropped."
"I have a sealed envelope that links Krasic to an unknown superior."
"An envelope that could have been written by anyone with access to standard government paper."
Radic straightened, her jaw tight. "You are determined to bury this."
"I am determined to protect the integrity of the electoral process," Gajic said, his voice hardening for the first time. "The same process that elected the current government. The same process that legitimizes every official in this building. If you destroy that process with unsubstantiated allegations, you are not serving justice. You are serving chaos."
Radic stared at him for a long moment. She had heard that argument before—in different words, from different mouths, but always with the same underlying message. The system was more important than the truth. The institution was more important than the individual. And anyone who threatened the institution was an enemy of order itself.
She had spent fifteen years fighting that argument. She had won some battles and lost many more. But she had never faced it from someone as polished and ruthless as Borislav Gajic.
"Mr. Gajic," she said, her voice dangerously soft, "if you try to block my investigation, I will go to the press. I will release every document, every witness statement, every piece of evidence I have collected. And I will tell them that the Electoral Commission tried to cover up the murder of a senior tally officer."
Gajic's face went pale. For the first time, Radic saw something other than calm authority in his eyes—fear.
"You would not do that," he said, his voice barely a whisper.
"I would do exactly that." Radic stepped back from the desk. "I have nothing to lose, Mr. Gajic. I am a magistrate with fifteen years of service and no political ambitions. I will retire in a few years, and I will live on my pension. But you—you have a reputation. A position. A career. If this story breaks, you will be the face of the cover-up. And that face will not survive the scandal."
Gajic's mouth opened and closed. He looked like a fish that had been thrown onto dry land. "You cannot threaten me."
"I am not threatening you. I am offering you a choice." Radic's voice was calm, measured, the voice she used when she knew she held all the cards. "Help me finish this investigation properly. Allow me to present my findings to the Commission without interference. And I will ensure that your role is portrayed as cooperative rather than obstructive. If you do not—" She paused, letting the silence stretch. "If you do not, I will bring this entire building down around us. And I will not care who gets buried."
Gajic sat in silence for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly, his face ashen. "I will—coordinate with you. Within reason."
"That is all I ask." Radic turned toward the door, then paused, looking back over her shoulder. "Oh, and Mr. Gajic—I want the autopsy results. The real ones. Not the version the Commission prepared for public consumption."
Gajic's eyes widened. "I do not have the autopsy results."
"Then get them. By tomorrow morning. Or I will assume you are hiding something." She did not wait for a response. She walked out of the office, her heart pounding, and found Kolarov waiting in the corridor.
"Magistrate," he said, his voice urgent, "we have a development. The lab was able to reconstruct some of the shredded documents. They are not complete, but they found a partial match with the bank receipt."
Radic stopped. "A match?"
"The shredded receipt had the same account number as the one Petar gave us. And the signature on the withdrawal slip—it was not Tomic's. It was a forgery. The lab compared it with the practice signatures you found in the supply closet. The handwriting is identical."
Radic felt the ground shift beneath her feet. The receipt was a forgery. Someone had forged Tomic's signature on a withdrawal slip, made a large withdrawal from his account, and then dropped the receipt at the scene of the crime. It was a frame job—a deliberate attempt to implicate Tomic.
"Who benefits?" she asked, her mind racing. "If Tomic is framed, who gets away?"
Kolarov hesitated. "The lab also found a fingerprint on the forged receipt. They matched it to the cleaning staff database."
Radic's blood went cold. "Petar."
"It is not a clean match—partial, but consistent with his left thumb. He would have had to handle the receipt to give it to you, of course. But the print is in a location that suggests he handled it before it was crumpled."
Radic closed her eyes, the pieces snapping into place. Petar had lied to her. The janitor had been in the vault that night—not just observing, but participating. He had seen the two men because he was one of them. He had planted the receipt. He had crafted a story that pointed away from himself and toward Tomic and Zoric.
But why? An old man with no apparent motive, no history of violence, no connection to the Bureau beyond his cleaning job.
Unless he had been paid. Unless the twenty thousand veridians had been his payment—and he had been caught with the receipt by accident, then fabricated the story about dropping it.
Radic opened her eyes. "I need to see Petar Radoslav again. Now."
Kolarov nodded and reached for his keys. But before they could move, a commotion erupted from the entrance hall—shouting, the sound of doors slamming, a woman's scream.
Radic ran.
The scene in the main lobby was chaos. Danica Vlasic was on the floor, her face bruised, her blouse torn. She was pointing at a figure retreating toward the exit—a tall, thin shape that Radic recognized even in the dim light.
Filip Zoric.
He had attacked Danica, Radic realized. He had come back to the Bureau to silence the only other witness who could place him at the scene. And Danica had survived.
"Stop him!" Radic shouted, but Zoric was already through the doors, his footsteps echoing on the wet pavement outside.
Kolarov gave chase, his boots slapping against the floor. Radic knelt beside Danica, who was gasping, her eyes wild with terror.
"He—he came back," Danica stammered. "He said I had to change my statement. He said if I told the truth about the phone call, he would—" She broke off, her voice dissolving into sobs.
Radic took her hand, squeezing it gently. "He will not hurt you again. I promise. Now tell me—what did he say about the phone call?"
Danica's breath came in ragged gasps. "He called Vukovic. At 22:30. He told Vukovic that Horvat was going to request the diagnostic. Vukovic told him to shred the request and disable the camera. Zoric did it—he disabled the camera. But he did not know Vukovic was going to—was going to—"
"Going to what?" Radic pressed, her voice urgent.
"Going to kill him." Danica's eyes filled with tears. "Zoric found out later. He did not plan it. He only did what Vukovic told him. But when he found out, he knew he was trapped. He knew Vukovic would blame him."
Radic's mind was racing. Vukovic was the architect. Zoric was the enforcer. Petar was the cleaner—not the janitorial cleaner, but the kind who removed evidence and planted false trails. And Tomic was the scapegoat.
The system had eaten itself. The very people who were supposed to protect the electoral process had corrupted it, and now they were eating each other.
Kolarov returned, breathless, his face flushed. "He got away. The traffic—he disappeared into the market district. I have called for roadblocks, but—"
"Let him go," Radic said, surprising herself. "He is not the one we need."
Kolarov stared at her. "Magistrate?"
Radic stood up, her hand still on Danica's shoulder. "Zoric is a pawn. Vukovic is the one who gave the order. But there is someone else—someone who has been manipulating everything from the beginning." She looked down at Danica. "Do you know anyone in the cleaning staff who worked with Petar Radoslav? Anyone who might know where he is hiding?"
Danica shook her head slowly. "He keeps to himself. But I have seen him talking to Mr. Vukovic. Many times. In the registrar's office, late at night."
Radic nodded. She had what she needed.
"Kolarov, I want you to take Danica to a safe house. Put a guard on her. No one sees her until I give the word." She turned toward the door, her coat billowing behind her. "And I want you to find Petar Radoslav. Turn this city upside down if you have to. The old man who talked too much—he is the key to all of this."
Kolarov hesitated. "And Vukovic?"
"Vukovic is not going anywhere. He has too much confidence in his own cover-up. But Petar—Petar is a loose end. And loose ends get cut."
Radic walked out into the rain, her steps purposeful. She had twenty-nine hours left. She had a witness who had just been attacked, a confession from the attacker's accomplice, a forged receipt, a sealed envelope, and a janitor who was either a victim or a mastermind.
She did not know which. But she was going to find out.
And when she did, she was going to bring down the entire system—or die trying.
The rain fell harder, washing the blood from the lobby floor.
But some stains, Radic knew, could never be washed away.
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