Compliance

MARA: The worst photographs are not the violent ones.

PRICE: Photos can lie.

MARA: You don't sound convinced.

PRICE: I am old enough to respect a good fake.

MARA: But?

PRICE: But the door in that photo is real.

MARA: Price recognized it from a place called the Meridian House, a private stabilization facility that burned down in 2018.

PRICE: His name was Daniel Orr.

MARA: The staff member?

PRICE: My old partner.

MARA: I thought your partner was alive.

PRICE: That was my second old partner.

MARA: You collect dead witnesses, Detective?

PRICE: They collect themselves around cases like this.

[SFX: Archive room. Paper boxes sliding.]

MARA: Daniel Orr's death report was public. His personal effects were not.

PRICE: We should not take that.

MARA: You broke us into an archive.

PRICE: I am capable of standards and crime at the same time.

MARA: The audio was on a microcassette.

ORR, RECORDING: Jonah, if you get this, do not trust Halden all the way. She helped, but she signed compliance. Everyone signs compliance. That is how Voss keeps them. Not money. Not blackmail. Choice. He makes you choose one terrible thing, then keeps evidence of it forever.

ORR: The Vale girl is alive. She is not clean. None of us are.

MARA: Choice. That was the word that followed me out of the archive.

[SFX: Incoming call. Click.]

MARA: Elise?

ELISE: Do not say my name.

MARA: Where are you?

ELISE: Did you find Ruth?

MARA: Yes.

ELISE: Then you know enough to stop.

MARA: I know you were staff.

[Pause]

ELISE: I was a key.

MARA: What does that mean?

ELISE: They trust people who have already broken. They trusted me because they thought I broke in the right direction.

MARA: Did you hurt people?

ELISE: Yes.

MARA: The answer came too fast.

ELISE: And if you keep looking, they will make sure that is the only thing the world knows about me.

MARA: Then tell me the rest.

ELISE: Friday night. Meridian ruins. Bring Price. No police.

MARA: Why Price?

ELISE: Because he knows where the bodies are.

[SFX: Call ends.]

MARA: Price denied it badly.

PRICE: There are no bodies at Meridian.

MARA: That is not what she said.

PRICE: She is scared.

MARA: She said you know where they are.

PRICE: I know where one is.

MARA: Who?

PRICE: Hannah Kreel.

MARA: The girl Elise went looking for.

PRICE: Yes.

MARA: Where?

PRICE: Under a clinic parking lot that became a wellness center that became an empty field owned by Harrow Creek Holdings.

MARA: You found her?

PRICE: Orr told me. I never found enough to dig.

MARA: You mean enough permission.

PRICE: Sometimes permission is what keeps evidence from becoming a rumor.

MARA: Sometimes permission is how people stay buried.

[SFX: Wind through burned structure.]

MARA: Friday night, we went to Meridian.

PRICE: Mara, don't.

MARA: I answered.

CALLUM VOSS: Good evening, Mara.

MARA: Where is my sister?

CALLUM: Standing closer than you think.

[SFX: A door opens behind them.]

ELISE: Mara.

[MUSIC: End.]