4338.215 · August 3, 2018 AD
The Interrogation of Sarah Lahey
Twenty-four hours after Karl Jenkins vanishes at Jeffries Manor, Detective Sarah Lahey sits across from Detective Sergeant Stout in Interview Room 2. For over two hours, Stout methodically dismantles her account of the Greyson investigation—the traffic stop with Gladys Cramer, the high-speed chase through Collinsvale, the arrest at Luke's house, the impossible disappearance. Sarah answers carefully, protecting secrets she can't reveal, walking the edge between truth and complicity. Each pause grows longer. Each answer more measured. The photograph she didn't mention. The orders she disobeyed. By interview's end, she's suspended, her badge confiscated, and Stout's notes conclude with cautious suspicion.
August 3rd, 2018. Interview Room 2, Hobart Police Headquarters.
Detective Sergeant Alexander Stout switches on the recorder. Across the table sits Detective Sarah Lahey—exhausted, hollowed out, twenty-four hours after having her partner vanish from an empty shed.
"Walk me through the Greyson investigation from the beginning."
For two hours and twelve minutes, Stout dismantles her account. The traffic stop where Gladys Cramer was driving a missing man's car. The high-speed chase that ended with an abandoned vehicle in a forest. The arrest at Luke's house that Sergeant Claiborne took over, excluding her from the interview. The impossible moment at Jeffries Manor when Karl entered a shed with Luke Smith and neither came out.
Sarah answers carefully. Too carefully. Each pause stretches longer—three seconds, five seconds, nine seconds—as she calculates what truth she can afford to tell.
Then Stout asks about the photograph.
"You photographed two people leaving Luke's property. Why didn't you mention this earlier?"
The silences grow dangerous. The questions sharper. Sarah's protecting something—someone—and Stout knows it.
By interview's end, her badge and service weapon sit on the table between them. Suspended. Under investigation. And Stout's notes conclude: "DC Lahey is traumatised but also concealing something."
This is the interrogation that changes everything.
