Mike reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. He found the footage he had taken before stepping in: twelve seconds of three figures and Tyler on the ground in an alley that was darker than it should have been for a university campus at two in the morning.
He turned the screen toward her and let it play.
"You can watch it yourself."
He watched her face while the video played, finding it more informative than watching the video alone.
She pressed her lips together. A muscle in her jaw moved.
Her hands, which had been in her lap, closed into something that was almost a fist but stopped short of it. When the twelve seconds ended, she looked at the screen for another moment after it had gone still, as though she were processing the distance between what she had imagined and what she had just confirmed.
She remained silent for a few moments, processing her thoughts. Finally, she spoke softly, "How many times has this happened?"
