# Arc 1 – Claire's Last Investigation – Chapter 2 – The Hidden Facility

Raccoon City, 1997

The months that followed were the strangest of Claire Redfield's life.

She started small. A disposable camera with a telephoto lens, bought at a drugstore with cash. She'd park her motorcycle a quarter mile from the Umbrella facility's service entrance and wait, engine warm, notebook open on the tank. The first few days yielded nothing—just empty trucks going in and coming out, bored security guards smoking by the gate.

Then she started noticing patterns.

The trucks that came at night had different license plates. Different markings. Sometimes they'd arrive empty and leave heavy, their suspensions sagging under loads she couldn't see. Sometimes they'd arrive heavy and leave light. She photographed them all—thirty-seven vehicles over two weeks, each one logged with date, time, direction, and plate number.

The armed convoys were easier to spot. Black SUVs, no markings, moving in pairs. They didn't use the main road. They took a dirt track that cut through the woods, one that didn't appear on any map Claire could find. She followed them once, staying a quarter mile back, and watched them stop at a padlocked gate with no sign. A man in a suit got out, unlocked it, and the convoy disappeared into the trees.

She photographed that too. The gate, the man, the tire tracks.

"I'm telling you, something's wrong," she said one evening, spreading her photos across the kitchen table. "Look at these trucks. Look at the times. They're moving supplies at night, using unmarked vehicles, avoiding main roads. That's not normal logistics."

Chris leaned over her shoulder, studying the images. His brow furrowed. "You took these from where?"

"Public road. Perfectly legal."

"Claire, if someone sees you—"

"Then they see a girl with a camera. I'm not exactly inconspicuous on a red motorcycle, but I'm also not memorable." She tapped a photo of a gray warehouse on the outskirts of town. "This one. I found it in the county records. Owned by a shell company that's owned by another shell company that traces back to Umbrella's holding group. It's not on any of their public facility lists."

Chris looked at her. "You've been digging through corporate records?"

"Property deeds, tax filings, zoning permits. It's all public if you know where to look." She smiled, but there was no humor in it. "Engineering students …