“Where?”
“County detention contracts. Abuse allegations. Missing footage. Dead zones in reporting.”
Years of work, then.
Long hours.
Bad coffee.
Patient listening.
Enough lies to build a house out of them.
Claire rubbed her thumb over the old scar from the cuffs that had long since faded.
“Who’s lead?”
“You, if you want it.”
She looked around the empty room one last time.
The place where dirty men had believed they were writing the ending.
The place where they had really written theirs.
Outside, a truck rolled past. Somewhere down the block a dog barked twice and quit. Somebody’s screen door slapped shut.
Ordinary town sounds.
Life going on.
That mattered too.
Claire smiled, small and tired and real.
“I want it,” she said.
“Figured.”
After he hung up, she stayed in the room another minute.
Not to mourn.
Not exactly.
To remember the shape of the thing.
