Emery stopped. He had counted on institutional inertia. He had counted on small-town laziness.

  “Didn’t think about that, did you?” Dulac didn’t sound gleeful or amused, though. He sounded tired. “Come on.”

  They crossed the bullpen with only the sound of their steps for company. If Jem was still buying time, Emery knew it wouldn’t last much longer—if the problem dragged on for too long, officers would be called back to assist, and that was the opposite of what they wanted. Dulac stopped in front of the unmarked door that led to the station’s small security room, thumbed a code into the ancient push-button lock, and opened the door.

  Emery had only ever visited the security room a handful of times; it doubled as a kind of catch-all storage for electronics, and the metal shelves lining the walls held old TVs, dusty radio sets, rotary phones, point-and-shoot 35mms. One wall was taken up by displays, where footage from the station’s security cameras rotated at regular intervals. On one screen, the silver Malibu was pulling back onto the street, leaving behind it the patch of kitty litter and sand that had been thrown down to provide traction. The air smelled like Funyuns and, even more strongly, the hot-dust odor of the furnace. A single rolling chair with pilled upholstery waited at the desk.

  Dulac dropped into the seat, clicked through several screens, and began scrolling through a list of time-stamped recordings.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I had an idea.” And then, the words wary with something that was a cross between defensiveness and an apology, “I wouldn’t hang him out to dry on this, you know.”

  Emery said nothing, and Dulac continued scrolling. He took out his phone, opened an email app, and began cross-referencing. Finally, he pulled up a video. The timestamp said it was from Thursday, November 26. Thanksgiving night.

  The recording began to play, and Emery only paid partial attention as Dulac scrubbed forward. Thanksgiving. When the station would have held only a skeleton crew, like tonight. Because everyone wanted to be home with their families. Even the people at the station would have been tired, or tipsy, or sleepy from too much tryptophan, or simply lulled by the fact that it was a quiet night, and a holiday to boot.

  “Gotcha,” Dulac said and smacked the keyboard, freezing the video.

  In the frame, the security camera from the lobby showed a young man standing in the doorway. Shorter than average, muscular build visible even under the dark pea coat, he had skin the color of boiled leather and his hair buzzed down to dark fuzz. He was carrying a laptop bag over one shoulder, and in the other, he held what looked like a Gameboy—or whatever they were called today. As Emery watched, the man approached the desk, spoke with the officer on duty—Andrea Ehlers—and produced some kind of ID. He signed the log, which meant putting down his Gameboy, and then, Gameboy in hand again, he followed Ehlers off-camera.

  “God fucking damn it,” Dulac said to himself.

  He cued up several more videos, and they spliced together the man’s passage through the station: Ehlers led him down the hall, past the bullpen, and into the utility closet where, among other things, the station’s dedicated internet line, server, and other network equipment was located. Ehlers appeared to ask the man something, and he shook his head. He looked even younger with a smile on his face; Emery wouldn’t have put him at much older than Auggie. And then, without any apparent concern, Ehlers turned her back on the man and left. He stepped into the utility closet and shut the door.

  Shaking his head, Dulac moved the mouse to close the video, but Emery said, “Wait.”

  Dulac scrubbed forward, and less than five minutes later, the door opened, and the man emerged. They switched video feeds and watched him return to the bullpen and, without any seeming sense of hurry, open the door to John’s office and step inside. He shut the blinds on John’s windows. The lights stayed off. Maybe, if someone had walked past, they would have wondered if the blinds had been open or closed the last time they’d passed the room. But it was a moot consideration; no one came into the bullpen, and twenty-seven minutes later, the man opened the blinds again and emerged from John’s office. He took a step as though heading back to the utility closet. Then he stopped and looked up, straight into the camera. He smiled a huge, shit-eating grin and flipped the camera off with both hands. For the first time, the angle of the camera revealed a scar on the side of his neck.

  “Motherfucker,” Dulac breathed.

  The rest of the video was less interesting. The man returned to the utility closet and, four hours later, he left. Ehlers checked on him once. Emery tried to pay attention, but his mind raced with consideration, questions, possible explanations. Ehlers being corrupt seemed laughable—or was it? If she was, why have the man sign the log? Why parade the man around on camera? Why not choose a route with fewer opportunities to be spotted—

  Dulac was on his phone again. “Jesus Christ.” He tossed it onto the desk and reached up like he was going to rub his face, but he stopped short, hands still inches away from the red ridges of scars.

  “What the fuck was that?” Emery asked. “He walked right in here.”

  “Sure, why not?” Dulac gestured at his phone. “He was right on schedule.”

  “Gray, what the fuck is going on?”

  “Server upgrade. Or network upgrade. Or whatever those tech boners called it. Over Thanksgiving weekend, they upgraded a lot of the department’s computer equipment.”

  Emery stared at the display where the video, now paused, still showed the man. A fan whirred to life in the CCTV’s DVR, the small sound filling the silence. Pieces began to tumble into place.

  “They put it out for bid,” Emery said. “They told people what they were doing. Jesus Christ, whoever got the contract, it would have been public record.”

  “Network Solutions of Mid-Missouri,” Dulac said, pointing at his phone again. “They were doing everything over Thanksgiving weekend.” His mouth slanted in that unfamiliar smile. “Not, by the way, Thanksgiving night. But how hard could it have been? This guy figures out who’s supposed to be doing the job. Hell, he probably even has the dates from the contract. He calls up, says he’s with Network Solutions of Mid-Missouri, sorry for the inconvenience but he’s got to do some preliminary work the night of Thanksgiving, will anybody be around?”

  “Fifteen minutes with a color printer and a laminator, and he has his fucking corporate ID. Jesus Christ. How’d he get the files on John’s computer? It’s password protected.”

  “You mean, if the department’s IT guys didn’t just hand him all the login information when he called?”

  The fan’s high-pitched whine filled Emery’s head.

  Finally, he said, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “I kept thinking about it and thinking about it. I kept thinking it’s impossible, no way, how did someone hack him after we just had that big security upgrade.” For the first time all night, the old Dulac smile flashed out again, cocky and wry and all too self-aware. “Only took me twelve hours before I finally heard what I was thinking.”

  “You’ve got to talk to Diana about this. If she sees this, she’ll throw the whole thing out.”

  Dulac’s silence went on a moment too long. “Emery.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell her—”

  “Jesus, bro. Listen to yourself, will you? I’ll tell Diana. And for that matter, I’ll tell Aniya Thompson. And I’ll make a copy of this before we go, and I’ll send a copy to my boy, and I’ll send a copy to you, and I’ll send a copy to the President of the fucking United States if you want. But get your head on straight, man. He walks into John’s office. He closes the blinds. He comes out again. That’s all you’ve got.”

  “Network Solutions will say they didn’t send anyone on Thanksgiving night.”

  “Yeah. And that’s something. But unless you get your hands on this guy, you might as well have a handful of shit.”

  “Digital forensics will show when those files were loaded.”

  “Maybe. Eventually.”

  Emery tented his hands over his nose. He breathed in slowly. The stink of rancid Funyuns made his stomach roll.

  “Bro, I’m not trying to dump on you. I’m just saying, this isn’t a silver bullet.”

  Emery nodded. The rage was there, the cold fire of it, burning away everything else: his helplessness, his frustration, the hopelessness choking him. He walked deeper into that anger, until the cold froze his marrow, until he ached with it. Someone did this to John, he thought, fanning that icy fury. Someone is doing this to John. Someone is doing this to my family. It was like an ice plunge, his head shoved into winter water. One moment, the pain seemed like too much. And then, relief. He didn’t feel anything, really. Just the monumental cold of his anger.

  “I’ll talk to Aniya,” Emery said, dropping his hands. “She’ll be able to have someone examine the computer. The video would be useful if you’re willing to give us a copy.”

  “Of course, dude.”

  “The emails would be helpful too, although I understand that might compromise you. No, never mind; it should be enough to request the bids and the final contract for the network upgrade.” In his mind, he saw again the man staring up into the camera, the cruelty of the smile on his face, the double eagles shot at whoever was watching. The rage was like wind and snow, a black blizzard inside Emery’s head. The sound of it was like something rushing through a vast, empty dark. “He knew. He knew someone would eventually look at the footage. He knew someone would see that he planted those files on John’s computer. He knew, and he didn’t care. Like—like it was a game to him. You saw him; he was having fun.”

  Dulac’s voice was troubled. “Why would he do that? He’s fucking up his own frame.”

  Emery shook his head.

  “Let me get you a copy of the log,” Dulac said. He even sounded like Dulac again, the stranger’s voice gone. When he stood, he wore uncertainty behind the freckles that dusted his cheeks and nose. The blood-dark eye seemed to have trouble tracking Emery. Dulac raised a hand, hesitated, and then touched Emery’s arm. “Bro, I’m sorry. I am. I—will you tell him?” He looked like he wanted to stop, but his voice broke when he added, “I can’t. I just can’t. Not yet.”

  Emery nodded.

  He waited in the bullpen while Dulac tracked down the sign-in log. The photocopy he brought back showed the sign-in for 11:07pm on Thursday, November 26. Kyle McCall. The name was bullshit, of course. But you never knew. Sometimes, in a case, the strangest things ended up being important.

  Dulac let him out onto the smoke pad, and the wind hissed in Emery’s face. He started across the lot toward the Odyssey. He tried to think about what he would tell John. Enough. Not too much. Not so that he’d start blaming himself again. He had learned, later than he should have, that John was much harder on himself than people realized. Confident, yes. Even cocky. To a degree, perhaps, that Emery knew better than anyone. But always so sensitive to the gap he perceived between himself and Emery. Always wanting to be better. Always pushing himself, because John was used to being the best, and because so often, it came to him naturally. And this, Emery thought, this he would have to touch lightly, perhaps not at all, not until John had some time and distance. Because John wouldn’t be able to see that it wasn’t his fault. John would only say that he was chief, and it was his department, and in the end, it was his responsibility. And responsibility, for John-Henry, was the lifeline he’d given himself.

  Emery’s burner phone buzzed as he reached the van—that had been a precaution they all agreed on, along with taking back roads and avoiding traffic cameras. Until this was over, they couldn’t afford to leave a trail. North’s name flashed on the screen.

  “We found him,” North said.

  For a moment, Emery’s only point of reference was the man from the video, and he tried to make sense of the impossibility. Then he remembered their plan from earlier, North and Shaw’s offer to track down the witness who had testified against John. Only hours ago, but it felt like days.

  “What? How?”

  “Because unlike some people, we don’t sit around mooning because our one true love is in trouble, plus we’re actually good at our jobs—Jesus Christ, Shaw, you tore out part of my scalp!” Silence came. And then, “No, I’m not telling him your willie is a divining rod or—no! Sit your ass—”

  But something scraped the phone’s receiver, and then Shaw’s voice came across the call. “Emery, my willie actually is a divining rod! But that’s not how we found this guy. Well, not this time. Well, not entirely. I mean, it did give a twitch—”

  The sounds of struggle came again, and then North, breathing a little harder, said, “You will not believe the tiddlywinks shit in this town. One of the butt-lords from the grand jury was holding court in a bar. Mac’s something. We literally walked in on the conversation, didn’t even have to ask. He was going to keep talking as long as people were buying him drinks.”

  “My divining rod—”

  “He threw wood when this frat boy bent over to tie his shoes. What kind of fucking divining rod is that?”

  “But we found him, didn’t we? And Emery, you should have seen this guy! Imagine two ham hocks—wait, are they hocks, or are they loins?”

  “Where is he?” Emery snapped. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know his name, but I could definitely identify him by his, um, derriere—”

  “Not him, you—” Words failed him. “You butt-lord!”

  A vacuum opened on the other end of the call.

  “This is the single greatest moment of my life,” North said.

  “Thank you, Emery,” Shaw said. “I’m flattered.”

  “Of course, you’re flattered, you horse’s ass. You don’t even know what a butt-lord is.”

  “I know what a butt-lord is! It’s like a power bottom, but in chain mail—”

  “I swear to Christ,” Emery said, “I will murder both of you if you don’t start talking.”

  “His name’s Jace Vermilya,” North said. “And he looks like a walking, talking argument for autofellatio.”

  Shaw sounded inordinately proud of himself as he began, “We followed him to these trailers—”

  The staccato of gunfire broke through his words.

  Then silence.

  “Motherfucker,” North breathed.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It was in the compound. We’re good.”

  “Send me the address,” Emery said. “And don’t go in there.”

  6

  When headlights appeared, John-Henry tensed inside the Mustang. His breath had long since stopped steaming, and the air was arctic; he’d kept the windows cracked so that his breath wouldn’t fog the glass. Not that he could see much—a hundred yards, give or take, of rutted dirt road. Around the car rose tall weeds and prairie grasses, brittle and brown from winterkill. When the air moved, they brushed the side of the Mustang. The sound was alien: feathering and soft, but also metallic.

  The headlights drew closer, and John-Henry focused on controlling his breath as he picked up his Glock. By degrees, the shape of the vehicle resolved into the familiar outline of the Odyssey. The van slowed. Then it stopped. The headlights went off, and Emery got out. For a moment, the weak yellow of the van’s interior light glazed the side of his face. The hard line of his jaw, and John-Henry’s memory of how it fit his hand. The angle of cheekbone, and John-Henry’s body knowing how it fit against his shoulder. The dark hair that was a little too long, pulled by the wind, glinting like sable.

  Tired. That was John-Henry’s first thought: Emery looked tired. But there was something else, too. A hardness that John-Henry remembered. He hadn’t seen that look in a long time. In years, actually. The set of his mouth. The scarecrow eyes. Every inch of him armored against a world he refused to give ground to. It was the way Emery had looked when he’d come back to Wahredua, ready for a fight. It was the way he’d looked as a boy. And John-Henry was shocked, in the first moment, to see the stranger in front of him. And maybe it was the fact that he knew Emery better than he knew just about anyone by this point. Or maybe it was that he knew himself, as he ought to have known himself all those years ago. Maybe it was simply that they were both older now. But with his next heartbeat, John-Henry was shocked again to see how all that armor only revealed how vulnerable Emery was.

  The van door shut with a quiet thud. Steps clipped the frozen dirt. When the wind blew, the winterkill grasses shuddered sideways. Emery crouched at the Mustang’s passenger window, looking in, and he looked like Emery again—the question scrawled in the tilt of his eyebrows, the poor attempt to master his impatience. To his own surprise, John-Henry grinned, the feeling something like relief, and got out of the car.

  “I see you’re in a better mood,” Emery said.

  “Not really. Happy to see you, I guess.”

  That smoothed out Emery’s brow. Then he scowled again. “Do you want to explain yourself?”

  “I’m not going to sit on my ass, Ree.”

  “That’s exactly what you’re going to do. Your involvement endangers you—”

  John-Henry smoothed Emery’s hair back. Sable. And holding flecks of starlight like it had a static charge. “We do things together.”

  It was around his mouth. At his eyes. John-Henry wondered how, for all those years, he hadn’t seen it, how easily Emery could be hurt.

  Then Emery grunted. “That’ll be a wonderful way to tell people we’re going to prison together.”

  Laughing quietly, John-Henry pointed down the dirt road. “North and Shaw are that way.”

  They made their way down the narrow break in the prairie grass. The ground was slick and hard and rutted, and more than once, they steadied each other as they made their way through the darkness. After a couple of hundred yards, a darker shadow coalesced in the darkness ahead of them. A dark gray Impala, no frills. Apparently North and Shaw had learned a lesson about driving showy cars.