Make it not a problem. They walked back up to the porch together, past the lamp still sitting where Ezekiel had set it down, past the box of plates still open by the truck. Neither of them touched it. Neither of them felt like unpacking anymore. Inside, Ezekiel sat down heavily on a stack of moving boxes, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
5 days, he said. Five days from now, I walk into that building and I'm his captain and he already knows it. And instead of being scared, he's already on the phone figuring out how to bury it. That's not fear, Everett said. That's a man who's gotten away with things before and thinks he'll get away with this, too.
Ezekiel looked up. You said you had a file on Holston. Everett nodded slowly. Three months now. Pattern of misconduct complaints across the precinct.
Nothing about you. Nothing about today. It started long before either of us knew where you'd be living. He let that settle. But it's not separate anymore.
Not after that phone call. Ezekiel stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the empty street where four grown men had surrounded him and his brother less than half an hour ago. In 5 days, he said, I outranked the man who just put me in cuffs on my own lawn. Everett came to stand beside him, watching the last bit of dust from the cruisers settle over the road. And I've had a file open on his boss the whole time.
He paused. They don't know that yet either. Neither brother said anything else for a while. Outside the street had gone quiet again, deceptively calm, like nothing at all had happened. But both of them understood the same thing, standing there in the fading light.
This wasn't over. It had only just started. By the time the sun dropped behind the roof line across the street, the moving truck still sat half unloaded in the driveway, forgotten. Everett and Ezekiel sat across from each other at the kitchen table, the only piece of furniture fully assembled in the whole house, surrounded by boxes stacked three high against every wall. We can't just let this sit, Ezekiel said.
Kendrick's going to write a report. Whatever he writes, it's not going to look like what actually happened. It won't, Everett agreed. Which is why we move first. Ezekiel rubbed at his wrist at the faint red line still visible where the cuffs had bitten in.
Move how? I'm not captain yet. I've got no authority to open anything against him. Not for five more days. You don't need authority.
Everett pulled out his phone and set it on the table between them. I do. As a federal agent, I can request preservation of evidence right now, tonight, before anyone at that precinct gets the idea to make something disappear. Body cam footage, dispatch logs, radio traffic, all of it locked down and untouchable, whether Kendrick likes it or not. And if he already knows to scrub it before your request even lands, then we'll know that, too.
A missing file after a preservation order is its own kind of evidence. Everett's voice stayed level, the same steady calm he'd used lying face down in the grass a few hours earlier. It was a tone Ezekiel had heard his whole life, the one that meant his brother had already thought three steps past the conversation they were having. Ezekiel leaned back in his chair. "And me?
What do I do for the next 5 days? Just go back to work tomorrow like nothing happened? Sit across a briefing room table from men who might have heard exactly what Kendrick did to us this afternoon?" "You do your job," Everett said. "You keep your head down. You don't give anyone a reason to say you overreacted, and you let the paperwork speak instead of your temper.
That badge of yours means something the second you're sworn in. Until then, it means nothing to men like Kendrick, except a threat they're already trying to diffuse. Ezekiel was quiet for a moment, turning that over. He hated how much sense it made. He'd spent 12 years building a reputation on doing things by the book, on being the officer who didn't cut corners, even when corners were easier.
Walking into that same building tomorrow, knowing what he knew now was going to take more control than anything he'd done in those 12 years combined. There's one more thing, Everett said. That kid Onslow, he had his phone out the whole time. Ezekiel looked up sharply. You think he was recording?
I think it's possible. I couldn't tell for sure. And I'm not about to ask him directly. Not yet. If he was and it ever gets out that we knew and pressured him, it puts him in danger and it puts whatever's on that phone at risk of being called compromised.
Everett shook his head slowly. For now, we don't mention it. Not to anyone. If it exists, it stays his secret until he decides otherwise. Ezekiel nodded, filing that away.
So, we wait. We wait and we build quietly. Kendrick thinks tonight is about damage control. Let him think that. Everett picked his phone back up and began typing out the formal preservation request, his thumbs steady despite the exhaustion written across his face.