Adam answered the twenty-fourth.
“What the hell did you do?”
Adam stood outside headquarters.
“My job.”
Pike laughed.
“Your job is local police.”
“My job is not protecting you.”
“You think that woman is innocent?”
Adam looked across the parking lot.
Helen stood beside Investigator Santos.
Her wrists were no longer cuffed.
She looked exhausted.
“Yes.”
Pike went silent.
Adam continued.
“The bag was old department evidence.”
“That doesn’t prove—”
“It was under her seat after you stood alone beside the open door.”
“Careful.”
“No.”
Adam surprised himself.
“I’m done being careful with the wrong people.”
Pike’s voice changed.
“You have any idea what your father did?”
Adam closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
That was not the answer Pike expected.
Adam continued.
“I know what he did.”
Silence.
Then Pike hung up.
The search warrant for Pike’s home produced nothing significant.
The warrant for a storage property registered to his brother changed the case.
Inside a locked cabinet were twelve sealed evidence bags.
Old narcotics.
Different cases.
Different years.
Most had been listed as destroyed.
There were also bundles of cash totaling almost $190,000.
A ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Case numbers.
Helen heard the news sitting in Mara’s office.
She did not celebrate.
Mara expected something.
Relief.
Vindication.
Instead Helen said, “How many?”
“We don’t know.”
“How many people?”
“We don’t know.”
“Evan?”
“We’re working on it.”
Helen looked at the floor.
“You have the bag.”
“Yes.”
“You have old evidence.”
“Yes.”
“You have Daniel Rourke’s files.”
“Yes.”
“Then clear my son.”
Mara’s expression softened.
“I can’t do that.”
Helen’s anger came instantly.
“Why not?”
“Because I investigate. Courts clear convictions.”
“Semantics.”
“Law.”
Helen stood.
“My son is dead.”
“I know.”
“He does not need another eighteen-month review.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Mara let her speak.
Helen continued.
“I buried him with CONVICTED FELON still attached to his name in every newspaper article.”
Her voice broke.
“I watched people explain his own death online by saying prison was where drug dealers belonged.”
Mara looked down.
Helen wiped her face.
“He never got married.”
“I know.”