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“Sandy reached the doorway and turned around,” I say. “She lifted two fingers and smiled at me.”

“What did you think the smile meant?”

“That she was fine. That she knew what she was doing. That I could finish my drink and wait ten more days before I walked into Torres’s office.”

The AUSA’s pen has stopped again.

“And what do you think now?” he asks.

“I think believing her was useful.”

“To whom?”

“To Neil.” I look at Torres. “And to me.”

"And you?" Torres asks.

"I stayed on the barstool." My voice comes out level because I won't let it do anything else. "I was ten days from walking in here the first time. I told myself ten more days and let her go through that door. Neil watched her cross the room. I saw him watching. I didn't know what it meant, and I didn't get up to find out."

The room is quiet. The AUSA has stopped writing.

"That receipt in your evidence bag has my name on the Lubbock delivery," I tell them. "It says S.H. approved the route exception. I carried that authorization to Clint Wilson's trailer the same night he walked Sandy Canutson out the door. I'll swear to that in front of any judge you want."

Torres doesn't look away from me. "That's the piece," she says to the AUSA, without looking at him either. "Director's exception on the gate. Route exception on the Lubbock load. Same initials. He carried it."

I don't know what gate she means. I don't ask. It isn't mine.

I slide the stock-supply catalog across the table and open it to the inside cover. Before I let go, I take Sandy's photograph out from between the pages and look at it one more time: the denim jacket, the pins, and the open smile. Then I lay it on top of the catalog and push both of them the rest of the way.

"Those are the codes I copied off his envelopes," I say. "The carrier numbers came from the Deming library. There are copies in an encrypted account. I'll give you the password."

I put Dax's pages next to it. "Dax Corbin pulled those from the circuit's archived galleries. The Fort Worth print is from the night Tyler Brennan died, and the Las Cruces print is from the night Grant went down. The same man stands at the stock pens both times. Fort Worth hired him under an alias, and Las Cruces has no record of him at all. Dax built the timeline, and he'll give you his own statement."

Torres turns the prints toward the light. "We'll take it. Ostrander will contact Corbin for the originals and his statement."

They keep me for hours. They take me back through every envelope, every stop, and every name. I answer what I know and say "I don't know" to what I don't. Near the end, Torres steps out to take a call and comes back with a different set to her mouth.

"Vogt's phone is under a warrant now," she tells the AUSA. "The first pull shows Wilson's number, and a number that comes back to Burl Hendricks." She sits back down. "With his account, the affidavit has a leg it didn't have this morning."

The AUSA underlines something twice. When they finally let me go, the window at the end of the hall has started to gray.

Torres walks me down herself. At the turnstile she stops with one hand on the rail, on her side of the glass, where nobody in the lobby can hear.

"The judge signed an hour ago," she says. "Warrants for Clint Wilson and Steve Hendricks, and one for a property off the interstate. Your route exception was the piece he needed."

"And the property?"

"The trailers pulled out of it at dusk, before I had paper." The hours sit heavy on her face. "My team is trying to stay on them."

I look through the glass at the woman in the hard chair. "Hendricks knows her face. Put somebody on her."

"She isn't my witness, Carrick. She's an agent under review, and every body I have is on that convoy."

"Then I will."

Torres weighs that for a breath. She doesn't argue. She pushes the turnstile arm for me and walks back toward the elevators.

The lobby is dim now, half the lights off, and the guard is reading something on his phone behind the desk. Morgan is in the same chair.