I leaned closer. “Say it.”
He swallowed.
“Mom said you were going to abandon us.”
“Us?”
His eyes flicked up, desperate now. “Me. Her. The life we built.”
“The life I funded.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” I said. “Fair ended when I woke up with my head shaved.”
He flinched as though I had shouted.
“I didn’t know she was going to do that,” he whispered.
“But you let her.”
“I was angry.”
“You were afraid.”
His jaw tightened.
There. The small vanity survived.
“Afraid of what?” I asked. “My promotion? My command? My name on a door?”
His face twisted. “You changed.”
“No,” I said. “You noticed.”
For a second, his eyes filled with hatred so naked that even Agent Price shifted her stance. Then the look vanished behind panic.
“You don’t understand what she’ll do,” Ryan said quickly. “You think this is about money, but it isn’t. Not really.”
“Then what is it about?”
He glanced at the corners of the interview room, at the camera, at Agent Price.
“I can’t say it here.”
Agent Price stepped forward. “Mr. Whitaker, this is your opportunity to cooperate.”
Ryan gave a sharp, frightened laugh. “You think you’re in charge because you have a badge? You have no idea how many badges she’s collected.”
The air seemed to thin.
I looked at Price.
She did not react openly, but something in her gaze sharpened.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Ryan sat back down slowly.
“It means Linda kept records,” he said. “On everyone. Judges. lawyers. police. officers. Anyone who helped, anyone who looked away, anyone who took money and pretended it was kindness.”
“Where?” Price asked.
Ryan looked only at me.
“At the house,” he said. “But not where you think.”
By noon, my home was no longer my home.
It was a search site.
