Hammer stared toward the courtyard through the office window.
“I need to tell you something.”
“What kind of something?”
He swallowed.
“Something I should've told you four months ago.”
Naomi said nothing for a moment.
Then her voice sharpened.
“Where are you?”
“Mercy Ridge.”
“Stay available. I'll arrange an interview.”
Hammer looked toward the motorcycles parked below.
For a moment, his eyes filled.
Then he answered.
“I will.”
He did not call Rook.
Did not warn the club.
And did not attempt to persuade the detective that he had good reasons for remaining silent.
He knew what the silence had cost.
He could see it every time he remembered Lucy's muddy hands.
When Naomi arrived, Hammer was waiting with Daniel “Brick” Morgan and a cardboard file box.
Brick was sixty-one, broad-shouldered, with a gray beard and a weathered face that had spent too many years exposed to road wind. He wore the Iron Ravens vest over a plain black shirt and carried a small notebook filled with dates and observations.
He'd been one of the first club members to question the charitable fund's accounts.
Now he looked furious.
Not merely at Rook.
At Hammer.
“I told you,” Brick said quietly as they waited.
Hammer nodded.
“I know.”
“You said you were handling it.”
“I know.”
Brick looked toward the children's courtyard.
For a moment, his expression softened.
Then he continued.
“There was a time when you would've been the first man through the door if somebody said a child had been hurt.”
Hammer closed his eyes.
Brick shook his head.
“And somehow you convinced yourself keeping the club out of trouble mattered more than finding out whether one of us was responsible.”
The words hurt.
But Hammer didn't defend himself.
He looked toward the file box.
“I made the wrong choice.”
Brick studied him.
For a moment, he seemed surprised.
Then he nodded.
“Yes.”
When Naomi entered, she asked them to keep the conversation focused on firsthand knowledge.
She would not treat Lucy's identification as proof by itself. The child's statement was an important lead, but it required careful corroboration, and any further interview with Lucy needed to be conducted by qualified professionals using appropriate safeguards.
Hammer understood.
He gave Naomi the correspondence Emma had sent requesting a review.
He described Brick's concerns.
The disputed invoices.
The supplier who denied providing the billed materials.
And Rook's uncomfortable conversation after Emma was injured.