The Black man closed his eyes.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He opened them.
The attorney's voice became firmer.
“Because I know what you're thinking. Your father complained about similar contracts thirteen years ago. You're wondering whether the same people hurt him.”
The Black man stared through the windshield.
“Yes.”
“And maybe they did. But don't try to prove his case by compromising yours.”
The words struck harder than he expected.
He had spent his entire adult life learning how to remain disciplined under pressure. Yet the discovery of his father's old records had stirred something personal enough to threaten that discipline.
He could almost hear his father speaking from the garage.
Check the actual part, son. Don't trust a report just because somebody important signed it.
The Black man tightened his grip on the phone.
“What if he was right all along?”
“Then the evidence will show it.”
“And if somebody destroyed the evidence?”
“Then we find out what survived.”
The Black man looked toward the leather portfolio on his passenger seat.
Its surface was scorched near one corner. Several personal records were damaged, and the sealed packet had been taken into protective custody for assessment.
He felt anger rising again.
“They treated me like a criminal because I was doing my job.”
“I know.”
“He burned my records right in front of me.”
“I know.”
“And now I'm supposed to sit quietly while people decide whether he did something wrong?”
The attorney paused.
“No. You're supposed to keep doing what you've always done. Tell the truth, preserve the evidence, and give investigators something stronger than your anger.”
The Black man looked down.
His father had once said something almost identical.
He took a breath.
“All right.”
The attorney's tone softened.
“Go home. Get some rest. Tomorrow, we'll begin the formal process.”
But the Black man did not sleep much that night.
He returned to Atlanta shortly before midnight.
His mother's house was quiet except for the ticking clock above the kitchen doorway.
She had left a plate of chicken and rice covered on the stove.
A handwritten note rested beside it.
Eat something before you start worrying again.
He smiled faintly.
Then he sat at the table and ate.
Afterward, he walked toward his father's old study.
He stopped in the doorway.
The desk looked exactly as it had that morning.