Then stopped.
“He took this?”
“For about ten minutes.”
Her face hardened.
“My treatment money?”
“He didn’t know that.”
“Does that make him less of a thief?”
“No.”
Clara placed the envelope on the table.
“What happens now?”
Vance opened her refrigerator.
She slapped his hand away.
“You’re not changing the subject through food.”
“I was hungry.”
“You’re always hungry when you don’t want to answer.”
Vance closed the refrigerator.
“Agent Mercer’s team is handling it.”
“Who else?”
“Too early.”
Clara looked at him.
“You’re going back.”
It was not a question.
Vance leaned against the counter.
“I’m commissioned.”
“You are retired.”
“Technically.”
“You use technically the way alcoholics use socially.”
He laughed.
She did not.
“You spent thirty years doing this.”
“Thirty-one.”
“Thank you for making my argument stronger.”
Vance looked toward the window.
Clara softened.
“Why?”
He knew what she meant.
Why had he accepted the commission three years after retirement?
Why drive cash through a county where complaints had accumulated?
Why become bait at sixty-five?
He rubbed his bandaged hand.
“Because people complained for years.”
“And?”
“Nobody believed them.”
Clara’s expression changed.
Vance continued.
“Mostly truckers. Migrant workers. People carrying cash. Some with records. Some undocumented. Some old. Some poor.”
He looked at her.
“The kind of witnesses officials call unreliable until there are enough bodies.”
Clara sat.
“And you thought being an old white investigator would make the point?”
“Something like that.”
She hated when he was right for reasons she hated.
“How bad?”
“Worse than we thought.”
She sighed.
“Coffee?”
“Yes.”
“You make it.”
“That hand.”
“Use the other one.”
He smiled.
Normality returned in small pieces.
Coffee.
Clinic paperwork.
A frozen casserole.
But at 8:43 that evening, Mercer called.
Vance answered from Clara’s porch.
“What?”
Mercer skipped greeting.
“Pike’s camera archive exists.”
“How much?”
“Forty-seven clips.”
Vance went still.
“Forty-seven?”
“Across five months.”
“Jesus.”
“Not just Keller.”
There it was.
“Who?”
Mercer exhaled.
“Sheriff’s office. Dispatch supervisor. Two reserve deputies. Maybe a county prosecutor investigator.”
Vance looked across the dark fields.
“And the list?”
“Pike gave us access to a shared folder.”
“What’s in it?”
“Over two hundred vehicle entries.”
Vance said nothing.
Mercer continued.
“Medical couriers. Livestock buyers. contractors. immigrant-owned businesses. Tribal plates. cash-heavy agricultural operations.”
“How long?”
“Files go back four years.”
Vance closed his eyes.
Four years.
“How much money?”
“Unknown.”
“Ballpark.”
“Could be hundreds of thousands.”
Vance opened his eyes.
Mercer’s voice lowered.
“And there’s something else.”