Page 68 of Torin

Fine.

If the local press won’t question him, I’ll find someone who will.

I start searching. Investigative journalists. National newspapers. Reporters who’ve covered police corruption. Podcasts with audiences big enough that Dad can’t make them disappear with a phone call.

A name catches my eye. I open her website and scan a list of investigations into police misconduct. There. I find the contact page and start an email.

My name is Hannah Hayes. My father is Sheriff⁠—

I stop. How the hell am I supposed to explain this? I delete the sentence and open another tab instead. Another journalist, another contact page. Then another.

“Hannah.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”

I glance at Torin.

He’s standing on the other side of the table, watching me.

“I have evidence,” I say. “Recordings. Documents. Enough that if I can get the right person to look at it, they’ll know he’s lying.”

“I believe you.”

“Believing me isn’t enough.”

“I know.”

I turn back to the screen.

There’s a national paper with an anonymous tip line. I open that too.

“How many people are you going to contact?” Torin asks.

“As many as it takes.”

He’s quiet.

I find another reporter who covers police misconduct and add her to the growing row of tabs.

“You don’t have to fix all of this right now,” Torin says.

My hands stop over the keyboard.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because look what happens when I don’t.”

I turn the laptop toward him.

Dad’s face stares back at us from three different pages.

“He gets there first. He tells everybody what happened, and then that becomes the truth.”

Torin pulls out the chair beside me.