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Elliot’s breathing turns ragged.

“He found the first film frame years ago. He knew what James Sinclair recorded.”

“Where is that frame now?”

“Simon has it.”

Willow’s frame.

The one removed from her watch.

Ben’s expression changes.

“How long has Simon had it?”

“Two months.”

That was when Elliot came into Willow’s restaurant.

Elliot grips Ben’s shirt.

“You don’t understand. The films don’t only prove what Donald and Kessler did.”

“What else is on them?”

Elliot looks directly toward the body camera.

“Simon Vail.”

Marquez moves closer to the monitor.

Elliot swallows.

“Simon was there the night Daniel Sinclair died.”

18

CALLE

“The truth does not become less dangerous when buried. It only gives the guilty more time to build walls around it.”

—James Sinclair

Simon Vail was there the night Dad died.

The words move through the conference room like a wave, striking each of us one after another.

Mom grips the back of a chair.

Nathan reaches her first.

I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

I was thirteen years old when two uniformed officers came to our door and told us Dad was dead. They said his car went over the side of a coastal road during a storm.

An accident.