Darius picked up his tool bag. He had not put it down once since midnight. He put it down now. Set it against the wall of the records room with the kind of deliberateness you use when you are making a decision about something and you want the decision to be physical to be real to be something you can point to later and say there that was the moment he'd pick it up again he wasn't done with this work but he was done with tonight they walked to the stairs together Victoria and Darius and officer Reyes and the building around them was different now not quieter the storm was still going, but different in the way a room is different after the thing everyone was afraid to name has finally been named out loud. The walls were the same.
The floors were the same, but the particular quality of the darkness had changed on the stairwell, landing between floors 22 and 21. Victoria stopped. She pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes for exactly 3 seconds. 3 seconds, no more. Then she opened them.
Okay. She said to herself more than to anyone. Take your time. Officer Reyes said. I don't need time.
Victoria said, "I need to know where Ethan Caldwell is right now. " Reyes touched her radio. Last report had a vehicle matching the description your attorney provided being stopped on the Meridian Bridge about 8 minutes ago. Driver detained for questioning. Victoria absorbed that. Her expression did something complex and quiet.
The expression of someone who has been running on the energy of imminent danger and is now experiencing the particular disorientation of that danger being removed like a hand that was bracing against a door and then the door is suddenly gone. 8 minutes ago, she said. Yes, ma'am. While we were still in the records room. Yes, ma'am.
She looked at Darius. Something in her eyes that was not quite relief and not quite grief but lived in the neighborhood of both. He was already running. He knew when Webb stopped reporting in Darius said that was his signal. 13 years she said just that not a complaint, not even an accusation, just a number placed in the air between them representing something she was still calculating the full weight of.
Darius didn't fill the silence. He had learned from Maya from years of sitting with his daughter through hard things that some silences are not empty. Some silences are full of exactly what needs to be there. They continued down the stairs. It was 2:9 a.m.
The command post on floor 2 was organized chaos. The best kind. The kind that means people who know what they're doing are doing it. Folding tables, laptops running on portable power. Officers moving in and out.
A pair of detectives in plain clothes who had the particular alertness of people pulled out of bed and fully awake anyway because this was the work they were made for. The lead detective was named Okafor. He was 50some. Careful with the kind of face that gave nothing away while taking everything in. He shook Victoria's hand and then somewhat unusually shook Darius's hand with the same weight of attention.