Made me feel like someone worth listening to. That's more than most people managed back then. I should have trusted that instead of my fear. Frank sets a hand briefly on Sam's shoulder. You're trusting it now.
That counts. Will you testify? Josie asked gently. At the council meeting tomorrow, Sam is quiet for a moment, staring down at his own hands. I've spent 9 years telling myself I'd do it someday, he says.
Someday is not getting any closer unless I make it today. Yes, he finally says, "I'll testify. I'll bring everything I have. Josie feels something ease in her chest for the first time in days. Not victory exactly, just the sense of a door finally swinging open.
That evening, back at the diner after closing, Rosie unlocks the kitchen door. Addie waits by the old dusty camera bolted in the corner, flashlight in hand. Nobody's touched this thing in 3 years, Rosie admits. Not sure it even has power. A young technician named Priya, hired quietly through the county office, checks the wiring.
The cables frayed, she says after a few minutes, but the drive itself looks intact. She works carefully, patient, splicing a new connection with steady hands. After 20 minutes, a small red light blinks to life on the old unit. It's been recording, Priya says, surprised. Intermittently, whenever the connection held, she pulls footage onto a laptop, scrolling through days of grainy, broken video.
Josie watches over her shoulder, holding her breath without quite meaning to. Then there it is, a timestamp from that same Tuesday. Grant behind the counter. The footage is choppy, imperfect, but unmistakable all the same. We have him, Addie says quietly.
We actually have him. Rosie sits down hard in the nearest booth, hand pressed to her chest. All this time, she says it was working. All this time and nobody knew. Sometimes broken things aren't as broken as everyone assumes, Frank says from the doorway.
Just needs somebody patient enough to check. Across town in a house far grander than most in Marlo Creek, Grant sits alone. His father is out making calls, arranging things Grant doesn't fully understand. He scrolls through his phone without really seeing it. Restless, unsettled, he thinks about Ryan's silence lately.
About Chase avoiding his calls too. About the way the whole town seemed to lean away from him at the diner. He tells himself none of it matters. Tells himself his father will fix it. His father always fixes things.
But some small, quiet part of him, buried under years of easy privilege, wonders. What if this time fixing it means someone else finally has to answer for it? He doesn't let himself finish that thought. Not yet. He pours a drink he doesn't really want and stares out at the dark yard.