"Grandpa kept investigating after he retired," she said.
Nia felt a new kind of grief. Her father had spent years sitting at that desk while she thought he was organizing old papers. He had continued tracing the thing that had damaged his career because he could not let an unfinished truth stay unfinished.
Daniel opened the footlocker. Inside were more records and a small cassette recorder, not a weapon. He looked relieved.
"Good," Martinez said. "No surprises."
One cassette was labeled BRYCE - LARKIN - CIVIC WAREHOUSE, 2019. The evidence specialist bagged it without playing it on scene. Then Tessa noticed a blue folder wedged behind the bottom shelf. It contained copies of recent county procurement schedules and handwritten notes from James. The newest entry was dated only four months before his death.
If Prairie Shield changes name again, follow the training grants. Money remembers what people deny. Nia read the line twice.
"That's him," she whispered.
They spent almost two hours cataloging the unit. Nothing left with them except digital copies created under evidence protocols and James's personal letter, which Martinez allowed Nia to retain after photographing it. As they prepared to leave, the storage manager approached Daniel.
"Sir, there's been a black SUV parked across the frontage road for about twenty minutes. I thought maybe it was with you."
Daniel's expression changed. Martinez went outside first with the state investigators. By the time they reached the lot, the SUV was gone. Nobody treated that as coincidence.
The convoy back toward town was reorganized. State investigators led. Daniel's SUV followed. Another unmarked vehicle stayed behind them. For seven miles, nothing happened.
Then a dark SUV came hard out of a side road and struck the rear quarter of the lead state vehicle. The impact sent both vehicles swerving. Daniel braked sharply. Tessa screamed and grabbed the door handle. Nia's seat belt locked across her chest.
A second vehicle appeared from behind. The next thirty seconds became noise, broken glass and shouted commands. The state investigators called for emergency assistance while Daniel pulled their SUV to the shoulder. Men in plain clothes moved from the attacking vehicle wearing generic tactical vests. They shouted "Police" but displayed no visible badges and made no effort to identify an agency.
Nia stayed low behind the engine block after Daniel ordered her and Tessa out the far side.
"Do not engage unless we have no choice," he said. "Help is already coming."
One attacker moved toward Tessa's side with a weapon raised. A state investigator shouted for him to stop. The man fired toward the roadway, striking metal but no one.
The exchange that followed was brief and chaotic. Daniel and the state officers returned only enough force to stop the immediate threat and keep the attackers from closing on the civilians. Nia pulled Tessa behind the concrete drainage barrier and kept her there. She did not chase anyone. She did not try to be heroic.
She held her daughter down while bullets struck pavement several yards away and thought, with terrible clarity, that whoever wanted James's evidence had just stopped pretending this was about law. Sirens approached from both directions. The attackers retreated. One dropped a radio earpiece near the shoulder as he ran. Another abandoned a magazine pouch stamped with a county inventory number that had been partly ground away.
The black SUVs escaped before responding units closed the highway. Daniel suffered a shallow cut from broken glass along his upper arm. One state investigator had a bruised shoulder from the collision. No one else was seriously injured. Nia sat on the pavement beside Tessa afterward, both of them shaking.
"You okay?" she asked.
Tessa nodded too quickly.