Of course she had. Two years after the siege, the final major Brass Locust proceeding ended. The judge sentenced Bryce after a long hearing that included statements from procurement officials, former deputies, military personnel, Cole's family and Nia. She almost declined to speak because the case was not centered on her alone. Then she decided one point needed saying.
She stood at the podium and looked at Bryce across the courtroom.
"You spent years treating systems as tools," she said. "A grant was a place to hide money. A sheriff's office was protection. A classification rule was a curtain."
She kept her eyes on Bryce. "A person's reputation was something to destroy if they noticed too much. My father believed systems were promises. He was not naive about people. He was stubborn about process because process is what lets ordinary people challenge power without becoming powerful themselves."
She paused.
"What happened to my family matters. What happened to Lieutenant Cole matters. What happened to the people held off books matters. But the most important question is not whether you are punished enough to satisfy us. It is whether the systems you exploited become harder for the next person to exploit."
Bryce did not look at her. Nia returned to her seat. After court, reporters asked whether the sentence gave her closure. She disliked the word.
"A door closes," she said. "This isn't a door. It's a record. The record is finally accurate. That's enough for today."
Tessa later told her that line was better than the speech.
"Shorter," she said. "Editors love shorter."
Nia rolled her eyes. By then, Tessa had transferred into investigative journalism full time. Her capstone project focused on how small counties handled tactical-unit authorization and public-record retention after misconduct scandals. She won a regional award for it and annoyed her mother by thanking "three generations of Ellison record keepers" in the acceptance speech. Nia watched from the audience beside Evelyn.
"She's good," Evelyn whispered.
"Too good."
"You say that like it's a problem."
"It becomes a problem when she calls me for comment."
Evelyn smiled. "Justice." Daniel retired from federal service the following year. At his small retirement gathering, he gave Nia James's Brass Locust challenge coin.
"This belongs with the family," he said.
Nia turned it over in her palm. The brass was worn at the edges. One side bore the faded insignia of the old investigative team. The other held a tiny engraved locust that had once been an inside joke and later became shorthand for a scandal.
"I don't want it," she said.
Daniel looked surprised. She closed his fingers around the coin.
"You keep it."