"And you've looked at every file?" "No," Jesse admitted. "Not every one. Some of the names I couldn't stand to keep reading."
Grim accepted the drive and turned it over in his hand. Seven women, six months of gathering evidence, a deputy who could turn ordinary traffic stops into a tool for keeping people quiet. He had thought the night concerned one violent man and one family. The young man in front of him had just described something much larger. Grim felt the old temptation to act as though force could solve an entire system because it could interrupt one part of it. He knew better now, though knowing better did not make restraint comfortable.
"You're going to need legal protection," Grim told Jesse. "I need more than that," Jesse said. "If Clay finds out I gave you this, he'll make sure I never get to talk to anybody."
Grim considered him. "Then don't go back. Stay where I can find you, don't telephone your old contacts, and tell the investigators everything. If you've done something criminal, lying about it won't turn it into something else."
Jesse looked as though he had expected more reassurance. Grim offered none. "You think they'll put me in prison?" Jesse asked. "Maybe," Grim said.
"I don't know what you did. But there are seven women attached to this thing, and some of their families have been waiting for answers. That matters more than protecting you from the consequences of your own choices." Jesse lowered his eyes, then nodded. "I know," he said.
Inside, Millie had called Linda. The sisters had spent most of their lives disagreeing about everything from pie crust to the proper place to keep spare keys, but there were certain subjects on which they never hesitated. Millie told her there was a mother with two children, that the mother had been hurt, and that the children needed somewhere safe where nobody would ask questions for a while. Linda asked how old the children were and whether anybody needed a doctor. Then she told Millie to stop talking and give her the expected arrival time.
"She says yes," Millie told Sarah when she returned to the booth. "She says she has clean sheets and a lock on the gate. She also says if anybody's hungry when they arrive, she's making pancakes."
Rosie, awake now, looked at her mother. "Can I have four?" she whispered. Sarah smiled through exhaustion. "You can have as many as you want, baby."
Frank and Dolores overheard the discussion about transportation. Frank approached Grim near the counter and held out a key ring. "Our sedan's out front," he said. "Full tank, decent tires, and enough room for a mother and two children to sleep on the way if they have to."
Grim studied him. "I can't ask you to do that." "You didn't," Frank said. "I offered. There's a difference."