Jesse answered with painstaking precision. He described copying accounts from an office computer, transferring audio files from his recorder, and preserving the dates exactly as he found them. He admitted that some pages were photographs of ledgers rather than original files. He told them which handwriting belonged to Clay and which belonged to a bookkeeper he suspected knew very little about the larger operation. He also described the places where he had guessed at a connection instead of confirming one.
"That's important," one agent said. "Don't improve your memory to make the story stronger. We can work with what you actually know. We can't work with a story that changes because you're afraid we won't believe you." Jesse nodded, and for the first time the relief on his face looked like relief at being told he could stop carrying more certainty than he possessed.
The interview lasted almost two hours. Jesse admitted he had driven vehicles to addresses he later learned were tied to threats and unlawful detentions, and that he had delivered envelopes without asking enough questions. His account was not the tale of a clean hero emerging from a villain's house.
It was the story of a frightened young man who had participated in things he should have refused and then tried, much too late, to correct them. When the agent asked why he had finally come forward, he told her about Natalie Vance and said, "I keep thinking somebody could have made one call the night she vanished. Nobody did. I want to be the somebody who does it now."
While Jesse was being interviewed, Grim spoke separately about Sarah's condition, the children arriving at the diner, his observations near the trailer, and Clay's appearance at the parking lot. He answered questions he disliked and corrected the agent twice when her description made him sound braver than he believed himself to be. "It wasn't bravery," he said. "The boy needed food, and his mother needed to leave. Everything after that was people doing what should've been done long before last night."
He omitted none of the fact that he had confronted Clay at the trailer. When asked whether force had been used, he gave an account that was plain and unflattering, identifying the moments when he had struggled to keep his anger out of his decisions. The investigator listened without approving of him or condemning him on the spot. Grim found that easier to bear than admiration. He had not brought Sarah out so his own history could be revised.
Before the agents departed, Keene called again. "We have enough to seek additional orders," he told Grim.
"Financial records are being preserved, and investigators are contacting other agencies about the women named in the files. I need you to stay available. This is not the part where you make one more ride and finish it for us." Grim heard the warning. "Understood," he said, though obedience felt like trying to keep a motorcycle balanced without moving.
Jesse came out of the office looking drained. He had been told he might need counsel, and he had taken the advice seriously. Millie put a plate of toast in front of him and told him the table could wait until he had something in his stomach. "Do they hate me?"