"I don't want any part of this," the first man said. He looked at Grim, then down the street. "I came because he said somebody took his kids. I didn't know any of the rest."
Grim did not answer for Clay. "Then stay here and tell the police what you know," he said. "Don't let him tell it for you."
Clay looked for a way to reassert control. His face had gone red, and he was breathing harder, but the arrival of more vehicles at the intersection gave him fewer options than he had in the diner parking lot. An unmarked sedan stopped behind the pickup. Two uniformed officers moved into view from the next street, and another vehicle arrived with federal agents who showed credentials and issued clear instructions. Grim stepped back at once, taking himself out of the space between the officers and Clay.
"Clay Mercer," one agent said, "we need you to stand where you are and keep your hands visible." Clay looked around, recognized the number of witnesses and officers, and finally complied. He asked for an attorney, which Grim considered the first sensible request he had heard from the man. The officer acknowledged it and continued the process without allowing Clay to turn the situation into an argument about who had the right to speak. In a matter of minutes the man who had claimed to know everyone worth knowing was placed in a vehicle to be questioned through the justice system he had spent years manipulating.
Grim stood beside Danny and watched without triumph. The formal end of the confrontation was almost ordinary: doors opening, people recording information, the scrape of shoes on pavement. There was no swelling music, no crowd, no grand speech from the man being led away. The absence of drama seemed appropriate. What had happened to Sarah was not a spectacle that needed a theatrical conclusion.
Keene arrived after the first vehicles had secured the street. He looked tired, the kind of tired that belonged to people who had been awake doing paperwork while other people imagined every important decision happened outdoors. "Hayes," he said. "You were supposed to wait."
Grim looked at him. "I did wait. He came to me." Keene studied Danny for confirmation, and Danny nodded.
"We'll sort out the timeline in statements," Keene said. "The records Jesse brought match enough other material for us to pursue multiple lines of investigation. That doesn't mean every allegation is proved. It means we have reason to proceed." Grim looked toward the vehicle containing Clay.
"And the women?" he asked. Keene's expression changed. "We're contacting families. Some of those conversations are going to be difficult. We have locations to check and people to find."
"Natalie Vance?" Grim asked. Keene was quiet for a moment. "Her name is one of the priorities," he said.
"I'm not going to tell you something we haven't confirmed. If we learn what happened to her, her family will hear it from us before anyone else." Grim accepted the answer because he recognized the same honesty he had offered Rosie at the dinner table. It would have been easier to promise the neat resolution he wanted. It would not have been truer.