By Saturday evening, the team had identified seven people with closely related complaints whose convictions or pending charges deserved renewed scrutiny, not counting Olivia. They were Tasha Williams, Marcus Johnson, Elena Martinez, Luis Lopez, Denise Carter, Leon Whitfield, and Carla Reyes. Denise had lost a hospital housekeeping job; Leon had been separated from a toddler daughter during pretrial detention; Carla had accepted a plea after her employer stopped paying her legal expenses. Each represented a life rearranged by allegations that needed to be tested again.
Maya pinned their names beside Olivia's on the cabin's corkboard. She had begun the week trying to save one sister. Now she could see why Olivia had risked so much on people whose stories never made the front page. The board did not show a solved conspiracy; it showed an obligation to keep investigating until each name represented a person with a fair hearing rather than a convenient statistic.
Near midnight, Maya's phone rang from an unfamiliar number. She answered cautiously, and a man's voice introduced himself as Detective Harris. He said he had information about missing evidence logs and wanted to speak with a lawyer connected to an outside investigation. Before Maya could answer, he added a sentence that made her grip the phone more tightly.
"I knew your father," Harris said. "And I let him down. I don't want to do the same thing to your sister."
Harris refused to explain the details over the phone, and Maya refused to promise secrecy beyond what she could responsibly keep. They agreed that he would speak with an attorney from the outside investigative team first, with Maya present only if counsel considered it appropriate. Harris accepted the boundary without argument. The reluctance in his voice sounded different from Reed's careful threats; it sounded like a man who had spent years rehearsing an apology and was suddenly running out of time to deliver it.
Sarah listened as Maya described the call. "If Harris is serious, he needs to make a formal statement to investigators," she said. "And he needs to disclose his own involvement, not just point at someone above him."
"He said he knew Dad."
"A lot of people knew your father. What matters now is what Harris can prove and what he's prepared to say under oath."
Maya nodded, though the answer left her uneasy. Thomas had died eight years earlier, and anyone who now stepped forward with memories of that period risked changing what the family had believed about his last days. She had long imagined an answer that would make every painful detail fit neatly into place. She was beginning to understand that truth often made a story more complicated before it made it clearer.