You walk out tonight. You go home to your family. Nobody's life gets ruined except the truth. The truth.
Men like you sign, go home, and keep driving your nice car. That's the deal this county has always offered. Most folks are smart enough to take it.
My father took that deal in 1981 on the side of the road on his knees. I watched what it cost him for the rest of his life. I'm not signing. This offer won't be here after tonight. Sign it before midnight or we keep digging into the case, into you, into everything. Then I suggest you don't lose the paperwork, Captain.
Lennox pushed the paper back across the table with two fingers. For the first time all evening, the calm on Puit's face slipped. He snatched up the document and walked out and the door closed hard behind him.
Lennox sat alone with his hands folded on the table and looked at the dark camera lens in the corner. He could have ended all of it hours ago. One sentence, one phone call to Naomi Castellan. The cuffs would have come off, and they would have started calling him sir. That was exactly why he hadn't said it.
If he told them who he was, he would learn how they treated a sheriff. He already knew how men like Puit treated people with power. What he needed to know was how they treated a man with none. A man like his father.
A man like the old trucker in the Panthers cap. A man like every black driver who had ever pulled onto the shoulder of Highway 64 and put his hands on the wheel and prayed. Tonight for a few more hours he was that man. And he needed to see all of it.
He looked up at the clock on the wall. seven minutes past eleven. Out in the hallway he heard Puit's voice. low but clear enough through the door. I want this closed before midnight. All of it.
Lennox watched the second hand sweep around the clock face. Miles's game would be over by now. He wondered whether his son had looked for him in the stands. He knew the answer.
Puit thought midnight was when the problem would disappear. Lennox knew it was when the building would finally find out who it had locked in that room.
At a quarter to midnight, a dark county sedan pulled up in front of the building. A woman in a navy suit stepped out with a leather folder, followed by a heavyset older man holding a thick county file against his chest. Puit met them at the door before the dispatcher could stand.
Naomi Castellan introduced herself as the county attorney. The man beside her was Frank Ostrander, chairman of the board of county commissioners. We're here for Lennox Hargrove. Mr. Hargrove is being held in connection with possession of restricted county material.