He made himself keep watching. He heard Cara say the registration was clean a full 15 seconds before the first swing of the baton. He watched the windows break while Lennox stood back with his hands open at his sides. He watched himself hold up the photograph like a joke. He didn't watch the rest. He didn't need to.
He selected every file and pressed delete. A box asked if he was sure. He clicked yes. Then he opened the storage menu and formatted the card. When it finished, he pulled it out, waited, pushed it back in, and formatted it a second time. The directory came up empty, clean, white, nothing.
He sat back and breathed out through his nose. Through the windshield, the Bentley sat on the shoulder like a broken animal. 40 yards back, the old man in the Panthers cap still had his phone raised. What were you doing in there, Wade? Checking the camera.
Anything on it? Corrupted. It was recording when you took it. I saw the light. Recording doesn't mean saving. You got a problem with that, Beckett?
She didn't answer. She just looked at the plastic evidence bag he dropped the camera into and she noticed that he didn't seal it. The tow truck was 40 minutes late. A light rain started while they waited, just enough to bead on the broken glass.
Lennox sat in the back of Cara's cruiser with his wrists cuffed behind him and watched the rain gather on the leather seats his father would have loved. He thought about the clock. Tip off in Rocky Mount was at 7:00. Miles would look up into the stands before the opening tip.
He always did. Lennox closed his eyes for a moment and let himself feel that. Then he opened them again and put it away.
When Cara climbed into the driver's seat, he spoke for the first time since the trunk. Who has the camera? Deputy Toiver. Was it logged?
Not yet. Remember that? She looked at him in the mirror for a long second. Then she put the car in drive.
The Ridley County Sheriff's Office was a low brick building a block off the courthouse square. On a Sunday evening, it ran on a skeleton crew. Two dispatchers, a few deputies, and a property clerk eating a reheated chicken sandwich over his keyboard. When Lennox walked through the door in handcuffs, a few people glanced up. No one recognized him.
He was a 54-year-old black man in a rain-spotted coat. And in that building on that night, he was just another Sunday problem. The booking officer asked his name, his date of birth, his address. Then she asked his occupation.
Lennox paused just slightly. Public service transition work. She typed it without looking up.