Silas looked at Nolan while the call continued. A new kind of attention had entered the old man's face, but he did not ask the question that was waiting behind it. Neither did Nolan. The riders returned to the highway after the material had been secured, but they stopped at a closed filling station to make calls and wait for the lawyer's instructions. Rain rattled across the metal canopy and ran down the sides of a vending machine that no longer worked. Under that shelter, surrounded by motorcycles and exhausted men, Nolan began to understand what it meant for a secret to become a public record.
It would not happen because somebody shouted the truth loudly enough. It would happen because each statement could be checked against a document, each document against its source, each source against a person willing to answer questions under oath. Elias had built the record to withstand that kind of examination, and Nolan intended not to fail him at the last step.
Cord came out of his truck with his phone in hand. "Pike's lawyers moved," he said. "They're trying to get emergency relief in county court over the documents recovered from Harwick. They say the garage is private property and that we're about to publish confidential material. They've named you, Nolan, and Silas as possible respondents."
The group went quiet. Nolan had expected threats in the form of strangers outside his apartment, not papers arriving through a courthouse after business hours. He looked at the card with Sandra Reeves's name, then back at Cord.
"Can he stop us from giving this to investigators?" he asked.
"He can try to restrict public disclosure while a judge reviews ownership and confidentiality claims," Cord answered. "He can't erase evidence just by calling it inconvenient. But if a court enters an order, we need to know exactly what it says before we act."
Silas called the lawyer Frances had recommended. The lawyer advised them to preserve everything, suspend any public release, and be prepared to challenge the request with evidence about the age, source, and public significance of the documents. He would not promise a quick victory, and Nolan found that refusal strangely reassuring.
"Pike offered us a meeting while his attorneys were preparing an order," Nolan said after the call. "He wasn't trying to understand us. He was buying time."
"Then we don't let him set the timetable by himself," Silas replied. "We respond through counsel. We identify every witness. And we make sure the families know they have a right to be represented, too."
Nolan stared at the rain running from the canopy. Twenty-two years earlier, his father had gone to Pike before involving outside authorities, trying to offer him a chance to stop. Pike had answered by isolating the one man who knew too much. Now Pike was offering the same kind of private meeting while trying to prevent anything from reaching the public.
"I want to see him," Nolan said.
Silas closed his eyes briefly. "We have lawyers now. We don't need a midnight argument at Pike's house."