Maddox sat opposite him across a small table. "They set me up."
"Who?"
"The federal people. They drove through town to provoke me."
"Did they violate a traffic law?"
Maddox looked away. "Their windows were dark."
"You originally wrote obstructed view. Then you wrote erratic driving. The video appears to show neither."
"You're supposed to be on my side."
"I am. That's why I'm explaining the problem before a prosecutor does."
At the detention hearing, prosecutors presented evidence of risk to witnesses and the possibility that Maddox could interfere with records not yet seized. His attorney requested release under strict conditions, pointing out that Maddox had strong ties to the community. The judge considered the arguments, the applicable standards, and the evidence of threats before ordering continued detention pending trial. The decision was not a declaration of guilt. It was a preventive ruling in a case where witnesses had already described intimidation.
Outside the courthouse, reporters stood behind barriers and asked questions through a forest of microphones. Several treated the story like a contest between a powerful federal official and a foolish local officer. Others focused on the larger network. A Black journalist from Montgomery asked why the public had ignored complaints about Willow Grove until prominent federal employees were detained. The question appeared in newspapers far beyond Alabama.
Nyla read the coverage with mixed feelings. She wanted the exposure to help other victims come forward, but she disliked seeing Dominic's photograph treated as proof that an abuse was serious. His title had made people pay attention. The harm had existed before his arrival.
In the Brooks family home, their mother, Ruth, sat at the dining table with a stack of messages from friends and relatives. Thomas had died three years earlier. His photograph stood on a shelf beside family graduation portraits. Ruth had watched the footage that investigators had released from official recordings after the initial evidentiary review. She had turned it off when Maddox pointed the firearm at her son.
"I know how trained you are," she told Dominic when he visited. "I know you were thinking. But none of that changes what I saw."
He sat beside her. "I know."
"People keep saying you're lucky you were a federal agent." Her voice tightened. "That doesn't sound like luck to me. It sounds like a country with a problem."
Dominic considered the wording. "Both can be true. I had options other people don't. That's why we're investigating what happened to them."
Ruth reached for his hand and held it the way she had when he was a boy. "Your father would be proud of that part."