It was an unexpectedly difficult lesson. Richard had made questions sound like disrespect, and Chloe still flinched when somebody corrected her in a firm voice. She began keeping another notebook, separate from the one Marisol encouraged her to use for everyday goals. In this one she copied safety procedures, unfamiliar terms, and the mistakes she made during supervised work. She learned that a good technician's confidence often came from knowing exactly when to stop and ask for help.
Outside the workshop, the case continued moving. Investigators traced payments from a regional freight contractor to accounts controlled by a former county records official named Dale Mercer. Mercer had approved amendments to patrol schedules around the remote way station where Preacher was believed to have discovered the smuggling operation. The transactions were disguised as consulting and fuel-management fees, but the timing matched unusual movements of trucks recorded by independent businesses. The numbers were not dramatic on their own. Their pattern was.
Agent Vargas arranged a second interview with a former driver, Caleb Ruiz, who had left the freight contractor after a dispute over missing pay. Ruiz said he had seen Dominic Hayes near the old station on the evening he vanished. Hayes was photographing an unmarked trailer while arguing with someone who wore a county sheriff's uniform. Ruiz had not reported it because he feared losing his job and because the deputies involved controlled access to the property. He had kept a notebook of delivery times to protect himself against accusations of missing freight.
His notebook placed Richard and another county vehicle near the station during the same period that the original report claimed Richard was searching a different road. Investigators compared the entries with fuel receipts and archived radio transmissions. A former dispatcher, now retired, remembered a request to remove two units from the log before the shift ended. She had refused to sign the altered report but had never understood what the change was meant to hide. The combined statements suggested coordinated interference rather than one deputy acting alone.
The most painful development came when a survey crew searching the old freight property located disturbed ground beneath a collapsed maintenance enclosure. Investigators approached the site slowly, preserving it for specialists who could distinguish recent disturbance from years of desert weather. After days of careful work, they recovered human remains. Identification took longer. Dominic Hayes's family waited through every stage without knowing whether hope or grief would be the result.
Jack called Chloe after the identification was confirmed. His voice was quieter than she had ever heard it. "They found him," he said. "Not in the gorge. Never was in the gorge."
Chloe sat on the floor beside her bed, phone pressed to her ear. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"You didn't do this," Jack replied. "You helped us stop looking in the wrong place. His sister can bury him now. That's something we didn't think we'd ever get."