Deputy Morris stands beside the driver’s door.
Tyler raises his weapon.
Morris raises both hands.
“I’m with you.”
Mara says, “Convenient.”
“I know.”
“You were outside the courthouse.”
“I know.”
“You assaulted him.”
Morris looks at Tyler.
“I know.”
Tyler doesn’t lower his gun.
Morris continues.
“Dolan told us you were destroying the department. Said the whole case was political. I believed him.”
“And now?”
“I heard Bishop confess after the arrest.”
He looks toward the gunfire.
“And I watched Pike’s people burn our station.”
Tyler stares at him.
Morris tosses his weapon onto the ground.
“You don’t have to trust me.”
He opens the car door.
“But take the damn car.”
Tyler and Mara get in.
Before Tyler starts the engine, headlights appear on the road ahead.
Two black trucks block the gate.
Pike’s men.
Mara looks behind them.
More men approach through the cemetery.
They’re trapped.
Morris picks his weapon back up.
“Drive.”
“Where?”
“Through it.”
Tyler floors the accelerator.
The patrol car races toward the trucks.
Gunfire cracks against the windshield.
Glass fractures.
Mara ducks.
Tyler doesn’t.
At the last second, one truck moves partially aside.
Not enough.
The patrol car slams into its front quarter panel.
Metal screams.
Airbags explode.
The vehicle spins.
Tyler’s head strikes the side window.
Everything goes dark.
When Tyler wakes, he is on the ground.
His hands are tied.
Mara lies several feet away.
Conscious.
Blood on her forehead.
Pike stands over them.
He has the evidence tube.
“All that trouble for paper.”
Tyler struggles against the restraints.
“Where’s my father?”
Pike looks toward the cemetery.
“Still breathing when I left him.”
Tyler lunges.
A man kicks him back down.
Pike crouches.
“You know what I like about your family?”
Tyler says nothing.
“Both of you think suffering makes you moral.”
Tyler spits blood.
“No.”
Pike smiles.
“No?”
“It just makes you hurt.”
Pike’s smile fades slightly.
Tyler continues.
“What you do afterward decides the rest.”
Pike studies him.
“Your father teach you that?”
“No.”
Tyler looks at him.
“He taught me by getting it wrong.”
Pike laughs.
Then he opens the evidence tube.
Empty.
His face changes.
He looks at Mara.
She smiles.
“Copies.”
Pike slaps her.
Tyler struggles.
“Where are they?”
Mara spits blood at Pike’s shoe.
“Federal cloud server.”
Pike freezes.
She smiles wider.
“Uploaded ten minutes before you arrived.”
For the first time, Vernon Pike looks afraid.
Sirens rise in the distance.
Not county sirens.
State police.
Federal vehicles.
Pike stands.
“Kill them.”
His men raise their weapons.
A gunshot cracks from the darkness.
One gunman falls.
Another shot.
Second man drops.
Tyler turns.
Sheriff Walker stands at the cemetery gate.
Blood runs down one side of his uniform.
He can barely stand.
But his revolver is steady.
“Nobody touches my son.”
Pike grabs Tyler and presses a pistol against his head.
Walker stops.
Pike smiles.
“There he is.”
Tyler closes his eyes.
Eighteen years ago.
Same choice.
Same threat.
Same father.
Same son.
Pike speaks.
“Put the gun down.”
Walker looks at Tyler.
Tyler sees it.
The fear.
Exactly what destroyed the investigation eighteen years earlier.
Pike presses the weapon harder against Tyler’s head.
“Choose him again.”
Walker slowly lowers his revolver.