His younger brother.
Richard had once been a state police captain.
He had been Thomas's godfather.
He had stood beside Walter at funerals and family celebrations.
He had also been secretly connected to Director.
Walter demanded answers.
Richard admitted that the network had begun decades earlier when Ellen Bennett, Walter's wife, discovered corruption involving seized evidence.
She had gone to Richard because she trusted him.
Together, they had discovered that the corruption reached far beyond a few officers.
Prosecutors.
Sheriffs.
Judges.
Contractors.
The system was deeply compromised.
They could not destroy it from the outside.
So they tried to control it from within.
Director was created as a secret operation.
At first, money and evidence were redirected toward witnesses, injured officers, families, and people abandoned by the system.
But the operation grew.
What began as an attempt to fight corruption became another form of corruption.
People joined for money.
Then power.
Then protection.
Cole was one of them.
Morrow was another.
Margaret Vale was another.
Walter asked the question that mattered most.
What happened to Thomas?
Richard told him Thomas had discovered the truth.
Thomas had learned about the hidden network and had begun documenting it.
He was being followed by Margaret Vale because she wanted a ledger Thomas possessed.
Thomas tried to escape on Mill Creek Road.
His vehicle crashed.
But the official story had been altered.
Walter had been told that Thomas fell asleep.
The truth was that Thomas had been trying to escape someone pursuing him.
The altered report had been created to protect the investigation.
Walter was devastated.
For years he had blamed himself for not recognizing the signs.
For years Claire, Thomas's daughter, had believed her father died because he was exhausted.
Then Walter asked another question.
Who had been responsible for changing the report?
Richard looked away.
A floorboard creaked.
Someone entered the room.
Walter turned.
He stopped breathing.
It was Ellen.
His wife.
The woman he had mourned for three years.
The woman whose funeral he had attended.
The woman whose grave he visited every Sunday.
She was alive.
Walter could barely speak.
“You died.”
Ellen cried.
“I know.”
He demanded to know whose body he had buried.
Richard explained that Ellen had been removed through a federal witness-protection operation. Someone inside the network had discovered her identity.
She had been told that if she stayed, Walter and Claire would be killed.
So she disappeared.
She allowed Walter to believe she was dead.