"How fast can you get here?" she asked.
"We're in the parking lot."
The FBI field office in Albuquerque is a multi-story brick building on Luecking Park Avenue, sandstone and brown brick with a southwestern facade that almost makes it look like it belongs here. Almost. The flagpoles and the boulders lining the manicured lawn give it away. Government landscaping always looks like someone tried too hard to make authority feel approachable.
Agent Torres is smaller than I expected. Five-four at most, with dark hair pulled back tight and a face that gives away absolutely nothing. She's wearing a navy blazer over a white button-down, no jewelry, no makeup beyond the basics. She looks like a woman who decided a long time ago that her appearance was the least interesting thing about her, and she was right.
She meets us in a conference room on the third floor, closes the door, pulls the blinds, and sits across from us with her hands folded on the table.
"Mr. Holloway." She looks at Colt with an expression I can't read. "I've received your messages."
"All of them?"
"Every single one. I didn't return them because I had nothing to offer you. No evidence, no witnesses, no case I could take to a prosecutor. Responding to tell you that would have been unkind, and I don't enjoy being unkind."
"You could have at least said that." Colt's voice is level, but the energy coming off his body is anything but.
He's sitting in a federal conference room with his hat on the table and his shoulders squared and his boots planted flat on the floor, and the stillness of him is deceptive. I've seen bulls stand this still in the chute. Right before the gate opens.
Torres shifts her gaze to me. "Ms. Corbin. I'm sorry about your brother. Grant contacted me through Flint before he died. He had the outline of a case, but he was building it piecemeal, and he died before he could deliver the evidence."
"He delivered it," I say. "Just not to you directly."
I open the canvas bag and spread the contents across the conference table.
Torres doesn't reach for anything. She sits and looks at the spread the way a chess player looks at a board, taking in the positions before committing to a move. Her eyes track from the photographs to the financials to the text messages, and I watch her calculate.
"Where did this come from?" she asks.
"Rainey Weathers. Grant's partner. She compiled it with Flint before Las Cruces and stored copies in a safety deposit box. She's been in hiding since Grant's death."
"Is she willing to testify?"
"She'll provide a signed statement and cooperate with the investigation. She won't testify publicly unless you can guarantee her safety."
Torres picks up the text message printout. She reads it, and her expression doesn't change, but her thumb presses hard against the edge of the paper.
"This is from Dale Thornton's phone," she says. "We've had his number flagged for months. The unknown number will need to be traced, but if it's a burner purchased in the area around the time of these messages, we can work with that." She sets the paper down carefully, as if it might detonate. "I'll have our forensic analysts run the number today. If we can tie itto a purchase location, or to any other communications in our existing file, this becomes the centerpiece of the case."
She looks at Colt. "But you were right. I know you've been saying it for weeks, and I know nobody listened. You were right."
Colt absorbs the validation without moving. The cords in his neck pull tight once. That's it.
I know what that restraint is costing him because I watched him crack open over a bourbon last night and I know what lives underneath the surface he's showing Torres. He wants to flip this table. He wants to drive to Merrick's ranch and drag the man out by his collar and hold that text message in front of his face. Instead, he sits in a government chair and accepts a federal agent's apology with a jaw flex.
Watching him control himself is its own kind of devastating. The discipline of it. The contained violence vibrating beneath his skin like a current running through a wire. I've felt that current. I know what it does when it's aimed at something other than restraint. I redirect my attention to Torres before my thoughts go somewhere that doesn't belong in a federal building.
"What can you do with this?" Colt asks. His voice is controlled, but I hear the strain beneath the surface, the effort of staying seated when every cell in his body wants to solve this problem with his hands instead of paperwork.
"I can build a case." Torres taps the financial documents. "These shell company records, combined with the wire transfers and the prize money fraud documentation, give me enough for warrants. Financial fraud, wire fraud, money laundering. The photographs of Vic with the animals establish the drugging protocol. The text messages establish intent and direct orders." She pauses. "The message ordering Grant to be 'handled' is circumstantial for murder, but combined with the pattern of Tyler Brennan's death and the other evidence, a prosecutor will take this seriously."
"How long?" I ask.
"To build a case this size? Months. Warrants, forensic accounting, depositions. Merrick has money and lawyers. He'll fight every subpoena, challenge every piece of evidence, and drag this through every procedural delay his legal team can manufacture."
Colt's jaw sets. "Months."
"Justice isn't fast, Mr. Holloway. It's thorough, or it fails." Torres meets his gaze. "If you go after Merrick directly, if you tip him off, he will destroy evidence, move assets, and potentially flee the jurisdiction. Everything your friend died for will be wasted. I need you to let me work."
