"I don't know."
Evelyn's attorney smiled faintly.
"No further questions."
The jury looked confused.
Mercer looked relieved.
Evelyn did not.
She knew what was coming.
During the lunch recess, Naomi entered the courtroom.
She did not sit with Evelyn.
She walked past her without making eye contact.
That was deliberate.
Five minutes later, Evelyn received a message.
One sentence.
The footage exists.
Evelyn stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
And Mercer isn't the one who should be worried.
She looked toward the gallery.
Naomi was gone.
That night, Evelyn barely slept.
At 2:17 a.m., someone knocked on her apartment door.
She didn't answer.
The knocking came again.
Then a voice.
"Ms. Carter?"
Evelyn remained silent.
"My name is Samuel Price. I'm a reporter."
She approached the door but didn't open it.
"How do I know you're a reporter?"
"You don't."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because I have something you need."
Evelyn looked through the peephole.
Samuel stood alone in the hallway.
He held a cardboard box.
"Put it outside."
He did.
Then he walked away.
Evelyn waited several minutes before retrieving it.
Inside was a portable hard drive.
There was also a handwritten note.
Don't trust anyone wearing a badge.
She connected the drive to an isolated computer.
The first folder contained surveillance footage.
The second contained financial records.
The third contained internal police communications.
The fourth was labeled simply:
MERCER.
Evelyn opened it.
There were dozens of files.
Most were ordinary administrative records.
Then she found something else.
A spreadsheet tracking payments.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Locations.
The amounts were not enormous.
Five hundred dollars.
One thousand.
Two thousand.
Sometimes less.
But the recipients were police officers.
And the payments came from three private security companies.
Evelyn leaned back.
This was no longer a civil-rights case.
It was organized corruption.
Then she opened the final document.
Her breath stopped.
It was a surveillance photograph of her.
Taken outside her office.
The date was six months earlier.
Before the anonymous package.
Before Marcus disappeared.
Before she had ever heard Daniel Mercer's name.
Someone had been watching her from the beginning.
The next morning, Evelyn called Naomi.
"Where are you?"
"Safe."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I can give you."
"Who is investigating Mercer?"
Silence.
"Naomi?"
"You're not ready."