“We still can’t make a homicide case on George. Not yet.” She paused. “But the state lab reexamined one of the crash-scene photographs. There’s evidence consistent with brake-line tampering. Enough to change the classification from accidental to suspicious pending further investigation.”
I stood very still.
It was not enough. It was more than nothing.
“That means?”
“It means if Brendan Low sneezes wrong in the next six months, I’ll have authority to look at him harder.” She handed me the file. “And it means George wasn’t crazy.”
I looked down at the report.
No, I thought. George had never been crazy. Only careful. Too careful. Careful enough to carry everything alone until carefulness became one more vulnerability for a bad man to exploit.
Torres glanced through the kitchen window toward the yard, where Helena was teaching one of the newer residents how to transplant tomatoes while Owen, now sturdier on his feet, waddled after a plastic truck in the dirt.
“You built something good here, Amanda.”
I smiled a little.
“We built it.”
She nodded once.