“And at this point, Cal, roughly fifty of the victims were still alive, including, of course, your own daughter.”

Licia.

“I used to wonder if it was a conspiracy that cost me my daughter. But now I see that it’s simple incompetence.”

A pause.

A moment of dead air.

“I . . . I mean, she was just . . .”

The cameraman looking up from the viewfinder.

The fear that grief might overwhelm me.

I swallowed the pain and stepped closer, stared straight down the lens. “I don’t know which is worse: the cowardice of the first two officers, who were unwilling to lay down their lives—for children, Carly, for our children—or the incompetence of the tactical unit, whose rubber boat nearly sank on the way to rescue those same children’s lives.”

Anger was coursing through my veins. I heard Carly’s breath in my ear. I felt the cameraman’s eyes on me as he tightened the shot. I turned away. I blinked the image of Licia’s face from my mind.

I turned to face the camera. The cameraman sent me a questioning look. I nodded. The cameraman nodded back. He put his eye to his viewfinder.

Ready.

“It’s the anniversary—a year to the day since the massacre on Garden Island. The police failed our children on that day, and a year later those same police are still failing our children. That this film was kept out of evidence is a national disgrace. They knew the truth. Tvist must be brought to account.”

Dan called me immediately. “Why were you ever a satirist? You were honestly never that good at it. This is clearly what you were born to do.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”

“This was great work, brother. Sincere and relatable. You threw a bomb at the man, Cal. You threw a fucking bomb at him.

“A bomb?”

“Of course, you have to assume he’s going to throw a bomb right back. But that’s the job. Get ahead of these people, or they will screw you.”

I heard the call-waiting tone.

“Dan, I think Elsa’s calling.”

“Love you, brother. You’re a newsman, Cal. A fucking newsman.”

I selected Elsa’s call.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“So, I’m kind of dumbfounded.” The warmth and the love in Elsa’s voice. “And on the anniversary too. That was . . . yeah . . .”

I realized with a jolt that Elsa was crying. And God, at that moment, how I longed for the world as it once was.

“Cal? Would you please say something?”

Tears were smudging my vision. I wanted so badly to believe in my wife, and in her innocence.

“Sorry,” I said. “Yes.”