Henry wiped his forehead, and his hand came away covered in sweat. He hadn’t realized how anxious he was. What the hell? he thought with amazement. I’m copying evidence in a criminal case without permission. Technically the hard drive belonged to him, of course, but still. Shad Johnson wouldn’t hesitate to jail him over something like that. “Do you have any water?”

“Through that door, down the hall.”

Henry found a water dispenser down the hall and drank two Dixie cups dry. Even the brief image of Viola Turner in obvious distress had shaken him to the core. Johnson’s revelation that he suspected Tom Cage of assisted suicide—or even murder—was too momentous for Henry to focus on now. He felt like an idiot for spending more than four hours with Viola Turner and failing to inspire enough faith for her to confide in him. After a third cup of water, he gathered himself, went back to the anteroom, and sat down.

“Wasn’t there a woman receptionist the last time I was here?” he asked distractedly.

“She got pregnant,” the young man said with apparent disdain.

Henry checked his watch twenty times before the DA’s door opened again, his mind on his upcoming interview across the river. Glenn Morehouse knew enough about the Double Eagles to break a dozen murder cases wide open, and Henry wasn’t about to postpone talking to him. If Shad Johnson didn’t come out of his office within five minutes, Henry was going to leave. He could retrieve his computer later. More than thirty minutes had passed since he’d started the video player for the DA. That made sense; the Superstream could hold thirty minutes of video at maximum resolution. What had Shad Johnson witnessed in that span of time? An assisted suicide? Or a brutal murder?

Thirty seconds before Henry’s self-imposed deadline, Johnson’s office door opened. With a sober look, the DA beckoned him back inside. Henry tried to read Johnson’s eyes, but he couldn’t tell much.

As soon as Shad closed the door behind Henry, he said, “That hard drive is evidence, Mr. Sexton. It’ll have to go into the evidence room at the sheriff’s department.”

“What’s on it?”

Shad sat down behind his desk. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“That’s my newspaper’s property, sir.”

“It’s evidence in a criminal case. End of discussion.”

“What about freedom of the press?”

Johnson gave him a thin smile. “In this situation, that and four dollars will buy you a cup of coffee. You can file a protest or hire a constitutional specialist, but that disk drive is going to the evidence room.”