“I understand,” I said.

She left the room, and a nurse replaced her. There were papers to sign and a medical history to provide, and when David’s hand shook too much to write, I signed the papers, and when his voice shook too much to talk, I answered the questions.

A team came in soon after to do another EEG, and I left to give them room to work. I was surprised to find Riley in the corridor outside the room. He was on his feet, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he was sleeping. Asleep on his feet, like an old horse in a stall.

I walked past him to the end of the hall and got my phone out and called Dev Kapoor. He knew what to do even before I told him. “I’ll be there as soon as I can round up an ADA and a court reporter,” he said. He added: “This would also be a good time to send over the expert video report.”

I deliberated for only a moment. “Yes,” I decided. It was time to catch all the spinning plates in the air and set them down in their places. “And Dev, those papers we discussed?”

“Printing out as we speak.”

A different nurse was fussing with David’s IV when I returned to his room, so I took up position next to Riley in the hall.

“By the way,” he said. He wasn’t asleep after all, though his eyes were still half closed. “I finally figured out those papers in your briefcase.”

I closed my own eyes then, with a silent sigh of relief. But all I said was: “Those are confidential business records, Detective.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Is that why you made it so hard on us? It was like some kind of crazy scavenger hunt, with all your little Post-it puzzles.”

“Would you have believed me if I flat-out told you?”

He thought a minute and shrugged. “Probably not. Certainly not enough to kick it to the feds. But they have it now.”

“Ah.”

“The Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. They can manage all the multi-jurisdictional stuff. Plus I hear they have an informant. Wired up.”

“Really?” I wondered who it could be.

“So you won’t have to break your precious duty of confidentiality.” Riley said the last part with a sneer.

The nurse backed out of David’s room, wheeling her cart of equipment, and I headed back in. But I stopped at the door. “I guess I should thank you, Detective. For finding him and bringing him in.”

“I got lucky.”

I shook my head. “He’s the one who got lucky.”

DAVID WAS ASLEEP again, or pretending to be, and I sat by the window and waited him out. Dev texted me his ETA, and I confirmed. At four o’clock, Mark Ivins sent me a text and fired off another four in quick succession. When I didn’t reply, he started calling at five-minute intervals. I turned my phone off.