"It's my brother, my fucking story. You're not giving it to anybody."

He raised his hands in a calming manner. He knew his suggestion was way out of bounds.

"Then work the phones and come back to me with something.

"Look, don't you see what you're saying? You're saying don't go without the proof. But I need to go to get the proof.

Chicago. He said we'd still have to talk about D.C., but I knew that if I got to Chicago I would get to Washington.

As I typed, the picture of my brother kept Coming back to me. Now that sterile, lifeless photo bothered me. For I had believed the impossible. I had let him down and now felt a keener sense of guilt. It was my brother in that car, my twin. It was me.

Back at my desk, I opened up a new computer file and began typing in everything I knew about the deaths of Theresa Lofton and my brother. I put down every detail I could remember from the files. The phone rang but I didn't answer it. I only typed. I knew I needed to start with a base of information. Then I would use 1 to knock apart the case against my brother. Glenn had finally cut a deal with me. If I got the cops to reopen my brother's case, I'd go to Chicago.

With four pages of notes which I then checked after an hour of study and thought about the questions I had to find the answers to. I had found that if I looked at the facts of the case from the opposite perspective, believing Sean had been murdered and had not taken his own life, I saw something the cops had possibly missed. Their mistake had been their predisposition to believe and therefore accept that Sean had killed himself They knew Sean and knew he was burdened by the Theresa Lofton case. Or maybe it was something every cop could believe about ever other cop. Maybe they'd all seen too many corpses and the only surprise was that most didn't kill themselves. But when I sifted through the facts with a disbeliever's eye, I saw what they did not see.

I studied the list I had written on a page in my notebook.

Pena: his hands?

after-how long?

Wexler/Scalari: the car?

heater?

lock?

Riley: gloves?

I realized I could handle Riley by phone. I dialed and was about to hang up after six rings when she picked up.

"Riley? It's Jack. You okay? This a bad time?"

"When's a good time?"

It sounded like she had been drinking.

"You want me to come out, Riley? I'm coming out."

,'No, don't, Jack. I'm okay. Just, you know, one of those blue days. I keep thinking about him, you know?"

"Yes. I think about him, too."

"Then how come you hadn't been around for so long before he went and ... I'm sorry, I shouldn't bring things up ...