The Fifth Police Precinct reminded Lila of an elementary school, flat and long, the building blending in to the community with a quiet confidence, as might a sleeping pit bull. Niki and Lila entered together, Niki showing her badge to a woman behind a thick window. A duty officer escorted them to a conference room and then left, returning a few minutes later carrying a brown box with Lila’s name written in black marker on the front. Niki opened a binder that lay on top of the box and signed her name at the bottom of a list of people who had pulled the file over the years.

“Is there some movement in this case?” the sergeant asked.

“Nothing special, why?”

“It’s the second time in a week that I dug it out.”

Niki looked at the logbook again. “I’ll be damned.” She turned it so that Lila could read, tapping her pen on the line just above where Niki had signed.

Lila read the name. Frank Dovey. “What the…?”

Niki slid the binder back to the sergeant, and after he left, Niki said, “Why would Frank Dovey be looking into your old assault case?”

“I’m not sure. I think he holds a grudge because of the Pruitt case. But I was only a law student. Is he really that petty?”

“Yes, he is,” Niki said. “I know we’re supposed to be on the same team and all, but I can’t stand the guy. He’s a political prick, and if he’s gathering intel on you, you’d be smart to watch your back.”

“You’re preaching to the choir.”

Inside the box, Lila saw evidence bags sealed with tape. She would find her clothing from the night of the rape in those bags. She steadied her breathing and let Niki decide what to do next. Niki opened the folder that held the investigative reports. The first page was a photo of Lila, bare-breasted and groggy, the picture that had made the rounds at South High.

Nausea passed through Lila, and the further realization that Frank Dovey had seen that picture brought bile up to the back of her throat. Niki casually turned the photo facedown on the table.

“Let’s divide this up,” Niki said. “I’ll take the police reports and you go through the medicals.”

Lila opened a folder and began reading. The words the doctor used were cold and emotionless: petechiae, and laceration, and acute trauma. Other clipped phrases made Lila sound like a classroom cadaver. No observable blood or skin cells under the fingernails. Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid present. Negative presence of sperm and saliva. Swabs preserved.

Lila felt as though she were floating outside of herself, reading about some other poor girl brought to an emergency room with no memory of an attack. The doctor asked a lot of questions, but none of Lila’s answers seemed helpful. And none of them mentioned a man with a speech impediment.