Special Agent Cho arrived in nineteen minutes.
She was younger than her voice — mid-thirties, dark suit, a calm that felt less like composure and more like discipline.
She shook my hand once, firmly, and asked for a private room.
Holt gave her his office without asking why.
She sat down, set a slim recorder on the desk between us, and looked at me.
"Before I ask you anything," she said, "I want you to understand the scope of what you walked into this morning."
"All right."
"The trial beginning today in Judge Warren's courtroom involves a federal contractor named Aldric Voss.
He is accused of routing seventeen million dollars in city infrastructure funds through shell companies over four years." She paused.
"Three witnesses who were scheduled to testify have withdrawn in the past six weeks.
One of them left the country."
I kept my voice level.
"And Judge Warren?"
"Has refused two requests from Voss's legal team to recuse herself.
She denied their last motion nine days ago." Cho folded her hands on the desk.
"The access log pulled from the courthouse system this morning — the one showing her arrival route — came from a terminal registered to a courthouse IT contractor."
"Who does that contractor work for?"
"A firm with two degrees of separation from Aldric Voss's primary holding company." She let that sit.
"We've been building this for eight months.
This morning accelerated our timeline."
"Because of Miller."
"Because of what Miller did — and when he did it." She leaned forward slightly.
"Officer Reyes, I need you to tell me about the phone call."
"I saw him on his phone at 8:09.
I didn't think anything of it."
"Did you see who he called, or who called him?"
"No.
He had his back to me."
"How long was the call?"
I thought back.
"Two minutes.
Maybe less."
"And his demeanor after the call?"
I paused.
"He was more alert.
I thought he was just — waking up.
Getting focused."
Cho nodded slowly.
"Miller's father, Raymond Miller, has been a city council member for eleven years.
In that time, he has voted in favor of every infrastructure contract that passed through the third district committee." She slid a single sheet of paper across the desk.
"Including four contracts awarded to subsidiaries connected to Aldric Voss."
I looked at the paper.
Dates, contract numbers, dollar amounts.
"You think Raymond Miller tipped off Voss's people," I said.
"And they used Tommy to—" I stopped.
"To do what, exactly?
Delay the trial?
Get the judge removed from the case?"
"At minimum," Cho said.
"If Judge Warren had been physically impaired — or if the incident had created enough legal chaos around her impartiality — the defense would have had grounds for a continuance.
Possibly a mistrial."
"Miller didn't know who she was."
"No," Cho said.
"He didn't need to.
He just needed to cause a disruption at a specific entrance at a specific time." She looked at me steadily.
"He was told there would be an unauthorized individual crossing the federal perimeter.
He was told to act decisively."
The word *decisive* landed like something cold.
"He thought he was doing his job," I said.
"He thought he was doing his father a favor," Cho said.
"Which is worse."
I sat back.
The whole morning rearranged itself in my mind — every moment reshuffling into a shape I hadn't seen before and couldn't now unsee.
"The email I received," I said.
"Came from someone inside the courthouse who has been feeding us information for three months." Cho picked up the recorder.
"They saw Miller on the phone.
They saw you standing nearby.
They wanted us to know you were a witness, not a participant." She paused.
"You're not a target, Officer Reyes.
But you are a material witness to a federal obstruction case."
"What do you need from me?"
"Everything," she said.
"Every word Miller said from the moment your shift started.
Every call, every movement, every reaction." She clicked the recorder on.
"And I need you to tell me — in your professional judgment, as a fifteen-year officer — did Tommy Miller know what he was doing this morning?"
I thought about his face when the Marshals came through the doors.
The relief.
The way he'd said *good, backup* — not *what's happening* or *why are they here*, but *good*.
"Yes," I said.
"I think some part of him did."
Cho nodded and said nothing.
The recorder kept running.
Outside the window, the city moved through its ordinary Tuesday afternoon, and somewhere across town in a federal courtroom, the Honorable Cecelia Warren was taking her seat on the bench — cheek still marked, papers reassembled, ready to begin.