“Already happening.”
“He has a daughter.”
“I know.”
“To where?”
Calder looked at him.
“You know I’m not telling you until we know your communications are clean.”
Jamal nodded.
Under normal circumstances he would have resented it.
Tonight he appreciated caution.
Nathan Cole entered.
He closed the door.
“We’re suspending Blue Harbor.”
Jamal stared.
“For how long?”
“Indefinitely.”
“We still have wire intercepts.”
“Targets know something happened.”
“We can pivot.”
“Not with you.”
Jamal’s jaw tightened.
“I know.”
Nathan sat.
“You’re burned.”
“I know.”
“You are not responsible.”
Jamal laughed without humor.
“That makes it better.”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“This could’ve ended with you shot by a police officer in a parking garage.”
“I’m aware.”
“So stop looking at the board like the worst thing that happened is losing a case.”
Jamal looked away.
The words landed because Nathan was right.
But that did not erase the cost.
Blue Harbor had begun with four overdose deaths.
Two in Tacoma.
One in Eugene.
One in Spokane.
Same fentanyl marker.
Same cutting agent.
Same packaging style.
Months of analysis traced distribution upward.
Jamal infiltrated through a freight contact.
Then a courier.
Then Dale.
Another two months and he might have met Bellamy directly.
Now Bellamy knew enough to disappear.
The investigation would continue.
Probably.
But not in the same shape.
Evidence aged.
Witnesses panicked.
Phones changed.
Money moved.
People died while law enforcement rebuilt.
That was the part nobody on social media would understand.
The parking-garage video looked like humiliation.
To Jamal, the real damage existed in names disappearing from screens.
Nathan pushed a document toward him.
“You’re going home.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m fine.”
“You had a gun pointed at you by local police three hours ago.”
“That has happened before.”
“Not while you were on your knees explaining you’re federal.”
Jamal stared.
Nathan continued.
“Forty-eight hours.”
“I don’t need forty-eight.”
“This isn’t a request.”
Jamal looked at Calder.
She nodded.
“Go home.”
He stood.
“What about Holloway?”
Nathan’s expression hardened.
“Not our problem tonight.”
“It will be.”
“Yes.”
Jamal left.
He did not go directly home.
Instead he drove to his sister’s house.
Monica Reynolds lived in Renton with her husband Andre and their twelve-year-old son Caleb.
Jamal had no children.
No wife.
One serious relationship had ended five years earlier largely because undercover work made normal intimacy nearly impossible.
Monica remained the only person who could look at Jamal when he said he was fine and respond with complete disbelief.
She opened the door at 10:13 p.m.
She looked at his face.
Then his wrists.
“What happened?”
“Can I come in?”
“What happened?”
“Inside.”
Andre was watching basketball.
He muted the television immediately when Jamal entered.
Caleb was upstairs.
Monica folded her arms.
“Talk.”
Jamal sat.
“There was an incident at work.”
“You’re bleeding?”