And when he came to the third name — when he said Holbrook — his hands trembled, just slightly, and he set down his notepad to hide it.

It told me everything.

Someone had already reached Detective Miller.

Someone had already made a phone call, applied a pressure, offered or threatened whatever it took, and a man who was supposed to protect my daughter had been quietly converted, before he ever walked through the door, into one more part of the machinery erasing her.

“Then I suppose your investigation is finished,” I said, evenly.

And I watched relief cross his face — actual relief, the loosening of a frightened man who believes the difficult thing has just gone away on its own.