At the defense table, Fenwick’s expensive lawyers had spent months trying every door.

Accidental administration.

Diminished capacity.

Police misconduct at the station.

They had argued that Cordell had no cause to lock the doors, no cause to search the bag, no cause for any of it.

And every door had closed, because the evidence chain Cordell had built in the first frantic hour held like something poured in concrete: the envelope sealed and timed at 4:17, the pharmacy serial numbers that matched the torn label to Fenwick’s own name, the station camera showing him trying to slide the second syringe into the SUV at 4:24, the forensic map of intent pulled from his own devices, and — quietly, devastatingly — the recorded interview of a calm seven-year-old girl telling a court investigator exactly what she had seen, in her own unshakable words, without anyone’s coaching in them.