It was the first genuinely protective thing he had done in the entire story, and it came, like all his good instincts, far too late to save anything but a fragment of his own soul.

Chapter 17 — The Warehouse

Christopher tracked Samuel to an abandoned warehouse in San Jose, and when it became clear what he intended, I put the police on the phone, and the detective beside me kept him talking while the tactical units moved.

I will keep this brief.

There was a confrontation.

Christopher, hurt as he already was, threw himself at Samuel to keep him from fleeing, and the tactical units arrived in time — in time to arrest Samuel as he tried to slip out a loading dock, and in time to keep Christopher’s reckless, half-redemptive gesture from being a fatal one.

In Samuel’s backpack they found the cash, the forged papers, and the two hard drives holding the complete master backup of the entire blackmail network.