That’s when I noticed the leather portfolio under his arm and the gold bar pin at his collar.

Brian had no idea who his son had become.

But I knew one thing from the look on Ethan’s face.

Whatever came next, this family was about to split wide open.

Brian made the mistake of smirking.

I call it a mistake because if he had blustered less—if he had played the patient son a little longer—Ethan might have taken me to dinner, listened to my excuses, and waited until morning before digging deeper. But Brian had inherited his father’s worst habit: mistaking years of getting away with something for proof that it was legal.

“What, you think because you wear a nice coat and flew in from Chicago, you can lecture me about my own house?” Brian said.

Ethan didn’t react. He reached into his portfolio, pulled out a business card, and handed it across the small space between them.

Brian glanced at it, and his face changed.

Ethan Cole, Assistant United States Attorney.