Danny and Rachel remained in place, both on the brink of explosion, both neither willing to voice it. Eventually, he did get the both of them coffee. Frank had certainly been right about one thing.

The stuff was two-steps-below-sewer-mud awful.

But what the drink had failed to do was take his mind off of Jordan.

Danny stood there, tormenting himself, playing the conversation back over again and again through his mind. What hadn’t he said? Why hadn’t she trusted him? It would have been so simple, so easy to let someone else take the blame. It was that same strength of character, that compulsion to take responsibility.

Where she thought she was protecting her brother, she was in truth suffocating what little chance she had left of escaping the repercussions of her actions.

Danny had done it a million times over, gotten people to talk where they were too scared, too terrified to talk. It was his job. It was what he did. He could make anyone talk, about their deepest, darkest secrets, no matter what the cost. But Jordan – the one person whose secrets he needed the most – was lost to him.

He could scream, shout, beg her to talk. But it wouldn’t work. When it came to Jason, there could be no compromise. Danny came second to that, and it killed him to see it happen, in ways he wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge.

The hours passed that way, with the thoughts circling, fading away and returning back again, pressing the grips of the vice tighter against his temples.

His eyes were clenched shut when he heard Frank’s New York accent an inch from his face.

“You can open them now.”

Danny smirked reluctantly as he relaxed and opened his eyes. “Very cute,” he muttered, strangely grateful for the moment of brevity. With a wave of his arm, Frank motioned for Danny to join him off to the side, and he complied. “Tell me you’ve had luck.”

“There has been,” he answered as they neared the interrogation room. “Not with Coliandri though.”

Though despair broke upon him anew, Danny kept a poker face in place.

“Layman’s boys broke before she did.”

“Layman?” he echoed.

“Bryce Layman. He’s a dealer, centers mostly around the Bronx. Uses kids to do his dirty work.”

The picture became clearer. “Like Jordan,” he murmured.

Frank nodded his affirmation. “Where we see homeless kids, guys like Layman see an untapped resource. Kids are easy to con, easy to control. You give ‘em 50 bucks, they think they’re making a fortune.” Frank opened his hands. “The kids he brings in don’t have a name, don’t have a family. And most of them…” The detective cast an eye to Jordan’s room. “Don’t have fingerprints on file.”

Though it affected him physically, the news was anything but new to Danny. It was a heart-breaking truth, and one he’d heard before. But imagining Jordan being held by her puppet-strings, like a commodity, like a “natural resource”, made his blood reach its boiling point.

If he’d had a sniper rifle and a fighter plane, he’d have murdered Bryce Layman himself that very instant.

But needless to say, though his gun rested securely on his hip, a fighter plane was nowhere in sight. So to avoid any unwanted homicide charges, he instead went through the system he had become so accustomed to.

He looked to the detective. “I’m assuming your officers take this all into consideration when deciding a charge.”

“We do,” Frank said.

Danny felt his hopes heighten.

It must have shown on his face, because Frank immediately responded. “Careful here, Danny,” he warned. “There’s always two sides to this. There’s good news and bad news.”

He sobered and kept his face straight and professional. “Alright.” He ran his fingers along his face before letting them fall to his sides. “Let’s hear it.”

Frank was quick to give him what he needed. “We’ve dropped the charges of drug trafficking and replaced it with trespassing. It’ll require a fine, and most likely some time in community service, maybe a few meetings with some court-appointed attorney… But at least, it’s not a felony.”

The charge was reason to rejoice, but Danny didn’t allow himself the luxury. There would be plenty of time for that later. “You said something about bad news.”

Frank’s leathery face twisted, and he stared off to the side, letting him know that what he said next would not be easy. “As always, we take these instances very seriously, especially when it comes to minors. We’ve taken Coliandri’s arrest as a very serious implication of the competence of St. Luke’s parish. I’ve ordered the orphanage to be put under investigation, until it can be decided whether or not it’s safe for children to remain there.”

At the sudden news, Danny felt his lips dry, and his blood run cold. He could only voice his first concern. “What’ll happen to Jordan?”

Frank offered him a sympathetic, but uncertain shrug of his arms. “We’re not the ones to ask,” he said. “After all that happened, it would be remiss to send her back. We filed the paperwork this morning. As of now, she’s property of the state.”