Marcus worked through the night.
By morning he had three preliminary findings that he laid before me over coffee in my office before the day's sessions began.
The first was about the photograph. The angle suggested it was taken from a building across the street from the Senate entrance, specifically from a window on the fourth or fifth floor of a law firm that had offices there. The firm was called Brackton and Pierce.
The second was about the phrase borrowed it from a man whose name opened every door. Marcus had searched that precise wording and found it almost word for word in a political opinion column published six months ago in a conservative news outlet. The column had argued that my Senate victory owed more to Kade Carter's financial profile than to my own record. The author of t
