Several calls concerned additional questions instead.
The source recordings needed verification. The search documentation needed comparison. My family's accounts required follow-up, and the prosecutor's office had to evaluate the material actually available rather than the relief I desperately wanted from it.
I understood those tasks. Understanding did not shorten the hours.
One afternoon, I nearly lost my temper with Rachel's assistant for saying there was no new update. I stopped, apologized, and asked when I should check again.
At Talia's house, I admitted what happened. She nodded without pretending the stress made every reaction fair.
"You caught it," she said. "Try to catch it earlier next time."
I wanted comfort and received something more useful: the assumption that I could still be responsible for my own conduct while other people were responsible for theirs.
The review took just over four weeks from my release. By then, the bruising had faded enough that strangers could not see why I flinched when someone struck a door too hard.
Rachel called while I was reconciling an equipment list. I saw her number and asked the person beside me to cover the desk for a few minutes.
"The prosecution against you is being dismissed," she said. "I have the written notice. We will go through exactly what it resolves and what follow-up remains."
I sat down in the empty office. I had imagined shouting, crying, or an immediate collapse of the fear.
Instead, I asked her to repeat the sentence.
She did.
The recording, corroborating records, and developments in the witness accounts had changed the case. Rachel explained the document in front of her and arranged for me to receive it without relying on a remembered telephone conversation.
The dismissal did not automatically change every record or complete every administrative process. There were notices to provide, restrictions to review, and legal questions about later record relief that needed their own advice.
I listened carefully. Then I asked whether I could tell Talia.
"Yes. You can tell her."
I found her outside the work area. She saw my face and stood before I managed to speak.
"It is dismissed."
She hugged me so hard I briefly lost my breath. Then we both began laughing in the embarrassed way people do when they are trying not to cry in a place with too many windows.
Vega received the documents through the appropriate channel. She called me in with Rhodes and set out the next review steps.
"This matters," she said, touching the notice. "We will make sure the relevant people have accurate information."
I asked whether I could return to my previous duties immediately. She said some changes could be made quickly, while others required the reviews already scheduled.
For a moment, disappointment spoiled the relief. Then Rhodes asked whether I wanted to discuss the plan now or after lunch, and I realized nobody was taking the good news away by explaining its practical limits.
I called Rachel again that evening. One question had begun pressing through everything else.
"What happens to them?"
"The investigation into their conduct is separate. You may be asked for further information. You do not have to manage it yourself."
"If I stop cooperating, does it go away?"
"That is not a decision you control by yourself. Are you considering it because you want the contact to stop?"
I looked at my mother's latest unanswered email.
"I do not know what I want yet."
"You can have time to understand that without making promises to anyone."
At Talia's kitchen table, I printed the dismissal notice and put it in a folder. I had spent weeks waiting for the page that would prove I was not what they claimed.
When it finally existed, I still needed someone to sit beside me while I read it.
Juniper jumped onto the empty chair and began washing one paw. For the first time in a month, the ordinary indifference of a cat felt like permission to breathe.
Before bed, I put the written notice where I could find it in the morning. Then I set an alarm for work. Having a reason to wake that did not depend on the next legal update felt strange enough that I checked the alarm twice.
===