"I know you said not to bring it up unless I had evidence, but if Emerson-"

"Daniels, I don't want to hear it. Just drop it."

He wouldn't drop it. The Chief knew he wouldn't drop it, but warning him out loud would clear his enviably guilty conscience for when the Bureau finally pulled the plug on Daniels. He didn't recognize his friend. The Wilson Daniels he knew was bulletproof; it used to impress him, how he never let a case get to him. Even cases involving dead pregnant women. Everyone knew it was personal for him, but he'd never lose composure and risk himself being kicked off the case, or any case for that matter.

So why now?

Daniels, being Daniels, shot back,

"Emerson is up to something; I know we get a lot of anonymous tips about powerful guys like him all the time that turn out to be idiotic conspiracy theories, but this one was different. This one was a letter, not a phone call. Who in this day and age still writes letters?"

"Plenty of people write letters; we've got an entire mailroom packed to the brim downstairs if you want to see for yourself."

Daniels's brow furrowed, and his lip quivered like a child being told no monster was under his bed. The Chief took this as his cue to shut his office door and roll down the blinds; he didn't want the office to see what Daniels had become. Daniels didn't even notice he was too busy pacing back and forth, looking down at what the Chief perceived as an invisible evidence board with his palm cupping his forehead. Daniels picked his head up to share the thought that sprung him upright to the Chief,

"Whoever wrote this made serious claims against Emerson. Including the murder of his first wife and multiple others. With accusations like that, especially against someone of that stature. It's our duty to look into it, and you know it."

The Chief couldn't take this anymore; he pounded his hands onto the desk and yelled.

"This stops now. You hear me? If you keep pursuing this, I'll have no choice but to report you to the board. It doesn't matter what your reputation is; if they see you like this, you'll lose your badge."

"Did you even read the letter?"

Daniels stuck his hand into the pocket of his mildew-smelling dress pants he's worn for four days and pulled and uncrumpled the wrinkled piece of paper onto the Chief's desk.

"Just look at it; whoever wrote this provides private details about Emerson that aren't online, aren't in any of his books I checked. Only someone close to Emerson would know; it's probably someone living with him on the behemoth of an Island. That would explain why they wrote a letter."

The Chief sat down in his giant leather chair and asked defeatedly

"How does a letter indicate the writer is living on the island with Emerson."

The Chief sighed in exhaustion, fully aware he was enabling his friend.

"A phone call can be traced, a letter with no return address can't be traced to anyone, especially if there are no fingerprints, which there were none."

Daniels stopped pacing and stood on the other side of the dividing wooden desk, towering over his sitting friend and superior, and looked him in the eye,

"This person is trying to call for help without Emerson knowing."

The Chief scanned over the frantic writing, and the wheels began turning, but not at the same speed as Daniel's.

"How does a random psychiatrist from the middle of nowhere Wisconsin end up marrying the Emerson heiress? Not to mention her dying a week after their honeymoon. Come on, Charles."

The Chief stood up now, looking down at Daniels, and snapped

"She was an epileptic. For christ'sChrist sake, she had a seizure."

"You'd have to be an absolute fool to believe that."

The Chief should've reported him then and there; to this day, it's his biggest regret. If he reported Daniels that day, no one would've died