I parked my dark blue 1994 Mustang in the parking lot of the Bremer County Sheriff's Office. BCSO was a small force, with less than twenty deputies total, so it was easy for me to get hold of who I was looking for: Detective Alan O'Neil.

O'Neil, the sole detective at BCSO, was the man who had been in charge of my father's case. If anyone could help me find the truth, he could.

"How can I help you, Clint?" O'Neil asked casually, spinning in his chair to face me as I entered his office. I'd been there plenty of times during the investigation into my father's alleged crime, and I was on a first-name basis with the detective.

"I want to know who really killed Dr. MacLain."

O'Neil sighed. Pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Clint, I'm not saying I'm one hundred percent convinced that your father was the killer, but he was convicted. As far as the court is concerned, the case is closed."

"So you're just going to give up," I said. "You're not sure if he's really guilty or not, but you're just going to let it go because he was convicted. Don't you care about finding the truth? I thought you were a detective."

"Look, Clint," he replied, "I don't know for sure that your dad killed Myron MacLain, but it is the most likely conclusion. The court decided it was true, so who am I to argue?"

"The court is comprised of human beings!" I shot back. "They can make mistakes! And you just say that you'll go with what they say because it's most likely. Well, let me tell you this: the truth is out there. Somewhere, it's just waiting to be found by people who are willing to look for it. I don't care about what's 'most likely'; I care about what actually happened! And I'm going to find out!"

O'Neil didn't reply. He just gave a long, tired sigh.

"Look," I said, "I'm going to find the truth one way or another. Do you want to help me, or do you want to idly sit by while the real killer might still be out there, laughing at you for falling for his setup?"

That seemed to get O'Neil's attention. He sat up, and gave me this look- almost as if he wanted to help but something was stopping him. "If you come up with something specific you want to look into concerning the case, let me know. I might- might- be able to do something."

I nodded. "Thanks."

"Sure."

Hawkeye*Hawkeye*Hawkeye

Natasha Romanov watched out the window of the subject's house as the car parked in the driveway.

He was home.

Natasha knew that if he saw her, then SHIELD's entire investigation would come to nothing. He would wipe every bit of data he had, leaving no scrap of evidence.

But at the same time, while Natasha was tempted to slip away and make sure the subject didn't catch on to the fact that SHIELD was investigating him, she also needed to download some of the information on his computer. If she could find anything incriminating, it could potentially free an innocent man as well as bust open a covert terrorist operation.

Going as fast as she could, Natasha slipped the USB flash drive into the subject's computer. Navigated to his file storage. Started downloading like crazy.

She heard the sound of the subject turning the key in the lock. It was time to go.

She silently hurried down the hall, toward the back door. Arriving at it, she unlocked it and opened it, careful not to make a sound. She slipped out the door and shut it behind her equally quietly.

Then she took off running.

And realized her mistake.

Hawkeye*Hawkeye*Hawkeye

The man who'd killed Dr. Myron MacLain, and framed Dr. Christopher Barton for it, thought he heard the faintest sound of someone shutting the back door.

Probably just his imagination.

Still, he went to his computer room. If anyone discovered what was on his hard drive, he'd go to prison for the rest of his life. He couldn't risk that.

He looked at his computer.

And almost screamed.

The screen showed all of his files. All those precious documents, out in the open.

Immediately, he began deleting every single one. If someone had planted a virus or was trying to post his secret files on the Internet, then maybe- just maybe- he could delete everything quickly enough to prevent being exposed.

But he doubted that was the case. The most likely scenario was that someone had downloaded his information on a flash drive.

He checked his Internet use. The last time shown was hours ago, so he could be sure the intruder hadn't gone online- unless there was some way to hide Internet use that he didn't know about, but it wasn't like search history that could just be deleted.

So that helped a little bit.

His secrets weren't out.

Yet.

But he had to find the intruder before they turned over the flash drive to the authorities- or to their boss, if they were FBI or SHIELD or something.

So his mission: Find the person who did this and take them out before they could expose him.

He could do this.

Hail Hydra.