PART 2
I stared at him. “Why would a narcotics stop make you ask that question?”
Rourke shoved the envelope back beneath the floor. “Pike, shut it down.” Pike lowered his hand. “Department policy says I record the whole stop.” Rourke lunged across the space between them and grabbed his vest. I moved before thinking, wedging my shoulder between them. With my hands trapped behind me, it was a clumsy shield. Rourke drove an elbow into my ribs. I dropped to one knee. Pike caught his forearm. “Enough!” His voice cracked, but his grip held.
A second cruiser stopped behind us. Lieutenant Russell Bell stepped out without hurrying. Rourke released Pike immediately. Bell took in the torn upholstery, my bleeding wrist, and the wallet lying on the bumper. “Uncuff him,” he said. Rourke started explaining. Bell silenced him with a raised finger. Pike unlocked my cuffs. Blood returned to my hands in hot needles. “Agent Cole,” Bell said smoothly, “we appear to have suffered a communication failure.” “Your sergeant recognized your name inside a federal evidence compartment.” Bell’s expression barely shifted. “Common surname.”
“Then you won’t mind leaving that vehicle untouched until my office arrives.” Bell glanced at the SUV. “It’s evidence in a local investigation. We’ll secure it at our impound facility.” I stepped toward him. “You are not taking it out of my sight.” Rourke seized my jacket. Pike pulled his hand away. For a moment all four of us stood locked in place. Bell broke it with a quiet order. “Agent Cole needs medical attention. Evan, drive him. Grant, follow the tow.”
At the emergency department, I borrowed a phone and called Special Agent Maya Bennett, my squad supervisor. She arrived before anyone finished photographing my injuries. “Tell me exactly what was inside,” she said. I listed the sealed exhibits. One concerned Bell: a witness’s account of payments routed through a towing company that held the town’s impound contract. The original records were already secured elsewhere. I had transported authenticated copies and a newly recorded witness interview. Maya listened without interrupting. Then her phone rang.
The cassette was empty when federal agents reached the lot. A tow employee said he had found its lid open. Bell’s report claimed he had never looked inside it. My breath caught. “Rourke removed something at the roadside.” “We need evidence of that,” Maya said. “And until the missing material is located, your access is temporarily restricted.” I stared at the shield on her belt. “They tear my car apart, and I lose my credentials?” Her face tightened. “You’re still the victim of an assault. This review doesn’t change that.”
By midnight, Bell’s department had issued a statement describing me as uncooperative. Somebody sent it to my daughter. She called while a nurse taped my wrist. “Daddy, did you do something wrong?” I closed my eyes. “No, sweetheart.” “Then why are they saying that?” I had trained for armed suspects and hostage scenes. Nothing had prepared me for answering that. “Because sometimes people lie when the truth will cost them.” After we hung up, Maya placed a printed dispatch report beside me. There had been no narcotics alert.
Pike arrived at the field office the following afternoon with an attorney and a shaking hand. His camera had recorded the entire stop. Before surrendering it to Bell, he had triggered an upload through the cruiser’s terminal. The retained footage showed Rourke reaching under his jacket, but the open door blocked his hand. Then Pike slid over a photograph from a departmental training dinner. Rourke stood beside Bell and a smiling tow operator. On the table sat envelopes identical to one I’d seen in the evidence cassette.
“Payment packets,” Pike said. “I thought they were overtime checks.” Maya enlarged the photograph. The tow operator was the witness whose interview had disappeared. He had agreed to cooperate after Bell threatened his family. I reached for my phone to warn him. It rang first. His number. I answered, and a frightened man whispered, “Bell knows I talked.” A door crashed somewhere behind him. Then the line went dead.
PART 3
“Send units to Daniel Sutter’s house,” Maya ordered. She was already moving. I followed her to the elevator. “Adrian, your access restriction is still in effect.” “I know his voice. I know that address.” She held the door. “Then stay with me, and let the response team do its job.” For once, being told to stand back did not sound like disbelief. It sounded like somebody intended to bring us both home.
