Vance walked into the bay, took in Rayburn sitting handcuffed on an upturned tire, glanced at Miller being shoved into the back of a state cruiser, and finally turned his dark, searching eyes on me.
"You look like hell, Brooks," Vance said quietly.
"I’ve spent the night in a Clark County drunk tank without a phone call, Marcus," I said, my voice steady despite the rasp in my throat. "I'm entitled to look like hell."
"The Jackson terminal received the images of the ledger and the signed cash vouchers," Vance said, unzipping a pocket to pull out a sealed evidence bag. He held up a digital recorder and clicked it on before gesturing toward the barn. "We’ve already secured the county substation on Highway 14. Deputy Harris was sitting behind the desk trying to backdate the computer log when three of our agents walked through the front door. We impounded their desktop towers, the physical blotters, and the private vault in Miller’s back office."
"What was in the vault?" I asked.
Vance’s mouth set into a grim, unforgiving line. "Thirty-six thousand dollars in unbanded cash, twenty-two out-of-state driver's licenses spanning the last eighteen months, and nine vehicle title transfers signed over to Rayburn Industrial Recovery under fraudulent county seizure codes. You weren't an anomaly, Maya. You were just the first one who had a federal shield in her pocket."
I exhaled slowly, watching the mist roll off the corrugated metal roof of the salvage yard. The scale of it didn't surprise me, but hearing it articulated under the cold fluorescent lights made the knot in my stomach tighten. Miller hadn't stopped me because my temporary license tag was tilted two degrees off horizontal; he had stopped me because an expensive car driven by a solitary Black woman on an empty stretch of southern highway was the most lucrative target that had crossed his path all year. He had expected terror, tears, and an out-of-state driver too intimidated or powerless to challenge a badge and a gun in a town where he owned the judge.
"The United States Attorney for the Southern District has already filed an emergency petition," Vance continued, pointing toward the cruiser where Miller sat glaring through the wire-mesh window. "We’re charging Miller, Harris, and two county dispatchers under Title 18, Section 242—deprivation of civil rights under color of law resulting in unlawful seizure and kidnapping. We’re attaching federal Hobbs Act extortion, interstate transportation of stolen property, and wire fraud based on the fraudulent registrations sent through state databases."
"What happens to the department?" I asked.
"The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is placing the Clark County Sheriff’s Department under immediate federal receivership," Vance said. "The county board of supervisors is convening an emergency session at nine this morning. Miller’s authority was terminated the moment those cuffs locked around his wrists. He won't post bond from a federal holding cell in Jackson."
Federal evidence technicians moved past us, setting up tripods and high-intensity markers around the flatbed to document the pry marks on the Bugatti’s carbon tub. The technician photographed the oxyacetylene torch, the signed cash advance slip on the rolling workbench, and the tire tracks left by the county utility vehicle I had driven from the substation.
An enclosed commercial vehicle transporter, arranged by the Bureau’s logistics pool out of Meridian, backed into the bay two hours later. Two certified mechanics winched the Chiron gently from Rayburn’s flatbed into the climate-controlled bay of the transport truck. The car would be taken directly to an authorized manufacturer facility in Atlanta to evaluate the structural integrity of the composite monocoque and rebuild the door sills. Every dollar of the eighty-thousand-dollar repair estimate was already written into the federal restitution lien against Miller’s personal property and the county’s municipal insurance bond.
The sun was fully up by the time we cleared the salvage yard. The rain had ceased, leaving the air washed clean and smelling of pine needles, wet clay, and cold river water. The dense canopy of trees along Old Sawmill Road looked ordinary in the daylight—just trees, red dirt, and gray fence posts, stripped of the threatening shadows that had choked the road at midnight.
Vance offered me a seat in his Suburban, but I declined. I had the keys to the unmarked county Ford Explorer I had driven from the sally port. Before it was formally processed into the federal inventory, I drove it back to the Clark County substation one last time to turn over the keys and recover the remainder of my personal property.
The substation was swarming with federal investigators when I arrived. Yellow evidence tape was stretched across the glass entrance doors. Two agents were carrying cardboard banker's boxes filled with file folders out of Sheriff Miller’s corner office, loading them into an unmarked cargo van. Behind the administrative counter where Miller had leaned and sneered at me hours earlier, a quiet female agent from the Jackson Field Office was logging serial numbers from the weapons rack.