"My credentials are in his left shirt pocket, Special Agent Miller," I said, my voice steady through the glass. "And the clearance manifest is in my glove box. Tell the deputy to unlock the door. The secondary bridge at the bottom of this hill has a weight limit his office forgot to post, and the lead bus is four minutes out."
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"Out," Miller said. The command was directed at me, but his forearm stayed barred across the opening, giving me room to pivot on the slick plastic bench without falling onto my knees.
I swung my legs over the sill, my dress shoes finding purchase in the crushed stone. The November chill struck straight through my dress shirt where the suit coat had been pulled askew. Vance stood two paces back, his knuckles raw and red from the freezing ditch water, holding the small key poised like a man trying not to drop an open razor.
"Hands behind, turn around," Vance muttered, his voice dropping into the low, mechanical drone of an officer trying to rebuild routine out of an active collapse.
"You don't touch him again," Miller said. He stepped directly between Vance and my right shoulder, crowding the deputy back toward the patrol car's front fender. Miller reached behind my back, took the key from Vance’s limp fingers with a quick twist, and inserted it into the double-lock cylinder of my right cuff. The ratchet gave two distinct clicks and sprang loose.
Blood rushed into my fingertips with a burning, prickling throb. I pulled my left wrist free of the second iron, rubbing the purple indentation pressed deep into the skin above my thumb.
"Manifest," Miller said, nodding toward the dark sedan.
"Glove box, passenger side," I answered, my throat raspy from the cold air. "Secondary lock is keyed to the ignition fob. The bridge report is folded inside the envelope."
Vance took a half-step forward, his right hand twitching toward the breast pocket where he had tucked my laminated credentials. The mud on his trousers had begun to dry into a pale, chalky crust under the glare of the truck’s daylight LEDs. "Now hold on just a minute here," Vance said, his chest rising as he tried to find the bottom of his voice. "He was running an unmarked unit on an unposted county feeder with no local escort notification. I have jurisdiction over this blacktop until the township line at mile forty-six. The county sheriff—"
"The county sheriff signed the mutual aid corridor waiver at fourteen-hundred hours today in Harrisburg," Miller cut in, not even turning his head to face him. He reached inside my sedan’s open driver window, hit the electronic release, and opened the passenger door. "Your dispatch logged the teletype at fifteen-twelve. The copy is sitting on the clipboard next to your night-shift supervisor’s coffee pot in Stroudsburg. You didn't read the board before you rolled your unit out of the sally port."
Vance’s mouth closed hard. His eyes darted to the dark tree line south of us, where the distant vibration had deepened from a hum into a steady, rhythmic thrum that shook the dead leaves hanging over the drainage ditch.
"He tore the badge off my lapel," I said, stepping toward the cruiser's hood where the patrol dashcam sat behind the windshield, its tiny red recording light glowing steadily behind the glass. "He pitched it into the runoff drain before he checked the plates. He's got it in his left breast pocket right now."
Miller turned then, his parka falling open to reveal the dark windbreaker underneath, the gold seal over his heart catching the cruiser's high beams. He didn't unholster a weapon. He didn't raise his hands. He simply closed the distance between himself and Vance until the brim of the deputy's campaign hat was inches from his forehead.
"Pull it out," Miller said.
Vance swallowed. The rain was running down the bridge of his nose, dripping off his chin onto his badge. Slowly, with fingers that trembled against the brass button, he unfastened the pocket flap. He pulled out the blue laminate card, still smeared with gray creek clay and bits of dead reed.
Miller took it by the corner, held it up to the glare of his flashlight, and looked at the mangled nylon lanyard where Vance had snapped the reinforced stitching.