Not because discomfort would save her.
Because discomfort meant he knew.
Ryker opened the SUV’s rear door.
“Get in.”
Sarah lowered herself into the seat.
The door slammed.
Through the glass she watched Ryker take the keys from her rental.
Miller said something to him.
Ryker answered sharply.
Sarah could not hear the words.
She watched their mouths.
Miller gestured toward his body camera.
Ryker’s head turned.
Then he reached out and tapped the front of the deputy’s vest.
Miller’s hand rose reflexively.
Sarah could not tell whether the camera remained recording.
She memorized the gesture.
At 3:44, the sheriff’s SUV pulled away from the roadside.
Her rental car remained behind with Deputy Miller.
Sarah sat cuffed in the back seat and watched the pines pass outside.
Ryker drove without speaking.
She listened to the radio.
Unit identifiers.
A domestic call.
A license check.
Then Miller’s voice.
“County, thirty-seven. Vehicle will be secured roadside pending inventory.”
Sarah stored the wording.
Inventory.
Not search.
Interesting.
Ryker picked up his microphone.
“Thirty-one, transport one female.”
A dispatcher answered.
“Copy.”
Female.
No charge stated.
Sarah looked through the partition.
“Sheriff.”
He glanced into the mirror.
“I want an attorney.”
He returned his eyes to the road.
“You can ask at booking.”
“I am asking now.”
“No phones in my vehicle.”
“I didn’t ask for a phone in your vehicle. I’m stating that I want counsel.”
“You know, for someone who says she’s visiting family, you sure talk like a lawyer.”
Sarah leaned back.
Ryker waited.
She did not finish the sentence.
He looked at her in the mirror again.
“No what?”
“Nothing.”
The road narrowed as they entered Oak Haven.
A courthouse rose beyond a line of pecan trees, red brick and white columns, with a sheriff’s office attached to one side.
Sarah checked the SUV clock.
3:51.
Nine minutes.
She closed her eyes for two seconds.
Not from fear.
From fatigue.
She had spent most of her professional life planning for systems to fail.
Aircraft broke.
Weather changed.
Ports closed.
Orders arrived late.
People misunderstood.
Communications disappeared.
Good planning meant assuming some piece of the system would go wrong at the worst time and deciding in advance what would happen next.
But there was another kind of system failure, one harder to quantify because it required people to admit that the process itself could become the threat.
Sarah opened her eyes as Ryker turned into the sheriff’s lot.
The cuffs hurt.
She said nothing.
Inside, the air smelled of floor cleaner, paper, and burnt coffee.
Dispatcher Brenda Lawson sat behind a reinforced window with three monitors angled toward her.
She looked to be in her fifties, gray-blond hair pinned back, reading glasses low on her nose.
She glanced up as Ryker entered with Sarah.
“What’ve we got?”
“Disorderly.”
Ryker guided Sarah toward the booking counter.
Brenda looked at Sarah’s clothes, then at the handcuffs.
“Anything else?”
“Resisting.”
Sarah turned her head.
“That accusation was made after I was already handcuffed.”
Ryker pushed a clipboard onto the counter.
“See?”
Brenda’s eyes moved from Sarah to him.
A corrections officer came through the inner door.
Ryker began dictating.
“Female, Sarah Reynolds. Virginia license. Disorderly conduct, resisting arrest.”
The officer typed.
Sarah watched the screen reflected faintly in the glass behind him.