The officers were lazy, complicit, and completely devoid of accountability. She had spent a decade in Internal Affairs, fighting exactly this kind of institutionalized rot. But seeing it up close, feeling the sting of the handcuffs and the sheer arrogant racism of Travis Holt, it fueled a fire in her chest that burned hotter than she had ever felt.
Travis shoved her into cell three. It was a miserable concrete box. The toilet in the corner was rusted and the single steel bench was freezing. He slammed the heavy iron door shut, the metal clanging loudly in the quiet block.
"Make yourself comfortable, Emma," Travis sneered through the bars. "You're going to be here for a long, long time. Mandatory minimums are brutal." "Officer Holt," Emma said, stepping up to the bars, her voice dead calm.
Travis paused. Something about her tone unnerved him. It wasn't the voice of a broken, frightened woman. It sounded like an order.
"You've made a lot of mistakes tonight," Emma said softly. "But your biggest mistake was assuming you know who I am based on how I look." Travis laughed, a loud, nervous sound. "I know exactly what you are. See you at arraignment, criminal."
He walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hall.
Emma retreated to the cold steel bench. She sat down, shivering in her damp clothes. She had no phone. She had no way to contact Chief Henderson to let him know she wouldn't be meeting him for breakfast.
But she also knew something Travis Holt didn't. Chief David Henderson was a stickler for punctuality. He was expecting his new captain at 7:00 a.m. sharp at a diner 2 miles from the precinct. When she didn't show up, he would check her GPS tracker, a standard security measure on all high-ranking officers' personal vehicles during interstate transfers.
He would find her car impounded at District 9, and he would come looking for her.
She closed her eyes, ignoring the cold, and mentally drafted the termination papers for Officer Travis Holt, Sergeant Greg Harrison, and half the night shift. The trap was set. All she had to do was wait for the sun to rise. At 7:30 a.m., the atmosphere in the District 9 precinct underwent a massive shift.
The lazy, casual energy of the night shift vanished, replaced by a frantic, nervous buzzing. The dayshift officers were arriving, hastily buttoning collars and polishing badges. Janitors were furiously mopping the floors. Today was not a normal Thursday.
Today was the day the new precinct captain was scheduled to take command.
Rumors had been flying for weeks. The new captain was coming from out of state, an Internal Affairs heavy hitter, a ruthless disciplinarian who had a zero tolerance policy for corruption. The mayor had given the new captain total autonomy to fire, suspend, and rebuild the precinct from the ground up. Panic was high.
Travis Holt, running on a combination of bad coffee and adrenaline, stood by the front desk, looking entirely too pleased with himself. His shift had technically ended at 6:00 a.m., but he stuck around. He wanted to be front and center when the new captain arrived. He wanted to look like the hardest working cop in the building.