The Del Rio Police Department occupied a squat brick building on South Main Street. It looked more like a bunker than a police station. Small windows, heavy doors, the kind of place designed to keep people in, not welcome them.
Martinez pulled into the back lot, away from the street, away from witnesses. Inside, the station was exactly what Brooklyn had expected. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow-green. The air smelled like disinfectant trying to cover something worse. Sweat, mildew, old coffee.
They walked her past the front desk, empty, nobody on duty, and down a narrow hallway. Linoleum floors, beige walls with water stains. Photos of past sheriffs lined one wall. Brennan’s picture was in the center, larger than the others. He’d been sheriff for twenty-three years. Twenty-three years of this.
The interrogation room was at the end of the hall. Martinez opened the door and guided her inside. A metal table, two chairs, concrete walls, a camera mount in the corner, but no camera, just the empty bracket.
Brooklyn filed that away.
“Sit,” Martinez said.
She sat. The metal chair was cold, even through her jeans.
“I need to make a phone call. I’m entitled to—”
“Phone system’s down.” Martinez didn’t even try to make it sound convincing. “Might be back up in a few hours. Might not.”
He left her there, cuffed, alone. The door clicked shut, heavy, final.
Brooklyn counted to sixty, then looked around the room. No two-way mirror, too obvious. But there would be audio somewhere, maybe multiple sources. She scanned the ceiling corners, the light fixture, the air vent. There, a small black circle in the vent grate. Lens or microphone, probably both.
She shifted in the chair, testing the handcuffs again. If she needed to, she could slip them. She’d been trained for that, but not yet. She needed to see how far they’d go, needed them to feel confident, needed them to talk. Eighteen months of building a case, and she was finally inside their house.
The fluorescent lights buzzed. The air conditioning clicked on with a rattle. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed. Brooklyn waited. She was very, very good at waiting.
The door opened ninety minutes later. Sheriff Brennan walked in carrying a manila folder. He tossed it on the table. It landed with a slap that echoed off the concrete walls. He didn’t sit, just stood over her, arms crossed.
“You know what this is?”
Brooklyn didn’t answer.
“This is your file and it’s interesting reading.” He flipped it open. “Brooklyn Lane, twenty-nine years old. Last known address in Austin. No current employer listed. History of—” He paused for effect. “Activism. Protest arrests. Disorderly conduct.”
“That file is fabricated.”
“Is it?” Brennan leaned down, hands on the table, close enough that she could smell his aftershave. “Or maybe you’re just the kind of person who thinks rules don’t apply to you, who comes into other people’s towns and stirs up trouble.”
“I’d like to contact my lawyer.”
“Phone’s still down.”
“Then I’d like to speak with a superior officer. Someone from the Texas Rangers, perhaps.”
Brennan smiled. “You don’t get it, do you? There’s no cavalry coming. There’s no one to call. You’re in my house now.”
He pulled out the chair across from her and finally sat, relaxed like they were old friends having coffee.
“I’ve handled eight women just like you,” he said conversationally. “Journalists, activists, bleeding hearts. They come down here thinking they’re going to save the poor immigrants, expose the corrupt small-town cops. You know what happened to them?”
Brooklyn kept her face neutral.
“They left. Drove right back north with their tails between their legs because they figured out real fast that nobody here wants to be saved and nobody’s going to believe their little stories.”
He tapped the fabricated file. “So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to sign a statement admitting you filed a false report and you’re going to get the hell out of Texas. Or—” He let it hang.
“Or what?”
“Or you’re going to see just how creative our justice system can be.”
Brennan opened the folder wider, turned it so Brooklyn could see. Inside were police reports, booking photos—not of her, but of someone who looked similar enough in low resolution. Arrest records from Austin, Dallas, Houston. All fake, all professionally done.
“Let’s see.” Brennan read from the top page. “June 2022, arrested for disorderly conduct during a protest at the Austin Capitol. September 2022, trespassing on private property. That was a construction site, looks like. January 2023, assault on a security officer at a mall in Houston.” He looked up. “Want me to keep going?”
“None of that is real. Run my fingerprints through IAFIS. Check with the FBI database.”
“The FBI database?” Brennan leaned back in his chair. “You watch a lot of TV, Brooklyn? Think this is CSI? We’re a small department. We don’t have direct access to federal databases. We have to submit requests and those take time.”
“Then submit a request.”
“Oh, I will. Should hear back in three to four weeks.” He shrugged. “Of course, you’ll be in county lockup until then. No bail. You’re a flight risk. Out-of-towner with a history of violence.”
Brooklyn forced herself to breathe slowly to stay calm. “This is illegal detention. You know it. I know it.”
“What I know,” Brennan said, leaning forward again, “is that you’ve been driving around my town for weeks asking questions about me, about my department. Talking to people who’ve got no business talking to journalists, making accusations.”
“Reporting facts isn’t making accusations.”
“Facts.” He laughed. “Here’s a fact for you. I’ve been sheriff of Del Rio for twenty-three years. I’ve kept this town safe, kept the crime rate down, kept the drug traffickers from turning us into Juárez. You know how I did that?”
Brooklyn didn’t answer.
“By not letting outsiders come in here and tell me how to do my job. By making sure everyone understands that there’s one law in this town—mine.”
He stood up, collected the folder. “You’ve got two choices. Sign the statement and leave or spend the next seventy-two hours in a cell the size of a closet in one hundred degree heat and then we’ll talk about charges.”
He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle. “I run this town, Brooklyn. FBI database, Texas Rangers, whatever you think is going to save you. None of that matters here. Only I matter.”
The door slammed shut behind him.
Six hours later, they moved her to a holding cell eight feet by eight feet. A metal bench bolted to the wall, a toilet with no seat, no window. The temperature had to be pushing ninety-five degrees. The AC was either broken or deliberately turned off.
Brooklyn sat on the bench and assessed. Her wrists were raw from the handcuffs. Her throat was dry. They hadn’t offered water, hadn’t offered food. Standard intimidation tactics, but she’d been trained for worse than this.
At hour seven, she made her decision. When Deputy Martinez came to check on her, she was ready.
“I need to speak with Sheriff Brennan.”
Martinez looked surprised. “You ready to sign the statement?”
“I’m ready to clarify my situation.”
Fifteen minutes later, Brennan walked into the cell, arms crossed. That same infuriating smirk. “You wanted to talk?”
Brooklyn stood slowly. She bent down and removed her left shoe, then peeled back the insole. The FBI badge was thin, specially designed for undercover work. She held it up between two fingers.
“Special Agent Brooklyn Lane, FBI San Antonio Field Office. Badge number 7429. I’m conducting a federal investigation into public corruption under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1951. You are currently in violation of 18 USC 111, assault on a federal officer.”
For just a moment, maybe half a second, uncertainty flickered across Brennan’s face. Then he laughed. He actually laughed.
“Martinez,” he called over his shoulder. “Martinez, get in here. You got to see this.”
Brooklyn kept her hand steady, kept the badge visible, but she could already feel it slipping away, could feel the hope turning to dread. This wasn’t going to work.
Martinez appeared in the doorway. Two other deputies crowded behind him. Garza and someone Brooklyn didn’t recognize.