“I’m trying to—”
“I know what you’re trying to do.” Carlos threw the wrench into his toolbox hard. “You’re trying to get me killed or thrown in jail or both. You think you’re the first person to come sniffing around asking questions about Brennan? You think you’re special?” He grabbed a rag, wiped his hands. “There were eight before you. Eight journalists, activists, whatever. You know where they are now? Gone. Smart enough to leave while they still could.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then you’re stupid.” Carlos picked up his toolbox. “And I can’t help stupid people. It’s bad for business, bad for my health.”
He walked toward his truck.
Brooklyn called after him. “I have a way to protect you if you testify.”
“Testify.” Carlos turned back. “You want to die? Because that’s what happens when you testify against Brennan. That’s what happens when you break the code.”
He climbed into his truck, started the engine.
Brooklyn pulled out her FBI badge, the real one, held it up. Carlos looked at it through the windshield. His expression didn’t change. He drove away.
Twenty minutes later, Carlos’s truck pulled back into the parking lot. He sat behind the wheel for a long time before getting out. When he finally did, he looked older, tired.
“Let me see that badge again.”
Brooklyn handed it over. He examined it carefully this time, front and back. Ran his thumb over the seal. “You really FBI?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been here eighteen months undercover building a case.”
Carlos handed the badge back, leaned against his truck. “Okay, I’ll talk, but not here.”
They drove separately to a rest stop fifteen miles outside town. Picnic tables, vending machines, empty at four in the afternoon. Carlos bought a Coke from the machine, drank half of it before he spoke.
“The system works like this,” he said quietly. “Brennan and his deputies stop migrants. Anyone who looks like they might be undocumented. They threaten deportation unless they pay. Five thousand dollars per person. If they can’t pay, they get forced to work. Ranches, construction, cleaning houses, no wages, work off the debt.”
Brooklyn had her phone out recording audio. “How long has this been going on?”
“Long as I was there. Probably longer. Twenty years maybe. And the money goes where?”
“Offshore accounts. Cayman Islands. Brennan’s got a whole setup. He keeps records. Old-school paper ledger. Names, amounts, dates, everything documented.”
“Where’s the ledger?”
“Safe in his office. Only two people have keys. Brennan and Mayor Cortez.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Once. Before I figured out what I was looking at.” Carlos crushed the empty Coke can. “That’s when I started asking questions. That’s when Brennan labeled me a problem. Three weeks later, I was fired for insubordination.”
“Will you testify against Brennan? Against the whole department.”
He shook his head. “They’ll kill me.”
“Not if you’re in federal protection. Witness Security Program. New identity. New location. Full—”
“I have a family,” Carlos interrupted. “A wife, two kids. You asking me to uproot their entire lives?”
Brooklyn met his eyes. “I’m asking you to help me stop this before there’s a forty-eighth victim.”
Carlos stared at the horizon. The sun was starting to set, orange and pink bleeding across the Texas sky.
“Give me time to think,” he finally said.
Before you go, Brooklyn said, I need you to understand something. Everything I do, everything I record, it’s backed up in real time to FBI servers. I have equipment they don’t know about.” She opened her jacket, showed him the tiny microphone clipped inside the collar, disguised as a button. “This has been running for eighteen months. Every conversation, every threat, every transaction I’ve witnessed, it transmits to a secure cloud server. Even if they destroy the device, the recordings are already stored.”
Carlos looked at it. “They took your phone. Your equipment?”
“They took my obvious equipment, the stuff I let them see.” She pulled a small device from her pocket. Looked like a lipstick tube. “This is a backup recorder. Voice activated. And the bag they confiscated yesterday, it had another microphone sewn into the lining.”
“Where’s that bag now?”
“Evidence locker at the station, which is—” Brooklyn checked her phone, pulled up a building schematic. “Approximately ten meters from Mayor Cortez’s office at town hall. Walls are thin in that building. Built in 1973, cinder block and drywall.”
Carlos understood. “You’re recording them. Every word.”
“If Brennan meets with Cortez in her office, if they discuss anything related to this operation, I’ll have it.”
“That’s—” Carlos paused. “That’s actually pretty smart.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time.” Brooklyn closed her jacket. “If you decide to help, I can protect you. The FBI has resources. We can get you and your family into WITSEC. But I need that ledger, Carlos. It’s the physical evidence that makes everything else stick.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said again. But this time, his voice sounded different. This time, he sounded like he might actually say yes.
That night, Brooklyn parked three blocks from town hall. Good sightline to the building, dark enough to be invisible. The town council meeting had ended at 7:00. Most of the building’s lights were off now, but on the second floor, one window remained lit. Mayor Cortez’s office.
Brooklyn put in her earpiece connected to the remote monitoring feed from the microphone in her confiscated bag. The signal was weak but functional. She could hear rustling movement in the evidence room. Then voices—faint. Getting closer. She turned up the gain. Footsteps on tile. A door opening. The sound quality improved. They were in or near Cortez’s office.
Now, Brennan’s voice. “We need to talk about the Lane woman.”
Brooklyn adjusted the frequency, pulled out a legal pad and pen, started making notes with timestamps. This was it. This was what she’d been waiting for.
The evidence room was ten meters from Cortez’s office. The microphone wasn’t in the same room where they were talking, but it was close enough. Voices carried through the old building’s thin walls, through the ventilation system. Close enough to hear, close enough to record.
Brooklyn watched the lit window, saw shadows moving behind the blinds. Two figures. She pressed record on her backup device, belt and suspenders. The primary feed was already streaming to the FBI server, but she always kept local copies too.
“Start talking,” she whispered.
In the town hall, Brennan and Cortez began to discuss how to handle her, and Brooklyn Lane recorded every single word.
The audio crackled, then cleared. Brennan’s voice: “The journalist is handled. Scared her off. She’ll be gone by tomorrow.”
Cortez: “You’re sure? She seemed persistent at the council meeting.”
“Trust me, they always leave. The fake FBI badge was a nice touch, though. I’ll give her credit for creativity.”
A pause. Papers rustling.
Cortez: “Did she actually have evidence?”
“Nothing that matters. Some notes. A broken phone. Martinez confiscated her recording equipment. It’s in evidence lockup now. She’s got nothing.”
“Good.” Cortez’s voice was crisp, businesslike. “We can’t afford another incident like 2021. That reporter from Houston nearly—”
“Doesn’t count. He left. They all leave.”
Brooklyn wrote faster. Her hand was cramping, but she didn’t stop.