As she walked down the front steps of the residence, passing the local police line once more, Sergeant Reyes was sitting alone in the driver's seat of his cruiser, staring blankly through the windshield, awaiting his summons to the commander's office.
Maya didn't look at him as she walked past. She didn't need to. The work was done, the perimeter was secure, and the law had been executed precisely as intended.
She slid into the passenger seat of Thorne's unmarked sedan, pulled the door shut, and looked out at the road ahead as the engine roared to life, pulling smoothly away into the afternoon traffic.
The afternoon sun began its slow descent behind the jagged skyline of the city, casting long, amber shadows across the pavement of the Third District. By four o'clock, the tactical vans had cleared out, the evidence teams had packed their gear into secure transports, and the yellow police tape at Elmwood Avenue had been cut down and discarded into a sidewalk trash bin.
Yet, despite the physical clearance of the scene, the atmosphere inside the Third District Precinct house was thick with an undeniable, suffocating tension.
News of the incident on Elmwood Avenue had traveled through the department like wildfire. By three-fifteen, virtually every patrol officer, detective, and administrative clerk in the building had heard the story: Sergeant Danny Reyes, the precinct's loudest and most obnoxious veteran, had attempted to humiliate a female federal agent on an active perimeter, only to have his entire career dismantled in front of his subordinate officers by the Chief of the Public Corruption Task Force.
In the precinct roll-call room, four patrol officers sat around a scarred wooden table, speaking in low, hushed tones while sipping stale coffee from foam cups.
"I saw the video before internal affairs seized Miller's phone," one young officer whispered, leaning in close. "It was brutal. Danny was standing there waving her badge around like he was hosting a game show, calling her 'sweetheart' and asking if she was the agent in charge of laundry."
A senior detective sitting across from him winced, shaking his head in disgust. "What an idiot. Reyes always thought his rank gave him a pass to act like a street bully. He didn't even check the watermark on the credentials?"
"Nope," the young officer replied. "Just assumed because she was wearing jeans and an old shirt that she was a nobody. She didn't even yell at him. She just stood there, gave him one chance to hand it back, and then handed his ass to Lieutenant Vance on a silver platter."
"Good," a female officer added flatly from the corner of the room, not looking up from her paperwork. "Reyes has been making derogatory remarks to female officers in this building for five years. It's about time someone with real authority put him in his place."
Upstairs, on the second floor of the precinct, the door to Lieutenant Vance’s office was closed, but the muffled, furious sound of Vance’s voice could be heard clearly through the frosted glass panel.
Reyes was standing at attention in front of Vance’s heavy oak desk, his face pale, his hands clamped tightly against the seams of his trousers. His uniform shirt, usually immaculately pressed, looked rumpled, and his forehead was slick with sweat.
"Do you have any idea," Vance said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl that made the glass frame on his desk vibrate, "what you have done to this department today, Donald?"
"Lieutenant, I made an operational judgment call—"
"You made an arrogant, bigoted, unprofessional exhibition of pure stupidity!" Vance roared, slamming his palm down on the desk with a crack that sounded like a pistol shot. "An operational judgment call? You held a federal agent's official credentials over your head to make your junior officers laugh! You delayed an active HRT breach team during a high-risk firearms bust! You turned a joint federal operation into a personal comedy routine!"
"She didn't look like an agent, sir," Reyes stammered, his voice cracking slightly. "She was out of uniform—"
"Federal agents do not have a uniform, you absolute fool!" Vance yelled, standing up and leaning over the desk until his face was inches from Reyes's. "Special Agent Lin has spent the last three years working undercover operations that would make your hair turn white! She spent six months inside a regional cartel ring that resulted in forty federal indictments! She doesn't wear a three-piece suit to perform a tactical breach on a mud-slick alleyway because she actually knows how to do her job!"
Vance reached down, picked up a thick stack of printed documents, and shoved them violently into Reyes's chest.
"That is a formal notice of suspension from the Chief of Police," Vance said, his voice dropping into an icy, final tone. "Thirty days without pay, effective immediately. Your badge and service weapon will remain in my drawer until the Internal Affairs investigation and the DOJ Civil Rights Division review are complete."