Chapter 9 - The Ultimatum
Deputy Miller didn't draw his weapon. He knew the math didn't add up anymore. With a final, venomous glare that promised retribution, he backed out of the trailer, slammed the screen door behind him, climbed into his pickup truck, and tore out of the yard with tires spinning in the dirt.
The silence rushed back into the trailer, heavier this time.
Rachel let out a long, shuddering breath, her knees trembling slightly as the adrenaline receded. She looked down at the yellow carbon sheet in her hand, then up at me.
"Was that... was that true?" she whispered. "About the cloud server?"
I looked at her, offering a faint, reassuring smile. "Let's just say I learned a long time ago never to leave a mission dependent on a single point of failure."
She let out a breathless, half-hysterical laugh, leaning her shoulder against my chest. For the first time since the milkshake incident at the diner, the distance that had grown between us over three years of silence vanished completely. She wasn't the woman cowering behind her purse anymore; she was a partner in the trench.
"Where is Gary?" she asked, looking around the ruined office.
"Smart enough to stay away until this blows over," I said. "Which means we have about two hours before Cole realizes Miller failed to intimidate us, and the sheriff decides to escalate from petty harassment to something much more desperate."
"So what do we do?" she asked, her eyes sharp and focused. "We can't hide out in this yard, and we can't go back to the house and wait for him to kick our door in."
"We don't wait," I said, walking over to the desk and picking up the remaining intact folders. "We take the fight directly to the county seat. But we don't go to the sheriff's department."
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"Where, then?"
"The county commissioner's office," I said, slipping the files into my jacket. "Higgins has been trying to audit the highway fund for six months, but Cole has been blocking him at every turn using local police jurisdiction. If we drop these receipts on Higgins' desk while the digital files are queued for release to the state attorney general... Travis Cole won't have a badge by sundown."
