Chapter 7 - The Interrogation Room
The interrogation room smelled of old polish, cheap antiseptic, and years of stale cigarette smoke that no amount of cleaning could ever scrub away.
Under normal circumstances, this windowless box was where local detectives broke small-time drug couriers and petty thieves. Tonight, it was the stage for a much colder dismantling of authority.
Captain Marcus Vance sat at the scarred metal table. He had refused a lawyer, choosing instead to lean back in his chair with his arms crossed, his uniform jacket meticulously buttoned, projecting an aura of untouchable bureaucratic insulation.
The door clicked open, and I stepped inside, dropping the heavy black ledger onto the center of the table with a loud, hollow thud.
Vance didn't flinch. He just looked up at me with eyes narrowed into cold slits.
"You think a little theater with the Inspector General changes anything, Torres?" Vance scoffed, his voice smooth and dripping with institutional condescension. "You crashed a local perimeter, you harassed a ranking sergeant, and now you’re parading around stolen property trying to fabricate a conspiracy. You don't have jurisdiction to touch this department."
I pulled out the metal chair opposite him, sat down, and folded my hands neatly on the table.
"Captain, let's dispense with the institutional posturing," I said, my voice dangerously low and steady. "Your brother-in-law's logistics firm processed four hundred thousand dollars in wire transfers from a shell company registered in the Caymans. Those funds matched the payout schedule on page twelve of this exact ledger. A ledger that lists Sergeant Danny Reyes’s personal bank routing number for a five-thousand-dollar bonus earned this morning at 2:10 PM."
Vance’s jaw twitched—a microscopic flinch that didn't escape my notice.
"Reyes is a loose cannon," Vance replied smoothly, testing a narrative pivot. "If he took money, he acted alone. I run a tight precinct, Agent. A few rotten apples don't invalidate the entire orchard."
"Except Danny Reyes didn't act alone," I countered, leaning forward into the harsh fluorescent light. "The logistics route used by Vane’s convoy this morning was routed through sector four—a sector that requires direct captain-level sign-off to suspend routine highway interdiction patrols. You didn't just look the other way, Marcus. You managed the traffic lights."
Vance stared at me in silence for three long seconds. The arrogant veneer finally began to crack, replaced by a dark, venomous realization that his safety net had completely dissolved.
"You think you won, don't you?" Vance whispered, leaning forward to match my posture, his voice dropping into a harsh hiss. "You think arresting me stops the pipeline? Vane has tentacles in state politics, federal logistics, and courtrooms you haven't even heard of. Even if I go down, those three girls you're looking for aren't coming back. They're already on a cargo container heading out of the port of Savannah. You're chasing ghosts, Torres."
Before I could answer, the door swung open behind me.
May you like
Agent Vance stood in the doorway, holding a secure tablet with a live satellite feed. His face was entirely pale.
"Maya," he said, ignoring Captain Vance completely. "We just intercepted an emergency transit ping from the Savannah port authority. One of the freight containers linked to Vane's shell company... it just checked in for immediate expedited loading onto an outbound container ship to South America."
