Chapter 1 - The Two Cars Behind Him
Officer Wade Holloway was still holding the two torn pieces of Ava Mercer’s driver’s license when the first black SUV stopped behind his cruiser.
The second vehicle—a dark gray sedan with government plates—pulled in directly behind it.
For the first time since he had approached Ava’s car, Wade stopped smiling.
Ava noticed.
She noticed everything.
The sudden tension in his shoulders.
The way his right hand drifted away from the door of her vehicle.
The quick glance he gave his cruiser, as if calculating whether he could reach it before whoever had just arrived reached him.
“You expecting company?” Ava asked.
Wade ignored her.
The rear door of the black SUV opened.
A tall Black woman in a charcoal suit stepped onto the shoulder.
Captain Naomi Price.
Head of Internal Affairs for the Northbridge Police Department.
The second person to emerge was Assistant District Attorney Marcus Reed.
Wade’s face lost its color.
Naomi walked forward without rushing.
That was what made her intimidating.
She never rushed.
People who had power didn’t need to.
“Officer Holloway,” she said.
Wade looked at Ava.
Then at the flashing red evidence unit sitting in Ava’s hand.
Then back at Naomi.
“Captain.”
“Step away from the vehicle.”
He laughed.
It sounded forced.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Marcus Reed came around the sedan holding a sealed evidence pouch.
“No joke.”
Wade’s eyes narrowed.
“I made a traffic stop.”
“You made seven traffic stops on this stretch of road in the past twelve days,” Marcus said. “Six involved drivers carrying more than five hundred dollars in cash.”
Wade stared at him.
Ava watched the math happening behind his eyes.
He was trying to determine what they knew.
More importantly, he was trying to determine what they didn’t.
Naomi pointed toward the shoulder.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Wade did not move.
“A captain from Internal Affairs cannot interfere with an active—”
“Your body camera is off.”
Silence.
A truck roared past them.
Wind tugged at Ava’s hair.
Naomi continued.
“You also failed to call the stop into dispatch.”
Wade’s jaw tightened.
“And you destroyed government identification belonging to a civilian.”
Ava tilted her head.
“Actually, that was the useful part.”
Wade looked at her.
She smiled faintly.
“The camera above the rearview mirror recorded you doing it.”
His eyes flicked upward.
There it was.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
He had missed it.
Naomi said, “You’re relieved of duty pending investigation.”
Wade’s expression changed.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Rage.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“No.”
Wade shook his head.
“You really don’t.”
Ava had heard threats before.
This one felt different.
Because Wade wasn’t bluffing.
Naomi seemed to hear it too.
“What does that mean?”
Wade looked at Ava again.
“You put her in that car?”
Naomi said nothing.
“You sent her here?”
Still nothing.
A smile slowly returned to Wade’s face.
But this smile wasn’t arrogant.
It was almost pitying.
“Oh, Captain.”
Ava felt something cold move through her stomach.
Wade leaned closer.
“You should have checked who else knew about your sting.”
Naomi’s expression hardened.
“Turn around.”
Wade obeyed.
An Internal Affairs investigator moved forward and began removing his duty weapon.
Then Wade laughed.
“Ask Mercer why she really got picked.”
Ava froze.
Naomi looked at him.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Ava stepped out of the car.
“Don’t.”
Wade turned his head enough to see her.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
Marcus moved between them.
“That’s enough.”
Wade continued anyway.
“That road you’re standing on?”
He nodded toward the trees bordering the highway.
“Your father died three miles from here.”
Ava stopped breathing.
Her father’s death had occurred nineteen years earlier.
Detective Daniel Mercer.
Officially killed during an armed robbery pursuit.
She had been eight.
The department had told her mother he died a hero.
Every police academy ceremony Ava attended after joining the department had repeated the same story.
Wade smiled.
“That wasn’t a coincidence.”
Naomi grabbed his arm.
“Put him in the SUV.”
Wade resisted.
“Tell her, Captain.”
Naomi’s eyes flashed.
“Move.”
“You knew her father worked this district.”
“Move!”
Two investigators placed Wade in handcuffs.
Before they pushed him into the vehicle, he twisted toward Ava.
“Your daddy figured out what happens on this highway.”
Ava’s hands had gone numb.
“And?”
Wade’s smile disappeared.
“And they killed him for it.”
The SUV door slammed.
Ava stood motionless beside the road.
Cars continued passing.
Drivers glanced toward the police vehicles without knowing that Ava Mercer’s entire life had just cracked open.
She turned toward Naomi.
“Tell me he’s lying.”
Naomi didn’t answer quickly enough.
Ava felt her chest tighten.
“Naomi.”
The captain looked at Marcus.
That was worse.
Much worse.
Ava stepped closer.
“You knew?”
Naomi lowered her voice.
“Not everything.”
“How much?”
“We discovered a connection while preparing the sting.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“We needed you focused.”
“You used me.”
“No.”
“You put me on the same highway where my father died, using me as bait, without telling me that his death might be connected?”
Naomi’s face remained calm, but guilt appeared in her eyes.
“That decision was mine.”
Ava laughed once.
It had no humor in it.
“You think?”
Marcus approached.
“Ava, there is something else.”
She turned.
He was holding Wade’s confiscated phone.
The screen displayed an incoming message.
Unknown number.
Three words.
IS IT DONE?
Ava stared.
Marcus said, “The message arrived thirty seconds after we detained him.”
Naomi’s attention sharpened.
“Don’t answer.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Another message appeared.
MERCER CANNOT LEAVE.
Ava felt the air leave her lungs.
The next message arrived immediately.
IF SHE HAS THE DEVICE, CLEAN THE SCENE.
Naomi looked toward the highway.
Then the tree line.
Her hand moved toward her weapon.
“Everybody in the vehicles.”
Ava heard it a second later.
An engine.
Fast.
Too fast.
A white utility truck came around the bend.
It wasn’t slowing down.
It was coming directly toward them.
“MOVE!”
Naomi grabbed Ava and threw her behind the sedan.
The truck slammed into the side of Ava’s undercover car.
Metal screamed.
Glass exploded across the shoulder.
The evidence-logging system flew from Ava’s hand.
The truck bounced away, smashed through the guardrail and disappeared down the embankment.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Ava looked toward her destroyed car.
Smoke rose from the hood.
Marcus ran toward the evidence device.
He picked it up.
The red light was still flashing.
Naomi exhaled.
“Tell me it recorded that.”
Ava stared at the crushed driver’s side where she had been standing moments earlier.
“It recorded everything.”
Then a gunshot cracked from the trees.
Marcus dropped.
May you like
And Ava realized the truck had never been the real attack.
It had only been the distraction.
