Chapter 2 - Someone Inside Internal Affairs
Marcus Reed hit the pavement.
Ava screamed his name.
Naomi dragged him behind the sedan as another shot struck the rear window.
Glass erupted.
“Shooter in the trees!” Naomi shouted.
Two Internal Affairs investigators drew their weapons and moved toward cover.
Ava crawled toward Marcus.
Blood was spreading across his white shirt near his shoulder.
“I’m okay,” he gasped.
“You’ve been shot.”
“I noticed.”
Naomi pressed her hand against the wound.
“Stay down.”
A third shot cracked.
It hit the road inches from Ava’s shoe.
Naomi grabbed Ava’s jacket.
“Behind the engine block!”
They moved.
Sirens were already approaching from the distance.
Which should have made Ava feel safer.
It didn’t.
Someone had known where they would be.
Someone had known the sting.
Someone had known Ava’s name.
And whoever had sent the shooter probably knew which responding officers were now on the way.
The shooting stopped.
Naomi waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Nothing.
The trees became silent again.
Too silent.
Ava looked toward the evidence device.
It lay beneath the sedan.
Still flashing.
Still recording.
“Don’t touch it,” Naomi said.
Ava met her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because if somebody inside the department compromised this operation, we don’t know how high it goes.”
Police cruisers began arriving.
Naomi stood.
“Everyone responding stays back!”
A patrol sergeant got out.
“Captain, we received shots-fired—”
“I know what you received.”
The sergeant glanced toward Marcus.
“We need EMS.”
“EMS only. No department personnel touch the vehicles, evidence or Officer Holloway.”
The sergeant looked offended.
“Captain—”
“That’s an order.”
Ava watched his reaction carefully.
Confusion.
Annoyance.
Not fear.
Probably clean.
Probably.
That word was becoming dangerous.
Marcus was transported to the hospital under state police protection.
Wade Holloway was moved to an undisclosed holding facility.
The white utility truck at the bottom of the embankment had been abandoned before impact.
A brick had been wedged against the accelerator.
The steering wheel had been locked.
A planned collision.
No driver.
No easy suspect.
By noon, Ava sat inside a secure conference room beneath the county courthouse.
No phones.
No department network.
No windows.
Naomi placed three folders on the table.
“You deserve the truth.”
Ava folded her arms.
“That would be a refreshing change.”
Naomi accepted the hit.
“Nineteen years ago your father was investigating roadside seizures.”
Ava frowned.
“Seizures?”
“Cash. Jewelry. Electronics. Drugs. Sometimes weapons.”
“Civil asset forfeiture?”
“On paper.”
Naomi slid forward the first folder.
“Your father believed several officers were manufacturing probable cause to stop drivers they believed were carrying cash.”
Ava opened it.
Daniel Mercer’s photograph stared back at her.
Young.
Serious.
Alive.
“He reported discrepancies.”
Naomi continued.
“Property entered into evidence didn’t match property described in arrest reports. Sometimes five thousand dollars became thirty-five hundred before it reached the evidence room.”
Ava looked up.
“They were stealing.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody stopped them?”
“Your father tried.”
Ava’s throat tightened.
Naomi pushed forward another page.
“He prepared a report naming six officers.”
“Where is it?”
“Missing.”
“Names?”
“Four are dead or retired.”
“And the other two?”
Naomi’s silence answered.
Ava leaned forward.
“Who?”
“One became Deputy Chief Raymond Sloan.”
Ava knew the name.
Everyone did.
Raymond Sloan was considered department royalty.
Decorated.
Television interviews.
Charity galas.
His photograph hung inside headquarters.
“And the second?”
Naomi’s voice dropped.
“Chief Malcolm Vale.”
Ava stared at her.
The chief of police.
The man who had handed Ava her detective shield.
The man who hugged her mother at Daniel Mercer’s memorial ceremony.
Ava pushed away from the table.
“No.”
Naomi said nothing.
“No.”
“We don’t know what role either man played.”
“You just accused the chief of police of being connected to my father’s death.”
“I said your father’s report named him.”
Ava walked toward the wall.
She suddenly remembered Vale kneeling in front of her when she was eight years old.
Your daddy was the bravest man I knew.
She remembered believing him.
“What happened the night Dad died?”
Naomi opened the third folder.
“Officially, he pursued two armed robbery suspects.”
“I know.”
“The robbery never happened.”
Ava turned.
“What?”
“There was no store owner.”
“No witnesses.”
“No stolen money.”
“The dispatch call came from a pay phone.”
Ava stared.
Naomi continued.
“Your father was sent to an isolated section of Route 41.”
The same road.
The road from that morning.
Ava whispered, “It was an ambush.”
“We believe so.”
A knock came at the secure door.
Marcus entered.
His arm was in a sling.
Ava stood.
“You should be in the hospital.”
“They recommended it.”
“And?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“That explains the bad decisions.”
He managed a tired smile.
Then it disappeared.
“We have another problem.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
Security footage.
A man wearing a baseball cap entering the courthouse parking garage.
Naomi looked closer.
“Who is that?”
Marcus removed a flash drive from his pocket.
“The man accessed my office yesterday.”
“Did he take anything?”
“No.”
Ava understood.
“He planted something.”
Marcus nodded.
“A listening device.”
Naomi cursed.
“How long was it active?”
“Long enough.”
Ava felt sick.
“Long enough to hear about the sting.”
“Yes.”
“Who has access to the courthouse?”
“Hundreds of people.”
Naomi pointed toward the photo.
“Run facial recognition.”
“We did.”
Marcus looked at Ava.
That expression again.
The one people wore when they were about to destroy another piece of her past.
Ava said, “Just tell me.”
Marcus placed a second photograph beside the first.
An old department photo.
Three young officers.
Daniel Mercer.
Malcolm Vale.
And a third man.
Ava recognized him immediately.
Her uncle.
Her father’s younger brother.
Lieutenant Patrick Mercer.
The man who had helped raise Ava after Daniel died.
The man she had called Uncle Pat her entire life.
Marcus tapped the security image.
“The man who planted the bug was Patrick Mercer.”
Ava’s knees nearly gave out.
“No.”
Naomi said carefully, “Ava—”
“No.”
She grabbed the photograph.
“Patrick retired three years ago.”
Marcus nodded.
“He still has credentials that get him into several law enforcement buildings.”
“He wouldn’t…”
Her voice broke.
“He loved my father.”
Nobody answered.
Ava pulled out her personal phone.
Naomi reached across the table.
“Don’t.”
“I’m calling him.”
“If he’s involved, you’ll warn him.”
“If he’s not, somebody may be setting him up.”
“That’s possible.”
Ava stopped.
For several seconds, she simply stared at Patrick’s face.
Then her phone vibrated.
A text.
From her mother.
Ava opened it.
COME HOME.
URGENT.
Then another message.
DO NOT BRING POLICE.
Ava stood.
Naomi said, “What happened?”
Ava showed her.
Naomi grabbed her jacket.
“I’m coming.”
A third message arrived.
This one contained a photograph.
Ava’s mother sitting in her kitchen.
Behind her stood Patrick Mercer.
He was holding Daniel Mercer’s missing case file.
May you like
Across the front, written in red marker, were four words.
AVA MUST NEVER SEE THIS.
