Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Falcon dipped his chin. “Already rotating fresh faces onto Stowe. He works alone, keeps irregular hours, and drives a county-registered service van when he handles emergency support.”
Nomad’s gaze moved over the lines connecting the three men. “Think Pritchard panicked after Raines took his badge?”
“He drove to Pike before he went home.” I leaned back, watching the timeline align beneath the photographs. “That wasn’t panic. It was warning the others that access to the department had closed.”
Raines answered my secure call on the second ring, and I gave him the clean version of the surveillance without mentioning how closely our men had followed Pritchard after the official county vehicle dropped away. He already possessed lawful evidence connecting Jeff’s payment to Pike, while the independent audit proved Pritchard had entered restricted records he had no assigned reason to view. What he lacked were communications, financial transfers, authentication records, or devices tying Pike, Pritchard, and Stowe to the same agreement.
“I’m working on warrants for Pike’s business accounts, Pritchard’s personal devices, and every vendor record attached to Stowe.” Fatigue roughened his voice. “County attorney agrees we’ve got enough to ask. Doesn’t mean the judge signs before these assholes figure out we’re coming.”
“They already figured it out.”
A pause followed, filled with everything he couldn’t officially ask me to do. “Keep me informed if they move.”
“I will.”
Neither of us defined how quickly that information would reach him or what might happen before it did. When I ended the call, Stryker appeared in my doorway with Hawkeye behind him, having already read Judge’s summary.
“Continuous coverage,” he ordered. “Nobody loses one of them because a warrant takes too fucking long. Add enough brothers to rotate through the night without repeating vehicles or faces.”
Nomad and Falcon left to adjust the watch while I spent the rest of the day pulling at Stowe’s digital footprint without alerting any system he controlled. His company had legitimate access to county software, billing records, service schedules, and emergency-maintenance channels, but six private windows appeared beneath that legitimate work like cuts hidden under old scars. Each one corresponded to a manipulated incident, and each had been sanitized too carefully to look like anything except deliberate use by someone who understood exactly where the ordinary logs ended.
By nightfall, I had enough circumstantial structure to identify the three men’s roles but still lacked the piece that would collapse the distance between suspicion and proof. Pritchard supplied confidential case information, victim routines, and patrol gaps. Pike brokered the jobs, verified targets, and handled buyers. Stowe used his vendor access to alter calls, manufacture incidents, and erase whatever the client had paid to make disappear.
Stryker called me into his office shortly after nine. Hawkeye leaned against the edge of the walnut desk with Stryker standing behind it, one hand braced against the wood as he watched the surveillance updates arrive across the wall display.
Fresh from court, Judge sat at the conference table with his suit jacket draped over the chair beside him, his tie loosened and irritation carved around his mouth.
“Pritchard returned home after leaving Stowe’s office,” Stryker said. “Falcon watched him empty a personal safe into a duffel. Cash, two phones, documents, and something the size of a tablet.”
“Hawkeye’s team saw Pike close his office three hours early,” Judge added. “He carried out a laptop case and two phones, then cleaned the interior badly enough that even a county tech would know he was wiping surfaces.”
“Stowe removed the maintenance laptop assigned to his county contract,” Hawkeye finished as he enlarged an image of the black equipment case leaving the office. “Loaded it into the service van with three external drives.”
They were collecting the devices holding the parts of the conspiracy nobody could perform without leaving traces. Messages between the three of them. Payment history and client names. Local authentication tokens, cached case records, confidential attachments, routing commands, deleted call fragments, and whatever copies Stowe had kept in case Pike or Pritchard decided he was disposable. Pritchard losing his badge and system access had convinced them seizure was coming, and now they were gathering everything capable of burying them before Raines’s paperwork reached a judge.
“They’re going to destroy it.” I studied the separate feeds. “Not relocate. Too much risk carrying all three sets of evidence once warrants are moving.”
Stryker nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
I looked toward Judge. “Raines know?”
“I’ve kept him updated.” Judge’s mouth shifted with the faintest trace of satisfaction. “To a certain extent.”
“How generous.”
Judge crossed his arms over his chest. “If the sheriff’s people find them first, excellent. If we do, we’ll pass the location along.”
Hawkeye’s mouth twitched. “Eventually.”
While we waited for one of the surveillance teams to report where the three men were taking their evidence, I checked the time and pulled up the protected feed from dispatch. Bex sat behind her console with her headset in place. Wraith held the communications entrance and Smoke covered the employee corridor, while Raines remained inside the building.