"Probably her drug dealer wondering where the drop is," Voss scoffed, accelerating through a yellow light at the town square, kicking up red Georgia dust behind us. "Let it ring. Once we get her into the booking cage, you can strip that bag down to the threads. If she's got cash, log half of it into the general evidence locker and put the rest in the safe in my office. Just like we always do."
Miller didn't answer. He reached down and rested one trembling hand against the leather strap of the purse.
Bzz-bzz. Bzz-bzz.
I leaned my head back against the cold, bulletproof glass of the rear window and watched the green pine trees blur past into a wall of dark emerald.
Three weeks earlier, I had taken an emergency judicial leave from my chambers in Atlanta. I had driven down to this forgotten corner of the state for one reason: my seventy-six-year-old Aunt Lorraine, a retired schoolteacher who had lived on eleven acres outside of town for half a century, had fallen and broken her hip. But when I arrived at her bedside, she hadn't talked about her hip. She had handed me a shoebox packed with thirty-one handwritten letters from county residents detailing unlawful property seizures, fabricated police reports, and missing family members.
I had recused myself from the federal bench regarding any matters touching Pell County and turned the entire dossier over to the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Chief Judge of the Eleventh Circuit, Harold Brennan, had personally warned me before I left Atlanta: Amara, don't get involved. The FBI has a task force running a deep public corruption probe into Voss and his cronies. Keep your head down, care for your aunt, and let the agents do their jobs.
I had fully intended to follow that advice. I had only driven into Halvorsen Springs that morning to pick up Aunt Lorraine’s blood pressure medication at Pruitt's Pharmacy. I had only stopped at the Magnolia Diner because I smelled fried catfish.
I had not planned to confront Dalton Voss.
I had not planned to be thrown against a diner booth in front of thirty people.
And I certainly had not planned to ride in the back of a police cruiser in handcuffs.
Bzz-bzz. Bzz-bzz.
The phone buzzed again—five short, rapid vibrations this time. That was the automated code for an emergency priority broadcast, reserved exclusively for federal judges and top-tier federal law enforcement officials during active operational alerts.
Deputy Miller leaned forward, staring down at the purse with eyes wide with an instinctual, animal dread. He was young, and he was terrified of his boss, but he wasn't stupid. He could feel the pressure dropping in the vehicle like the lead-up to a tornado.
"Sheriff," Miller said, his voice cracking slightly. "That phone... it's vibrating in a weird pattern. It's been going non-stop since we left the diner."
Voss let out an irritated growl and swung the cruiser hard to the left, turning down the narrow, gravel-paved access road that led to the squat, ugly red-brick compound of the Pell County Sheriff’s Department.
"Shut up about the damn phone, Miller," Voss barked, slamming his foot on the brake as the cruiser slid to a halt in front of the sally port gate. "You're acting like a terrified rookie. We’ve got an unidentified transient woman in custody on felony charges of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. By the time I get through with the prosecutor, she won't see a courtroom outside of this county for ten years."
The automated iron gate groaned on its rusty hinges, rolling back to swallow the cruiser into the dark, shadowed belly of the sally port.
Voss killed the engine, unbuckled his seatbelt, and turned around in his seat, giving me that same wide, crooked, predatory grin.
"Welcome to my house, lady," he chuckled, patting the heavy black grip of his Glock 17. "End of the line."
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I looked through the wire mesh into the sheriff's smug, triumphant eyes. My wrists throbbed with white-hot pain, and the blood had dried into a crusty red ring against the silver cuffs, but inside my chest, my heart was beating at a steady, perfectly rhythmic seventy beats per minute.
"No, Sheriff Voss," I whispered, loud enough for both men to hear through the steel mesh. "This isn't the end of my line. It's the beginning of yours."
The heavy steel door of the cruiser swung open with a screech of ungreased metal, and before I could even pivot my knees toward the pavement, Dalton Voss grabbed the chain between my handcuffs and yanked me forward.
The violent torque sent a searing shockwave of pain tearing through my left wrist. I heard the faint, sickening pop of strained ligaments, followed immediately by a pulse of white-hot agony that caused black spots to dance across my peripheral vision. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, refusing to scream, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing me whimper on the oil-stained concrete of his sally port.
"Move your feet, city girl," Voss grunted, shoving his forearm hard against my spine.
I stumbled, catching my balance on the bumper of the cruiser before righting myself. The concrete floor was slick with motor oil and puddle water from an old swamp cooler dripping overhead. High above us, yellow industrial sodium lamps buzzed with an angry, electric drone, casting long, distorted shadows across the windowless brick walls.