But as I drove my own undercover vehicle back to headquarters, following the convoy, that chill refused to dissipate. The sting had gone perfectly. Too perfectly, almost. Daniels was a dirty cop, a hunter who preyed on the vulnerable. He was arrogant, but he wasn't stupid. So why had he practically thrown his career away on a random traffic stop?
By the time I arrived at the cavernous underground garage of IA headquarters, the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, leaving a dull ache at the base of my skull. I rode the elevator up to the Special Investigations floor. The bullpen was buzzing. A high-profile collar like this, catching a corrupt uniform red-handed, was a massive win for the division.
I handed the sealed evidence bag over to Martinez, our lead forensic tech, at the intake window.
"Rush this," I told him. "I want the chemical breakdown by dawn. We need to know exactly what he was carrying."
"You got it, Detective," Martinez said, logging the barcode. "Standard panel?"
"Standard panel. I'm going into the box with him in twenty minutes. I want to have all my ammunition ready."
I grabbed a stale coffee from the breakroom and walked to Observation Room B. Through the one-way glass, I could see Daniels sitting alone at the metal table in the interrogation room. His uniform had been swapped for a grey paper jumpsuit, a standard precaution to preserve any trace evidence on his clothes.
He didn't look panicked anymore. He sat perfectly still, staring at the blank wall opposite him. He was chewing the inside of his cheek, a rhythmic, rhythmic motion.
Captain Miller walked into the observation room, looking grim but satisfied. He was a silver-haired veteran who had staked his reputation on cleaning up the department.
"He lawyer up yet?" Miller asked, crossing his arms.
"Not yet," I replied. "Heโs just sitting there. Processing."
"Don't give him an inch, Vance. The union is going to throw their best sharks at this by morning. We need a full confession. We need him to admit to the three prior frame-jobs so we can get those kids' records expunged."
"I'll get it," I promised.
I took a deep breath, opened the heavy steel door, and stepped into the interrogation room. The air inside was stale, smelling of nervous sweat and industrial cleaner. I pulled out the metal chair opposite Daniels and sat down. I placed my file folder on the table.
Daniels didn't look at me. He kept staring at the wall.
"It's over, Tom," I started, keeping my voice even, conversational. "We have the bodycam footage. We have my undercover wire. We have your dashcam. We have the baggie you pulled out of an empty pocket. There is no version of this story where you walk out of here with a badge."
Daniels slowly turned his head. His eyes were flat, devoid of emotion. "You think you're pretty smart, don't you, Vance?"
"I think I caught a dirty cop doing dirty cop things."
"You don't know a damn thing," Daniels whispered, leaning forward. The metal cuffs clinked against the table. "You think this was about boosting my arrest quota? You think I care about pulling over some random guy on Route 9?"
"The evidence says you do."
Daniels chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "You IA guys are all the same. You look at the surface and think you see the whole ocean. You think you pulled a weed, but you're standing in a minefield."
"Enlighten me, then. Why plant drugs on innocent people?"
"I want my phone," Daniels said abruptly, sitting back. "I get a phone call."
"You can call your union rep in a minute. After we talk."
"I don't want the union," Daniels spat. "I want my personal phone. The one your goons took from me."
"That's evidence. Nobody is touching it until we get a warrant to dump the data."
Daniels stared at me, a sickening smile creeping over his face. It was the same smile heโd worn on the highway, right before he produced the baggie. "Suit yourself. But when the clock runs out, the blood is on your hands, Detective. Not mine."
Before I could press him on what the hell he meant by that, there was a sharp knock on the interrogation room door. Jenkins poked her head in. Her face was pale.
"Marcus. Step outside. Now."
I frowned, looking from Jenkins to Daniels. Daniels just kept smiling.
I stood up and walked out into the hallway. Jenkins pulled me away from the door, keeping her voice down.
"Martinez just rushed the preliminary swab on the baggie," she said, her breathing shallow.
"And? It's coke, right? Or fentanyl?"
"Neither," Jenkins said, handing me a slip of paper. "It's drywall dust. Cut with baby powder and a pinch of crushed aspirin. There are zero narcotics in that bag, Marcus. None."
I stared at the lab slip, the words blurring together. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would he plant fake drugs? When we test it, the charges get dropped. It defeats the entire purpose of a frame-up."
"It gets worse," Jenkins said, her eyes wide. "We plugged his personal burner phone into the Cellebrite machine to image it. It received an encrypted text message three minutes after we put him in the back of the SUV."
"What did it say?"
Jenkins swallowed hard. "It said: 'The decoy is secure. Move the real package. You have one hour.'"
My stomach dropped to the floor. The chill I had felt on the highway suddenly turned to ice in my veins.
Daniels hadn't been trying to make an arrest tonight. He had been trying to create a distraction. He knew he was going to get caught. He had deliberately thrown himself at an IA sting to tie up our surveillance teams, to draw all the eyes in the department onto him on an empty stretch of highway.
Because while we were busy arresting a dirty cop, someone else was moving something much, much worse.