Kane needed to regain control, and he needed to do it before the situation became something his colleagues could not ignore.
His eyes settled on the gold badge visible inside Cross's jacket.
"There it is again," he muttered.
Cross did not look down.
"Then check it."
Kane gave a sharp shake of his head.
"You still don't understand. That thing doesn't impress me."
"It isn't supposed to impress you."
"Then why keep bringing it up?"
"Because it identifies me."
Kane leaned closer, his voice rising.
"That badge is fake."
The accusation echoed against the closed blinds and the dark wooden table. Parker glanced at Brooks. Brooks did not look away from Kane.
Cross remained motionless.
He had expected hostility when Kane first refused to listen. He had expected the officer to demand explanations, challenge the details of his presence, and perhaps insist that a supervisor be brought into the conversation. He had not expected the punch, but even that had not changed the essential problem.
The badge could be verified.
The officer was refusing to verify it.
Cross felt the sting beneath his nose, but his attention remained on Kane. He had learned long ago that anger could narrow a person's judgment until every available choice seemed to lead toward confrontation. His own responsibility was to keep his decisions clear, particularly when someone else was determined to make them difficult.
He spoke carefully.
"You are making an accusation about federal identification without checking the issuing agency."
Kane scoffed.
"I don't need an agency to tell me when someone is lying to my face."
"Then you are relying on your opinion instead of evidence."
Kane's eyes narrowed.
"Careful."
Cross's expression remained composed.
"You struck a restrained person. You have refused to verify his identification. And now you're calling the badge fake without establishing whether it is legitimate. Those are decisions you will need to explain."
Kane's face darkened.
"You think you're going to scare me with paperwork?"
"No."
"With some supervisor's phone call?"
"No."
"Then what do you think you're going to do?"
Cross looked at him for a long moment.
"I'm going to let you decide whether you want to find out the truth before you make another mistake."
The sentence was not delivered as a threat. There was no dramatic gesture, no raised voice, and no attempt to intimidate the officer in return. It was simply a statement of fact, offered by a man who understood that the consequences of an action did not depend on whether the person responsible believed those consequences were real.
Kane heard something else.
He heard a challenge.
He heard the possibility that the man he had struck might possess the authority to expose what had happened. He heard the suggestion that his colleagues might have to answer questions about why they had stood by while a handcuffed man was assaulted. And he heard, above all, the calm certainty of someone who did not need to prove his importance by shouting.
That certainty infuriated him.
"You're not in charge here," Kane said.
Cross tilted his head slightly.
"I haven't claimed to be."
"Then stop acting like you can tell me what happens next."
"You're the one deciding what happens next."
For a moment, Kane seemed unable to find a reply.
Brooks took advantage of the pause.
"James, get the incident log ready. I want the time recorded, and I want the names of everyone who was in this room."
Kane spun toward her.
"You are not opening an incident report over an internal disagreement."
Brooks held his gaze.
"This stopped being an internal disagreement when you hit him."
"He's a suspect."
"Then document the arrest. Document the identification you refused to check. Document the injury. All of it."
Her words left no room for the comfortable ambiguity Kane had been trying to maintain.
Parker slowly reached for the notebook tucked into his uniform pocket. He did not begin writing immediately, but the movement itself signaled that the encounter was no longer something he intended to forget.
Kane looked at him with open irritation.
"Put that away."
Parker's fingers stopped against the notebook.
Brooks intervened before he could answer.
"Leave it out."
The two officers stared at each other.