Hollister stopped typing. He looked at his brother-in-law with a mixture of annoyance and pity.
"Are you serious, Ty?" Hollister asked. "He used a fake scanner app. Or he had some broad on the phone trying to scare you. You think anyone is listening to an old man who trips over his own feet in a diner? It's a bluff. Toss the phone in the evidence locker. It doesn't matter."
Hollister hit the enter key on his keyboard.
The computer monitor immediately froze.
Hollister frowned, tapping the mouse against the desk. "Damn IT department. System is hanging again." He hit the escape key a few times.
The screen didn't unfreeze. Instead, the standard Oakhaven County database interface vanished. The screen snapped to a solid, blinding white background. A second later, a black progress bar appeared in the center of the screen, filling rapidly from zero to one hundred percent.
When it hit a hundred, a single line of stark black text appeared on the monitor:
FEDERAL EVIDENCE PRESERVATION PROTOCOL INITIATED. LOCAL ACCESS DENIED.
Hollister stared at the screen. He stopped tapping the mouse. "What the hell is this?"
Behind the reinforced glass of the dispatch booth overlooking the booking room, an older deputy named Carl stood up from his console. He pushed open the heavy security window, his face pale and strained.
"Ray," Carl called out, his voice tight with rising panic. "The CAD system just went down. The whole network. I can't dispatch the cruisers. I can't pull up the NCIC database. Every screen in the room just locked us out."
Hollister stood up from the desk. The casual arrogance was suddenly fracturing, replaced by a sudden, sharp confusion. He looked at the locked screen, then down at the bricked phone on the counter.
"Reboot the main server, Carl," Hollister barked, his voice rising in volume. "Go down to the basement and pull the hard power switch. Now!"
"I tried," Carl said, leaning out of the window. "The server room electronic lock won't accept my badge. The building's internal security matrix is overriding our credentials. We're locked out of our own system, Ray."
Miller took a step backward, putting distance between himself and the intake counter. The bravado he had carried from the clinic was completely gone. He looked at me, his eyes wide and uncertain.
"I told you," Miller whispered to Hollister. "She knew my name, Ray. She knew exactly who I was."
I shifted my weight, fighting the burn in my right shoulder. The metal cuffs felt like ice against my bruised wrists, but the air in the room had shifted entirely. The heavy, suffocating pressure of their absolute control was evaporating.
"I told you I was just waiting for the check, Sheriff," I said quietly into the tense silence of the room. "The bill just arrived."
Before Hollister could respond, the heavy steel roll-up doors in the sally port garage outside the booking room engaged. The mechanical whine of the massive gears grinding upward echoed through the cinderblock walls.
Hollister spun around, his hand dropping instinctively to the grip of his service weapon. "Carl! Did you open the garage?"
"No, Ray!" Carl shouted back. "I don't have control of the doors! The system is driving itself!"
The sound of heavy, high-performance engines filled the garage bay. It wasn't the rattling hum of the county's battered Ford cruisers. These were heavy utility vehicles, their tires screeching sharply as they locked into park on the wet concrete. Multiple vehicle doors slammed shut in rapid, disciplined succession.
Hollister unfastened the retention strap on his holster. Miller mirrored the action, his hands shaking visibly as he gripped the butt of his pistol.
The electronic buzzer on the main security door connecting the garage to the booking room sounded off—a long, continuous, abrasive tone that meant the door's magnetic lock had been remotely bypassed. The heavy steel door swung inward with brutal force, slamming against the cinderblock wall.