Across the room, Wyatt Miller was quietly lacing up his boots. He hadn't slept a wink. The image of the elegant, composed Black woman standing on the side of the highway while Tagert trashed her car haunted him. He knew he should have intervened. He knew he should have turned on his body camera, which Tagert had conveniently told him to leave off.
"Hey, Miller!" Tagert barked across the benches. "You look like a ghost. Shake it off. Today is a good day. We're getting the department back on track."
At 7:55 a.m., the intercom crackled to life: "All available personnel, report to the main assembly room. Mandatory briefing in five minutes."
The assembly room was a massive auditorium lined with rows of folding chairs. Nearly two hundred officers, detectives, and administrative staff piled in, a sea of navy blue uniforms. Tagert took a seat in the second row, making sure he was visible; he wanted the new chief to see his face. Wyatt sat nervously in the back row near the exit.
At exactly 8:00 a.m., the side door opened. Mayor William Stanton walked onto the wooden stage. He was a tall, severe-looking man who had campaigned heavily on police reform. The room fell into a tense silence.
"Good morning," Mayor Stanton began, stepping up to the podium. He adjusted his microphone, his eyes scanning the crowd of officers. "For the past five years, the Oakport Police Department has been plagued by scandal, corruption, and a severe breach of public trust. We have settled over fourteen million dollars in excessive force lawsuits. This department is broken."
A low murmur of dissent rippled through the veteran officers. Tagert crossed his arms, rolling his eyes. Here we go with the political garbage, he thought.
"The citizens of Oakport deserve a police force that serves and protects, not one that terrorizes and steals," the mayor continued, his voice rising in volume. "Which is why, when searching for a new chief of police, I did not look internally. The rot in this precinct goes too deep."
Tagert's smug expression vanished. The officers around him exchanged confused, panicked glances. Not internal?
"I sought out a leader with an unimpeachable record," Mayor Stanton said. "Someone who spent thirty-five years in the Chicago Police Department, rising from a beat cop to the deputy chief of internal affairs. Someone who has dismantled corrupt precincts from the inside out. I am proud to introduce the new chief of the Oakport Police Department: Chief Josephine Reynolds."
The double doors at the rear of the stage swung open. The room went dead silent. Footsteps echoed sharply against the hardwood floor.
Out from the shadows walked Josephine.
She was dressed in a pristine, immaculate Class A uniform. Four gold stars gleamed on each side of her collar. The gold badge that Tagert had dismissed as a Cracker Jack toy the night before was pinned perfectly to her chest, catching the fluorescent lights of the auditorium. She walked to the podium with the lethal, measured grace of a predator entering a cage full of cornered prey.
In the second row, Derek Tagert stopped breathing. All the blood drained from his face, leaving him a sickening shade of ash-gray. His heart slammed against his ribs like a trapped bird. The thick, arrogant sneer melted off his lips, replaced by a look of absolute, unadulterated terror.
It was her: the grandmother, the Aston Martin, the woman he had illegally searched, verbally abused, and threatened on the highway less than fourteen hours ago.