They backed out of the office, keeping their eyes on him until they reached the garage bay, then turned and hustled out to their unmarked Dodge Charger. The tires squealed as they sped off into the twilight.
Edmund stood in the doorway of his office, watching the dust settle in the driveway. He didn't rush to the phone to call 911. He didn't call a lawyer. He walked over to his desk, picked up the useless seizure receipt, and looked at the illegible scrawl.
Then, he reached under the lip of his oak desk and pulled a tiny hidden SD card from a secondary covert camera system he had installed himself—a system completely isolated from the shop's main Wi-Fi, one the cops hadn't known to disable. Edmund plugged the SD card into his laptop. He had their faces, their voices, and the license plate of their unmarked car.
"Riggins and Kessler," Edmund whispered to himself, his voice dropping an octave into a cold, clinical register.
For eight years, Edmund Hayes had tried to leave the war behind. But the war had just walked through his front door.
Eighty miles away, in the VIP booth of a high-end, dimly lit cigar lounge in Buckhead, Riggins and Kessler were celebrating. The duffel bag of cash was safely locked in the trunk of Riggins's car. They had already skimmed 50,000 off the top for "operational expenses" before logging the remaining 200,000 into the precinct's evidence locker—a standard play. The fifty grand was their untouchable bonus, effectively untraceable.
"I told you," Riggins laughed, swirling a glass of expensive bourbon. "Easiest score of the year. The guy was practically shaking. Didn't even ask for a lawyer."
Kessler took a slow drag from his cigar, though his expression wasn't quite as celebratory. He was staring at the amber liquid in his glass, replaying the raid in his mind. Something was gnawing at the back of his brain.
"He wasn't shaking, Garrett," Kessler muttered, leaning forward.
"What?"
"Hayes. He wasn't shaking. Did you look at his eyes?" Kessler tapped the side of his own head. "When we breached the door, he didn't jump. When you got in his face, he didn't lean back. He just looked at us. Like he was sizing us up. Like he was taking inventory."
Riggins waved a hand dismissively. "He was in shock, Tommy. People freeze. You're overthinking it. He's a mechanic. What's he going to do? Hit us with a wrench? We have the badge. We own this town."