Chapter 12 - The Woman at Mile Marker 82
By the time Victoria’s team crossed into Indiana, Jenna Torres’s phone had stopped transmitting.
No calls.
No texts.
No location signal.
Nothing.
Rachel Kim worked from the back seat of the black Suburban, her laptop balanced against her knees while rain streaked across the windows.
“The last tower contact places her somewhere within a nine-mile radius of Bell County,” Rachel said. “Then the device went dark.”
“Battery?” asked Special Agent Cole Bennett from behind the wheel.
“Possible.”
Victoria watched the highway.
“But you don’t think so,” Bennett said.
“No.”
Victoria had recruited Bennett from the Indiana State Police after reviewing his record. Twelve years on the job. No sustained complaints. No unexplained wealth. A reputation for arresting fellow officers when necessary.
Most importantly, he hated shortcuts.
“We assume the phone was destroyed,” Victoria said. “Jenna called us because she believed law enforcement was compromised. We do not broadcast her identity on county channels.”
Bennett nodded.
“No locals.”
“Not yet.”
Bell County looked ordinary from the interstate.
Gas stations.
Farm fields.
Fast-food signs.
Church steeples visible beyond the tree line.
Nothing about the landscape suggested that someone might disappear for contacting the FBI.
That was usually how dangerous systems survived.
They looked normal from the outside.
Rachel suddenly leaned forward.
“I have something.”
She turned her laptop.
“Jenna Torres, thirty-four. Records administrator for the Bell County Sheriff’s Department. Nine years employed. Divorced. No criminal history.”
Victoria studied the photograph.
Jenna had dark curls, tired brown eyes, and the cautious smile of someone uncomfortable being photographed.
“What files would a records administrator see?”
“Traffic reports. Seizure forms. Dispatch logs. Body-camera retention requests.”
“Everything we need,” Victoria said.
Rachel nodded.
“And maybe everything someone wants destroyed.”
They found Jenna’s abandoned Honda forty minutes later.
It sat crooked near Mile Marker 82 with the driver’s door unlocked.
Victoria pulled on gloves before approaching.
No blood.
No broken windows.
A paper coffee cup remained in the holder, still slightly warm.
Bennett crouched beside the rear bumper.
“Fresh scrape.”
Victoria looked.
Blue paint marked the silver metal.
“Another vehicle pushed her?”
“Looks that way.”
Rachel called from the shoulder.
“There’s something in the ditch.”
It was Jenna’s purse.
Her wallet remained inside.
So did ninety-two dollars in cash.
Robbery was unlikely.
Victoria searched the grass carefully.
Ten yards farther down, she found Jenna’s phone crushed beneath a tire.
The screen was shattered.
The SIM card had been removed.
“Professional enough to remove the card,” Bennett said.
“Not professional enough to realize the device was already transmitting.”
Victoria looked toward the highway.
A truck stop sign stood in the distance.
PIONEER TRAVEL CENTER — 2 MILES.
“Cameras,” she said.
At the truck stop, the manager initially claimed the exterior cameras had been malfunctioning.
Victoria showed her credentials.
His memory improved.
Twenty minutes later, they watched grainy footage from a camera mounted above the diesel pumps.
Jenna’s Honda entered at 7:43 a.m.
She parked.
She exited carrying a red folder.
Then a dark blue pickup truck pulled behind her.
Two uniformed deputies emerged.
Bennett froze the image.
“I know them.”
Victoria looked at him.
“Deputy Aaron Pike and Sergeant Lucas Danner,” he said. “Bell County.”
The footage showed Jenna backing away.
Pike grabbed her arm.
Danner seized the folder.
They pushed her into the rear of the pickup.
The vehicle left.
The manager looked sick.
“They told me she’d stolen county records.”
“Did they show a warrant?”
“No.”
“Did you see them arrest her?”
He hesitated.
Victoria waited.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
The man laughed nervously.
“To who? Their boss?”
That answer told Victoria almost everything.
Rachel photographed the screen.
“We need a federal warrant.”
“We’re getting one.”
Victoria called Hayes.
He answered immediately.
“Tell me.”
“Jenna was taken by two Bell County deputies. We have video.”
Hayes cursed quietly.
“I’ll wake the magistrate.”
Victoria stepped away from the others.
“Marcus, there’s more. The truck-stop manager was afraid to report an apparent abduction because he assumed the sheriff would protect the deputies.”
“I understand.”
“No. I don’t think we do.”
She stared across the parking lot.
Three Bell County patrol cars had just entered.
They spread across the lot, blocking separate exits.
Bennett noticed them too.
His hand moved toward his jacket.
“Victoria.”
“I see them.”
A heavyset sheriff climbed from the lead cruiser.
He wore mirrored sunglasses despite the rain.
Sheriff Wesley Brant.
According to Rachel’s earlier briefing, Brant had attended six Midwest Interdiction Coalition seminars.
He walked toward Victoria with four deputies behind him.
“Federal agents,” Brant called pleasantly. “Heard you folks were looking for one of my employees.”
Victoria showed no reaction.
“How did you hear that?”
Brant smiled.
“Small county.”
He stopped six feet away.
“Jenna Torres is a fugitive. Stole confidential files and fled.”
“Where is she?”
“We’re looking.”
Victoria glanced toward the security office.
Brant’s smile thinned.
“You mind telling me what business the FBI has interfering with a local theft investigation?”
Victoria held his gaze.
“Do you mind telling me why two of your deputies kidnapped Jenna from this parking lot?”
Every expression on Brant’s face disappeared.
For the first time, the rain sounded loud.
Then Sheriff Brant said something Victoria would remember for a long time.
“You should’ve stayed on Route 9, Agent Cross.”
Bennett’s eyes narrowed.
Nobody outside the FBI team was supposed to know she was here.
Victoria’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“That sounded less like advice.”
May you like
Brant smiled again.
“It was.”
