Chapter 6: The Tablet Screen
Jenkins stared at the dark plastic casing of the USB drive resting on my palm. The steady drizzle from the parking lot caught the sheen of her raincoat hood as she weighed my words. Beside her, the local police officer shifted his stance, his hand lifting slightly away from his holster. The silence stretched between us, heavy with the hum of the motel's rusty air conditioning unit vibrating through the drywall.
"An active criminal investigation requires a warrant, Mr. Vance, or immediate exigent circumstances," Jenkins said, her professional armor sliding back into place, though the sharp edge in her voice had dulled. "Handing me a thumb drive at seven in the morning in a highway motel parking room doesn't bypass due process."
"It isn't a request for process, Ms. Jenkins," I replied, my voice dropping an octave, steady and flat. "It's a warning. If you step past me into this room without looking at what is on that drive first, you become a documented accessory to child endangerment. The files are time-stamped. They match the security logs of my private residence."
Officer Miller stepped closer, peering over Jenkins’s shoulder. "Ma'am, maybe we take a look in the cruiser. We have a secure terminal in the dash. If there's genuine cause here, we don't want to step on our own feet legally."
Jenkins hesitated, her eyes narrowing as she studied my face for any sign of a bluff. Finding none, she plucked the drive from my fingers with gloved fingertips. "Five minutes, Mr. Vance. If this is a distraction tactic or a civil dispute dressed up in digital theater, you and your daughter will be in county custody by eight o'clock."
"Take all the time you need," I said, and stepped back, letting the heavy metal latch of the door click shut halfway, leaving a narrow gap through which I watched them walk toward the idling cruiser in the rain.
Inside the dim room, Maya sat propped up against the motel pillows, wrapped in a faded green blanket I had bought at an all-night truck stop down the road. Her large, frightened eyes tracked my movements as I walked back to the edge of the mattress. She didn't speak, but her small hand reached out, clutching the hem of my shirt when I sat down beside her.
"They're looking at something outside, sweetheart," I whispered, brushing a damp lock of brown hair away from her forehead. "We're going to be okay. No one is taking you back to that house."
Ten minutes dragged by like hours. The red taillights of the police cruiser glowed through the thin motel curtains, casting a bruised crimson tint across the laminate floor. When footsteps crunched on the gravel outside again, my hand instinctively slid into my coat pocket, wrapping around the spare key fob of my sedan.
The knock on the door was sharp, formal, three measured strikes. I stood up, smoothing the front of my shirt, and pulled the door open wide this time.
May you like
Jenkins stood alone in the drizzle, the police officer waiting by the car. Her face had lost its bureaucratic polish entirely. The sharp, dismissive efficiency was gone, replaced by the pale, tight-lipped tension of a professional who had just stared into a darkness she hadn't prepared for.
"We saw the files, Mr. Vance," Jenkins said quietly, her voice barely carrying over the sound of traffic on the nearby interstate. "All of them. The audio, the cellar logs, the notary registry comparison." She looked past my shoulder toward the bed where Maya sat watching them. "We need to get her to a medical facility for a formal forensic evaluation. Immediately."
