Lane reached for his dark body camera and turned it back on.

Mercer saw him. "Switch that off."

"She just denied the kidnapping, Sergeant."

"That is an order."

Lane looked at Grant, the empty bed, and five helmet cameras pointed toward him.

"No, sir."

The refusal changed the road.

Another officer activated her camera. Then the ambulance driver's phone rose above the steering wheel.

Mercer was no longer commanding a unit. He was standing inside a record.

The news van rounded the eastern curve.

Its satellite mast was already raised.

Grant saw it first.

"You set us up."

Evelyn's face remained calm on the tablet. "I told three offices three different transfer times. Only the police liaison received ten o'clock. You did the rest."

Mercer looked toward Grant.

Grant looked toward the forest.

Silas moved one step—not to chase him, but to place himself between Grant and the tree line.

"Stay for the interview," he said.

Grant's mouth twisted. "You think she chose you? She chose the nearest weapon."

Silas could have answered with the mate bond. With his wolf. With the fact that Evelyn's laughter had already become a place inside him.

He did not own her choice enough to define it.

"She chose herself," he said. "That's why you're losing."

The news camera caught every word.

County vehicles arrived three minutes later under Briar's call. Mercer lowered his weapon only when a public-integrity investigator ordered all municipal officers separated for statements.

No one was arrested yet.

That would have been too easy.

Officer Lane walked toward Briar before Mercer could call him back.

His face looked young without the borrowed certainty of the group.

"I need to amend my statement from the clubhouse search," he said.

Mercer went still.

Briar did not look at him. "About what?"

Lane swallowed. "Sergeant Mercer ordered us to disable the clubhouse network before entry. He said the warrant required it. It didn't."

"Anything else?"

"Officer Quinn called him at nine fifty-four today. Mercer put the phone on speaker in the briefing room. Quinn said, 'They took the ten o'clock bait.'"

Grant's head snapped toward him.

Lane continued faster. "Mercer told us a biker gang had kidnapped an injured woman. He didn't tell us Mrs. Quinn had denied it or that Officer Quinn's contact was suspended."

"You're confused," Mercer said. "Stress does that to inexperienced officers."

Lane's hand shook as he removed his body camera.

For a second Silas thought the young officer meant to surrender it.

Instead, Lane pressed playback.

Grant's voice emerged beneath the rain.

They took the ten o'clock bait.

Mercer's answer followed.

Then we stop the third vehicle after county turns off. No hospital cameras.

The road seemed to hold its breath.

Lane looked at Mercer. "I turned my camera back on before we left the briefing room."

Ronan came over the radio, unusually quiet. "Buy that kid a better job."

Briar sealed the camera in an evidence pouch while the public-integrity investigator separated Lane from the municipal group.

Mercer did not look powerful now. He looked like a man discovering that loyalty obtained through intimidation lasted only until someone offered a safe place to tell the truth.

Grant moved toward the county vehicle.

"Am I under arrest?"

"Not yet," Briar said.

"Then I'm leaving."

"After your statement."

"I don't answer to you."

Briar glanced at the news camera, Lane's evidence pouch, and the tablet still displaying Evelyn's face.

"Today, you seem to answer to everyone."

But the roadblock logs, disabled cameras, Grant's presence, and Mercer's demand to search a vehicle beyond his jurisdiction entered four separate evidence systems before noon.

The first ambulance reached its destination empty.

The second delivered Ronan, still wearing the pink cap, to a private clinic where three confused nurses offered him a wheelchair.

The third remained on Mountain Road while reporters filmed the coffeepot.

Back at the hospital, Evelyn's voice entered Silas's helmet.

"Did it work?"

"Mercer gave us more than we asked for."

"Grant?"

Silas watched him being placed in a separate county vehicle for questioning, not cuffed, but no longer standing beside the police.

"Angry."

"Good."

There was steel in the word. Then her voice softened.

"Come back. Sophie wants her stars inspected."

Silas looked at the silver sticker still fixed across his knuckle.

"And you?"

A pause.

"I need to choose the real exit."

Not I need you to rescue me.

I need to choose.

Silas started his motorcycle.

"Then I'm coming back to listen."