Callaway’s face did something it hadn’t done all night. It changed. The smirk was gone. The confidence was gone. The swagger that had carried him from the intersection to the cruiser to the break room—gone. Replaced by something he wasn’t used to wearing.
Fear.
Morrison stood up first. He didn’t say a word to Callaway. He walked out of the break room and went straight to the holding area. Down the hallway. Past the booking desk. Past the vending machines that hummed in the silence. All the way to the cell.
He looked through the window.
And there was Terrence Hayes, sitting exactly where they’d left him. Hands folded. Back straight. Suit wrinkled at the shoulders. But everything else—everything—perfectly composed.
The same man who had stood on his own street with his hands on the hood of his car and said nothing while they put him in cuffs. The same man. The exact same man.
Except now, Morrison knew who he was.
Morrison opened the cell door. His mouth moved before his brain could stop it.
“Judge Hayes, I—I’m so—”
Terrence stood slowly. The way he did everything. He straightened his jacket. Adjusted his cuffs. Looked Morrison directly in the eyes.
“You may address me as Your Honor. And I’d like my credential holder, please. The one your officer chose not to open.”
That line. Right there. That’s the one. The credential holder sitting on the hood of the car. In Callaway’s hands. Turned over once and set down face down. Unopened. The answer. Right there. And he threw it away because he’d already made up his mind.
Morrison retrieved the personal effects. Wallet. Phone. And the credential holder. He brought them back to Terrence and handed them over. His hands were shaking.
Terrence opened the holder himself. Held it up. Not for Morrison. For the camera mounted in the corner of the hallway.
Inside, a gold-embossed identification card. United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia. A photograph. A title. An appointment confirmed by the President of the United States and ratified by the United States Senate.
This was not a business card. Not a membership badge. Not something you order online. This was the authority of the federal judiciary. And Brent Callaway had laid it face down on the hood of a car between a tossed driver’s license and a pair of handcuffs.
Terrence put the holder back in his jacket pocket where it always belonged. He walked out of the holding area. Down the hallway.
Nadine was standing at the end of it. Not sitting anymore. Standing. Briefcase in one hand. And in the other, a single printed sheet of paper.
She handed it to him. He looked at it. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
He folded it. Put it in his breast pocket. And kept walking.
Callaway was standing at the far end of the corridor. He hadn’t moved from the spot where the desk officer had delivered the news. His face was white. His mouth slightly open. His hands at his sides doing nothing. For the first time all night, doing absolutely nothing.
Terrence stopped in front of him. Close. Not aggressive. Just close enough that Callaway couldn’t look anywhere else.
“Officer Callaway.”
Callaway didn’t speak.
“You told me you were the law.”