Two Police Officers Harassed a Woman at a Gas Station, Never Knowing Who She Really Was

“Yes. Camera equipment, a bag.”

“I’m sorry to inform you that the room sustained significant damage. Most items will be total losses. The fire marshal is investigating the cause, but initial reports suggest electrical failure.”

“Electrical failure?” Brooklyn repeated.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m very sorry.”

Brooklyn ended the call. The bag with the hidden microphone was gone, burned, destroyed. But Brennan didn’t know, couldn’t know that every recording from that microphone had been transmitted in real time to FBI servers. The physical device was gone, but the data was preserved, encrypted, backed up, stored in three separate locations. They destroyed the recorder, but not the recordings. It was almost funny.

Brooklyn watched the firefighters spray water into the smoking building, watched Brennan shake hands with the fire chief, watched him play the concerned sheriff, worried about his department’s loss.

Her phone buzzed again. This time, a text from a number she didn’t recognize: “You have 24 hours to leave Del Rio. If you’re still here Friday morning, there will be consequences. This is your final warning.”

No signature. Didn’t need one.

Brooklyn deleted the text, put her phone away. She wasn’t leaving. Not now, not ever. They’d threatened her, arrested her, mocked her, destroyed her evidence, attacked her witness. But they hadn’t stopped her. And tomorrow, she was going to start pushing back.

But first, she needed to survive tonight because if they were sending threats like this, it meant they were planning something worse.

Brooklyn drove back to her motel, didn’t sleep, sat in her car in the parking lot with the doors locked and her backup phone on the seat next to her, waiting.

Thursday morning, the local news ran the story. Brooklyn saw it on the television in the motel breakfast area, the Del Rio morning show. A perky anchor with too much makeup smiled into the camera.

“In local news, District Attorney Paul Hendris announced yesterday that a woman claiming to be an FBI agent has been harassing local law enforcement. Authorities say the woman, identified as Brooklyn Lane, has been presenting a fake badge and making false accusations against Sheriff Wade Brennan and his department.”