“Could be anything,” he said.
“Could be.”
We followed.
Reeves headed south, then east again, taking residential streets now. Donovan let a minivan slide between us for cover while I pulled up Reeves’s file on my phone. Jace had compiled it from department records and his own digging.
“Shane Reeves,” I read. “Twenty-five. Grew up in Glenwood Springs. Criminal justice degree from Colorado Mesa University. On the Summit Falls force eighteen months.”
“Evaluations?”
“Good. Supervisors note enthusiasm, solid instincts for a young officer. No disciplinary issues.” I scrolled further. “Lives in a modest apartment on the south side. The two phones and the irregular deposits are the only flags Jace found.”
“Nothing in there screams corruption.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Donovan adjusted the rearview mirror. “Nothing ever does until it does.”
I set the phone down. He was right about that. The officers who got caught weren’t the ones with obvious tells. They were the ones who blended in, who kept their heads down, who made their supervisors write things likesolid instinctsandno disciplinary issuesin their annual reviews.
Reeves turned onto a residential street. Older homes, smaller lots, front porches with lights that carved yellow circles into the dark. He parked in front of a single-story house with a chain link fence and a car already in the driveway.
We rolled past and pulled to the curb half a block down.
Through the mirrors, I watched Reeves get out with the bag, walk to the front door, and knock. Someone opened it. A brief exchange—ten seconds, maybe less. He handed the bag over. Nothing came back. Then he was walking to his car, door closing behind the person inside, and the whole thing was done in under two minutes.
“Short contact,” Donovan said. “Specific address. In and out.”
“Looks like a drop.”
Neither of us said the word we were both thinking. A young cop making evening rounds to residential addresses, handing off bags he didn’t bring back—the pattern pointed in one direction, and it wasn’t community outreach.
Reeves pulled away. We followed.
Over the next two hours, the pattern kept building but refused to clarify. A strip mall, then a residential street. A parking lot where Reeves sat for twenty minutes with the engine running and dome light off, doing nothing visible. Then another house. A convenience store where he was in and out in three minutes. Then a longer stretch of driving that took us along the southern edge of town before he stopped at what looked like a Thai restaurant, spent maybe five minutes inside, and drove straight to another address.
Sometimes he sat in his car between stops for uncomfortable stretches—once close to thirty minutes—like he was on standby. Waiting for a call? A signal? When he moved, every contact was brief, efficient, and identical in structure to the ones before it.
We logged every address.
During one of the longer waits while Reeves parked on a side street, engine idling, doing nothing, I turned to Donovan.
“You seem more like yourself lately.”
His hands didn’t move on the wheel. “Meaning?”
“More engaged. The banter’s coming back. You’re actually laughing at things that are funny instead of just going through the motions.”
He let a beat pass. “Evidently, Summit Falls agrees with me. Clean air. Scenic views. Suspicious cops to investigate. What’s not to love?”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” He checked his mirrors. Adjusted his grip. “I’m fine, Ben.”
I didn’t answer right away. On the street ahead of us, Reeves’s Civic sat dark and still. Beyond it, the mountains were black cutouts against a sky full of stars, and the silencewas the particular kind that only existed in places where the nearest interstate was thirty miles away.
A car door slammed somewhere on the next block. Not loud, not close. Donovan’s hands went white on the steering wheel. His whole body locked—shoulders, jaw, the tendons in his neck standing taut for a full three seconds before he forced himself to unclench. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t acknowledge it. Just let his grip ease back to normal like it had never happened.
