"Which is why, when searching for a new chief of police, I did not look internally. The rot in this precinct goes too deep." Tagert's smug expression vanished. The officers around him exchanged confused, panicked glances. Not internal.
"I sought out a leader with an unimpeachable record," Mayor Stanton said. "Someone who spent 35 years in the Chicago Police Department, rising from a beat cop to the deputy chief of Internal Affairs. Someone who has dismantled corrupt precincts from the inside out. I am proud to introduce the new chief of the Oakport Police Department, Chief Josephine Reynolds." The double doors at the rear of the stage swung open.
The room went dead silent. Footsteps echoed sharply against the hardwood floor. Out from the shadows walked Josephine. She was dressed in a pristine, immaculate class A uniform. Four gold stars gleamed on each side of her collar.
The gold badge that Tagert had dismissed as a Cracker Jack toy the night before was pinned perfectly to her chest, catching the fluorescent lights of the auditorium. She walked to the podium with the lethal, measured grace of a predator, entering a cage full of cornered prey. In the second row, Derek Tagert stopped breathing. All the blood drained from his face, leaving him a sickening shade of ash gray. His heart slammed against his ribs like a trapped bird.
The thick, arrogant sneer melted off his lips, replaced by a look of absolute, unadulterated terror. It was her, the grandmother, the Aston Martin, the woman he had illegally searched, verbally abused, and threatened on the highway less than 14 hours ago. Josephine stood at the podium. She did not look at her notes. She looked directly out into the crowd.
Her eyes scanned the rows of shocked faces until they locked dead onto Derek Tagert. When she found him, she didn't blink. A slow, chillingly calm smile spread across her face. "Good morning, officers," Chief Josephine Reynolds said into the microphone, her deep, authoritative voice echoing through the silent room. "I trust you all had a productive evening on patrol last night."
The temperature in the room dropped by exactly 20°. Chief Josephine Reynolds did not yell, nor did she pound her fists against the wooden podium. She simply let the crushing weight of her presence settle over the hundreds of officers before her. In the second row, Derek Tagert felt a cold bead of sweat trace a slow, agonizing path down his spine. His mind raced frantically, trying to calculate the odds that she had forgotten his face.
But the terrifying, unwavering intensity in her dark eyes told him everything he needed to know. She remembered every second. "For decades, this badge has been used by a select few as a shield for criminality," Josephine continued, her voice slicing through the heavy silence like a scalpel. "That ends today. I have spent the last 35 years dismantling networks of officers who believed their uniform placed them above the Constitution.