The cruiser noses through salt-mist toward Internal Oversight. Halloway and Vance keep Dallas boxed in the back seat, his coat creased, his revolver gone, the fake warrant folded like a knife in Vance’s glove.

The booking room smells of bleach and wet wool. A clerk slides a processing sheet across the counter, and every line on it points Dallas deeper into the same office node he has been tracing.

Outside, Murderbone’s barking cuts off as the cruiser door shuts. Far across the precinct lot, Jackson Temple gets the call, sees the false warrant number, and goes rigid with anger.

Dallas watches the clerk stamp the file into place. The paper trail is the trap, and the jail is just another hallway in it.

Dallas leans forward, his eyes tracing the jagged, hurried loops of the authorization signature on the warrant. It is a forgery, a clumsy attempt to legitimize his detention with a name that does not belong to the man who signed it.

Halloway's eyes drop to the warrant, and the hard set of his mouth gives way to a quick, uneasy blink. Jackson turns from the doorway, catching the page in one glance and reading the fraud as fast as Dallas does.

The booking desk feels suddenly smaller, the fluorescent glare turning the open folder into plain evidence instead of authority.

Jackson moves in at once, shoulder square, furious and already calculating the next door, while Dallas has the lie pinned to the paper in front of everyone.

Halloway's gaze flicks from Dallas to the desk monitor, then to the open warrant as if it might save him. It does not.

Jackson stops at the threshold, jaw set, while the booking area goes very still around the exposed folder and the dead air of a bad arrest.

Dallas gets what he asked for, the camera log access code and the system path written in plain sight on the desk slip, right beside the forged warrant.

Jackson leans in, already reading the room like a door he means to force open, while Halloway looks trapped between procedure and panic.

Dallas snatches the desk slip free and slides into the terminal chair before Halloway can reach for it.

He types the access code. The booking screen blooms open, then shifts to a file tree of camera logs and time stamps.

Jackson's eyes track the monitor, catching the folder names as they appear. Halloway stiffens, watching his own system betray him.

Dallas pulls up the booking feed. The first clip loads with the desk, the warrant, and Halloway standing exactly where he is now.

A second entry tags the arrest route, and a side panel flashes the district address line tied to the same internal clerk signature.

The logs keep opening, one after another, while Halloway's hand drops away from the keyboard.