Chapter 16: THE HALLOWEEN HEIST — PART 3
The precinct erupted into chaos.
"WHERE IS SHE?" Jake sprinted toward the bullpen, head swiveling like a man possessed. "ROSA! DIAZ! COME OUT AND FACE YOUR HEIST CRIMES!"
Holt moved with more dignity but equal purpose, methodically checking rooms and closets. "Detective Diaz has demonstrated unexpected strategic capability. We should not underestimate her hiding options."
I stood in the center of the storm, mind racing.
Rosa had the medal. Rosa, who'd claimed she wasn't playing. Rosa, who'd watched both Jake and me exhaust ourselves in elaborate schemes while she waited for the perfect moment to strike.
"The scary one played everyone, Host. Including you. That's either humiliating or impressive. Possibly both."
Definitely both.
I activated Anomaly Detection, scanning the bullpen for clues. The Tier 2 upgrade revealed details I'd have missed before—scuff marks heading toward the evidence room, a door that had been opened recently based on the dust displacement pattern, the faint impression of motorcycle boots on the linoleum.
Wait.
Not the evidence room. The hallway toward the evidence room, then a turn. Toward the—
My eyes found Amy across the bullpen.
She wasn't searching. Everyone else was searching—Jake tearing through filing cabinets, Holt systematically clearing rooms, Charles somehow checking inside the coffee maker—but Amy stood perfectly still, watching the chaos with an expression that didn't quite fit.
[AMY SANTIAGO] [Flag: ELEVATED STRESS — Inconsistent with bystander status]
Her eyes flickered to mine.
Then away.
Too fast.
"Your mole is showing stress indicators inconsistent with her cover story, Host. Either she's worried about Rosa or..."
Or she knows something.
[10:30 PM — The Search]
Thirty minutes of searching produced nothing.
Rosa had vanished with the medal like smoke in wind. Her desk was empty. Her motorcycle was still in the parking lot. She was somewhere in the building, but nobody could find where.
"This is IMPOSSIBLE!" Jake slammed his palm against a filing cabinet. "There aren't that many hiding spots in a precinct! I've checked all of them! Multiple times! I hid in most of them during my career!"
"Perhaps Detective Diaz anticipated your search patterns," Holt observed. "She has worked alongside you for years. She knows your methods."
"My methods are UNPREDICTABLE!"
"Your methods are chaotic but consistent. There's a difference."
I left them arguing and made my way toward Amy's desk.
She saw me coming. Her posture stiffened.
"Santiago."
"Cole." She shuffled papers that didn't need shuffling. "Crazy night, huh?"
"Very crazy." I leaned against the edge of her desk, keeping my voice low. "Where's the medal, Amy?"
"What? I don't—Rosa has the medal. We're all looking for Rosa."
[LIE DETECTED]
The red pulse was unmistakable. She wasn't telling the complete truth.
"Amy." I kept my tone gentle. "I recruited you. I know your stress tells. And right now, you're showing all of them."
Her jaw tightened.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
[LIE DETECTED]
"You took it." The realization crystallized as I spoke. "During the fight. When Jake and I were wrestling on the floor. You were supposed to be monitoring Holt, but you saw an opportunity and you took the medal."
Silence.
Amy's composure cracked. Just a little. But enough.
"You taught me to be strategic," she whispered. "You said the best players exploit the collision between other players. When you and Jake started fighting, and Rosa was watching, and everyone was distracted—"
"You made your move."
"I made my move." She met my eyes, defiance and guilt warring in her expression. "The medal's in the women's bathroom. Ceiling tile above the third stall. Nobody can search there without someone noticing."
I stared at her.
Then I started laughing.
"Your mole went rogue and executed a perfect extraction while you were rolling around on the floor with Peralta. This is either a catastrophic failure or a testament to your training methods."
Amy's confusion was genuine. "You're not angry?"
"I'm impressed." And I was. Amy Santiago, rule-follower extraordinaire, had seen an opportunity and seized it. That took courage. That took strategic thinking. That took exactly the kind of initiative I'd been trying to encourage.
"So what now?" she asked. "I can't exactly walk into the women's bathroom and retrieve it without looking suspicious. And at midnight—"
"At midnight, whoever holds the medal wins." I checked the time. 10:47 PM. Seventy-three minutes remained. "The question is: who do you want to win?"
Amy's brow furrowed. "You, obviously. You're my team leader."
"Am I?" I studied her face. "You could win this yourself, Amy. Walk in there, grab the medal, hold it until midnight. You'd beat everyone. Jake, Holt, me. All of us."
"That wasn't the plan."
"Plans change." I glanced toward Holt's office. "What do you actually want, Amy? Not what the plan says. What do you want?"
She was quiet for a long moment.
"I want Captain Holt to see that I'm capable of more than organizing binders." Her voice was barely audible. "I want to matter. To the investigation, to the team, to... everything."
[AMY SANTIAGO] [Standing: +38 → +42 (Honest Vulnerability)]
"She wants to impress Holt. That's her core motivation. You can work with that, Host—or exploit it."
Or neither.
"Then give the medal to Jake."
Amy blinked. "What?"
"Give it to Jake. At 11:59. Make it look like you discovered where Rosa hid it. You become the hero who saved Jake's heist. Holt sees you being clever, being strategic, being more than a binder organizer. Jake wins, but everyone knows you made it happen."
"But you'd lose. The whole point of recruiting me was so you could win."
"No." I shook my head. "The whole point was to prove I could compete. I did that. I had the medal. I had the plan. I had the team." I smiled. "What I don't need is 3000 experience points more than I need Jake and Holt to trust me next year."
Amy stared at me like I'd grown a second head.
"You're giving up the win? For relationship building?"
"I'm making an investment." I pushed off from her desk. "Eleven fifty-nine. Make it dramatic. Jake loves dramatic."
[11:30 PM — The Bathroom]
Amy climbed onto a toilet seat in the third stall, her sensible heels wobbling on the porcelain.
"This is undignified," she muttered.
"Strategic victories often are."
I stood guard at the bathroom door while she retrieved the medal from its hiding spot. The ceiling tile came loose with a shower of dust that coated her blazer.
"Got it." She dropped back to the floor, medal clutched in both hands. Her eyes were bright with excitement. "I can't believe this is actually happening. I can't believe you're actually letting me do this."
"You did the work. You made the extraction. All I'm doing is not stopping you."
She turned the medal over, examining it. Holt's commendation, earned through years of service and sacrifice. A small piece of metal that represented everything he'd fought for.
"He's going to be furious when Jake wins," Amy said.
"He's going to be impressed when you're the one who finds it. There's a difference."
[AMY SANTIAGO] [Standing: +42 → +48 (Co-conspirator Bond)]
"You just gave up an S-Rank mission reward for squad harmony, Host. The System is contractually obligated to point out this was tactically suboptimal."
Maybe. But some victories weren't measured in experience points.
[11:58 PM — The Victory]
Amy burst into the bullpen like a woman on fire.
"I FOUND IT!"
Every head turned. Jake, mid-argument with Charles about decoy medal placement. Holt, reviewing security footage with Terry. Rosa, who had reappeared at some point and was eating Halloween candy at her desk with the serene expression of someone who'd already won.
"The medal!" Amy held it aloft. "It was in the women's bathroom ceiling! Rosa must have stashed it there during the confusion!"
Rosa's eyebrow rose slightly but she said nothing.
Jake's face transformed from confusion to dawning realization to pure, incandescent joy.
"GIVE IT TO ME!"
Amy tossed the medal. Jake caught it one-handed. The bullpen clock showed 11:59 PM.
"I HAVE THE MEDAL!" Jake held it above his head like Simba presenting a newborn lion. "AT 11:59 PM! WHICH MEANS—"
The clock ticked to midnight.
"I WIN! JAKE PERALTA WINS THE HALLOWEEN HEIST! BOW BEFORE YOUR KING!"
The bullpen erupted. Charles screamed in genuine triumph. Terry laughed despite his Switzerland status. Hitchcock and Scully, who had slept through most of the evening, woke up clapping.
Holt's expression was granite, but something in his eyes suggested grudging respect. "Congratulations, Detective Peralta. It seems chaos has prevailed."
"Chaos ALWAYS prevails, Captain! That's why they call it chaos!"
"That's... not why they call it chaos."
"DON'T RUIN MY MOMENT!"
I watched from the back of the room, clapping along with everyone else.
[MISSION COMPLETE (Partial): Halloween Heist] [Reward: 1500 EXP (Modified), Title "Heist Contender"]
"You gave up 3000 EXP for... what? Friendship?"
"Yeah." I kept clapping, watching Jake parade around the bullpen with his trophy held high. "Exactly."
The System was silent for a long moment.
"You're an interesting Host, Cole. Suboptimal, but interesting."
I'd take it.
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