Chapter 15: THE HALLOWEEN HEIST — PART 2
The heist escalated into beautiful madness.
By 9:00 PM, Jake had executed three separate gambits, each more elaborate than the last. He'd bribed the night janitor, planted decoy medals in strategic locations, and somehow convinced Hitchcock to create a distraction involving the vending machine and what appeared to be a very small explosion.
Holt countered every move with surgical precision. The janitor had been a double agent—Holt had approached him first with a better offer. The decoy medals were identified and ignored. The vending machine distraction earned Hitchcock a formal reprimand but nothing else.
"Predictable, Peralta," Holt observed from his office doorway. "You continue to rely on chaos when what you need is discipline."
"Chaos is a LADDER, Captain!" Jake shouted back. "I'm climbing that ladder straight to victory!"
"That's not—" Holt paused. "Did you just quote Game of Thrones incorrectly?"
"I QUOTED IT PERFECTLY."
I watched from my desk, timing the exchanges, waiting for my window.
"They're exhausting each other, Host. The collision point approaches."
9:30 PM. Charles's moment of testing.
Jake pulled him aside for the distraction mission. "Okay, buddy. Go time. Get Holt's attention for thirty seconds. That's all I need."
Charles looked like a man walking to his own execution. "Jake... I need to tell you something."
My heart stopped.
"He's cracking, Host."
"What is it, Charles?" Jake was already distracted, watching Holt's office.
"I just... I love you, man. Whatever happens tonight, I want you to know that."
Jake blinked. "That's... weirdly touching? Save it for after I win, okay?"
Charles nodded, relief flooding his face. "Right. Yes. After you win. Go team Jake."
He shuffled toward Holt's office, and I let myself breathe again.
"Crisis averted. But he's at his limit. Move soon."
[9:45 PM — The Strike]
Everything happened at once.
I texted Amy: "Now."
The bullpen lights flickered—Gina's contribution, secured with strategic flattery about her Instagram aesthetic. The momentary darkness created confusion, heads turning, conversations pausing.
I texted Charles: "Spider. Loud."
From across the room, Charles's voice pierced the chaos: "SPIDER! THERE'S A SPIDER! OH GOD IT'S HUGE! IT'S LOOKING AT ME!"
The performance was Oscar-worthy. Charles climbed onto his desk, genuinely terrified—I'd learned during recruitment that his arachnophobia was very real. Jake abandoned his position to help. Terry started scanning the floor with surprising intensity.
Holt emerged from his office to address the disruption.
My window opened.
I moved through the camera blind spot I'd mapped three days ago, through the hallway, toward Holt's office. The door opened silently—I'd oiled the hinges during a "routine maintenance check" yesterday. Inside, the desk waited.
Anomaly Detection guided me. The false bottom in the middle drawer was almost invisible to normal eyes, but Tier 2 perception highlighted the seams, the slight difference in wood grain, the mechanical catch that released the hidden compartment.
Click.
The Medal of Valor gleamed in the shadows.
I held it in my hands.
[+50 EXP: Medal Acquisition]
"Got it, Host. Now get out before—"
"I knew it."
Rosa stood in the doorway.
My heart dropped to somewhere around my knees.
She wasn't angry. Wasn't surprised. Her expression was the same cool assessment she applied to everything—like she was filing information for later use.
"You've been planning this for days," she said. "The misdirects with Jake and Holt. Charles's weird behavior. Amy being extra nervous." She leaned against the doorframe. "Solid work."
"Are you going to stop me?"
"Why would I?" A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "I'm not playing. I just wanted to see if I was right."
"And?"
"I was right."
She turned to leave—and that's when everything went sideways.
Jake appeared in the hallway behind her, mid-stride, mouth open to say something to Rosa. His eyes locked onto me. Locked onto the medal in my hands.
Processing. Recognition. Betrayal.
"COLE!"
He launched himself through the doorway.
The tackle hit me like a freight train.
We crashed into a filing cabinet—papers exploded everywhere, decades of carefully organized documents suddenly airborne. I refused to let go of the medal. Jake refused to stop grabbing for it. We rolled across Holt's office floor in a tangle of limbs and competing priorities.
"I KNEW IT!" Jake was laughing and shouting simultaneously. "I knew you were up to something! The whole 'neutral' thing was garbage!"
"Get—off—me—"
"GIVE ME THE MEDAL, COLE!"
"NOT A CHANCE!"
Rosa watched from the doorway with the detached interest of someone observing a nature documentary. She made no move to intervene.
[JAKE PERALTA] [Standing: +55 → +52 (Betrayed but Impressed)]
"Your cover is blown, your plan is compromised, and you're currently losing a wrestling match. Any other brilliant tactical observations you'd like me to make, Host?"
I got my knee up, created space, rolled away with the medal clutched to my chest. Jake scrambled after me. I ducked behind Holt's desk. Jake vaulted over it.
"You're going DOWN, partner!"
"We're not partners right now!"
"EXACTLY!"
The medal changed hands three times in twenty seconds. I had it, then Jake had it, then I had it again, then we both had it at the same time and neither of us was willing to let go.
That's when Holt's voice cut through the chaos.
"WHAT is happening in my office?"
We froze mid-grapple.
Holt stood in the doorway behind Rosa, his expression cycling through confusion, calculation, and something that might have been respect. His eyes moved from the destroyed filing cabinet to the scattered papers to the two detectives currently wrestling over his Medal of Valor.
"Peralta. Cole." His voice was dangerously calm. "Would one of you care to explain?"
Jake and I looked at each other. Then down at our hands.
The medal was gone.
Both of us were holding nothing. At some point during the struggle—during the rolling and grabbing and kneeing each other in inconvenient places—the medal had slipped away.
"Where—" Jake started.
"How—" I started.
We both looked around the office frantically. Floor: papers, but no medal. Desk: empty. Chair: empty.
Rosa was gone from the doorway.
"Oh, Host. Oh, this is unexpected."
"ROSA!" Jake shouted.
I heard footsteps retreating down the hallway.
[10:02 PM — The Hunt Begins]
The three of us—Jake, Holt, and me—stared at the doorway where Rosa had been standing.
"She wasn't playing," Jake said slowly.
"She said she wasn't playing," I corrected.
"She lied." Holt's voice carried a note of admiration. "Brilliant."
Jake's outrage returned with full force. "She stole MY medal!"
"It's my medal," Holt said.
"It was MY heist!"
"It was YOUR heist?" I couldn't help myself. "I literally had the medal in my hands!"
"WHICH YOU STOLE FROM ME!"
"You don't even know where I got it from!"
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"
Holt raised a hand, silencing us both. "Gentlemen. The medal is currently in Detective Diaz's possession. We have approximately two hours until midnight." He paused. "I suggest we address this problem before arguing about whose heist it was."
Jake and I exchanged a look.
Something passed between us—the recognition that our personal rivalry had just become irrelevant. Rosa had played all of us. Rosa had waited, watched, and struck at the perfect moment.
Rosa was winning.
"Temporary alliance?" Jake asked.
"Temporary alliance," I agreed.
We shook hands. It felt weird.
"Former enemies united against a common threat. Classic narrative structure. The scary one really did a number on both of you."
Holt observed our handshake with analytical interest. "Detective Cole. It seems I underestimated you."
"I was hoping you would, sir."
"Indeed." Something like a smile crossed his face. "When this is over, we will have words about your recruitment of Detective Santiago."
My stomach dropped. "You knew?"
"I suspected. Her behavior has been inconsistent for several days." He straightened his tie. "However, that conversation can wait. Right now, we have a rogue agent to apprehend."
The three of us moved toward the door.
Somewhere in the precinct, Rosa Diaz held the Medal of Valor.
Two hours until midnight.
The heist had just gotten a lot more interesting.
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