Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(15)

“Not anymore.”

“There’s a printer but no computer. She must have taken it with her.” Eve spotted a shredder beside the desk and pulled out the bucket. It was full of confettied paper and bits of other material she couldn’t identify. “I wonder what this is.”

Duncan looked over her shoulder. “Let’s get CSU to look at it. They probably can’t put any of it back together, but at least they can tell us what it was.”

He started sorting through the drawers and papers while Eve used her phone to take pictures in the office and throughout the house. She’d learned the hard way the importance of documenting a scene, that what might first appear to be an insignificant, mundane detail could break a case.

In the master bedroom closet, Eve discovered two tank tops from Brandy Melville, a box of unopened burner phones, and a carton of bullets.

Duncan put in a call to CSU to come over to process the shredder basket, the bullets, and all the stuff in the office that were likely stolen goods.

Eve asked the LAPD officers to stick around until the CSU got there, and then she and Duncan got into the Explorer to head to Paul Colter’s house.

After Duncan radioed the dispatcher to let them know where they were going, he turned to Eve and said, “Sherry Simms drives a new Mustang. I saw the lease statement.”

If Sherry didn’t go to prison, Eve thought, she could become a Reseda midlife crisis wife. All she needed was a pierced nipple, if she didn’t have one or two already.

“We can put out an APB on her car, track her phone, and attach an alert to her credit cards so we get notified when she uses them.”

“No, we can’t,” he said. “We have no grounds for the warrant.”

Eve held up the mailing label and waved it at him. “It’s A Steal?”

“That won’t convince a judge. Sleeping with a home invader doesn’t make her an accomplice. We can’t prove yet that she’s committed any crime. And if she’s smart, and I suspect she is, she’s not going to use her phone or her credit cards.”

“At least she didn’t wire the kitchen door to a bomb.”

“I saw that movie, too.”

“Is that why you had me go into the house alone while you went to call the dispatcher?”

“Of course it was. I’m eighty days from retirement,” he said. “If I’d opened the door, there definitely would have been a bomb.”





CHAPTER SIX


Eve pulled up beside the LAPD patrol car parked down the street from Paul Colter’s Sherman Oaks house and rolled down her window. There were two uniformed officers inside. One Asian, one African American.

“Any activity?” Eve asked, eyeing the house. It was in the flats of Sherman Oaks, south of Ventura Boulevard, an area that was once part of Van Nuys until the residents seceded in the 1990s and joined their more affluent neighbor. The name change alone doubled the property values of the ranch-style homes almost overnight.

The Asian officer shook his head. “Just an Amazon delivery. A woman I’d say is in her sixties answered the door and accepted the package.”

His partner spoke up. “That’s probably Estelle Colter. I ran the address. The house belongs to Alan and Estelle Colter.”

“Thanks,” Eve said. “We’re going to serve our search warrant. You mind watching our backs?”

“To protect and serve, that’s our motto,” he said.

Eve pulled the Explorer into the Colters’ driveway and the patrol car pulled up to the curb in front of the house. The front yard was all gravel and cactuses. Eve figured the Colters probably had the lowest water bill on the block. She and Duncan got out and walked to the front door. The two LAPD officers stayed a couple of steps behind them.

Duncan tipped his head to Eve, his signal for her to take the lead, as he almost always did when a woman was involved. It was sexist and irritating but she’d learned to live with it. She leaned on the doorbell. A moment later, the door was opened by a woman Eve assumed was Estelle Colter. She was heavyset and wearing lots of turquoise jewelry.

“Can I help you?” Estelle looked past them to the two police officers and looked nervous. Anybody would be nervous, Eve knew, if cops showed up at their door.

Eve flashed her badge. “I’m Detective Eve Ronin, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and this is my partner, Duncan Pavone. Does Paul Colter live here?”

Duncan held up Colter’s photo. Estelle glanced at the photo, the concern on her face sharpening.

“Yes, he’s my son,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Can we talk about it inside?” Eve asked.

Estelle stepped aside for them and Duncan gestured to the officers to stay put. Eve and Duncan walked past her into the house. It had the feel of a home that was professionally decorated. Everything was too perfectly put together, the knickknacks impeccably sized for their spots and all part of a unified, contemporary southwestern theme more fitting for Santa Fe than Sherman Oaks.

“Has he been in a car accident?”

“Why do you say that?” Duncan asked.

“Because he drives for Uber and Lyft and is working right now.”

“What kind of car does he drive?”

“My husband’s old 2019 C-Class.”