Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(20)

The sheriff’s black Expedition was parked in the station’s back lot when they arrived, his driver sitting behind the wheel, the engine running and wearing sunglasses in case, Eve supposed, the glare of the moon was too hard on his eyes. The deputy’s name was Rondo and she’d never heard him speak.

Eve parked and the first thing Duncan did when he got out was knock on the driver’s side window of the Expedition and wave at Rondo.

“How do you drive with those sunglasses on at night?” Duncan asked. “Are they infrared so you can see in total darkness? Are they computerized to display some kind of cool digital readout?”

Rondo remained still and expressionless, which seemed to please Duncan as they continued on into the station.

“Why do you go out of your way to irritate that man?” Eve said.

“I want to remind him that he’s not invisible.”

“It’s his job to be invisible.” The sheriff had lots of confidential conversations in the back seat of that Expedition, on the phone and with guests, and Eve figured Rondo didn’t want to make his boss self-conscious about the deputy who was overhearing it all.

They went inside and walked down the hall toward the squad room. The door to Captain Moffett’s office was open as they passed and he called out to them.

“Ronin, Pavone, could we have a moment?”

The “we” meant Moffett and the sheriff, who sat in one of the two chairs in front of the captain’s desk.

Sheriff Richard Lansing was in uniform, which he wore the way his father, a preacher, wore his faith. He was in his fifties and, in Eve’s view, more of a politician than a cop, using his badge as a stepping-stone to higher office. But those aspirations were in doubt. The department had been embroiled in one scandal after another since the day he took office, a situation Eve had leveraged to her benefit to get to Lost Hills.

The sheriff was both Eve’s benefactor and her adversary, and she knew his support for her depended entirely on whether it helped him or not. The angry expression on his face tonight, though, suggested that his support had evaporated.

“Come in, close the door, and sit down,” he said.

Eve and Duncan did as they were told, settling on the couch.

Lansing stood up, walked around to the back of his chair, and leaned on it as if it were the pulpit in his father’s church. Eve felt a speech full of fire and brimstone coming and braced herself for it.

“On the strength of your experience, and your record of producing results, Captain Moffett approved a costly sting operation to arrest the gang responsible for a series of home invasion robberies. But what we got was a shoot-out in a home that left two suspects dead and another on the run, leading to a carjacking and subsequent pursuit that caused a multivehicle crash that sent two civilians to the hospital.” Lansing glared at Eve. “The chase became an active shooter situation in a crowded grocery store that ended when a civilian gunned down the third suspect.”

He stared at them, using the silence as a bludgeon for a long minute before continuing.

“Three men dead, two people injured, and a civilian traumatized by having to kill a man. The department is probably facing tens of millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements. Tell me why I shouldn’t walk out of here with somebody’s badge in my pocket for this?”

Moffett stared at her, too, but there was also a glint of pleasure in his eyes. He was happy to see Eve getting reprimanded. But Lansing’s speech, rather than intimidating her, sparked her anger.

“You should absolutely take a badge,” Eve said.

“Are you offering me yours?”

“I’m demanding that you take Deputy Collier’s. This is entirely his fault.”

Moffett leaned forward on his desk and stabbed his finger in her direction. “You’re demanding? Does your arrogance, disrespect, and insubordination have any boundaries, Ronin? This was your operation, not Collier’s. You and Duncan were in the field, not him. You two were responsible for the situation. Don’t try to lay the blame on Collier for your catastrophic failures.”

“Collier’s job was to watch the video feed and send backup to the house the instant the invasion went down,” she said. “He didn’t do it.”

Moffett sat back in his chair. “He did fumble the ball due to circumstances beyond his control, but I’ve seen the video. You both let things go too far before you took action. You allowed the situation to spiral out of control.”

Duncan sighed, a dramatic exhalation that expressed his weariness and his frustration, then said, “We were playing for time, waiting for backup to arrive and catch the perpetrators in the act. But if I’d known the deputy you assigned to watch our backs was taking a shit instead, I would have pulled my weapon on those three assholes before they’d walked in the door.”

Moffett waved away Duncan’s criticism. “Even if Collier had acted immediately, I’m convinced backup wouldn’t have arrived in time to change anything that happened in that house.”

Lansing watched the back-and-forth as if he were a spectator at a tennis match. The ball was in Duncan’s court.

Duncan said, “What about the carjacking, chase, and the shooting in the grocery store? Are you convinced it wouldn’t have prevented that?”

That elicited another wave from Moffett. “Who can say? But I know it should have ended in the house with the two of you.”