Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(22)
Eve walked beside him. “Lansing knew if he didn’t fire Collier, I’d probably go public with my beef and resurrect an embarrassing scandal that he’d like to see remain buried.”
“Which one?”
“The corrupt deputies,” she said.
“That doesn’t really narrow it down,” Duncan said. “All of his scandals involve corruption.”
“I’ve only been involved in one. He still could have used this disaster to demote or transfer me, but he knows that the public likes me, even if most of his rank-and-file deputies don’t, and there’s the possibility of that TV series, which would be good PR for the department. Moffett is largely unknown to the public, at least outside of Calabasas and Malibu, so sacrificing him was an easy call. Besides, the last scandal happened under Moffett’s watch. Now Lansing can use me and the security guard’s heroism to turn this mess into positive publicity. For Lansing, it always comes down to politics and public perception.”
“Or the sheriff simply did the right thing,” Duncan said as they reached his car.
“How can you be so naive?”
Duncan started to say something, but she surprised him and herself by pulling him into a long, tight hug. It had just dawned on her how close she came that day to losing him.
He gently patted her back, as if she were one of his daughters, silently reassuring her that everything would be all right.
And then, without a word, she let go of him. They gave each other warm smiles, and she turned and went to her car, wiping the tears from her eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Hilton Garden Inn was next door to Calabasas city hall, which was so seamlessly connected to the Commons that the seat of local government seemed like just another place to shop. The two-story hotel was also around the corner from the front gates of Vista Grande. It occurred to Eve, as she trudged to her room, that her temporary home was walking distance from the day’s two crime scenes, three if she counted the car crashes in the intersection.
The first thing she did when she got into her room was remove her blouse, peel off the boob tape, and toss it in the trash. She made a mental note to donate the rest of the roll to her sister, Lisa.
Eve didn’t like her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her once flat tummy was getting chubby.
She used to ride her bike through the Santa Monica Mountains every weekend and to Lost Hills station each day. But because of two bone-breaking work-related injuries happening nearly back-to-back, Eve had been on her bike just twice in the last ten weeks.
It felt like she’d gained twenty pounds in that time. Eating every morning at the Hilton’s breakfast buffet didn’t help, certainly not on top of the fast-food lunches she usually grabbed with Duncan. She made another mental note to pick up her bike from her condo and start getting some exercise.
The problem with all of her mental notes was they somehow got erased the moment after she made them. She supposed she could start writing them down on actual paper, but she was afraid if anybody saw them, they’d think she was fighting early Alzheimer’s.
She got onto the bed, propped herself up on her pillows, and, against her better judgment, turned on the TV and was shocked to see her own face staring back at her.
The shootings in Calabasas were the top story on the KTLA 10:00 p.m. news. The reporting was mostly accurate and there were a few shots of her in the Chanel jacket, showing her cleavage and talking on her phone, the smashed Rolls-Royce behind her. She thought she looked like the least-endowed Kardashian pretending to be a cop. The report ended with a clip of Sheriff Lansing facing the press at LASD headquarters, where he gave a short statement.
“A sting operation in Calabasas snared the three assailants who were responsible for a string of violent home invasions. Two of the assailants were killed in a confrontation with undercover detectives, the third was shot by a security guard in the grocery store behind me. Thanks to the heroic actions of two law enforcement professionals and a brave civilian, a brutal crime spree has been put to an end.”
Eve thought Lansing was taking a premature victory lap. She had no idea if the spree of home invasions was over, so how could he be so certain? And she wondered what conclusion the media would draw tomorrow when they learned that Captain Moffett was reassigned in the wake of what Lansing had just hailed as a success.
Her iPhone rang. The caller ID read GODZILLA. Eve took a deep breath, clicked off the TV, and answered the phone.
“Hello, Mom.”
“You looked great on TV,” Jen said. Her voice was smoky and rough from smoking a lot of cigarettes. Men found her voice sexy but Eve worried it was a symptom of future lung cancer. “That’s the way you should dress every day.”
“I was undercover.”
“And now you’ve been outed as an attractive woman. No need to hide it anymore.”
Her mom usually criticized how she looked on TV, and that irritated Eve. But now her mom was calling to tell her she looked great, and that irritated her, too. It seemed to Eve that they were destined to always be caught in this irritation loop. That was why they rarely saw each other, even though her mother lived up the coast in Ventura, only about forty minutes away.
“I told you before, Mom, it’s not appropriate attire for a homicide detective.”
“Make it appropriate. You’ve come a long way already, making history in the department.”