Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(9)

“Go on,” Eve said.

“I hid in the condiments aisle and waited to see what he’d do next . . . but, out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman go his way. It was you.”

“Did you see my gun?”

Grayson shook his head. “All I registered was that you were a woman. Then I heard him say, ‘Show yourself.’ I thought he was talking to me. But then I heard the woman, you, say, ‘Here I am,’ and I thought, ‘Oh shit, she’s crazy, she’s going to get killed,’ so I stepped out, saw him turning to shoot you, and I . . .” His voice trailed off and he dry-heaved into the garbage can. When he looked at her again, he had tears in his eyes. “I killed him.”

She thought about what Duncan told her, pocketed the notebook, and put her hand on his back to comfort him. “You also saved my life.”

“Really? You mean I’m not going to prison?”

“Definitely not. You were defending another person who was in mortal danger and I’m grateful.”

“But you had a gun,” he said. “You could have defended yourself.”

“You didn’t know that,” she said, patting his back to reassure him. “You did the right thing, Grayson. You should be proud of yourself.”

“I don’t see how I can ever be proud of this.”





CHAPTER FOUR


Eve left Grayson Mumford with Deputy Helm and the paramedics, sought out the store manager in the crowd outside, and brought her back in to get a look at the security camera footage of the incident.

The manager, a very thin woman in her fifties, wore her hair in a bun so tight, Eve wondered how she was able to blink.

“I saw you shopping with your husband the other day,” the manager said as she led Eve to the back room. “The typical Calabasas midlife crisis wife. I had no clue you were a police officer.”

“That was the idea. My partner and I were undercover.”

“The Reseda midlife crisis wife is the same age as you but shops at Brandy Melville, drives a Mustang, and is very proud of her pierced nipple. If you ever want to play that part, I can give you a picture of my ex-husband’s wife.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Next to the manager’s office was a windowless room that contained an ergonomic office chair, a desktop computer, and three large monitors, each showing about a dozen thumbnails of individual security camera views from inside and outside the store. The manager typed some commands on the keyboard.

“Here’s the playback from a few minutes before the crazy man came in. You can hit the space bar to stop and use the mouse to scrub back on any of the screens,” she said. “I can give you a link so you can stream or download this from your computer or I can copy it all to a thumb drive to take it with you.”

“The link will be fine,” Eve said and handed her a card with her email address and phone number.

The manager left the room and Eve let the footage play out, focusing her attention on Jack and Grayson from multiple angles. Jack went straight for the liquor section and Grayson’s actions followed the story he’d told Eve. She’d give the video a closer look later.

Eve took out her phone and contacted the day’s on-call judge to get telephonic warrants for the footage from the grocery store cameras and also from the Vista Grande gate. The manager had volunteered the footage, and Eve expected the Vista Grande homeowner’s association to be cooperative as well, so the warrants weren’t necessary to compel compliance. But that wasn’t why she wanted them. Her goal was to limit the opportunities for a defense attorney to get any evidence thrown out on a technicality.

Upon hearing the situation, the judge granted the warrants without question, as Eve knew he would. The legal justification for the video was obvious.

She ended the call and when she emerged from the back room, she saw the CSU team had already arrived and was taking pictures of the crime scene. Paramedics were also treating Grayson Mumford, who was wrapped in a blanket and sipping a bottle of water.

Eve put on the rubber gloves Tom gave her and walked along the back of the store to the body of the assailant. Jack had bled out and his upper body was now in the center of a wide puddle of blood. A tall, very thin CSU tech in a Tyvek jumpsuit, rubber gloves, and booties was taking photos of the body and the scene around it. The tech was Lou Noomis, who had an Adam’s apple so large that his neck reminded Eve of a snake swallowing a rat.

“Hey, Lou. You got here fast.”

“We were nearby, wrapping up a shotgun suicide in Canoga Park and heading to lunch. I’m starving, and now I’ve got to spend a few hours surrounded by food I can’t touch.”

“Must be hell. Could I get a look at the guy’s wallet and personal effects?”

“Sure.” Noomis’ knees cracked as he crouched down and carefully extracted a wallet, a cell phone, and a key fob with a Hyundai logo on it from the dead man’s pockets without stepping in the blood.

Eve flipped open the wallet and looked at the driver’s license. His name was Paul Colter and he lived at an address in Sherman Oaks. She took out her phone and snapped a photo of the license. The credit cards were in the same name. The phone was a typical burner that could be bought for a few bucks just about anywhere. Noomis studied the key fob.

She asked, “Do you recognize it?”