Page 34 of Bait and Switch (Subtle Deceptions #2)

The back door of the cruiser was open already, and he could see the security screen that protected cops from bad guys. Eagan led him toward the car, placing her hand on the top of his head when he bent to slide inside.

“You know, I’ve never actually ridden in the back of one of these before,” he said cheerfully, looking up at the young deputy. “First time for everything.”

“You’d be shocked to learn how many people tell me that.”

The cruiser had been parked at an angle, effectively blocking in Elton and Casey.

As if they would try and stage some kind of getaway.

Gabe briefly amused himself by imagining a car chase that circumnavigated Heartstone with Elton taking the lead in his twenty-five-year-old, six-ton beast while Casey, hunched over the Wagoneer’s steering wheel, took the back.

Without further conversation, Deputy Eagan walked around the back of the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat.

Gabe kept his attention on Rizzi. Something was off, something Gabe couldn’t put his finger on.

The sheriff shot a scowl toward Elton’s house, shook his head, and started toward the cruiser.

Was he limping? Gabe wasn’t sure if he’d had a limp a few days ago.

Assuming not, how had he acquired it? Maybe by attacking Ranger Man in the dark?

Gabe wouldn’t be shocked to learn Rizzi had been behind the assault.

Did he know about the backpack, that it had been found?

Was he or one of his “friends” responsible for putting it there?

Casey and Elton remained in the doorway.

Gabe was disappointed he couldn’t give them a little finger wave, but the handcuffs made it impossible.

Instead, he blinked his eyes several times and pretended to blow kisses.

Elton squinted at him. Ranger Man’s reaction, a mix of horror and disgust, was exactly what Gabe had been aiming for.

Lemons and lemonade, right?

The cruiser’s engine rumbled to life and Deputy Eagan began to steer them off Elton’s property and onto the main road. Gabe thought about trying to make small talk but decided Rizzi didn’t deserve it and what he had to say might just piss him off anyway.

Instead, Gabe sat back, albeit uncomfortably, and watched the island’s scenery pass by.

A mere fifteen minutes later, they were turning into the TCSO parking lot. The pit in Gabe’s stomach that he had been trying to ignore the entire ride was morphing into a pothole.

How had Rizzi gotten the arrest warrant signed so quickly?

Again, the thought that those papers hadn’t really been a warrant crossed his mind.

Gabe knew he hadn’t murdered Peter, so maybe Rizzi had a judge in his pocket too?

He would not be surprised. However, he hoped Elton and Casey were on the phone to a lawyer they trusted because he wasn’t opening his mouth again until he had legal counsel.

Rizzi took the lead, while Deputy Eagan escorted Gabe into the foyer. Elton’s crush was sitting behind the desk, her bespectacled eyes widening comically when she saw Gabriel come through the door. The arrest warrant much have arrived before she had. Which seemed—odd.

She gaped at them for a second and shook her head as if trying to make sense of it all.

Join the club.

Her gaze flicked to the left and down the hall that led to the various offices and the interview room Gabe had had the pleasure of visiting twice already that week. Gabe absently wondered if they’d aired it out yet.

“Um,” she said, half rising from her chair. “Sir?”

“I don’t have time for anything right now,” Rizzi said dismissively, moving—still with a slight limp—in the direction of Althea’s gaze.

“Althea,” Eagan said, getting the older woman’s attention, “we need to get Mr. Karne checked in properly. I’m going to take those cuffs off, sir. I don’t believe you’re a threat.”

“Thank you, I promise to behave.”

Eagan rolled her eyes and smirked a bit. “Why do I think that is not always the case?”

“It’s like you know me. But I will today.”

As soon as his hands were free of the cuffs, Gabe shook them out. He never wanted to feel that helpless again. No BDSM for him.

“Oh, right. Yes, let’s get started.” Althea blinked and reached for her mouse, clicking the desktop computer awake. “It’s just that the sheriff has a visitor. Mr. Stevens asked to wait in his office.” She glanced up at Deputy Eagan. “He said it was important.”

Gabe’s ears perked up at the mention of the name Stevens. This was a development he never would’ve predicted. No way would he have put money on Stevens showing up here, not after how he’d been yesterday.

“I’m sure it is,” Eagan replied. “Mr. Karne, as soon as Althea has the paperwork printed and we’ve filled it out, I’ll take you back to get fingerprints. Once that’s taken care of, the interview room is the next stop.”

“Oh, yeah, I missed that place. Home away from home. Before all that, however, I’d like to make a call to my lawyer,” he said mildly.

“Yes, absolutely.” She smiled and nodded at his mention of his phone call. “Do you need privacy? We have a phone in the back, and I can step around the corner.”

Gabe shook his head. He was just gonna call Elton anyway, make sure they’d started the ball rolling. “Here is fine.”

There was a comfortable-looking plastic chair positioned at the corner of Althea’s desk, and Gabe settled in.

“Let me get you an outside line.” Althea fiddled with the complex-looking equipment. “I swear I could pilot the space shuttle from this damn thing?—”

Althea’s musing was interrupted by raised voices, one of which Gabe knew was Rizzi’s. The shouting was followed by the explosive crack of a gunshot. Even Gabe, who hadn’t grown up around guns, recognized that sound.

“The hell?” Eagan said, her eyes wide.

The three of them stared at each other for a millisecond, then Gabe jumped to his feet. Eagan darted down the hallway. Althea stayed still.

A second shot shattered the silence.

“Maybe that will get your attention! Maybe now you’ll start listening!”

The speaker’s voice was unrecognizable, filled with both fear and resolve, but Gabe’s educated guess said it was Stevens.

“Get over here, under the desk!” Althea whispered. “Those are gunshots!”

She grabbed for Gabe’s arm and tried to drag him around to her side of the desk, but he resisted, instead listening for more shots or other sounds that indicated they needed to get the hell out of Dodge.

There were none. The only voices coming from the other room were indistinguishable murmurings. Was that Eagan or another officer?

And how the hell would the two of them fit under that desk?

The desk phone jangled to life. Althea dropped his arm as her attention darted to the caller ID screen.

“Should I answer that? What should I do?” Althea’s whisper oozed panic, her voice starting to rise.

“Please, Althea, take a few deep slow breaths before you hyperventilate. Ignore the call,” Gabe encouraged. What would she tell someone calling now? Sorry, we have a possible hostage situation ? “Deputy Eagan has things under control. You just stay right here safe and sound and I’ll check it out.”

“I don’t think you should interfere. I think you should stay here?—”

“Just gonna take a look-see. I’ll report back.”

Dammit, Gabe was out of his element around all these law-and-order types. Where was Ranger Man when he needed him?

Going against his personal sense of survival, Gabe started down the familiar hallway.

You never have had a decent sense of survival, Chance.

Clearly, the only way to find out what the hell was going on was to insert himself into the situation. Or, at the very least, linger on the outskirts of the drama and collect information.

Behind him, he heard Althea’s deep intake of breath and a rushed expulsion. That was a shock; when was the last time someone had done what he said?

At the end of the hallway, a young deputy he hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting until that moment tried to stop him. “Sir, you can’t?—”

Gabe shook his hand off and kept moving into the large space where the deputies had desks. Along one side were a couple of empty offices—one looked like it was used for storage—but the action was taking place across the bullpen where, Gabe suspected, Rizzi’s office was located.

It was early in the day still, so the office wasn’t fully staffed yet.

Probably a good thing if Stevens was threatening people with a gun.

Those present were gathered around a door that opened into the larger corner office.

It even had a glass wall that allowed spectators to watch what was going on inside.

As Gabe approached, one of the officers, a young man Gabe hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting, turned and raced past him, heading for parts unknown.

Deputy Eagan was present, of course. One hand rested on the service weapon at her hip, but she hadn’t drawn it—yet.

She was using her body to block the office door.

That was of no consequence because one of the officers still there stepped to the side and those huge interior windows gave Gabe an excellent view of what was going down.

John Stevens sat casually in a guest chair, one ankle balanced across his knee like he was just hanging out with his old friend Sheriff Rizzi whom he often visited at work, which was probably the truth. Which was also probably why no one had questioned Stevens’s arrival early that morning.

“—I had plenty of time before you returned to rig this office, you know. Your officers trust me, don’t they? They’re used to me coming in and out. There was no reason for them to be concerned by my presence.”

Rizzi was seated as well and was very much directly in the sight line of the Glock that Stevens held in his hand.

He wasn’t in a chair but perched on the edge of his desk directly across from Stevens.

Even if Stevens was shaky—which he did not appear to be—the man wasn’t going to miss from four and a half feet.

Gabe thought he spotted at least one bullet hole in the metal desk, and Rizzi’s holster was empty.

“Sir. Mr. Stevens. Put the gun down. Surely there’s another way to solve this.”

Gabe had to hand it to Deputy Eagan. Her poise was calming and kept the rest of the deputies and staff from panicking.

“I’ve thought long and hard about this, Bree, and no, there isn’t another solution.

But before that eventuality, everyone needs to hear what Rizzi is going to say.

Come on, Eli.” He waggled the gun. “It’s time to share your story with everyone.

Let’s talk about what’s been going on in Twana County for years. Decades.”

“John, it doesn’t need to end like this.” Rizzi spread his arms out from his body slightly, his palms tipped toward the ceiling. “Let’s talk about this man to man. We can work it out.”

Gabe figured they were past the work-it-out stage. Stevens was a man on a mission. From his body language, Rizzi must have recognized it too. He shifted a bit on the desk, as if trying to get out of Stevens’s range.

The ex-prosecutor waggled his gun, staring back at the sheriff, his gaze flat, emotionless. Dead. Rizzi stopped moving. When Stevens opened his mouth again, he was speaking clearly enough that everyone present could hear and understand him.

“The time for working things out has passed, Eli. I’ve got the documents, evidence saved.

But really, I think what has to happen right now is that these fine gathered witnesses hear the sordid tale in your own words.

How you used your office for personal gain.

How—with my help, I admit that—you put people who were in your way, or relatives of people in your way, behind bars.

Sometimes merely because they were an inconvenience to your narrative.

Between us, we fabricated evidence, altered paperwork, coerced confessions.

I’d bet good money that almost every case you’ve touched during your tenure is tainted. ”

The sheriff shifted again ever so slightly, which had Gabe wondering if he had another weapon hidden somewhere, close enough to try and grab.

“But you finally went too far, didn’t you? You killed my son or had him killed. I cannot abide that. One way or another, we all pay for our sins.”

“Now, John?—”

There was a blast from the gun and another ragged hole appeared in the desk, this one about two inches from Rizzi’s thigh. Gabe had to give it to Rizzi for staying put.

“The time to start talking is now, my friend.”