Eve disconnected and looked at Duncan and Shaw. “We’re on.”
Shaw nodded. “I’ll set the teams in motion.”
“I want Duncan, Ross, and Clayton with me,” Eve said. “I need to know I have backup I can trust.”
“You can trust me,” Shaw said, but didn’t wait for her reply. As soon as he was gone, Duncan turned to her.
“Is that true about the grilled cheese sandwiches?”
“It is. That’s why I was able to sound so convincing.”
“How come you’ve never made me one?”
“I’m saving it for your retirement,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Saratoga Ranch neighborhood was tucked between the Ventura Freeway and the Calabasas landfill, which had been dug out of the hills north of the homes and was steadily being filled with the county’s trash, supposedly on top of a layer of toxic waste from the Rocketdyne weapons labs that had once operated in the nearby Santa Susana Pass. Eve couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live here, breathing exhaust fumes and rotting garbage all day, and possibly having their bodies baked, on a genetic level, by radiation. Just thinking about it made her wish she was wearing a hazmat suit.
But it made perfect sense to her why the ranch-style house had been for sale for months and already had three price reductions. There was a lot more going against it than the exterior’s 1970s vibe incongruously matched with the faux “renovated barn” roofline. The front yard was all dirt that was so hard and dry that weeds wouldn’t even grow.
Eve’s Subaru was parked in the driveway and she waited inside the empty house. Duncan, Ross, and Clayton were hiding in the back rooms. She was dressed casually, but she had a gun in her bra holster, just in case, and a set of cuffs in her pocket.
Green arrived promptly at noon in a ten-year-old BMW 3 Series rather than one of his logo-emblazoned trucks. He emerged with a clipboard in hand and surveyed the front yard for a moment before walking to the door. Eve opened the door to greet him before he got there.
He gestured to the yard. “I thought you were exaggerating about the dirt and weeds.”
“I was,” Eve said with a smile. “Do you see any weeds?”
He laughed, and Eve stepped aside and beckoned him into the house with a sweep of her arm. Michael walked past her and immediately noticed the empty living room.
“Did you just move in?”
Eve grabbed him by the right arm, yanked it behind his back, and shoved him face-first against the wall, though she gave him an instant to turn his cheek to the surface before impact. He dropped the clipboard and let out a surprised cry.
“You’re under arrest for fraud, armed robbery, and murder.”
That same instant, Duncan and the two deputies spilled out of the other rooms in case she needed backup.
“What are you talking about?” Green said. “I haven’t done anything.”
Eve used her foot to spread his legs and her free hand to pat him down, pulling out his wallet, cell phone, a pen, and a set of keys, all of which she passed along to Duncan, who dropped them into evidence bags.
“Give me your other arm,” she said.
He did. “You’re making a mistake.”
She cuffed him, read him his rights, then spun him around to face the four of them.
“We know you were the ringleader behind the home invasion robberies that Dalander, Colter, and Nagy committed,” Eve said. “And we know about the fake Amazon van you used to get them in and out and we know about the help Grayson Mumford gave you.”
The color drained from his formerly ruddy face. Now he looked like he might be sick. Duncan stepped forward, getting into Green’s face.
“We have search warrants for your business and your home,” he said. “If you don’t want us breaking down the doors and making a mess, you’ll give us the keys.”
Green’s shoulders slumped, a defeated man. “You’ve already got them. The two Medeco keys at one end of the ring are for the warehouse. The single Medeco key at the other end is for my house.”
“Thank you,” Eve said. “Now I want you to think about what we’re going to find at your office and your home and how it’s going to strengthen our already airtight case against you.”
“I want my lawyer,” Green said.
“That’s fine. We’ll take you to the station for booking and let you give him a call. Tell him to come right down. In the meantime, we’ll conduct our search and then we can all get together to discuss your bleak future.”