Chapter 5 - THE MAN BESIDE MY BADGE
The shell company was registered to Pike’s brother-in-law, but Mason controlled the bank account.
Deposits from Harrington Compliance were followed by cash withdrawals, mortgage payments, and transfers into Calder Ridge investment funds.
Pike had purchased a hidden interest in the road project.
If my property and Mrs. Gable’s were acquired cheaply, his investment value would triple.
Ranger Morgan interviewed him with a prosecutor present.
He denied knowing Diana intended to restrain Emma.
He admitted supplying my schedule.
He admitted driving to Briar Glen.
He claimed Diana called in panic after Emma found Sarah’s flash drive.
“What did you do?” Morgan asked.
“I told her to take the drive and leave.”
“Did you see the chain?”
“From the SUV.”
“Why didn’t you intervene?”
“I thought Diana would unlock her.”
“You drove away from an eight-year-old child chained in ninety-five-degree heat.”
Pike lowered his head.
“I panicked.”
People use panic to describe the moment self-interest becomes visible.
His cruiser’s GPS placed him across the street for seven minutes.
His phone contained deleted messages recovered from cloud backup.
DIANA: The girl found Sarah’s copy.
PIKE: Get it.
DIANA: She won’t release it.
PIKE: Keep her there until I arrive.
DIANA: Robert finishes at three.
PIKE: Court security will delay him.
A courthouse supervisor received an anonymous request that afternoon asking me to inspect a prisoner-transport complaint before leaving. I completed the inspection, losing fourteen minutes.
Pike arranged it.
The texts continued.
DIANA: Monitor is making noise.
PIKE: Then move faster.
DIANA: She keeps saying she has a heart condition.
PIKE: She always looks sick. Don’t let the kid control you.
Pike had known.
He had seen.
He left.
The county placed him on unpaid suspension. The district attorney referred potential public-corruption charges to the state.
I did not visit him.
I did not call his wife.
I did not send one of my deputies to ask why.
Sarah had once accused me of giving men with badges a second explanation before I gave ordinary people a first chance.
At the time, we were arguing about a deputy who used department equipment for personal work.
I said loyalty required hearing him out.
Sarah answered:
Loyalty should make the standard higher, Robert. Not lower.
I had forgotten the sentence until Emma lay in the hospital.
The recovered flash-drive data contained one encrypted folder named PIKE.
Forensics opened it five days later.
Inside were screenshots of my duty roster, patrol maps, home-alarm records, and internal incident reports.
Someone had accessed them from a sheriff’s office administrator account.
There were also copies of complaints Sarah tried to file before she died.
No complaint appeared in our official system.
Each had been marked:
ROUTED TO CHIEF DEPUTY FOR REVIEW.
Pike had intercepted Sarah’s warnings before they ever reached me.
The last file was an audio recording.
Sarah’s voice was low.
“If Robert hears this, Mason has already decided the badge belongs to him.”
May you like
Then Diana answered from somewhere nearby.
“Once the road is approved, it will.”
