Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT THE SHERIFF LOST HIS BADGE
Naomi Price didn’t get far.
Federal security cameras recorded her entering the parking garage.
Reyes called her before she reached her car.
“Naomi.”
She stopped.
I watched through the security feed.
She looked at the phone in her hand.
Then toward the nearest camera.
She knew.
“Come back upstairs,” Reyes said.
For several seconds, she didn’t move.
Then she returned.
Nobody arrested her immediately.
Good investigations are rarely as satisfying as television.
You don’t slam everybody against walls.
You ask questions.
You preserve evidence.
You make people choose between lies.
Price sat alone inside a conference room while agents secured her government phone and requested authority to examine communications.
She looked exhausted.
Not frightened.
That mattered.
Finally she asked for Reyes.
Only Reyes.
He entered.
Forty minutes later, he came out.
“She says she isn’t the leak.”
“Then why did Flynn tell his father to call her?” Mara asked.
“Because Sterling has been blackmailing her.”
That changed the room.
Years earlier, before becoming a federal prosecutor, Naomi’s younger brother had developed an opioid addiction.
He caused a serious vehicle accident in Harrington County.
Arthur Sterling made the case disappear.
In exchange, Naomi occasionally told him when federal subpoenas or investigative requests touched Harrington County.
Not case details.
At least according to her.
Just warnings.
Enough warnings to let Arthur prepare.
Enough to make her guilty of obstruction.
Enough to destroy her career.
“Did she give him my deployment information?” I asked.
“No.”
“Does she know who did?”
“Maybe.”
Naomi had heard Arthur refer to a source inside a federal personnel office.
Someone who was paid through Harrow Creek.
She had never known the identity.
That was now being investigated separately.
Naomi surrendered her credentials before dawn.
She also agreed to cooperate.
One domino fell.
Then another.
With Flynn in federal custody, the recorder authenticated, the ledger recovered, microfilm preserved, Camila alive, and Naomi cooperating, the task force finally had enough to request sweeping warrants.
Sterling Development.
Sheriff’s office.
Arthur Sterling’s residence.
Harrow Creek financial accounts.
Judge Halpern’s chambers.
At 5:42 the next morning, federal vehicles entered Harrington County from three directions.
I was at Jessi’s bedside when the first raid began.
She watched live news footage.
Agents walked into the sheriff’s department carrying evidence containers.
Deputies stood outside.
Some angry.
Some confused.
Some relieved.
Arthur Sterling appeared on the courthouse steps twenty minutes later.
Still wearing his uniform.
Still wearing his badge.
Still smiling.
He told reporters the federal government was conducting a political attack.
Then FBI agents approached.
The smile disappeared.
Sheriff Sterling was served with a federal warrant.
Not arrested.
Yet.
The search of his office lasted six hours.
They found cash.
Hidden phones.
A private safe.
Campaign records.
Property files.
And something nobody expected.
A handwritten list of deputies.
Names beside dollar amounts.
Some payments were labeled BONUS.
Others said LOYALTY.
Three names had one word.
CLEAN.
Those deputies had never taken money.
Arthur had been tracking honest officers too.
Probably deciding which ones were threats.
Deputy Marcus—the man who met me at the airport—was on the clean list.
At 2:11 p.m., Marcus walked voluntarily into the federal command center.
He brought a body camera.
Not his issued camera.
A personal one.
“I started wearing it three years ago,” he said.
“Why?” Reyes asked.
“Because the sheriff ordered me to turn off my department camera before entering a house.”
“What house?”
Marcus looked at me.
“Yours.”
My blood went cold.
“When?”
“Three days before your deployment.”
I stared.
“Why was the sheriff in my house?”
“He wasn’t.”
“Who was?”
“Flynn.”
Jessi was asleep when Mara called me downstairs to hear Marcus’s statement.
The deputy looked ashamed.
He explained that Flynn claimed there was a burglary investigation involving our neighborhood.
Arthur ordered Marcus to unlock the patrol-access box local law enforcement used for emergencies.
Flynn entered our home for seventeen minutes.
Marcus remained outside.
“What did he take?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
Marcus looked down.
“Because I was a coward.”
I didn’t answer.
He continued.
“I’d seen what happened to deputies who crossed Sterling. Bad shifts. False complaints. Wives losing county jobs. Businesses suddenly failing inspections.”
“So you helped him.”
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t make excuses.
“But I recorded it.”
He handed Reyes the camera.
Video showed Flynn entering our house.
Seventeen minutes later, he emerged carrying nothing.
But the timestamp mattered.
Three days before my deployment.
Weeks before Jessi was attacked.
They had been targeting us longer than we realized.
Marcus also had recordings of Arthur ordering him to falsify minor reports.
Nothing dramatic.
Until one audio file.
Sheriff Sterling’s voice.
“Flynn says the engineer’s becoming a problem. Keep an eye on her husband’s schedule.”
My schedule.
That connected Arthur directly to surveillance of Jessi.
The federal warrant expanded.
By evening, agents froze several Sterling accounts.
Judge Halpern was suspended pending investigation.
Harrow Creek’s ownership records were subpoenaed.
And Sheriff Arthur Sterling was formally ordered to surrender his service weapon while the corruption inquiry proceeded.
I watched him do it on television.
He stepped from the sheriff’s office surrounded by cameras.
An FBI supervisor met him.
Arthur removed his sidearm.
Then his badge.
For twenty-two years, that badge had been his crown.
He held it for a second.
Then placed it on the hood of a federal vehicle.
Jessi was awake beside me.
She stared at the screen.
“Is it over?”
“No.”
I wish I could say I was wrong.
At 8:06 p.m., the medical-center security chief called.
A county ambulance had arrived downstairs.
The driver carried transfer paperwork ordering Jessi moved immediately to a rehabilitation facility.
The paperwork bore the signature of her surgeon.
There was only one problem.
Her surgeon had never signed it.
The ambulance left before security could stop it.
Empty.
We thought it was another failed attempt.
Then my phone rang.
It was our neighbor.
“Luca?”
“What happened?”
“Your house.”
“What about it?”
“There are police everywhere.”
I stood.
“Why?”
Her voice trembled.
“They found a body in your garage.”
And according to the identification lying beside it, the dead man was Flynn Sterling.
I stared at the phone.
Flynn was supposed to be in federal custody.
So either someone had somehow removed him…
May you like
Or somebody wanted the entire country to believe I had murdered the sheriff’s son.
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