“Cin,” Ron said tiredly. “Believe me, I don’t want to start a thing with Day, you know he and I go way back. I was his mentor when he started at IPD for fuck’s sake, but I am not going to sit there and let him feed me excuses about what some of his deputies have been up to.” He looked over to me, barely restrained frustration all over his face. “He’s been ghosting Easton, and from the looks of it, has done nothing to deal with any of it.”

I looked over at Cindy who was definitely still not up to high-stress meetings yet, and bit back the curse that was on the tip of my tongue. “Cindy, we are not here for a social call. Day has to give us some straight answers about what’s been happening on his watch.”

Cindy whispered to me as we walked and headed to the front desk area. “I just don’t want us to get into a place where we can’t work together.”

I looked around and spoke to her in a low voice as Ron let the deputy in the front know what we needed. “I’m aware. Corey and Tony are invaluable in the sexual abuse cases, hell they’re two of my strongest witnesses for the trial going on now. We still need to have a word about these bullshit stops on county roads.” I ran my hand over my head as I followed Ron to Day’s office, trying to control my annoyance. I was getting tired of Cindy implying that us asking Day to do something about these stops was equivalent with declaring war. “I don’t want this to become a public pissing match any more than you do, but I don’t think I need to tell you that if Day can’t hear our concerns about this, then we really need to be worried.”

I almost told her about Ari, because I needed her to understand, to hear, that this was something happening to real people. Our work sometimes got so stressful and there was so much of it that we forgot we were not just responsible for what escalated to crimes. It was our duty to respond to situations like this, especially when it was becoming clear that these stops were not just random. Before Cindy could get a word in, Day came out of his office to greet us.

If you could use a word for Whitney Day, it would be “strapping.” He gave off a no-nonsense vibe that kept people on their toes. He was tall and strong, with piercing blue eyes that could make you squirm if directed at you for too long. His blond hair was getting lighter as some grays came in, but still...he was a very handsome man.