Roland placed both hands on the back of the folding chair on the other side of the table. His neck was mottled red and spots of color were creeping into his cheeks. This hadn’t turned out to be the operation he could hang his hat on.

It’s not all bad, she wanted to tell him, but couldn’t. There was no doubt a big crowd was crammed together inside the tiny room behind the one-way glass, watching and listening and, Ellie was sure, recording.

“I couldn’t call you—no cell service up here,” Ellie said, wanting her words to be part of the record. She had heard stories from other cops about how the Feds turned into professional finger-pointers when the shit hit the fan. She had gone into what Danny had called CYA mode: cover your ass. “And they didn’t allow me to call after I was booked.”

Roland studied her for a long moment. She expected to see anger, at least a flash of it. What she found, surprisingly, was sympathy.

He leaned forward slowly, as if trying to stretch out a muscle spasm in his lower back. He had an American flag pin on the lapel of his navy blue suit jacket and his ID hung from a lanyard around his neck. He cleared his throat and swallowed several times, as though he was having trouble breathing.

“You’re going to be in here for a bit.” His voice was hoarse, probably from yelling, but there was no heat in it, just a weary sense of defeat, she thought. “Phone calls, paperwork, all that.”

“I want to talk to Cody.”

Roland looked her up and down. Then he straightened and walked away, and when he opened the door, he did so slowly, as though he was entering a funeral home to say his final goodbyes to a loved one.

* * *

In her holding cell, Ellie came awake to the sound of a baton rattling against the bars. She sat up on her cot, the bare mattress stained from months, probably years, of perspiration and other bodily fluids, and saw an older patrolman with a ruddy face and a potbelly standing on the other side, his expression flat to hide the anger he felt toward her. All the cops here were pissed, and she couldn’t blame them. She had detonated a bomb in their quiet city and now they had been tasked with cleaning up after her while battling the wildfires.

“You can use our bathroom to freshen up if you want,” he said as he unlocked her door.

Ellie rubbed the fatigue off her face. Her head was pounding, and her mouth was coated with the early-morning paste of sleep. “Where are we going?”

“I’m going back to my desk to do paperwork. You’re going home.”

Home. The word had never sounded sweeter to her. “Can I use your phone?”

He pointed to the one on his desk.

She called Cody’s cell.

He didn’t answer.

In the bathroom, she scrubbed her hands, arms, and face with liquid hand soap and rough paper towels. She cleaned herself up as best she could.