“What are you going to do with her?”

Unable to sit still, he got up again and started to pace. “I don’t know. It’s up to Cal. What can I do?”

Dixon arrived then from an interrupted evening and came into the break room, all business, with a dark scowl on his face. He was dressed for some fund-raising dinner in a smart gray suit with a blue tie that intensified the color of his eyes.

He looked at Mendez. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“It’s not by choice,” Mendez said.

“I don’t like that either,” Dixon snapped. “Mrs. Lawton asked for you specifically, and Ballencoa has already filed a complaint against you. Tell me Ballencoa hasn’t seen you.”

“No. Good for him. At this point I’d be happy to finish what she started.”

“Don’t even start with me, talking like that,” Dixon said. “You’re a sworn officer of the court. Act like it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Vince, what’s your role here?”

Leone got to his feet slowly, the deliberate quality of his movement immediately slowing down the hot energy in the room. “Observing,” he said. “Tony filled me in on the history. I wanted to see Ballencoa for myself.”

“And?”

“Based on what little I know and what little I’ve seen, I don’t like him,” he said. “He’s manipulative, narcissistic, vindictive—”

The sheriff looked impatient. “So far you’ve described my ex-mother-in-law.”

“Your ex-mother-in-law isn’t a sexual predator, is she?” Vince asked.

“No. That’s one thing she’s not.”

“Well, by most accounts, this guy is,” Vince said. “And he thinks he’s got you all by the balls, and that you can’t or won’t do anything about it.”

“So far, he’s right,” Mendez said. “If I’d been able to put someone on this creep—”

“What?” Dixon challenged. “We could have stopped him from taking photographs? There’s no law against taking photographs. There is, however, a law against physically assaulting someone and destroying their property.”

Agitated by his boss’s turn of conversation, Mendez held up a warning finger. “If you tell me we’re arresting Lauren Lawton and charging her for trying to protect her child, I fucking quit!”

“Don’t you threaten me, detective,” Dixon barked back. “We haven’t charged anyone with anything.”

“No,” Mendez said angrily, gesturing toward the TV monitor. “Until that piece of dirt threatens to sue again, and then we’ll all jump through our little hoops to keep him out of the county coffers. A fucking child predator. A convicted felon. And you’re more worried about him than the mother of a stolen child.”

Dixon gave him a hard look. “Rein it in, detective. I’m warning you.”

“Tony.” Vince put a hand on his shoulder. “Step back and cool down. Come on.”