We watched Rand’s helmet cam bob up and down in affirmation. “Seems like it.”
“Where is Mrs. Juravinski?” Celia’s eyes widened.
Bravo Team answered her a second later. “Boss, we’ve got a body in here.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Rand ordered. “Rendezvous to my location tout-fucking-suite.”
“Rand, call me on a secure line,” I barked, then muted the comms link.
“What just happened?” Celia gave me a once-over.
I smiled and picked up the phone before it could ring. “Mendota here. I’m putting you on speaker. Celia’s with me.”
“Oh, hey, Celia!”
“Hey, Rand. Looks like you had a busy morning.”
“Damn straight,” Rand chuckled.
“How about you fill us in? I asked you to talk to Mrs. Juravinski, and suddenly, we have three tactical teams breaching her house? This is a little overboard, don’t you think?” I scrubbed my hands down my face.
Luke was probably going to have my ass in a sling for the extra cost. Three tac teams? On a Sunday, no less. But then again, this was the case that would clear his sister’s name from the murder of Octavio Cruz, so… it was a toss-up. He might just make me work it off in the sparring ring.
“Ryker and I went to the house to question Mrs. Juravinski, but he noticed something unusual,” Rand began. “He smelled decomposition.”
Celia scrunched up her nose. “Dead bodies?”
“That’sah-firm-uh-tivo, Celia,” Rand continued. “We thought maybe the woman died of old age or something. You know how it goes in those communities. People keep to themselves. No friends. They don’t go outside. And suddenly, they’re dead two weeks inside their house, and no one knows, except for when the mailman or the Amazon delivery driver notices an unusual smell inside the house.”
I rolled my eyes. Rand had a flair for the dramatic. And run-on explanations. “The point?”
“We were just going to call it in, but Ryker suggested we give it the once-over with the infrared camera,” Rand explained. “When we flipped that bad boy on, we could see two alive-and-well people milling about the house.”
“Two? I thought you said Mrs. Juravinski was dead,” I was confused.
“Oh, she is,” Rand snorted.
“If you arrested Echo, who’s the second person?” Celia’s eyebrows knit together. She looked paler than usual.
“The butler!” Rand shouted into the phone. “The butler did it! Damn! I’ve wanted to say that for-fucking-ever!”
“The butler?” I questioned.
“The butler!”
I could picture Rand pointing a finger to the sky in triumph like he was Sherlock Fucking Holmes. “We didn’t see you arrest the butler.”
“That’s because Ryker snuck up and took him down like a fucking ninja when the guy went out to buy groceries!” Rand’s voice was filled with glee. “I gotta’ tell ya’ bossman. That Ryker is something else. ‘He can track a falcon on a cloudy day! He can find you!’”
“Are you quotingThe Princess Bride?” Celia snickered.
“You betcha!” Rand laughed. “You a fan?”
“That is Carolina’s favorite movie,” Celia rubbed her forehead. “She made us watch that thing at least a hundred times.”
“Carolina?” Rand’s voice went up an octave until he coughed. “Ahem, how is she?”
Celia frowned. “Um, fine. Why?”
