Chapter 7: Somebody’s Watching Me

Sergeant Justin Yamato sat at his desk in the narrow, beige-walled IAD bullpen, pecking out the last paragraph of a jerkoff summary report while sipping reheated coffee that tasted faintly of burnt styrofoam.

His two detectives were “out in the field,” which could mean any number of things. The official line was that they were chasing leads on the Norco theft case or doing background re-interviews on the Davenport shooting. The unofficial reality? He’d heard them talking about a warehouse clearance on Titleist balls over at The Golf Warehouse, and odds were good they’d gone to “conduct swing diagnostics” sometime around 9:30.

Yamato didn’t care.

So long as the actual work got done—so long as cases were handled, reports filed, and timelines respected—he wasn’t about to start micromanaging two guys in their forties who knew when to show up and when to disappear. That kind of judgment was what kept this place running.

He leaned back in his chair, flexing his fingers, and read over what he’d just written:

Complainant resisted detention during active perimeter search related to felony vehicle pursuit and multiple vehicle burglaries. Deputy Winslow used controlled tackle to prevent escape. Minor abrasions reported. Subject’s claim of “excessive force” unsupported by witness statements or body cam footage. Deputy Winslow’s actions and the actions of the other deputies who assisted her in taking the complainant into custody are well within the bounds of California state law, all applicable federal laws, and department policy.

Recommend administrative closure.

Classic jerkoff. File, box, done.

He saved the report, tagged it for closure, and exhaled. Another one down.

People thought Internal Affairs was all badge-snatching and gotcha interviews. The movies made it seem like a place where stick up their ass administrative cops tried to bust the balls of the working cops. But that wasn’t what Yamato did.

He was a gatekeeper.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred complaints came in from people who had no idea what cops were actually allowed to do. Drunks who didn’t like being cuffed. Tweakers who thought being tased was a hate crime. Angry moms whose sons got arrested and told a very different story from the one on body cam.

Yamato’s job wasn’t to hunt cops. It was to screen noise from signal.

And most of it?

Noise.

They had a few designations for the complaints that crossed his desk. Shitcanned was the gold standard. That meant it was total garbage—not even worth pretending to investigate. He’d write a one-pager, summarize the call or letter, and that was the end of it. He was a master of the shitcan note. Knew how to word things just diplomatically enough to deflect risk, just plainly enough to discourage appeals.

Jerked off meant they did a courtesy dance—pulled the body cam, skimmed the CAD logs, maybe called the deputy if they felt generous. Enough of a documentation trail to say “we looked into it,” but not enough to waste anyone’s time.

Opened was when things got real. When the potential fuckery couldn’t be ignored. Those were rare. But they happened.

Right now, he had three open cases.

One: a deputy accused of coercing sex from drunken women he pulled over in exchange for leniency. That one was starting to smell. Yamato didn’t like it. Still hadn’t decided whether it was a bad apple or just a good cop with zero people skills and no concept of optics.

Two: a female deputy who’d befriended an old lady in her beat. Now it looked like she might be helping herself to the woman’s prescription Norco. Early signs were muddy. Could be theft. Could be bad paperwork. Could be both.

Three: the Davenport shooting. It was going to be a mess. It was already a mess. And he had to tiptoe around the fact that the deputy in question was a captain’s nephew.

Yamato rubbed his face. IAD was not where careers went to thrive. It was a stepping stone to the higher ranks and it was where his career needed to be—at least for now. This was the shit he had to wade through if he wanted to move up. If he wanted a pair of gold railroad tracks on his collar instead of stripes on his sleeve.

The phone buzzed once—line one. Internal extension.

He tapped the speaker button. “Yamato.”

“Got a call for you, Sarge,” said a voice from the front desk. “Says it’s about misconduct. Civvie. Some housewife in Gardenville.”

“Put her through,” he said, already opening a new note template.

Click.

“IAD, Sergeant Yamato speaking.”

A crisp voice came on the line. Older woman by the sound. Forceful. Karen-level cadence. “Yes, hello. My name is Judith Linden, and I’m calling to report serious misconduct involving one of your officers. I believe he’s having an affair with a married woman across the street from me.”

Yamato paused.

Not because he cared. But because this was new.

“Okay,” he said, pulling up a blank log entry. “And how do you know this man is one of our deputies?”

“He said he was. When he moved in. And he carries a gun. I’ve seen it under his shirt.”

Yamato suppressed a sigh. “Is he in uniform? Does he wear department-issued gear?”

“No, he’s always in jeans and a t-shirt. Very ... casual.”

Right. Off-duty. Personal time.

He scrolled through his mental Rolodex of the department. Who lived in Gardenville? That sounded like Dover. Had to be Dover.

“Do you know his name?” he asked, though he already suspected the answer.

“He says his name is Scott Dover,” she said, her tone suggesting that just might be an alias, however. “He lives with a woman named Maggie Winslow. They’re both cops, supposedly. But she’s not the one he’s seeing. It’s the married woman across the street. I’ve seen them.”

This caught his interest. Not because it was putting Dover’s actions into question, but because he might be able to get a good sex story out of her. Did she actually see Dover slamming this alleged MILF?

“What exactly do you mean when you say you’ve seen them?” he asked, keeping his voice firm, level, ‘just the facts, ma’am’-esq.

“I have logs, tables,” she said. “I have an entire spreadsheet documenting their comings and goings.”

“But ... have you actually seen them having sexual activity?”

“No, of course not!” she nearly yelled. “I’m not a peeping Tom or a common gossip. I’m the neighborhood watch block captain. I’m sure that’s in your computer.”

“I’m sure it is,” Yamato said, making the jerking off motion with his hand. “And has either of these parties told you they are having sexual activity?”

“No,” she scoffed. “That’s why I’m calling you. You can put them on a lie detector and get the truth out of them.”

“I’d really rather not,” he said with a sigh.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling tiles.

Winslow and Dover. He knew them.

He remembered them both. Had run their academy class back in ‘22, during the pandemic. Good kids. Solid. He still thought of them as “his cops.” Quiet ones, never attention seekers. He kept track of the ones who made it. Watched them grow. They were, by all accounts, good cops.

He glanced at the report still open on his screen—Winslow tackling some tweaker who thought he could out-pedal a perimeter. The guy had scraped his elbow and filed a complaint from jail. Excessive force, he’d called it.

Lady, Yamato thought, that guy’s still got gravel in his asshole from trying to rabbit. You think I care who your neighbor’s banging on his day off?

He tapped the keyboard a few times, starting his official shitcan note.

“Ma’am,” he said patiently, “can you tell me what exactly you would like us to do about this? Because what you’re describing is not something we typically investigate unless there’s a duty violation. Affairs between consenting adults, while potentially problematic, are not—by themselves—against department policy.”

Judith sniffed. “Well I certainly think it’s unprofessional. He’s supposed to be a role model. My children see him.”

Yamato raised an eyebrow. Your children are in danger from garden gnomes before they’re in danger from Dover.

“I appreciate your concern,” he said. “Let me ask: has there been any allegation of criminal behavior? Harassment? Coercion?”

“No,” she said, slightly offended. “But I think the public deserves to know what kind of people are being given badges.”

He was already typing:

Civilian complaint re: off-duty conduct of Deputy Scott Dover. Alleged off-duty extramarital relationship with consenting adult. No on-duty nexus. No criminal allegation. Caller reports ‘noticing patterns of behavior and documenting them.’ No actual details, eyewitness accounts, verbal statements attesting to such a relationship. Even if there were, such behavior is within the confines of department policy and state law. It is not our role to police the sexual behavior of our deputies as long as no criminal conduct is alleged. No policy violation noted. Recommend closure.

He finished typing his shitcan note then put it in the background for later attachment to the complaint number.

“I’ll document your concern,” he told her. “But at this time, based on what you’ve described, it doesn’t appear to fall under Internal Affairs jurisdiction.”

There was a pause. Long. Tense.

“You’re not going to do anything?” Judith asked, shocked.

“There is nothing for me to do, Ms. Linden,” he said. “It is not our job to police the behavior of our deputies off duty as long as they are not violating any laws.”

“Well ... it should be against the law for a cop to carry on with a married woman!” she said. “What do you think of that?”

“What I think is meaningless,” he said. “You have a nice day now, Ms. Linden.”

She started to say something else, but he disconnected the call and was unable to further benefit from her insight and legal wisdom.

He leaned back in his chair for a long moment after the call disconnected, staring at the ceiling again like it might offer him hazard pay for having survived the last five minutes.

The truth was, he didn’t hate the job. Internal Affairs had its moments. Occasionally, they caught a real one—some narcissist with a badge and a superiority complex who thought the rules didn’t apply. Those were worth the effort. But most days, it was this. Dogshit rumors, weaponized grievances, and bored people in HOA neighborhoods who thought being mildly offended was the same thing as being a victim.

Still, it wasn’t just paperwork. It was politics. Knowing who to warn before things spiraled. Who needed to be looped in—not for liability, but for morale.

And Dover?

Dover deserved the heads-up.

He spun his monitor back toward him and clicked through to the HR system. Found Dover’s ID number, pulled up his duty log.

OFF – Last night. OFF – Tonight. Back on the District 1 Adam Watch tomorrow.

Yamato exhaled. Dover was a nightcrawler. Probably asleep right now. But that wasn’t a problem. He didn’t need a conversation—just a flag on the radar. Something to let the guy know that the neighborhood Taliban was gunning for him with an Excel spreadsheet and a head full of scandal porn.

He clicked into the contact database, scanned down to the personal line.

There it was. Dover’s personal cell.

Yamato picked up the phone, dialed it, and brought the receiver to his ear.

It rang once.

Twice.

Scott Dover heard his phone ring from the nightstand—somewhere off to the right, muffled by sheets, shirts, and a pair of dainty, fashionable skinny jeans.

He made no move to answer it.

He was currently balls-deep in Samantha Belkin’s pussy, thrusting into her from behind with the slow, deep cadence of a man who knew he wasn’t in a rush and planned to enjoy every goddamn second of it.

Her body was bent forward across his mattress, knees wide on the bed, arms braced under her. Her blonde hair was a mess, sweat-damp and trailing down her neck. Her back arched instinctively with each stroke, her breath coming in gasps that were half-moans, half-mantra.

Scott reached under her and cupped both breasts, heavy and perfect, full in his hands. He squeezed gently—then not so gently. Her nipples were flushed and swollen, pointing straight down like they had somewhere to be.

“Jesus,” Samantha panted, voice thick with lust. “You’re so fucking deep...”

He didn’t answer. Just grunted and rocked his hips harder, watching the ripple of her ass with each thrust. Her skin was slick with sweat, her thighs trembling faintly. Every few strokes, she pushed back against him like she was trying to take even more.

The phone continued to ring. Still ignored.

This was round two. The first had been oral—a rather noisy South Gardenville Parkway blowjob while he drove them back from Starbucks on Cypress. She’d unbuckled her seatbelt halfway down the main throughfare, slipped her hand onto his thigh, and murmured, “I feel like I owe you something.”

It hadn’t taken much more than that.

She’d unzipped him while he was steering with one hand and popped him in her mouth before the red light at Monroe. By the time he was pulling into the garage, she’d taken him all the way to the base, moaning like a goddamn porn star with her lips wrapped tight and her hand working what she couldn’t swallow.

He came in her mouth and she swallowed it down greedily, not losing a single drop. She was getting pretty good at it.

Once inside, he’d undressed her slowly. Eaten her out thoroughly. Not rushed. Not perfunctory. A long, deliberate session—face buried between her thighs, tongue working her clit while two fingers probed her slick pussy and two more curled up inside her ass. She came hard twice, trembling and gasping, pulling at his hair with both hands and moaning out how she wanted more, more, more.

So now she was getting more.

He reached down, thumb pressing between the cheeks of her ass, not quite penetrating, just teasing. She gasped and pushed back, her body open and wanton, utterly wrecked and still hungry.

“God,” she moaned. “We’re ... fuck ... we’re so perfectly aligned ... do you feel that? Like our energies are synchronized or something?”

Scott rolled his eyes. He didn’t stop thrusting, but he couldn’t help the deadpan in his voice.

“Totally,” he said. “Full chakra alignment.”

Samantha let out a breathless laugh, but it quickly dissolved back into moaning. She wasn’t looking for deep conversation right now, just noise to fill the air between orgasms.

They kept going. Scott drove into her with long, powerful strokes until he felt the burn gathering low in his gut. He wrapped a hand around her ponytail, pulled her head back slightly, and slammed into her one final time.

He came with a low grunt, body clenching, sweat dripping off his jaw onto her back. His cock throbbed inside her, pumping deep, and she let out a soft, whimpering sigh as she felt the heat flood her pussy.

They held the position for a beat—his chest to her back, both of them gasping, limbs shaking.

Then they collapsed.

Scott pulled out and rolled to his side, flopping on his back, arm across his forehead. Samantha followed a second later, breath ragged, hair wild, legs spread.

Her skin was flushed, eyes half-lidded, lips swollen from kissing and gasping and whatever the hell came out of her during the last ten minutes.

She turned her head toward him, a dazed little smile on her face.

“That was ... insane,” she breathed. “Like ... spiritually aligned insane. I think our sexual energies are literally tuned to the same frequency.”

Scott stared at the ceiling.

“Uh huh.”

“I mean, I’ve never had that with anyone. It’s like we’re calibrated.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” she said, turning onto her side, hand brushing his chest. “That wasn’t just fucking. That was ... cosmic. That was two souls vibrating at the same amplitude.”

Scott glanced down at her, one eyebrow barely raised.

“Uh huh,” he said again.

Samantha giggled, still blissed out, clearly too sex-drunk to notice he wasn’t exactly riding the same metaphysical wave.

They lay there for another couple minutes, letting the sweat dry and the blood settle. The smell of sex was thick in the room—her perfume faded beneath layers of sweat, saliva, and the musky, unmistakable scent of raw fucking.

Eventually, Samantha sat up, stretching with a satisfied little groan.

“We should probably ... you know ... get decent.”

Scott sat up too, rubbing his face. “Yeah.”

He stood, naked and unconcerned, and began gathering his clothes. He slipped on a pair of jeans—no underwear, because they’d been tossed aside sometime and hadn’t been seen since—then pulled an old shirt off the chair in the corner. Navy blue. Faded. Read “Graham’s Bike Shoppe” in cracked white letters.

Samantha pulled on her panties, bra, then her jeans and a loose hoodie. Her hair was still a mess, but she managed to fluff it into something halfway presentable.

Scott picked up his off-duty Glock from the bedside and clipped it to his belt. Grabbed his wallet and his badge holder and shoved them into his back pockets. Last step: phone from the nightstand, which now showed a missed call and a voicemail icon.

He didn’t bother listening. Not yet.

They opened the bedroom door and padded quietly into the hallway.

Down the corridor, just before the laundry room, stood Maggie Winslow—barefoot, casual, folding a basket of laundry on the counter. She was wearing a T-shirt so short it barely covered the waistband of her panties, and every time she leaned forward, the curve of her ass peeked into view like it was checking to see if anyone was watching.

She looked up as they approached.

“Morning,” she said casually. “Sleep okay?”

Samantha’s face turned bright red. “Oh. Uh ... yeah. We were just...”

“Looking at crown molding,” Scott said flatly.

Maggie nodded, poker-faced. “Right. Well, I think we all got a good look at something.”

Scott smirked. Samantha made a noise that might have been laughter or a dying bird.

Maggie folded a towel with mechanical precision. “You were in good voice today, Sammie. Very clear articulation. You really hit the top notes.”

Samantha all but squeaked.

Scott held back a laugh.

They passed through to the garage door. Scott opened it and motioned her ahead.

“Let’s go, wave-mate,” he said under his breath.

She elbowed him weakly as they stepped into the garage and the door clicked shut behind them.

They climbed into the truck. Scott behind the wheel, Sammie curling into the passenger seat, head down and out of sight from prying eyes.

He started the engine, the dashboard lighting up, the truck humming to life. He pushed the button on the sun visor and the door slid open smoothly behind him. He backed out and started the drive back to the Cypress Avenue Starbucks where Sammie’s car was waiting patiently.

Samantha stayed ducked down in the passenger seat until they were two blocks clear of the neighborhood. That was the rule. No exceptions.

Scott kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the shifter, eyes sweeping traffic like it was any other drive on any other morning. School buses. Mid-tier sedans. Retirees out early for groceries. Nothing that looked like Judith.

When they passed the Valero station at the edge of the neighborhood, he gave the nod.

“You’re good.”

She popped up like a gopher from a hole in the ground, twisting in her seat to pull her hoodie straight and buckle herself in. Her cheeks were still flushed, hair slightly wild, but she didn’t try to fix it. Just clipped the seatbelt and exhaled like she’d been holding her breath the whole time.

“God, I hate sneaking around,” she muttered, still adjusting her waistband. “But also ... it’s kind of hot.”

Scott gave her a side glance but said nothing.

At the red light on Vista Verde and Emerson, she leaned over and kissed him.

Not a peck. Not a polite thank-you.

Full-on. Tongue and lips. Eyes closed. A kiss with heat and softness and something else underneath. Not possessive—but deeply satisfied. Like a woman who’d just scratched a very important itch and wanted to sign the guestbook.

She pulled back just as the light turned green.

“Sorry,” she said, breathless. “I just had to do that one more time.”

Scott gave a grunt and hit the gas.

The truck eased forward.

They drove in silence for a moment. Normal morning traffic around them. Kids at bus stops. Joggers on sidewalks.

Then Samantha spoke again, her tone casual—too casual.

“So ... does Maggie always dress like that?”

Scott’s brow twitched. “Like what?”

“Like she’s ... accidentally showing her underwear every time she bends down.”

He glanced over. She wasn’t mad. Not exactly. No bite in the voice. Just ... curious.

Thank God.

He kept his tone light. “Roommate privileges.”

Samantha blinked. “What?”

“We live together. We’re comfortable. It’s not a show. She just doesn’t care if I see a little panty now and then. I don’t care if she sees me walking around in my boxers.

“Oh,” Samantha said, then gave a small smile. “You two ever...?”

“No,” he said. “Never. Not even close. I’ve never fucked her. I’ve never even kissed her.”

Samantha tilted her head. “Really?”

“Really,” he said. “We’re just friends. Good friends. Solid as hell. But that’s it.”

A pause.

Samantha chewed her lip for a second. “Some people say ... you know ... she might be gay.”

Scott smirked. He was attuned enough to the neighborhood to know what some people say meant. A Judith original. “Does she look gay?” he asked, deflecting the enquiry without actually lying.

Samantha narrowed her eyes. “What kind of question is that?”

“A cop question,” he said. “Meaningless but necessary.”

“Okay, then,” Samantha pressed. “If she’s not gay ... why isn’t she all over you?”

Scott shrugged. “I’m not her type.”

“Not her type?” she echoed.

“Apparently.”

Samantha stared out the windshield for a second. Then, without looking at him, she asked, “Would you fuck her if she wanted you to?”

Scott didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” he said. “I’d have to.”

She let out a sharp little laugh and shook her head. “You’d have to?”

Scott did not elaborate. It didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, they were out of time for chit-chat. They were pulling into the Starbucks lot now. Quiet morning traffic. A few cars already parked out front. One shift-changing barista at the glass with a mop. Everything normal.

They were well-drilled at this part.

As soon as the truck came to a complete stop, Samantha had the door open and one foot on the asphalt. No hesitation. No look back. She slipped out, crossed the short sidewalk, and slid into the driver’s seat of her Lexus like a woman who had just picked up her morning latte and was on her way to yoga.

Scott waited just long enough to make sure her key fob worked. The Lexus beeped twice. Engine started. She pulled out without so much as a wave.

Well done, he thought. Smooth as ever.

He didn’t drive home right away.

Instead, he eased around the corner of the strip mall, back behind the building where the loading bays were tucked into the concrete.

Wide pavement. Dumpster corral. Access to the utility meters. No foot traffic. No cameras, unless you counted the ones mounted above the back entrances.

He pulled in slow and put the truck in park, leaving the engine idling. He sat there and looked around. This had to be one of the Gardenville PD morning watch units hidey-holes. Assuming those customer service oriented pseudo-cops actually had hidey-holes. Maybe they really did keep cruising around the city all through the dark hours of the shift? Looking for anyone with skin other than white to pull over? Keeping the homeless population outside of the city limits at all costs.

He scanned the angles like he was still in uniform. Line of sight. Egress points. Distance to cover. The kind of mental calculus he did without thinking.

And then he leaned back in the seat, rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand, and let out a long breath. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and looked at the screen. What he saw there made a little burst of adrenaline flow through him. It was a department number, one of the ones that did not have origin blocking to disguise it. It said exactly where the missed call had come from in detail: HCSD – IAD.

The fuckin’ headhunters!

A pulse of cold crept down his spine—slow, deliberate, unearned.

It was the same feeling a normal citizen got when they saw a black-and-white unit in their rearview mirror and couldn’t remember if their tags were current. An irrational guilt response. Like the universe had found a charge to file, even if you didn’t know what it was yet.

Why the fuck is Internal Affairs calling me?

He sat there in the cab of the truck, engine still idling, phone still glowing in his hand, mind kicking into review mode.

The last few weeks. What the hell could it be?

That tweaker?

The one from Del Sol and 11th who tried to rabbit during a vehicle stop. Scott had put him down hard—hood of the suspect’s own car, which was a poetic touch. The guy had made it exactly two steps before Scott yanked him backward by the collar and slammed him like a cartoon ragdoll.

He’d even thought to himself while cuffing him: You get two steps, not three. I do not give three steps, mister.

Still. The guy had gone limp and whiny afterward. Might’ve filed something. But it was textbook. Force was good. Body cam showed it all. Jerkoff case at worst.

Or maybe...

That drunk female he’d booked last Thursday night. The one who offered him sex—slurred, suggestive, all bedroom eyes and flop sweat—if he’d “just let this one slide.”

He hadn’t even acknowledged it. Just kept driving down the freeway on the way to the main jail in downtown Heritage while she gave him the kind of look only a truly desperate woman could muster.

She was Northwood ugly, too. Like, medically classified. Missing teeth. Tattoos on the neck—bad ones. Tits hanging out the bottom of her shirt, and not because the shirt was too short. Gravity had simply declared war and won decisively.

She had been hammered to the core—a fan of the little plastic pints available in all Northwood liquor stores that just said VODKA on the outside. No way she remembered that interaction. And even if she did, what the hell would she say? I offered to bribe him with sex and he ignored me. Real scandal material.

Still.

It was IAD. The acronym alone came with weight.

He hesitated a beat longer, then tapped into the voicemail icon.

The message played.

“Hey, Scott. This is Justin Yamato. If you can, give me a call. I’ve got some information for you.”

That was it.

Scott stared at the screen.

Yamato.

His old academy sergeant. Now the head headhunter.

But he hadn’t said Sergeant Yamato. And he hadn’t said from IAD. Just Justin Yamato—casual, like they were buds who hadn’t seen each other in a while. This was the man who had made the entire class do thirty pushups every time any member of the class was seen carrying something in their gun hand. Brutal shit. And yeah, it was a lesson rookies needed beaten into them—the method was effective as hell. Even off duty, Scott and Maggie still didn’t carry anything in their right hands—did not blank the memories of pumping out another thirty on the hot pavement because fucking Baxter or Chu had carried their clipboards on the wrong side.

And the number?

Not a department number. No extension. No operator routing. No “555” prefix to disguise internal origin.

It was a cell phone. Personal.

Scott sat with that for a second. Rolled it over.

That meant something. It wasn’t official. Not yet. Yamato didn’t want this one in the call logs.

He held his thumb over the screen, hit import to keypad, and watched the number slot in. Then he tapped connect and brought the phone to his ear.

It rang once. Twice. And he waited. The line clicked through on the third ring.

“Yamato,” came the voice on the other end—calm, clipped, like he was still barking roll call in a gymnasium with no heat.

Scott grinned faintly. “Sergeant Gimme Thirty. Scott Dover returning your call.”

Yamato chuckled. “Give me shit if you will, Dover, but you’re not carrying your fuckin’ flashlight in your gun hand, are you?”

“Not a chance, Sarge.”

“Didn’t think so,” Yamato said. “Glad to hear you remember the good stuff.”

Scott shifted in his seat, resting his elbow on the window frame. “You calling to test me or is this a social?”