It wasn’t even from that region of Ohio.
Keller held it up between two fingers and gave Elias a crooked grin.
“Who’d you steal this badge from, old man?”
Several feet away, Pike smirked.
Elias made no move to take the badge back.
He didn’t raise his voice.
“It belongs to me.”
Keller stared at him another moment.
Then he laughed.
He turned his attention back to the wallet.
That was when he noticed the money.
Elias had taken out cash before leaving home because his daughter was having repairs done to her house, and he’d promised to help cover the contractor’s bill.
Keller removed the bills.
He counted them quickly.
Then he pulled aside ten hundred-dollar bills.
One thousand dollars.
Elias watched as Keller folded the cash once and slipped it into his own shirt pocket.
Still, Elias said nothing.
Pike remained silent too.
For several seconds, the only sounds came from cars speeding by and the cruiser’s engine idling behind them.
Then Keller placed Elias’s badge back inside the wallet.
He looked straight at the older man.
There was no uncertainty in his expression.
No worry.
No indication that he believed anyone could stop him.
Keller tossed the wallet onto the asphalt beside Elias’s boots.
“Move along, old man. Consider the theft forgotten.”
Then he turned away.
Pike followed him back toward the patrol car.
Neither man bothered to look behind them.
Elias stared down at the wallet resting on the pavement.
He could see the edge of his badge peeking from inside.
For over thirty years, that badge—or badges much like it—had opened doors, settled disputes, and reminded younger officers that authority came with responsibility.
Today, it had been handled as though it were something stolen from a costume store.
But the badge wasn’t what troubled Elias the most.
Neither was the money.
There had been something about Keller’s confidence that bothered him from the instant the officer climbed out of the cruiser.