Operation Power Play (7 page)

And why not? Brett thought. All his people followed his lead; why shouldn’t the dog think that he would, too?

He started after them, wondering how boring his runs would be once Hayley and Quinn Foxworth got back and repossessed their uncanny canine.

Chapter 11

“T
hat’s it?” Brett asked. “They’re calling that a wetland?”

Sloan shook her head as she stared at the small puddle. All of a foot and a half across, it couldn’t constitute a “wetland” in any sane person’s mind.

“Absurd as that is, it’s not the point,” she said.

“What is?”

“It’s never been here before. Ever. Not in thirty years, not in the rainiest of rainy seasons. And I would know.”

She looked around at the landscape that was as familiar to her as her reflection in the mirror. She heard a rustling and looked back the way they’d come. Caught a glimpse of Cutter ranging through the woods below them on the hill.

“He’ll be along,” Brett said. She looked back, caught him studying her rather intently. Something in that steady gaze unsettled her.

Face it, the man unsettles you,
she silently admitted. But then, Brett Dunbar could unsettle any woman with a pulse.

“You really grew up here? With your aunt and uncle?”

She nodded. “My parents were killed when I was seven. They took me in.”

“I’m sorry. That was good of them.”

She grimaced. “If you’d known my grandmother, who wanted to take me, you’d know it was more than good—it was lifesaving.”

“Not the warm, fuzzy type, I gather?”

“Hardly. I swear, she was the source of the phrase the
evil eye
.”

He lifted a brow. “And I thought mine was bad.”

She realized abruptly that she knew very little about him, that when they’d talked, it had been mostly about her. She wondered if that was because of the circumstances or his nature. Or maybe because of his job, he was used to always asking the questions.

“Was she?” she asked, thinking it about time she turned those tables. Besides, she was curious. And, she told herself firmly, her curiosity had nothing to do with the fact that she seemed to go on hyperalert around him.

“She was...a bit stiff. And appalled at me. She’d had only girls. And they were all very...” He stopped, looking a bit awkward.

“Very what?” she asked, realizing with surprise that she was enjoying this.

“Girlie,” he said, as if he’d searched for another word and failed.

She laughed. “Some are, I’m told.”

“Not you?”

“Not since I was seven.”

She saw him put it together. “Your parents’ deaths changed that?”

“My mother wanted one of those girlie girls. I wasn’t one by nature and rebelled. Lord, I hated those frilly dresses!”

He looked as if he couldn’t picture her, even as a child, in frills.

“Don’t get me wrong—I loved her, but she wanted me to have her childhood over again. My aunt didn’t care as long as I was happy. Although I’m sure some people would think she let me run a little too wild.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Oh, she was the font of dire predictions for my eventual fate.”

And there she was, talking about herself again. What was it about this guy? If he got suspects to spill the way he’d gotten her to jabber, it was no wonder he was good at his job.

“I’m glad you didn’t end up with her, then.”

“As am I,” she said fervently.

Cutter trotted over to them. He had a few dead leaves clinging to his coat, and Brett brushed them off as he spoke to the dog.

“Find anything interesting?”

Cutter let out a soft whuff, then lowered his nose to sniff at the small puddle of water.

“Not sure you should drink that, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Brett said. “Not if we don’t know where it came from or why it’s here.”

“You always talk to him like that? Instead of just saying ‘No’?”

“It works,” he said, gesturing to the dog, who was not drinking but sniffing around the perimeter of the puddle as if looking for a better spot.

“He does seem to understand.”

“Frightening amounts,” he agreed.

He watched the dog for a moment longer, then began to walk around the puddle himself. With each circuit he moved farther away from the water, always looking down at the ground. She could hear the faint rustle of the nylon running pants he wore today, wondered idly if he switched to shorts in the summer. Which led her to other thoughts she was better off not having racketing around in her mind.

“Looking for something?” she asked.

“A source. If it’s never been here before, there must be a reason it’s here now.”

“I admit, it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been up here, but—”

He stopped walking, looked straight at her. “You were up here that recently?”

She nodded. “Looking at possible building sites. I came right through here and that—” she nodded toward the puddle “—was not here.”

“Hmm.”

What was that supposed to mean? He didn’t believe her? “It wasn’t,” she insisted.

He drew back slightly. “I’m not doubting you. If you say it wasn’t here, it wasn’t here.”

“Oh.” She sounded as abashed as she felt.

He looked at her steadily for a moment. “I’m not one of them, Sloan.”

She realized then she had reacted as if he were one of those overstuffed shirts back in DC. And that he knew it.

“Just how much research on me have you done?”

“Enough to come to admire you as I do few people.”

Well, that neatly took the wind out of her sails. And now she didn’t know why she’d hoisted them in the first place.

Cutter barked, short, sharp and sounding oddly commanding. Only then did she realize he was heading up the hill at a steady trot, his nose still to the ground.

“Where’s he wandering off to?” she wondered aloud.

“I don’t think he’s wandering,” Brett said. “That’s full intent.”

“And so you follow?” she asked as he started after the dog.

“I’m going to have to go get him anyway,” he said. Then, with a grimace, he added, “But based on his reputation, who knows what he’s on to?”

She had to pick up her pace to stay even with his long strides. But she liked that he didn’t slow them for her, just took it for granted that she could keep up.

“So how did a dog convince a detective that he’s worth following?”

“Results,” he said. Then he smiled. “Well, that and the fact that none of us are entirely convinced he’s just a dog.”

She laughed at that bit of unexpected whimsy from this man. And also unexpectedly, it made her feel good to know that despite the shadows that darkened his eyes, he could still find amusement in life. She remembered the first time she had laughed after Jason had been killed. It had shocked her, felt so foreign, and then filled her with guilt, as if it were a kind of betrayal of him to even be able to laugh. It had taken her a long time to get past that feeling.

They caught up with Cutter when he stopped just below the road that ran along the top of the hill through a tract of large, expensive houses. He was nosing around again, and she wondered what creature had gone through here that was so fascinating to the dog.

“Is this still their property?”

“We’re right at the edge,” she said, pointing out the property peg a few yards away. “That’s the corner marker.”

“Doesn’t seem like twelve acres.”

She pointed to the west. “It goes that way from here. It’s an odd sort of L shape.”

Cutter seemed to have settled on one spot to sniff, where the dirt looked less solid, as if some animal had already been digging around. That must be what had his attention, she thought.

Brett looked up at the large house on the road. She followed his glance.

“They wanted to buy this land when they were building those homes, but Uncle Chuck wouldn’t sell,” she told him.

He looked back at her then, his brow furrowed. “Just how badly did they want it?”

“Badly,” she said. “They actually offered a fair price for all of it except the acre their house sits on.”

“No problem breaking it up, then?”

She grimaced. “Not at all. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? But Uncle Chuck didn’t want to break it up then and didn’t need to. But I’ve wondered if—”

She stopped. The theory that had occurred to her late one night was a bit out there.

“You’re thinking there’s a connection between your uncle’s refusal to sell then and the refusal to allow him to divide the property now?”

“I know it’s silly. That was a long time ago, at least five years. And it was the builder who wanted it, not the county, so why would the county care?”

“Why indeed?” he said, looking back up at the house above.

A sudden sharp bark made them both look at the dog. He was digging now, swiftly, front paws tossing dirt behind him. And all over him.

“Uh-oh. He’s going to be a mess,” she said.

The hole Cutter was working on was getting deep enough that the dirt at the top was starting to fall back in. The dog growled in obvious frustration, then stopped and looked at Brett.

“Hey, this is your entertainment, not mine,” he said.

Cutter barked sharply. He stared at Brett, then into the hole he’d excavated.

“No way. It’s bad enough you’re a muddy mess. I’m not—” He broke off midsentence. “Muddy,” he muttered, and covered the three feet between them and the hole in one long stride.

It took her a moment to get there. The dog was muddy now. And she realized suddenly that the dirt he’d been digging up had gotten muddier the farther he’d gone. Wetter.

Water.

Brett was kneeling beside the hole. And contrary to his declaration, he began to shove some of the dirt to the side to keep it from falling back into the hole. The moment he’d done that, Cutter dived back into the hole and began digging again. The cycle happened once more, Brett clearing, the dog digging, until they were down at least two feet.

And in the hole water was streaming, underground, headed directly downhill.

Sloan turned to look downhill. They were a straight line up from the previously nonexistent puddle.

“Son of a—”

Her head snapped back around. Brett was truly muddy now, but he didn’t seem to care. He was staring sideways into the hole, and she realized Cutter had uncovered something else.

A water pipe. The kind she’d often seen piled on city or county trucks.

Only this one was leaking. Streaming, actually.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed. “I knew there was something really wrong. This isn’t any natural wetland. That’s why it was never there before.”

“So it appears,” Brett said from his rather contorted position on the edge of the hole. He was still staring at the pipe and then reached out to touch it, clearing mud away from the spot the water seemed to be coming from.

She grabbed her camera. “Oh, I’m going to like telling them it’s their own broken pipe causing this. I hope they feel stupid.”

“Hang on, Sloan.”

“Oh, I know, I have to wait until Monday, but I’m still going to love it.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Brett straightened up then. Lord, he was as muddy as the dog. She should offer him a chance to clean up. An image, sudden and vivid, of Brett Dunbar naked in her shower sent a shot of heat through her that nearly made her knees buckle.

...he is the first I’ve seen you react to.

React? she thought as Aunt Connie’s words echoed in her mind. More like combust. Spontaneously.

It had been so long she was stunned at herself. She couldn’t even look at him, for fear it would show in her face. And she already knew he didn’t miss much, trained detective that he was.

Belatedly she noticed he hadn’t spoken again. She struggled to remember what he’d said last, before that vivid picture had fried her circuits.

“What did you mean?” she finally got out.

“I meant this isn’t just a broken water line.”

“What?”

“There’s a hole. A neat, perfectly round hole.”

She frowned. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying this line didn’t break—it was drilled. Somebody meant for this to happen. And I’d really like to know why. And who.”

Chapter 12

“I
t was on purpose?” Sloan exclaimed. “To send that leakage downhill onto their property?”

“It’s the perfect place to cause exactly that result.” Reluctantly, he added, “But the on-purpose part would be hard to prove.”

“You can’t believe this is coincidence!”

“Coincidence and I are longtime adversaries,” he said. “I’m just saying it would be hard to prove it was to intentionally create a fake pond, as it might have eventually become, on your aunt and uncle’s property.”

“What else could it be?”

He shrugged. “Hole could have been there and gone unnoticed.”

“They lay water pipe, to carry water, and don’t notice it has a hole you could put your thumb through?”

“Easy. I’m just saying they could claim that.”

“Then why hasn’t it shown up until now?”

“Maybe it only leaked enough to surface now.”

He saw the anger spark again, but this time she fought it down. “I’m assuming you’re playing devil’s advocate here.”

Relieved, he said, “Exactly. I just know what they might say. I’ve dealt with them enough.”

“So what do I do? I’ll fight them tooth and nail, but I have to have something to fight with.”

He knew she would. In those videos of the hearings he’d seen her do it, against a much bigger entity than the local government of a sparsely populated county. But when she’d gone up against the feds, she’d had documents and compelling audio and video evidence proving her case. And she’d been fearless, he thought, remembering the moments when one particularly nasty questioner had tried to beat her down. She’d quietly yet determinedly stood up to him, angering him, and in the process made him look like the malicious bully he was, berating a grief-stricken widow and accusing her of lying.

He’d felt a ridiculous urge, even after all this time, to go hunt that bully down and give him a taste of what he’d put her through. For his own peace of mind, not for Sloan’s sake. She was tough; she didn’t need his protection.

He wished she did.

Even as he thought it, near panic seized him.
Back off, back off, back off.
It clanged at him like an alarm on a fire engine in reverse.

“I think,” he said, desperately grabbing for an answer, “it may be time for you to meet Cutter’s people.”

The dog, who had been standing quietly aside, seemingly satisfied he’d done his job, barked as if in agreement.

You,
Brett thought,
are going out of your mind. He’s. A. Dog.

And she was dangerous. To him, anyway. Because she was making him think about things he’d given up on long ago.

* * *

He’d been scrupulously polite as they’d organized the logistics, Sloan thought. Almost as if he was using good manners to keep distance between them, in the same way he’d called her Mrs. Burke after they’d progressed to Sloan.

He’d made a temporary repair on the pipe to stop the water flow, while she’d done her best to clean up the muddy dog. He’d cut short his run and headed home for a quick shower—and she sternly ordered her mind not to dwell on that, wondering when she’d developed this fascination with male hygiene—then come back in his car to pick her up.

It had taken Sloan a few moments to get over the oddity of riding in a car with a large radio/computer installed in the console, discreet red and blue flashing lights aimed out the windshield, and a shotgun in a rack above her head. It brought rather fiercely home the reminder that this man was a cop, and all that entailed. Especially the danger and the knowledge that any day on the job could be his last. She would already feel bad enough if anything happened to him. He was a nice guy, and one of the good guys. As Jason had been.

Good thing she had no intention of this going anywhere, she thought.
And what was it the road to hell was paved with?

She tried to shut up that pesky part of her mind that seemed to have slipped the leash. Yes, he was a very attractive man. She wasn’t in the market. Period.

After a few miles of silence, she finally spoke. “Should I report that leak?”

He shook his head. “Let’s wait until we find out what all we’re dealing with. I think that plug will hold for a while.”

More silence. She couldn’t tell if he was lost in thought or if he simply didn’t talk much. Finally, as they turned onto a narrow lane, he began to tell her a bit more about Cutter’s people. She listened, fascinated by the very idea of Foxworth. And liking the way he sounded when he spoke of them. She liked a man who cared about his friends.

Stop it!
she ordered herself.

“Who’s left here?” Sloan asked as he slowed to take a gravel driveway that wound its way through thick tall trees. “If the two at the top are on their honeymoon, and the one who was going to dogsit is off with his girlfriend, and another back home in Texas, how many are left?”

“Here? Just one.” His mouth curved upward. “But if you needed an army, Rafe would be a good start.”

“So he’s all spit and polish?”

Brett laughed. “Hardly. He left all that behind years ago when he left the Marine Corps. He’s a tough one to figure, though. Don’t know where he’d be if not for Foxworth. He believes in what they do. And he respects Quinn, when I don’t think he respects many anymore.”

“I know that feeling,” she said, her tone a bit sour.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected after that, but the tall, rangy man who stepped out of the warehouse that sat just beyond the plain green three-story building wasn’t it. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeve pullover, and his dark hair was a bit long. Even as she thought it, he shoved it back with one hand.

Cutter had taken off the moment Brett had opened the door for him, barking an odd combination of long and short barks as he headed for the man. In the few steps the man took before he stopped to greet the dog, she noticed a slight limp, as if his left leg was a little stiff.

Cutter danced around him, spinning, woofing happily, looking more goofy than she would have thought the rather imperious dog ever could. Clearly this Rafe held a special place in the dog’s life. After a moment a small smile curved his mouth and the dog settled, as if that smile had been his goal.

They were only a few feet away when the man finally glanced up at them. He nodded at Brett, then shifted his gaze to her. For a moment he simply looked. Brett stayed oddly silent as the other man came to stand in front of her. She was about to introduce herself when he moved, straightening up as if he was snapping to attention. Slowly, he raised his right hand to his forehead.

Saluting. He was saluting her. Color flooded her face.

“It’s an honor, Mrs. Burke.”

I don’t think he respects many anymore.

Brett’s words echoed in her head. It would not do to brush this off by saying it wasn’t necessary. Not with this kind of man.

“I... Thank you,” she finally managed. Usually she wasn’t easily flustered, but she hadn’t anticipated this. “I should be thanking you. For your service.”

“When you stood for one of us, you stood for all of us,” he said softly.

“I only did what Jason would have wanted.”

“With as much courage as he showed trying to save his men.”

“I wasn’t under fire.”

“Weren’t you?” Brett said, speaking for the first time since they’d gotten out of the car.

Rafe shifted his gaze to Brett and, after a moment, nodded. “Truth. And by some who’d as soon shoot you in the back.”

She couldn’t argue that. She’d been cornered, bullied, and they’d tried to intimidate her so many times she had come to expect it before it was over. She was convinced the stress of it had brought on her uncle’s heart attack, since he’d been there with her every step of the way after the first time she’d been isolated in a back room by a bully threatening her with public humiliation or worse, much worse, if she didn’t back off and quit talking about how his boss had refused to help her.

The rain picked up, changing the moment, and they headed for the green building. There were no markings, so when Brett had told her Foxworth didn’t advertise, he’d apparently meant not even a sign with their name.

“You guys really do go incognito,” she said. “How do people find you?”

“Word of mouth, mostly. Or,” Rafe added with a glance at Brett, “from friends who know what we do.” He stopped walking, turned to face her straight on despite the increasing rain. “We would have helped you, for instance.”

“I could have used some help keeping some of those thugs off my back,” she said.

Brett said something under his breath, something she thought might have been “Bastards.” The fervency of it warmed her.

And then she was distracted by Cutter, who had trotted up to the door of the building and now rose up on his hind legs and batted at something with a front paw. She realized it was a handicapped entry trigger when the door started to slowly swing open. She found herself grinning.

“Quinn’s idea,” Rafe said.

“How long did it take to teach him to use it?” she asked.

“About seven seconds,” Rafe said. “He showed him once. That’s all it took.”

“Wow.” Cutter had vanished inside before the door finished opening.

Next on the list of things she hadn’t expected was the warm, homey effect of the downstairs room of the utilitarian-looking building. There was a gas fireplace with a comfortable-looking leather couch and a couple of chairs arranged in front of it. A large colorful area rug marked off the seating area. She noticed a couple of books and a coffee mug on the low table. A knitted throw was tangled around a pillow at one end of the sofa, as if someone had been sleeping there. Restlessly.

Cutter never even slowed but headed up the stairs at the back of the room.

“I guess we’re using the meeting room,” Rafe said drily. He glanced at Brett. “I assume this is a business visit?”

“Yes,” he answered as they went up the stairs. “I’m in about as far as I can go unofficially.”

Rafe nodded. “That’s why we’re here.”

Sloan hadn’t thought about that, that Brett might get into trouble poking around on her behalf. It must be strange to not even be able to ask simple questions if people knew who you were, because even questions about a silly bit of paperwork could be construed as having the weight of the badge behind them.

They sat at a table next to a set of large windows that looked out over the clearing behind the building. On the other side of the clearing the ubiquitous evergreen trees were thick, broken only by a couple of red-barked madrones and a huge maple.

“Go,” Rafe said without preamble.

“It may not all be connected,” Brett warned. “You want it by issue or chronological?”

“Chronological. The way you came across it all. How’d it start?”

“Sloan’s aunt applied to divide their twelve acres so they could sell their current home to finance building a new one more suited to her husband’s medical situation on the separate parcel.”

He went on as Sloan listened. She let him tell it—he knew this man and she didn’t. Rafe stayed silent, listening intently, until Brett finished. Then he leaned back in his chair, tapping his right index finger on the table. Trigger finger, Sloan thought suddenly, remembering Brett had said the man had been a top-ranked Marine Corps sniper.

“Let me make sure I got all this,” Rafe said. “First they say the application was denied because of a freeze due to a pending zoning study. But nobody seems to know anything about this study. Then they say there’s no record of the application at all. But your guy finds it buried in some obscure place. Then he gets fired and disappears without a word to anyone, not even his only family, his daughter. Then the replacement application is denied for a totally different reason, a supposed wetland that was in fact caused by a leak in a water pipe that may have been intentional, below a housing development that wanted to buy that same land in the first place. And sitting on top of the whole thing is the fact that your missing friend’s boss is in tight with a guy who’s in the pocket of the governor. Is that about right?”

It all sounded much worse laid out that way, Sloan thought. When he talked about his friend, her shoulders had begun to knot. And now her stomach was churning with an echo of the feeling she’d had when she’d heard the official version of what had happened to Jason. A version she knew was a complete lie.

“Most I’ve ever heard you say at one time,” Brett said to the other man.

Rafe grimaced; clearly he either wasn’t used to talking that much at once or didn’t like it. “On the other side, we don’t know if your absent friend’s situation actually has anything to do with the rest of it, or if the water leak has anything to do with any of it or is accidental, or in fact possibly intentional and perhaps or perhaps not connected to the housing development or the application.”

“Exactly. It could all be connected, or none of it,” Brett said.

“And if we proceed assuming either way, we could miss something proving the other.”

Rafe went silent, obviously thinking. He absently rubbed at his left leg just above the knee. She wondered if that spot was the cause of the limp. Almost as she thought it, Cutter got up from where he’d been snoozing on the floor and walked over to him. The dog laid his head on the very spot Rafe had been rubbing. Snapped out of his thoughtfulness, the man looked at the dog. A smile more gentle than she would have thought the harsh-looking man capable of curved his mouth, and he began to stroke the dog’s head instead.

“Thanks, buddy,” he said softly.

He looked up then, caught her looking at him. He seemed embarrassed. “Can’t explain it, Mrs. Burke, but it helps.”

“Please, call me Sloan. And I’m not sure anything about that dog would surprise me at this point.”

He smiled at her, and it changed the harsh, graven planes of his face. She realized then that in a very different way than Brett, this was—or could be—an attractive man.

“He is one of a kind.” He looked back to Brett. “Since you have the in and the reason, why don’t you take your friend’s disappearance? Can you get his daughter to make it official?”

“Yes. I’ve been putting off calling her, but I will. I can make a case for us handling it since he was last seen in our jurisdiction, and the detective who’d handle it is a friend, so I’d have an in there.”