Operation Power Play

He seemed to hesitate, as if he wasn’t certain he should tell her, before he said, “Brett, please. And no. Last one was a kid with a messed-up family. Before that it was a kidnapping. Then a cold case, a long-lost brother. And those are just the ones I know about.”

She stared at him. “Must really take away from their day job.”

“That is their day job.”

She drew back slightly. “You mean that’s actually what they do?”

He nodded. “They help people. People who have nowhere else to turn.”

“What are they, a charity?”

“Might as well be. They don’t take any payment except the goodwill—and willingness to help them help someone else later—of the people they take on. They did it before Cutter came along, but now it’s all they can do to keep up with what he finds for them. He’s got a...sense about things. It’s hard to explain.”

“So he finds people who need help, and your friends, they follow his lead?”

He looked as if he half expected her to laugh. “It sounds crazy, I know.”

“Which part?”

She hadn’t meant it to sound sour, but it did. She saw it register in the slightest narrowing of his eyes. She didn’t elucidate—she wasn’t about to explain to a total stranger that while she could believe the dog would help people, she wasn’t so sure about people helping people. Not anymore.

She glanced back at the dog. “Well, I can see I wasn’t according you the proper respect. I thought you were just a pretty face.”

Cutter’s tail wagged as if he’d understood. He got to his feet then and crossed the distance between them. Coming not to her but to Aunt Connie, nudging her hand with his nose.

Connie, who had been watching all this with interest—and, Sloan noted, without saying a word, which was unlike her—responded by petting the dog’s head. “You are a beautiful boy,” she cooed to him.

The dog stayed still for a moment. Then he turned around and sat once more, now facing his running partner. And gave him that look again.

It was odd, she thought. She’d seen intense dogs before. Jason’s best friend in the service had been a canine handler, and his partner, Eddie, had been a bomb-seeking machine. And she’d seen police dogs and the agility competitors that held events in the park a few blocks away.

But this dog was different. The intensity was no less, but the focus was different. She couldn’t explain it herself; she could only feel it, so no wonder he didn’t even try.

She looked back at the man then. She’d always enjoyed the sight when she’d seen him running. That part of her might be dead and buried with Jason, but she could still appreciate a good-looking man, and Brett Dunbar was definitely that. She liked his tall, lean build, found the touch of gray at his temples attractive. She had little patience for unlined youth these days. Or sunny, carefree attitudes. She’d lost her affection for naïveté long ago, in the halls of Washington, DC.

And the impression in his gray eyes of dark things seen was all too familiar.

He sighed. Audibly. He looked at Connie, then the dog, then Connie again. “I’m guessing you’re the one with the problem?”

Aunt Connie blinked. “What?” She glanced down at the dog now sitting at her feet staring up at Brett, then at the man himself. “You mean he knows?”

“I have a feeling that’s why I’m here. Why he led me here.”

Clearly startled, Connie put a hand to her throat. “Oh, dear. My problem isn’t anything like that. No one’s missing, and certainly not one of those cold-case things.”

“She’s having a problem with the county,” Sloan explained. “A permit problem.”

“We need to build a new house,” Connie said, “a single-story, up the hill in back. My husband isn’t well, and the stairs are too much for him now.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“They’re saying we can’t subdivide the acreage,” she said.

He frowned. “You own the property?”

Connie nodded. “Twelve acres. And we can’t afford to build unless we sell this house.”

Brett turned to look at the tidy Craftsman-style two-story. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sloan said. Uncle Chuck had maintained it immaculately, and the yard was a showplace cottage-style garden.

“Yes. You should have no trouble selling it.”

“It will be sad,” Connie said. “This was our dream house, but needs have changed.”

Brett looked back at her. “Could you sell it all and build what you need somewhere else?”

Tears brimmed anew in Connie’s eyes. “It’s already breaking Chuck’s heart that we have to move out of this house. It would just kill him if we had to leave this land altogether because of him. His family has owned it for five generations.”

“I’d rent this house from them,” Sloan said, “but that doesn’t get them the money they’d need for building.” She put her arm comfortingly around Connie’s shoulders. “It’s awful. She’s dealt with so much since my uncle’s heart attack. And they’re just being ridiculous about it. The standard for this entire area is a minimum of two-and-a-half-acre parcels. But she’s suddenly not allowed to break up twelve?”

“What’s their reason?” he asked.

“Some nonsense about the entire area being under study for possible changes, and everything is frozen in the meantime.” She knew her voice was rising, but it was so unfair it just made her angry.

“Sounds typical,” he said.

“Except,” she snapped, “that they decided to study it only after my aunt and uncle put in their application. It’s a specious technicality, at best. County bureaucrats.”

She realized suddenly that the man she was talking to worked for that same county.

“Sorry,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean anything personal.”

He gave her a crooked smile that again reminded her of her thought when he’d first laughed: he looked like a man who didn’t do it very often.

“I’m not one of them,” he said. “And sometimes I get as angry at them as you are.”

She felt even worse. “I didn’t mean to imply you were. It’s just that the whole thing is so unfair.”

“It certainly doesn’t seem right,” he said. He glanced at his watch, a complicated-looking thing like the one Jason used to wear.

“I’m sorry—we’ve truly spoiled your run,” she said quickly.

“I’m sure you have other, more important things to do than talk about my little problem,” Connie added.

“It’s not little to you,” he said, and Sloan thought she could have hugged him for that. When she caught herself wondering what that would feel like, she nearly jerked back in shock.

“I was just checking the time to see how long before they’d be in at the county offices,” he said. “I know somebody over there. Maybe I could make a call, find out more about what’s going on.”

Sloan stared at him. Connie took an audible breath and again put her hand to her throat.

“No promises,” Brett said hurriedly. “I may only find out that what they told you is right.”

“Of course,” Connie said, “but that would be so helpful. They didn’t want to explain much to me. I’m sure they just thought I was a nuisance of an old woman.”

“Then they need to be slapped silly,” Sloan said, her anger rising again.

Brett looked at her with an expression she couldn’t read. Perhaps, being a cop, he was assessing her capability for such violence. Oh, I’m capable, she told him silently.

But he said only, “Or reminded that they’ll also be there one day. If they’re lucky.”

She liked that. Liked that he’d said it. Liked that he’d looked at Connie so kindly when he’d said it.

Didn’t like the pain that shadowed his eyes when he’d added, “If they’re lucky.”

“I’ll call the first chance I get,” he said. “But again, no promises.”

“Thank you,” Connie said fervently. Then she looked at Sloan. “Give him your number, will you, Sloan? I don’t hear the phone half the time.”

Sloan frowned. As far as she knew, Connie’s hearing was fine. She glanced at Brett, realized he seemed taken aback himself. But after a moment he pulled a smartphone out of the pocket of his sweatpants, and she gave him the number.

And nearly laughed aloud when the dog, who had been sitting quietly through all this, got to his feet. As if he had somehow figured out they were done now.

“Told you,” Brett said.

She looked up to see him shaking his head in amusement at his furry companion.

Somehow this made her like him even more. And that made her a little twitchy.

“Well, now,” Connie said, watching as man and dog resumed their run, “wasn’t he nice?”

“Yes,” Sloan agreed, still a little bemused by it all but more fascinated by Brett Dunbar’s long, easy stride.

“And nice looking,” the older woman added archly. “Just the type I would have gone for at your age.”

She couldn’t deny that, since she’d thought it herself. But she knew where Connie was headed and didn’t want to go there. Again.

“Please. You’ve been in love with Uncle Chuck since you were teenagers.”

“Indeed I have. That’s why I want the same for you.”

“And so you want to set me up with the first good-looking guy who comes along?”

“He’s hardly the first, but he is the first I’ve seen you react to.”

Oh, Lord, had she been that obvious?

In the instant before she dodged away from her aunt’s scrutiny, she saw something twinkle in the older woman’s eyes. Her gaze snapped back to Connie’s face.

“You hear perfectly well,” she accused. “And you’ve never missed a call if you’re home or your cell’s got a signal.”

“There’s always a first time,” Connie said sunnily. “I wonder if he’s married.”

Of course he is, Sloan thought. Look at him. But she focused on her aunt’s deviousness. “I can’t believe you...used that.”

“It got him your phone number, didn’t it?” Connie gave her a wry look. “Besides, honey, when you get to be this age, sometimes the only weapon you have is making people think you’re less than you are.”

For a long moment Sloan just stared at her. Then she laughed and hugged the woman who had been her anchor for so long. “Have I ever told you I want to be just like you?”

“I believe you have once or twice,” Connie said. “And it makes me very proud.”

“As well you should be.”

“Good. Then you’ll eat breakfast this morning without telling me it’s too much.”

Sloan laughed again. “You are shameless.” But she walked back toward the house without protest.

And denied even to herself that she was glad the subject had veered away from their neighborhood jogger.

Chapter 3

Brett drummed his fingers on his desk as he considered his options. The physical action and the slight noise seemed to help him focus. Or at least reminded him to keep his mind on the matter at hand and not on the woman who had been such a pleasant interruption in his routine this morning.

Besides, for all he knew, she was married and had kids. She hadn’t been wearing a ring—so sue him, he’d noticed—but that didn’t always mean anything. Or it could mean she was divorced with those kids. Not that he had anything against kids; he just knew a little too much about the ways they could go wrong. They’d planned on kids, someday, he and Angie—

Damn. He hadn’t strayed down that painful path in a long time. So much for focus, he thought, and stopped the steady drumming.

Just decide on the next step, he told himself.

Rick Alvarado, his friend over at the county zoning-and-permitting office, had seemed as puzzled as he was.

“What’s odd,” he’d said, “is that there’s no record of a study being done or even asked for that I can find. For that matter, I can’t find any record of the Days’ application either. It’s not in the approved, denied or pending files. We are a bit backlogged, though. I’ll keep checking.”

When he’d warned Connie Day that he couldn’t promise anything, Brett hadn’t expected that there would be absolutely nothing. He wondered if the person she’d talked to had just been covering their backside, making up something because the paperwork had been lost. It happened—it was the nature of bureaucracies, he thought. He—

“Hey, Dunbar!” The division clerk’s shout shook him out of his thoughts. “Aren’t you supposed to be giving a deposition this morning?”

Damn. The Lester case. He had forgotten, even though he’d looked over his notes last night to refresh his memory. He looked at the clock, realized he had about twenty minutes to make a half-hour drive.

“Thanks,” he said as he got up, grabbed his jacket and his phone, and headed for the door.

He hit the button to wake up the phone and gave it a quick swipe with his thumb. The last screen he’d used popped into view, where he’d entered and saved Sloan Burke’s number. The blank silhouette seemed to chide him for not taking a photo for it when he’d had the chance. Not that he needed a picture. He remembered what she looked like. Perfectly.

He pondered for a moment as he hit the button to unlock his car. He could call, tell her what he’d found.

Hi, Ms. Burke. I just called to say...nothing.

Yeah, that would go over well.

He brought up the number for the prosecutor he was doing the deposition for and hit Call. Told the paralegal who answered he was on his way but might be a few minutes late. He was doing this only as a witness, because it wasn’t his jurisdiction and he had only happened to be outside the drugstore a few blocks from his place when the dispute that had preceded the assault had taken place. He hadn’t even had to break up the argument. One of the teenagers had sped away in his car. Only when he’d seen the vehicle description in the news that night did he find out the kid had later gone back after the other guy and beaten him pretty severely.

So now he was on his way to the north end to officially give a statement on what he had seen. He hoped it would be enough. He didn’t really want to end up having to testify in court to his small part in it. There were witnesses to the actual crime, so they shouldn’t need him. But a cop’s testimony, even if he’d been off duty, could carry more weight, and he understood the prosecutor wanting to be thorough. Always better to have evidence you don’t need than not enough.

He spent an hour recounting what he’d heard and positively identifying the two involved parties—and wincing at the photos of the battered face and bruised body of the kid who had taken the beating. He felt a flash of guilt. Maybe he should have guessed at something like this, but at the time it had been verbal only, and you couldn’t arrest somebody for what they just might do in the future. At least, not yet.

“Not your fault, Brett,” the prosecutor said, reading him accurately. “Kid had no record of violence. No reason to expect this. But he went home, stewed about it, took a little taunting from a friend who threw some drugs into the mix, and voilà, we have assault and battery.”

And a little more knowledge of how kids could go wrong, he thought.

“Thanks,” he said.

On his way back to the car he had his phone out and had that new number on the screen before he truly realized what he was doing. He had thought, in the middle of his recounting, that he did really have a reason to call but didn’t think he’d decided to do it. Except apparently some part of him had.

Probably the same part that completely forgot that reason when he heard her voice answering.

“Hello?” she said, in a tone that jarred him out of whatever cloud he’d slipped into; it was the tone of someone who had said it more than once. He realized he was standing next to his car and had yet to hit the button to unlock it. He shook his head sharply. Unlocked the car and answered simultaneously.

“Sorry. Ms. Burke, this is Brett Dunbar. We met this—”

“Of course,” she said quickly. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer, just a question or two that I should have asked before.”

Except I was in a hurry to get away before I said or did something beyond stupid.

“Of course. Do you need Connie? I can get her.”

“Maybe you can answer these,” he said as he opened the door and got into the driver’s seat. “Do you know when they filed the application?”

“October 15. Eleven in the morning.”

His brows rose. “That’s rather exact,” he said.

“I drove her there,” she said.

“That was...kind of you.”

“I could taxi her all over forever and never make up for how she’s looked out for me.”

She said it so fervently it was all he could do not to ask why she’d needed looking out for. Or where the rest of her family had been.

“Good for her,” he said inanely, belatedly reaching to pull his door closed as someone began to pull into the space next to him.

“What else?” she asked, her tone brisk, as if she’d regretted her outburst. “You said a question or two.”

He shook his head sharply. “Yes. Do you know if she happened to keep a copy of the application?”

“Yes, she did. I made her.” She sounded a bit embarrassed. “I’m kind of zealous when it comes to that. Learned the hard way.”

“Never a bad idea.” He wondered what that hard way had been.

“Do you need it?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Just wanted to know if there was one.”

The conversation ground to a halt, yet he couldn’t quite bring himself to say goodbye. Beyond stupid, but there it was. And after a moment she spoke, saving him.

“How’s Cutter?”

“Probably still snoozing. Unlike me, he gets to rest up after our run.”

She laughed. It rippled over him. “How else will he keep you on your toes when you get home?”

“He’s relentless. I’ve taken to going home for lunch and running him ragged some more,” he said. “He’ll chase a tennis ball until he drops.”

He didn’t add that that very doglike behavior was one of the few reasons he was reassured Cutter wasn’t something spookily more than just a dog.

“Where’s home? You must be local, unless you run a marathon every day.”

For some reason he didn’t want to analyze, he liked that she’d asked. But still he hesitated, with that innate caution all cops had. He didn’t generally discuss where he lived with people he’d only just met.

“Just off Cedar View,” he said, figuring she’d know the area, given where she lived. The small house he rented wasn’t much, more of a cabin, but it was all he needed. And since Cutter had come to stay, he’d made full use of the near acre it sat on. “Top of the hill.”

“Wow. That’s still a good long way to us.”

“Only five miles, out and back. But that last uphill bit is a killer.”

“No wonder you—”

She stopped so suddenly he wondered if something had happened. “Ms. Burke?”

“Sloan, please.” She sounded odd, he thought. A little like he had when he’d realized she’d said hello more than once.

“All right.” He felt absurdly pleased that in less than a day they were on a first-name basis. In the same instant, he wasn’t sure he should be glad that the formality of “Detective Dunbar” and “Ms. Burke” wasn’t still between them. “I’ll let you know what I find out, if anything.”

“We appreciate that you’re even bothering,” Sloan assured him.

“No problem,” he said.

As he ended the call, he wondered just how big a lie that was. Because Sloan Burke was already nibbling around the edges of his mind the way a tough case did, always present, never far away. And that could be a problem.

Chapter 4

Cutter was sitting by the door when he opened it.

This wasn’t strange. The dog had been right there every day since he’d been here. It didn’t matter what time he managed to break for lunch—the dog was ready and waiting. Brett supposed he must hear him coming.

But today the usually present yellow tennis ball was absent. And instead of greeting him with a tail wag and a happy yip, the dog bolted past him and ran toward the car parked in front of the house.

“You want a ride?” Brett said, puzzled.

Cutter sat next to the back driver’s-side door. He looked back over his shoulder at Brett.

“Buddy, I’m on duty. I can’t just take off for a leisurely jaunt.”

Cutter just looked at him.

“Seriously, dog, I can’t.”

Cutter yipped, short and sharp. But didn’t move.

Brett sighed. “I have a feeling I haven’t had enough sympathy for the Foxworth crew.”

The moment he spoke the name, Cutter jumped up, letting loose a staccato series of barks. He rose up and put his paws on the car door.

“I know you must miss them, but they’re not home yet.”

Brett realized with no small amount of amazement that he was carrying on a conversation with a dog. A conversation that should have been one-sided yet felt anything but.

Cutter stayed where he was, only now he was pawing at the door handle. With his luck, he’d probably put some scratches in the paint that Brett would have to answer for. It was a county car, after all, even if it was his for the duration.

He glanced at his watch. Because he’d already been at this end of the county for the deposition, he had a bit more time. With a sigh, he gave in. It was for only a little while longer, after all. Then Cutter would go home, and his life would go back to the normal, quiet thing it usually was off duty. He needed that, with the kind of job that took up his working hours.

Cutter leaped into the backseat the instant he opened the door. Once he was back in the driver’s seat, he pondered where to go. Maybe the dog just wanted to visit home, make sure everything was all right while his people were gone.

He nearly laughed at his own thought. He was fairly certain that kind of thought process was beyond the average dog’s capabilities.

But then, Cutter wasn’t an average dog.

He decided it couldn’t hurt and started the car. The dog sat quietly in the back until he reached the intersection where he had to turn to get to Hayley and Quinn’s place. He’d been there only once. Actually, he hadn’t been there; he’d been to the next house over, which had been destroyed in an apparent propane explosion. When the firefighters suspected there might be a body inside, it had been all hands on deck until they’d sifted through the smoking ruin and determined there hadn’t been anyone inside after all. Once that was certain, the case had gone back to the fire department and their investigators.

It wasn’t until much later, after he’d met Quinn and Hayley, that he’d gotten the full, dramatic story on that one. Hell of a way to start a relationship, he thought as he started to pull into the left-hand-turn lane to head toward their house.

Cutter erupted into furious barking.

The suddenness and the sheer volume nearly made him jump. He hit the brakes, thankful for being in a semirural area without much traffic. The dog stayed on his feet, apparently braced for the stop. The moment the car halted, the racket ceased.

“What the hell, dog?”

He turned to look into the backseat. Cutter was still on his feet, staring intently out the side window. The other side, facing the opposite direction. Away from home for the dog.

It took him a moment to realize what lay in that direction. The Foxworth building.

“There’s nobody there either,” he said. “Quinn gave everybody the time off while they’re gone.”

Cutter never moved. Never even looked at him when he spoke. Just stared in that same direction.

“Okay, okay, I get it. Hang on.”

He looked around to be sure they were clear and made a right turn instead. Cutter immediately settled down once more, seemingly happy that his temporary custodian—or should that be servant?—had finally understood. Brett’s mouth quirked as he shook his head at himself. At least there was that big clearing behind the building, he thought. He could run Cutter as well there as at home. There seemed to be no shortage of tennis balls in his car these days.

The dog stayed still until he made the last turn, onto the narrow road toward the secluded Foxworth location. Cutter got up then but remained quiet, eager, but satisfied Brett knew where they were going.