Operation Power Play

He was sure if he stopped to think about the fact that he had just skipped lunch, gotten back in his car, driven twelve miles and then changed his destination, all at the direction of a dog, it would seem ridiculous. Trying to explain it to anyone who had never met Cutter would be impossible. He knew trying to explain it to, say, one of his fellow detectives would result in jokes about psychiatric committal.

Yet here he was, about to turn down the curving gravel drive that led to the green three-story building hidden among tall trees that was Foxworth’s Northwest headquarters. And utterly certain this was what the dog had wanted. That he was doing what a dog wanted was something he was just going to have to come to terms with.

Then again, doing what the dog wanted this morning had ended up with him on a first-name basis with Sloan Burke.

There was no sign of anyone around. There was only one car, a slightly battered silver coupe he’d seen here before parked at the far end of the gravel lot. It was still wet from last night’s heavy mist, so it had been here at least overnight.

He parked in front of the building. Cutter was practically dancing in the backseat, so he opened the door quickly. The dog leaped out and started at a dead run, not toward the main building but toward the warehouse, where the silver car was parked. Halfway there he let out an oddly rhythmic sound, a short yip, a full-on bark, then another yip.

Seconds later the smaller door on the warehouse opened, and Rafer Crawford looked out. Brett saw him spot the dog, then him. Then he reached back into the warehouse as if he was putting something down. Knowing what he knew of the man, had it been a weapon, he wouldn’t be surprised. He must have heard the car on the gravel long before Cutter’s distinctive greeting.

Cutter raced toward Rafe, tail up, bounding with obvious joy. Even the taciturn former Marine couldn’t help smiling at the dog’s demeanor. Brett remembered that moment at the wedding when Hayley, more radiant than any bride he’d ever seen, had found the two of them together.

“You two smiling, and at the same time? My work here is done,” she’d said with undisguised delight.

“We were just talking about how beautiful you are,” Rafe had said, deflecting her into a blush neatly.

In fact, they actually had been talking earlier about how wonderful she looked, but at that moment they had been speaking of Foxworth itself. Rafe’s smile had been quiet, proud of what they were doing, while Brett’s had been amazed acknowledgment. Doing what he did, seeing what he saw every day, he sometimes found it hard to believe that there was a group of people dedicated to helping those who had nowhere else to turn, who had fought until they could not fight any longer and lost hope. Those who were abused by either the system or people who wielded it like a club, those who were collateral damage in backroom deals, or those simply caught in the grinding wheels of bureaucracy.

Like Sloan’s aunt.

And there she was again, popping into his mind like a persistent earworm of a song that wouldn’t let him be. Not the most flattering of comparisons, he thought wryly. Put that on the list of things never to say to her.

“He driving you crazy yet?” Rafe asked as Brett caught up to the dog and the man who was scratching that sweet spot behind his right ear.

“Nah. He’s really a lot of company.”

“I know.” Something in the way he said it told Brett the man truly did. It was probably a good thing they’d had the wedding as distraction that day, or they could have ended up comparing a couple of empty lives.

Now, where the hell did that come from?

He wasn’t usually morose about his life, most of the time successfully thought he liked it the way it was. His work was enough. At least, it always had been. Or maybe it had been too much, as Angie had always said.

He gave himself a mental shake, trying to rid himself of the odd mood.

“Didn’t expect anyone to be here,” he said. “Aren’t you all supposed to be on vacation?”

Rafe shrugged. “Just catching up on things that never seem to get done with everyone around.”

“Figured you’d be off to somewhere warm, like everyone else.”

“No place I wanted to go,” he said simply. “And it’s nice and peaceful around here now. Thanks to you.”

Brett laughed. “I didn’t seem to have much choice about it.”

“Nope, when this boy—” he ruffled the dog’s fur as the animal leaned into him “—makes up his mind, he’s pretty much unstoppable.”

“He’s...different.”

“Hayley says to quit trying to put dog interpretations on his humanlike actions. To just accept he’s unique, and then we’ll all be happier.”

The man wasn’t usually this talkative, and Brett wondered for a moment if this was too much isolation even for him. If maybe that was why Cutter had wanted to come here, to make sure this particular person of his was all right.

He was, he thought, losing his mind. Cutter might be the cleverest dog he’d ever seen, in a very different way than the well-trained and smart police dogs he’d known, but he was, in the end, still a dog.

“He’s got a way,” he said.

“And a nose for trouble,” Rafe said. “But so far, he’s never been wrong. Sometimes he drags us kicking and screaming into something, but it’s always somewhere we should be.”

For a moment Brett wondered what it must be like to work strictly toward justice for those who deserved it. So much of his time was spent dealing with scum that he had little left for the victims, who were his reason for being in the job in the first place. And so often when he had dealt with them, they got a slap on the wrist and were back destroying innocent lives all over again practically before he even got the paperwork done.

Cutter seemed finally satisfied that his friend was all right. He turned and sat at the man’s feet, staring up at Brett much as he had this morning. And so Sloan and her aunt popped into his mind again. His brow furrowed.

“Something?” Rafe asked.

“Just...someone he led me to this morning,” he said, indicating Cutter.

“Uh-oh,” Rafe said. “He give you that look? The ‘fix it’ look?”

Brett sighed. “He did.”

“What’s the problem?”

“It’s just a hang-up on a county thing.” He explained briefly about the aunt and ended with “I’ve got a guy I know over there looking into it, but so far nothing.”

“Anything I can do?”

“I don’t think so,” Brett said. He smothered a smile at the thought. A minor paperwork problem seemed a bit soft for the rugged former Marine, who looked as if he’d be more inclined to take on a herd of killers or an approaching army. Although he was Foxworth, and Brett knew he believed in the cause, and they took on some things that would seem insignificant to outsiders. “I’m hoping there’ll be a simple answer.”

Rafe’s mouth quirked, and he looked down at Cutter. “Not likely, when this guy’s involved.”

“I was afraid of that,” Brett said glumly.

“And he is one of us, so if he’s involved, we are.”

“You’re on vacation.”

“Boring,” Rafe said with a one-shouldered shrug. “I hate not working.”

Brett laughed. Then stopped when he realized he felt the same way. And that empty-lives thought came back to him.

“I’ll keep that in mind if my guy comes up empty,” he said quickly, quashing the unwelcome thoughts. “I’d like to be able to help Sloan out.”

He realized what he’d done the moment he’d said it, but somehow trying to correct it to Sloan’s aunt seemed as if it would only make it worse.

“Sloan?” Rafe asked.

“Sloan Burke. The niece,” he said, hoping the short answer would suffice.

Rafe went very still. Brett felt the change as much as saw it.

“Cutter led you to Sloan Burke? The Sloan Burke?”

Whatever was coming next, Brett didn’t want to hear it. But he knew he had to ask. “The Sloan Burke?”

“Wife of Chief Petty Officer Jason Burke?”

Brett absorbed it like a punch to the gut. He’d been right. She was married. The involuntary and instantaneous recoil at the words told him just how foolish he’d gotten. And in such a short time it was almost embarrassing. What the hell was he thinking?

“I don’t know,” he managed.

It shouldn’t have meant anything. She was a woman he’d spoken to for maybe fifteen minutes and seen a couple of times before. It meant nothing. He wasn’t in the mood or the market for anything more, hadn’t been since—

“About thirty-five now?”

“I... Yes.”

As if he’d just remembered he had it, Rafe pulled out his phone and began to key in a search. After a moment he selected one of the results, tapped the screen again, expanded an item and finally held it up for Brett to see.

It was a photograph. Of Sloan. Sitting at a table, in front of a microphone, rows of people sitting behind her.

Something stirred inside him, not because she was lovely in that picture, because in fact she was not. Her hair was pulled into a severe knot at the back of her head, she looked pale, and above all she looked tired. Exhausted.

She looked fragile, and it made his stomach knot.

She’s married, he told himself. It was none of his business. He scanned the other people in the photo, wondering if one of the men was her husband. And how he could have let her get to this point.

“What is this?” he asked finally.

“Sloan Burke,” Rafe said, in a tone Brett could describe only as admiring, “is a crusader. Of the best kind. Ask anyone who’s in the service or has been, and I’ll bet he’s heard of her. And if she needed help, anyone who’s been in boots on the ground would come running.”

Rafe glanced at the image again before he blacked out the home screen and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

“Quinn, Teague and me included,” he said, then added, “She’s exactly the kind of person Foxworth was founded for.”

Brett told himself he would be better off not asking. Not knowing. He would just do this little thing, maybe help straighten out a paperwork glitch, and then slip back into his quiet, unrippled life. And Sloan would go back to hers, with her husband.

He asked anyway. “What’s the story?”

Rafe fell silent. Studied Brett again, silently. At last he said, “You sure you want to know?”

I’m sure I’d be better off if I didn’t. “Tell me.”

One of Rafe’s dark brows arched upward, and Brett knew he hadn’t missed the indirectness of the answer. But after a moment he seemed to decide.

“All right. But come on inside. I’m going to need fuel. How do you feel about leftover pizza?”

“Like we’re related,” Brett said drily, then chuckled as Cutter jumped to his feet.

“So does he,” Rafe said. “Let’s go.”

Brett followed the two toward the main Foxworth building, telling himself he still had time to change his mind, to run before he found out something about Sloan that would make it even harder to walk away.

How the hell had he gotten into such a tangle so fast?

Even as he thought it, Cutter looked back over his shoulder at him. He couldn’t even blame the dog. Cutter had only led him there, after all. He was the one who had jumped in with both feet.

And apparently left his common sense behind.

Chapter 5

Brett slipped Cutter the last bite of pizza, more bread than anything. The dog took it delicately, glanced at the table as if to make sure there was none left, then settled down for a nap with a happy sigh.

“Got what you wanted, dog?” he asked with a wry grin.

“He’s good at that,” Rafe said.

“So he wanted me, and/or Foxworth, involved in this. Which means...what?”

“That it’s likely more than it looks like on the surface.”

Brett sighed. Somehow he’d known that would be the answer. Steeling himself, he finally asked.

“So what’s her story?”

“Jason was a navy SEAL. Killed in action in Afghanistan a few years ago.”

“He’s...dead?” Brett hated that, after the shock, his first real feeling was relief. That it was followed instantly by pain for what Sloan must have gone through didn’t ameliorate his first snap reaction. This was an American hero they were talking about, and it shamed him that this was his gut reaction, even if it was more about Sloan than her husband.

Rafe nodded. “Officials put out a report on what happened. Sloan knew it wasn’t true.”

“How?”

“Burke had told her what was really going on. They’d talked on Skype the night before, and she had the truth. And had recorded the convo, as she always did. Just in case.”

Just in case. Three words that made some marriages different than all others. Military marriages. And police marriages.

Brett sucked in a deep breath. “What did she do?”

“She did it right. Jumped through all the hoops, worked her way up the chain of command. But when she hit the top, the brass wouldn’t budge from their official version. So she went to the politicians. Started here, all the way up to the governor. Got nothing.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Brett said with a grimace.

“I think she hoped the governor at least would listen. He was newly elected then but under a cloud, and she thought maybe he’d want to establish his legitimacy with something big.”

Brett’s brow knit. “I remember that. His opponent just gave up.”

Rafe nodded. “Evans wasn’t a professional politician, and Ogilvie’s party machine came at him hard. Rumor was he had some sort of breakdown. He pulled out and just vanished. Left the state entirely.”

Politics, Brett thought with a grimace.

“So...what happened?” he asked. “With Sloan, I mean.”

Rafe studied him for a moment, and Brett wondered uncomfortably what he was seeing. “She widened her net. Figured it would take a politician to fight politicians. Finally found the right senator, one from Jason’s home state who had served himself, to step in.”

“Then that picture, that was at some sort of official hearing?”

“Very official. On Capitol Hill. Her testimony was the tipping point. She was like a force of nature. Every service guy I know was glued to it. They all knew she was fighting for the truth. For one of their own.” Rafe let out a compressed breath. “She showed more nerve and courage under fire than all of those suits and most of those top-of-the-heap guys sitting there with ribbons on their chests.”

“I remember hearing about this.” He’d just transferred to detectives, had still been learning his relatively new turf, so he hadn’t had much attention to spare. He knew only that it had been ugly, loud and figuratively bloody. “Didn’t a senator and even some presidential staff go down?”

“Yes.” Rafe wore an expression of grim satisfaction.

“What was the story?”

“The official version was that Burke’s squad had crossed a boundary they’d been ordered not to. That they knew if they crossed it, they’d be on their own.”

“But?”

Rafe’s expression turned sour. “There was no written record of such an order or boundary. Or anyone actually in action who had ever heard it. All the rank and file and even most of command denied any knowledge.”

“What finally happened?”

“In the end they were forced to release satellite imagery of the ambush and the surrounding territory. It showed not only that they weren’t even past that real or imagined boundary but that there was help within easy reach. A team that could easily have taken out the small force of attackers, and a chopper for air support. Once that came out, it all fell apart. Guys spoke up about how they had been ordered to stand down. And shut up about it.”

“Why was his squad there in the first place?”

“They were going to pull out one of their informants. The guy had given them info that had helped them round up several high-level targets. And twice he’d warned them of ambushes just like the one they drove into that day. But he’d been compromised and was about to be executed.”

Brett leaned back against the sofa cushions. “So they had good reason.”

“Not according to the powers that be. They were ordered not to go, thanks to that someone way higher up on the civilian power pole. Something about offending the local terrorists.”

Brett blinked. “Offend the terrorists? So they were supposed to just let the guy who helped them die?”

“Exactly.”

“But—”

“They went anyway.” Rafe grimaced as he shifted position. Brett wondered if it was what he was remembering or that his leg was bothering him. “That’s what the Skype call had been about. Jason wanted the truth in someone’s hands before they headed out. Sloan said her husband couldn’t have lived with himself if he’d just left the man to die. So instead they all died, because some hack who never had a uniform on in his life was covering his ass.”

Brett sat silently for a long moment. He wasn’t sure how this made him feel, that Sloan’s dead husband had clearly been a good man, a true hero, a man he would probably have liked and admired. It would have been easier, he thought, if the guy had been a jerk.

Just what would have been easier, he didn’t let himself think about.

“What was the final result?” he asked.

“She hammered at them for nearly two years. With all their stalling, it took that long for all the pieces to come together. In the end she brought down an area commander, that senator and his brother-in-law, who they’d been funneling rebuilding contracts to—that was what the informant had found out and was going to tell—and a couple of the staff who helped in the cover-up.”

“And they let her husband and his men all die for that? Some crony contracts?” He couldn’t help the outrage echoing in his voice, and approval flashed in Rafe’s eyes.

“Yes. Now Sloan helps others in like situations through an organization she started. Even the governor has come around.” Rafe snorted. “After she won, he pretended he was backing her all along.”

“Good for her,” he said softly.

“She was amazing.”

She still is.

Brett barely managed to keep from saying it aloud.

“You want to leave him here, take a break?” Rafe asked when he at last got up to go, and Cutter popped to his feet.

Brett considered the dog, who was looking at him steadily. With a bemused look, he said, “I suppose I’ll let him decide. Why change now?”

Rafe smiled. “A man who learns fast.”

“He’s pretty hard to ignore.”

“You’ll let me know if there’s anything we can do? I’m not much help with bureaucrats and paperwork, but Ty isn’t on vacation, and he’s a whiz at working through computer forests.”

“I will, if my guy can’t—” He broke off as his cell phone rang. Pulled it out and glanced at the incoming number. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered, and answered. “Rick? I’m with somebody interested in this, so I’m going to put you on speaker if that’s okay.”

“Sure.”

Brett switched the audio over. “Go,” he said.

“I found it,” Alvarado said without preamble. “The application was in a file in my boss’s office. Unprocessed.”

“After nearly four months?”

“Yeah. That’s so wrong. We’re not that backlogged. No idea why it’s in here. He doesn’t usually get involved until things are processed and need his signature.”

“Did you ask him?”

“He’s out this morning at some big confab in Seattle, so not yet. But it’s weird.”

“That he has it?”

“And that it’s nowhere else. Not even a computer record of it being entered in the system. It must have been misfiled or just caught up in the wrong stack of papers.”

“And what about this supposed land-use study?”

“It doesn’t exist, as far as I can tell. And there’s nothing about that area that would warrant such a study. Not saying it couldn’t be happening, but it’s not done yet, because a copy would have hit my desk at some point.”

“Can you find out?”

“Sure. But I’m thinking it all must have just been a goof.”

So. There it was. He was safely out of it. “It happens,” Brett said.

“Yeah. I’ll talk to my boss as soon as I see him and get back to you. In the meantime, I’ll get this entered and started on right away. It looks pretty cut-and-dried. Should be no problem.”

“Thanks, Rick. I owe you.”

“Hell no,” the man said. “I owe you times a hundred. Caro is doing great at school. My girl’s going to make it through college with honors.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Wouldn’t have happened if not for you. You really got through to her, like I never could.”

“She’s a good kid. She just got a little lost for a while.”

Rafe was studying him anew as he ended the call. “His daughter?”

Brett nodded. “It was a close one. She nearly got sucked up into something really bad.”

“Ever get to you?”

“All the time. It’s a rough world for kids these days. For every Caroline Alvarado, there are three who don’t make it. It wears on you.”

Rafe looked at him consideringly. “You know Quinn would take you on here in an instant if you wanted.”

Startled, Brett blinked. “What?”

“Only reason he hasn’t mentioned it to you himself is he’s pretty sure you wouldn’t give up being a cop.”

Recovering, Brett admitted, “I came close, once. But it’s kind of in the blood.”

Rafe nodded in understanding. “Figured. But thought it might be good to know there’s another option.” He smiled crookedly. “Assuming, of course, you could live with the fact that we don’t always follow the book.”

“What you do,” Brett said, “is get results.”

“There is that,” Rafe said, and grinned. “Besides, you’re kind of handy where you are.”

He’d barely seen the man so much as crack a smile before, except at the wedding, so this was something.

“Thanks. I think.” He shifted his gaze to Cutter. “So what do you want, dog? Go or stay?”

The dog looked up at Rafe. “Up to you, mutt,” he said. “Nice of you to visit, but I’m good. You don’t need to stay.”

The dog reached out with his nose and nudged Rafe’s hand. Then he turned and trotted over to Brett.

“Guess he’s all yours for the duration,” Rafe said. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” he said wryly, thinking he might just need it.

He spent most of the drive back to his place wondering if he could spare the time to stop by Sloan’s aunt’s place and let her know what Rick had said. But he was still a little too ashamed at his reaction to learning about her husband to do it. Relief sparked by a good man’s death was not something to be proud of, no matter the reason. And the thought of how much she must have loved her husband, to do what she’d done, and how much pain she had gone through made him feel worse than useless. He knew all too well no words could ease that kind of pain.

So instead he dropped Cutter off at the house, spent ten minutes throwing the tennis ball for him, ten minutes that barely took the edge off the dog’s seemingly endless energy, promised him more tonight and headed back to work. He would call from there, he told himself. Safer.

And he would finally get around to marking out another running route. One that didn’t pass the path that led to the big Craftsman house.

Chapter 6

Sloan put the last dishes in the dishwasher. She considered the meal a success. Uncle Chuck was under strict dietary restrictions and claimed she was the only one who could make those meals palatable. Sloan suspected that was as much to take some of the load off of his wife, but since that was her goal as well, she happily went along. And it didn’t hurt that they were all eating a bit healthier, she supposed.

She stopped herself from looking at the clock again. It would be five minutes later than the last time, she told herself, just as it had been all evening. Instead she got her aunt and uncle settled in with a movie selected from her streaming service, a concept they had taken to with enthusiasm.