Page 5 of K-9 Guardians (New Mexico Guard Dogs #4)
DNA didn’t lie.
And right now it was telling them that Adam Dunkeld had suffered for a very long time before his killer or killers put him out of his misery.
Albuquerque PD’s forensic unit moved in a chaotic dance. It’d taken less than an hour to confirm the blood’s owner against the federal agent’s file, and the entire DEA was on alert. A flash burst from the tech photographing every square inch of the refrigerator.
Scarlett wouldn’t need to study these resulting photos. She couldn’t unsee the patterns the blood spatter had made across the tile every time she closed her eyes. Couldn’t help but wonder if routinely torturing people in the restaurant’s fridge was what led to the county shutting the place down in the first place.
“I take it this is your first crime scene.” King penetrated her peripheral vision as she watched the team move almost like a hive mind. Each knowing what to do and under orders to get it done.
The muscles down her back urged her to stand straighter, to be more prepared for the shot of heat darting through her. To be good enough to even stand next to an agent like King. “How can you tell?”
“You still have a little bit of throw-up on your vest.” He nodded to her right shoulder, handing over a bottled water soaked in condensation. Sympathy softened the cut of his jaw and the lines around his eyes.
Scarlett took the bottle faster than she’d ever drawn her sidearm and chugged. Liquid leaked at the corners of her mouth as she attempted to wash the sick taste from her mouth, but there was no point.
“You’re going to want to slow down.” He settled into the worn cushioning of the other side of the booth, a thick wood table dividing them. “The faster you drink, the faster it comes up. Believe me.”
“From experience?” she asked.
“Back when I was a rookie agent with the DEA, Sangre por Sangre was just getting its legs. They came in fast and hard by trying to knock out their competition. First time I set foot in a crime scene, the prosecutor assigned to the case had to convince the judge I wasn’t a member of the cartel.” His mouth hiked into a half smile that had the ability to freeze time if Scarlett allowed herself such small pleasures in life. “I left so much of my DNA all over that scene, the techs refused to work with me for a year. Any time Adam and I came up on a scene that required a crime scene unit, he had to be the one to put in the request or the techs would give us the runaround.”
There was no way a knowledgeable, committed, responsible agent like King would ever contaminate or compromise a scene like that. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“I’m really not.” He took a slug of his own water. “Adam got the entire incident on video. Lucky for me, I get to experience that moment all over again every team Christmas party.” The smile drained slowly, as though he just realized he wouldn’t have to go through the embarrassment this year. “He was a good agent. A good friend. Deserved a hell of a lot better than I gave him.”
She studied the pattern the photographer followed as he circled closer to the single chair with every compression of the shutter button. King was losing everyone he ever cared about. Methodically. “How long were you and Adam partnered together?”
“Since the beginning. We came up together. Recommended each other for promotions, knew each other better than anyone else. Right down to our allergies.” He stared across the solid wood bar, through the propped-open kitchen door and into the refrigerator at the back. “I had Sunday dinner at his house every week with his wife and his kids, and I paid for lunch whenever we were out in the field. We’d spend hours driving across the state working cases in absolute silence. He was the kind of person who was fine not trying to fill every second with conversation but always knew when I needed a distraction. The fact people can do this kind of thing to each other never sat right with me, and Adam always knew what to say to make it a little more tolerable. Even right now, I’m expecting him to walk through those doors and make me feel better. We had a good thing going.”
Her heart leaped at the opportunity to be that person for him. A replacement for his partner who could inject a small amount of good in the middle of so much bad. But being that source had nearly gotten her killed in the past. Her need to make up for all the terrible things she’d done would put her right back where she didn’t want to be. And she’d worked too hard to take a step back now. “I’m sorry.”
It was all she could think to say. And she meant it. With every cell in her body, she was sorry she couldn’t make the hurt controlling him go away. But they weren’t partners. They weren’t friends. They were barely acquaintances. He was using her and Socorro to legitimize an off-the-books operation that’d led to the death of his partner and the kidnapping of his son. That was all she was. A resource.
Just as she’d been to the man who almost killed her.
But there was something about King that wanted to convince her she was more. In the way he thought about her needs in the middle of a scene where his partner and best friend had been murdered. The way he made every conversation lighter and pulled out the laugh she’d forgotten the sound of with sarcasm and banter. It’d been a long time since she’d felt this comfortable with a partner. And she almost wished she could hold on to that a little longer.
But she couldn’t. This investigation would end. Sooner or later, they’d find Julien. King would go back to the DEA, and she’d return to Socorro. They couldn’t make time stop. No matter how much she wanted to live in quiet moments like this. There was no point in trying.
Scarlett thumbed water beads off the bottle gripped between both hands. “What did Agent Roday have on the cartel?”
“What?” He cut his gaze to her.
“You said your partner was targeted to send you a message, and from what I’m seeing here, I’m inclined to believe Sangre por Sangre was using Adam to get to you or at least to learn what you had on them.” Her brain frantically scrambled to connect the dots. When a piece of circuitry failed in the security system she’d hardwired into Socorro’s headquarters, the whole system was compromised. It was her job to make sure her team was safe. She couldn’t do that with gaping holes. “But Julien’s mother was killed two months ago. You hadn’t spoken in years. You didn’t even know about your son, and it was her murder that triggered your investigation into Munoz. There must’ve been a reason the cartel considered her a threat.”
“I reached out to the supervisory special agent over Eva’s unit a couple days after the social worker brought me Julien.” King directed his attention back to the officers working the scene, taking any prints that might’ve been left behind and marking areas safe to walk through the restaurant. “He claimed whatever Eva was working on before she died was above my pay grade. Classified. He couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me if the job was what got her killed, but I know for a fact Eva had looked into Munoz in the past.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
“That case we worked together, the one before we...”
The idea of him and the mother of his child together shouldn’t hit her nervous system as hard as it did.
King leveraged one arm against the shiny, lacquered table. “The DEA asked her to consult on a device we uncovered during one of our operations. We’d gotten intel from an informant that Sangre por Sangre and the head of the Marquez cartel out of Mexico were meeting in a warehouse outside the city. But by the time my team got there, we were just recovering pieces of the device after it did its job tearing through a good chunk of the Marquez cartel. Turned out, Sangre por Sangre was on a mission to consolidate power.”
“You said Adam had been with you from the beginning,” she said. “Was he there for that operation?”
“Of course. We...” King sat up a bit straighter. “We’ve been partners for over ten years. That was one of the first assignments we took on together.”
The answer was right there in front of them. A time and place where both victims had come together against the Sangre por Sangre cartel. A connection. The first real lead they’d had so far. “Then they knew each other, at least peripherally. Is there any chance Agent Dunkeld and Agent Roday have been in contact since that operation?”
King scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t know. Adam never said anything if he was, and police didn’t find anything in Eva’s phone records or emails to come to that conclusion.”
There was another explanation. Because the odds of two federal agents being stabbed to death in the span of two months—both of which landed in King’s orbit—were too great to ignore. “Unless your partner didn’t want you to know.”
“What are you saying?” He turned that internal intensity that could start a wild fire given enough space on her, and Scarlett’s defenses spiked. He shoved free of the booth and circled until he cut off her view of his face. “You think Adam and Eva were working on something together? There’s no way. He was my partner. We told each other everything, and he was a shit liar. Did everything by the book. I would’ve known if he was keeping something from me.”
“What if he couldn’t tell you?” Scarlett got to her feet, closing the distance between them. “Think about it. If Eva was investigating Sangre por Sangre and Munoz after all these years, she would’ve needed a contact in the DEA. Someone who was there during that operation, but she couldn’t come to you. Not without telling you about Julien, and she obviously didn’t want that seeing as how she kept his existence a secret from you for ten years. So is it possible she reached out to Adam to get what she needed?”
His shoulders slowly relaxed away from his ears as King faced her. “It’s possible, but I don’t see how going through a ten-year-old operation gets her Munoz or helps bring my son home now.”
Scarlett latched on to his forearm as the potential for answers heated through her. “Then let’s go find out.”
H E COULD STILL feel her.
That single touch that had somehow released the pressure valve behind his sternum.
The scene at the restaurant would take hours, if not days, to process. Time he and Scarlett didn’t have. Because if she was right, if a decade-old DEA operation was the reason Adam and Eva had been killed all these years later, and was why his son had been taken, they couldn’t wait for answers.
But he hadn’t wanted to find them here.
“You sure you want to start here?” Scarlett met him at the end of the driveway as Hans and Gruber sniffed their way down the sidewalk.
It probably didn’t seem like much from her end, but having her here meant something. It meant she was going to keep her word, that in a world where he couldn’t even trust the man he’d partnered with all these years, she was going to come through.
“I’ve been putting it off long enough.” Well-maintained bushes hid the initial view of the house he’d been to every morning for the past ten years. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but the clean rockscaping punctuated with bright purple cactus flowers told him the place was loved.
King hiked up the oil-spotted driveway toward the two-car garage hiding the view of the front door. A large bay window on the other side provided the homeowner with a view that guaranteed she saw them coming, and nervous energy shocked through him.
It wasn’t every day you had to tell your partner’s wife he wasn’t coming home.
Hinges protested from the metal screen installed over the front door before he had a chance to ring the doorbell. The woman folding her arms over her chest in the doorframe barely had anything left to grab on to. She wasn’t taking care of herself, that much was clear in the thinness of her skin and the oil overtaking her blond hair. She was close to six months pregnant, but from her current size, he might’ve assumed three. Four max. She’d pulled it back into a ponytail. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her without those signature waves, a couple layers of makeup or the leggings she liked to wear despite the heat.
No echoes of kids yelling or something being thrown down the hallway after Adam had told them for the thousandth time their mother was going to kill them for playing soccer in the house.
King pulled up short at the base of the walkway and just...stopped. Too heavy to get the words out. He hadn’t wanted this. Ever. He didn’t want to be the one standing here. In his mind, he always pictured it the other way around. Adam followed the book. Never took a risk unless King was the one to push him. King should’ve been the one the cartel had dragged into that refrigerator. Not his partner.
Warmth prickled at his arm where Scarlett had touched him, as though she were still touching him. Giving him the courage he needed right then. “Hi, Jen.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Chipped fingernails dug into Jen’s arms as she ducked her chin to her chest, and King’s entire world threatened to split open.
“Yeah. Adam’s dead.” There wasn’t any more to say. Nothing he could do to take on her pain, even for just a few seconds. He was powerless in this moment, and he hated the feeling with every fiber of his being. King crossed the distance to the front door, prying his partner’s wife away from the doorframe and into his arms. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t there. I couldn’t protect him.”
Jen pressed her face into his chest. Sobs tremored through her body until all he heard was great big gasps for breath. Digging those usually manicured nails into his arms, she cried until there was nothing left.
King didn’t know how long they stood there with Scarlett watching. He didn’t care. Because he owed this to Jen. Owed Adam.
“Tell me how. How did this happen?” she asked.
“The cartel.” It was all he would give her. His partner’s family deserved to remember him as he was. Not as the corpse he’d ended up.
Life bled into Jen’s face and replaced the paleness there. She shoved at him with one hand, though she didn’t come close to knocking him off balance. “You came into my home every day, King. I welcomed you at our breakfast table. I let you near my children because you promised. You promised me every morning before you and Adam left that you would back him up.”
She shoved him again. This time with both palms, and King took a big step back as she advanced. The metal screen door snapped closed.
“Why weren’t you there, King? Why weren’t you the one...” Another wave of emotion cut her short as she brought her hands to her face. Jen doubled over as her strength failed.
“I wanted to be.” And he had. A thousand times over in the hours since he’d gotten the call about his partner. He’d wanted to be the one on the slab. To save Jen and the kids from the black well of grief. But that wasn’t how life had played out. King raised his gaze to Scarlett. She was good at fixing things, but she couldn’t fix this. No matter how much he wanted her to. “Jen, I need to know. Was Adam working on anything off the books? Did he say anything about an operation the DEA ran ten years ago or mention the name Eva Roday in the past few days?”
The sobs quieted to a low moan. Jen pushed back the tendrils of hair that escaped her crude ponytail. The fire that’d held Adam captive for years exploded in her eyes. She straightened, facing off with him as the roller coaster of pain and loss vanished.
“You son of a bitch. Really? You tell me Adam isn’t coming home, that the cartel killed him, and you’re asking me if there’s anything my husband said about a case he was working five seconds later.” She poked a finger into his chest. “You’re always chasing answers, King, but you know what the sad thing is? You’re never going to be happy with what you’ve got. Adam felt bad for you, you know. Said this job was all you had, even after you learned about Julien. That’s why he thought it was so important to stay your partner and turn down all those promotions that came his way. And he was right. You’re always going to be looking for that next lead. Letting the things that matter pass you by.”
The words stabbed through him, one at a time, until King couldn’t take his next breath.
Scarlett took a step forward, and he knew right then she would always be the one to take that first step. Into the fight, to stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. It was just the kind of person she was, and he admired the hell out of that. “Hey, that’s—”
He held Scarlett off as the pull of something desperate and illogical took control. Jen was right. He’d built his entire life around this job. It’d gotten him through, given him purpose. It’d kept him focused when he suddenly found himself taking care of a kid who wouldn’t talk to him and missing the woman he’d let slip through his fingers. But it wasn’t what was driving him now. “They took my son, Jen.”
Shock stole the anger in Jen’s expression. Her finger drifted from his chest as she lost the will to keep him in his place. She blinked those big doe eyes filled with tears. “What?”
“They took Julien.” And King lost the will to keep years of classified intel, secrets and emotions to himself as the truth bled into existence. “I know I failed you. I know there’s nothing I can do to bring Adam home, and you’re more than welcome to hate me for the rest of your life, if that’s what you need to do. But there is a little boy out there in the hands of the very people who murdered your husband. And he’s scared, Jen. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him or if anyone’s coming for him. Help me get to him. Please.”
One second. Two.
Jen stared at him, and hell, King didn’t know what she saw. He just hoped it was enough. “Adam never said anything about his cases. I didn’t want to know after...” She didn’t have to finish that sentence. He knew about her family, about how she was raised by an addict who frequently beat her and her brother when her stepdad was coming down from a high. It was a life she worked hard to leave behind. “But I knew he was working on something that wasn’t for the DEA. I have a strict rule about bringing work home from the field, and he never broke that rule. But I caught him two weeks ago in the middle of the night. In his office. He was unscrewing the cover on the air return vent and putting something inside.”
Anticipation shot through him. “Did you see what it was?”
“No. And I didn’t ask.” Jen leveled that gaze at him, a hardness taking over that he’d only ever seen when Adam and the kids were in trouble. It only lasted a moment before the grief moved back in. She folded in on herself all over again, and right then, Jen suddenly seemed so much smaller than he remembered.
Adam’s life insurance would cover hers and the kids’ cost of living, most likely pay off this house, but there were some things money couldn’t take on, and King would be the one to step up. To make sure they got through this.
“But I haven’t touched anything in there since he went missing,” Jen said. “I figured...he would want it to stay as he left in when he came home. And if not, then the DEA might need to go through it first.”
She moved aside, giving him and Scarlett a clear shot to the front door. “Find the bastards who did this and get your son back, King. Make them wish they hadn’t come after your family.”
“I intend to.” King didn’t wait as he pried the metal screen door open and crossed the threshold, Scarlett and her Dobermans close behind.
The front door deposited them straight into a tidy living room with worn carpet and oversize leather couches. The dining room that’d hosted a thousand family breakfasts every morning King had showed up to collect his partner stared back at him with a grudge. There wouldn’t be any more breakfasts at that table. Not for him.
“The office is this way.” He moved down the hall on instinct until they found the room they were looking for. The house wasn’t all that big, but there were enough rooms to give the kids their own and provide an office for Adam with a view out the back window.
Hesitation gripped the small muscles in the bottom of King’s feet as he set eyes on the air return vent Jen had mentioned. Three steps. That was all it took to set himself beneath it. The screws popped out easier than he expected, and King jammed his hand into the vent.
Something was stuffed inside the return.
“What is it?” Scarlett held on to each of the dogs’ collars as he brought down a manila file folder.
“Some kind of file. I’ve never seen it before.” King flipped open the cover. And froze at the notepaper clipped inside the front cover.
Scarlett moved in to get a better look, raising her gaze to his. She took the folder from him and scanned through his partner’s handwritten notes. “Looks like Adam was running his own off-the-books investigation into the cartel. With Eva Roday, from what I can see of these notes.”
“Yeah.” A million thoughts were going through his head, but King only had attention for one. He pointed to a section of notes Adam had circled over and over. “And figured out Sangre por Sangre is far more dangerous than we gave them credit for.”