Page 5 of K-9 Justice (New Mexico Guard Dogs #6)

CHAPTER FIVE

Alpine Valley PD had taken control of the scene. She hadn’t had any other choice but to notify them since this had likely been the location of Dr. Piel’s death.

The other women they’d recovered in the desert, the three who’d lost their lives on her last case for the FBI, had been killed in and around their homes. This case seemed to be hitting the same markers.

“What were you and Mr… .?” Chief Halsey left the question open, a pen raised over the notebook in his hand, but she wouldn’t finish that sentence for him. Carson Lang no longer existed. Her partner had become Dominic Rojas, a Sangre por Sangre cartel soldier with a rap sheet longer than the US Constitution, and there was no way in hell she’d take the chance of compromising his cover by putting his name on paper. If she hadn’t compromised it already.

“What do you think we were doing, Baker?” She hadn’t meant the words to sound so harsh. Baker Halsey had gone above and beyond to overcome his resistance to accept and collaborate, but it had taken falling for one of Ivy’s operatives to bring him around. “Nafessa Piel was one of my employees, and now she’s dead. Did you really think I was going to sit back while your department investigated her murder?”

“I was hoping you would pay me the same respect to do my damn job as I give you and your team, and I seem to remember sealing this door so as not to disturb a potential crime scene. From the look of it, the seal was cut through. Most likely with a blade.” Intense blue eyes the shade of a clear sky centered on her, but Ivy wasn’t the type to fall for a pretty face or drawn-out silences. She’d faced down senators and military officers. She’d built a security company from the ground up when it became clear the federal government couldn’t protect Carson on the inside of a cartel. Chief Halsey had a job to do, but she’d learned police tactics a long time ago. They wouldn’t work now. The notebook disappeared into his uniform jacket pocket. “Any idea how that happened?”

Red and blue patrol lights swept across her face from the chief’s vehicle parked in the driveway, almost hypnotizing. The events of the past hour raced through her head. Cutting through the seal, searching the house. Finding evidence of blood beneath the couch. Carson’s accusations replayed on repeat, no matter how many times she tried to override them.

That Nafessa Piel had targeted Ivy and Socorro. That the physician had worked her way into Ivy’s confidence with patience, probing questions and expertise. That the house they were standing in right now hadn’t been a home, but a safe house.

No. She wasn’t entertaining this idea. It was crazy.

Okay. Yes, Dr. Piel had been the one to reach out to apply for the position. Yes, she’d been the one who’d initiated her and Ivy’s friendship. She’d been the one to take that first step and invite Ivy over for drinks, and Ivy had said yes. Because the thought of going another two years without direct contact from her partner had made the black hole in her chest so much worse, and having a friend—someone she could connect with—had felt important.

Ivy’s mouth dried as she was forced back into the moment. “No. I don’t know how the seal on the door was broken.”

“I see. And what about him?” Alpine Valley’s finest was smarter than that. Chief Halsey nodded toward Carson, standing with a deputy she didn’t know on the other side of the room, but there was something along the lines of humor playing in the corners of Halsey’s mouth. “There a good reason the founder of Socorro Security has partnered with a cartel soldier on your little rogue expedition?”

Panic infused the muscles down her spine. Ivy breathed through her initial response to deny the truth. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“That man saved my and Jocelyn’s lives,” he said.

The intensity she’d noted a few minutes ago drained from around the chief’s eyes.

“To be honest, I still don’t know why,” Halsey said. “We were in their territory, fair and square. I was ready to tear their entire building down to get Jocelyn out alive when he walked in with six armed cartel soldiers. He took one look at Jocelyn, and it was like he knew her. Like they’d been friends for years.”

She let his assumptions hang between them.

“He’s one of yours, isn’t he? Planted in Sangre por Sangre ’s ranks.” She hadn’t given Chief Halsey nearly enough credit in their short time working together. The man had definitely earned that badge and the title of Alpine Valley’s hero. He directed his attention to the living room. “Too bad I got here after the people who’d broken into this property had already gone. Didn’t get a chance to get their statements. Sure was lucky I discovered the bloodstain beneath the couch, though.”

His meaning took a moment to sink in.

“Yeah. Lucky.” She detached herself from the gravitational pull the chief seemed to exude by taking a single step back.

“One more thing, Ms. Bardot.” The chief pointed the end of his pen at her. “Heard about what went down at your apartment. Jocelyn has been calling me nonstop since the news broke. I’m guessing there’s a reason you’re not in touch. All this have something to do with keeping them in the dark?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I have a feeling it won’t be long before I find out.” Nervous energy played at the tips of her fingers. The longer she and Carson stayed in one place, the more attention they were bound to garner from the wrong people. But she couldn’t leave until she got what she came here for. “Has the ME finished the autopsy on Nafessa Piel’s body?”

Halsey lowered his voice, coming in a few inches closer. “I took your advice and reached out to your old special agent in charge for the file on your last case. The FBI isn’t usually so agreeable, but once I mentioned your name, he was all too willing to cooperate. I read through your notes and passed them on to the medical examiner. Three women left in the desert, strangled, with messages carved into their backs. Despite the variation in the characters recovered on Nafessa Piel’s back, the ME has ample reason to conclude this latest murder fits the MO of the killer you were chasing back then. He’s willing to state there’s a connection between both cases.”

Confirmation. Her stomach knotted tighter. She’d been willing to make the leap based off unproven facts, but there was no denying the truth now. The man they’d let escape two years ago was killing again.

“Watch yourself, Ivy. I’ve seen firsthand the lengths the cartel will go to to get what they want, and I know you have, too.” A sadness she couldn’t begin to understand creased in his jaw. “I’ve got this covered. Whatever it is you’re after, I trust you know when to bring me in.”

“There is something I need you to check for me.” Dread pooled at the base of her spine, but she hadn’t built her career without considering all the options. No matter how hard it was to swallow. “I need to know if Nafessa Piel has an off-the-books connection to Sangre por Sangre . No matter how small. Anything they could’ve used to manipulate her. Quietly, please.”

“Those other women’s deaths you investigated, you theorized they were all trying to get out of the cartel’s grip, and that’s why they were targeted. To send a message to deserters.” The chief’s gaze bounced around the house, as though the walls were listening. “You think that’s the case here?”

“I’ll be in touch.” She nodded thanks. Carson followed her out of the house. It wasn’t until they’d pulled away from Dr. Piel’s home that she had the guts to break the silence between them. “It’s him, Carson. The medical examiner confirmed a connection between Dr. Piel’s murder and the case we worked back then.”

“We’re going to find him.” Confidence resonated in every word. He reached across the center console and took her hand in his. Warmth spread up her arm from the contact and chased back the chill that had taken hold from searching that cold, empty house. “He’s going to pay for what he’s done, and we’re going to finish this. Together. I give you my word.”

His reassurance was enough to ease her denial of Dr. Piel’s involvement in her own demise. For now. They’d potentially uncovered the scene where Socorro’s physician had been killed, but there were still so many questions they didn’t have answers to. And Ivy wasn’t sure she wanted those answers. She stared out the passenger-side window as the houses in the neighborhood ticked by, begging her mind to switch off. To forget the outline of a pool of blood stained into the tile of her friend’s home. Her only point of grounding contact was the hand still in hers. “Is it hard for you to be undercover?”

He didn’t answer for a few breaths. “In some aspects. Not so much in others.” She’d resigned to not getting more than that from him, but Carson went on. “There were things I missed at first. My own bed being one of them. I was never alone. The lieutenants exerted power any chance they got with orders and privileges. Metias Leyva—the lieutenant your forward observer went up against to protect Leyva’s ex-wife—was probably the worst. Our meals were cold and few and far between. We mostly slept on cots or the ground or in the back seat of our vehicles. We’re tools to be used. Nothing more.”

Everything he’d described stabbed deeper than she expected. The conditions he’d suffered would’ve broken any man, but Carson had held on. For this assignment, for their agreement to not let the Sangre por Sangre virus spread. She studied their interconnected hands resting on the center console. That was one of the things she’d loved about him. His loyalty. His commitment. No matter how much risk came with his decision, he’d always been one to stick through it. “What aspects weren’t so hard?”

“There were things that made taking orders easier. Knowing why I was there, knowing our end goal, helped. After a while, I started to get to know some of the other recruits. Some of us got…close.” He brought the back of her hand to his mouth, planting a kiss there. “Most of all, I guess the thing that made everything not so bad was knowing, sooner or later, I was coming home to you.”

A battle ensued within. Warning spiked in her gut at his mention of the other cartel recruits with such…fondness, countered with the warmth of his simple assurance. But Ivy couldn’t trust her instincts right now. Carson’s theory concerning Dr. Piel—that one of her own people might’ve been involved with the cartel she’d taken an oath to dismantle—was starting to make sense.

Ivy directed her attention out the window. And started planning her next move.

* * *

Carson had gone through the crime scene photos a dozen times.

Nothing had changed.

The FBI had done nothing more to find the man responsible for three women’s deaths once Carson had agreed to go undercover within Sangre por Sangre . The case had been abandoned on their end. No new evidence. No witnesses coming forward. It was as though the federal government had simply given up. The victims’ bodies had been released to their families, the evidence cataloged and filed away in some storage locker that would take an act of the director himself to release.

Exhaustion blurred the reports in front of him. They’d come back to the cartel safe house to regroup, but they were getting nowhere. No matter which way they looked at it, they were right back at square one. Just as they had been before he’d gone undercover. The medical examiner was in possession of the most recent body. There was little chance he and Ivy would be allowed anywhere near it, and he couldn’t risk taking the chance the cartel already had eyes on Dr. Piel’s remains. All he and his partner knew was there was a solid connection. The man who’d killed those victims two years ago had come after a Socorro physician. But why now? After all this time, the son of a bitch Carson had been hunting had lain low in the cartel’s ranks. Was this about Dr. Piel? Or was this about Ivy?

“Anything new?” Her voice had lost its assertiveness in the past couple of hours. Draining with every dead end they came across.

He pushed back away from the kitchen island. Crime scene photos, initial reports, his own handwritten notes from another lifetime ago covered every inch of the quartz surface. None of it had done him a damn bit of good. “I’ve been through everything. Twice. The house we cornered the killer in two years ago has since been sold and bought by an elderly couple with clean background checks, and the two soldiers I fought that night trying to get to you in time are still serving time in prison.”

He scrubbed at his face. How long had it been since he’d slept? Twenty-four hours? More? He couldn’t tell anymore. Adrenaline reserves had run out a long time ago, and the pancakes they’d had this morning had already been spent. This was the part of the assignment he hated the most. The dead end. Serving the drug cartel had been simpler, in a way. He’d taken orders and carried them out. There’d been bullets occasionally, but for the most part, he’d been secure in knowing he wasn’t the one responsible for any kind of loss of life. Not like he had been with the FBI.

“I’ve been through every piece of paper the cartel left behind in this safe house. There’s nothing here.” Ivy moved in close, directly over his shoulder, and invigorated his senses with a hint of vanilla and soap. It was enough to keep him from spiraling in the moment, but the effect would wear off the more he starved himself of sleep and calories. “What about the intel you gathered within the cartel? Anything that might give us a lead? You said you got close to some of the other recruits. Maybe one of them mentioned someone within the organization that liked to strangle his victims before carving messages into their backs?”

She was fishing for information, and hell, Carson didn’t blame her. It was in Ivy’s nature to have a plan worked out in her head before she took the next step, but a defensiveness that had no business coming between them surged. The people he’d gotten to know within the cartel’s ranks had been sources. Nothing more. And yet there was a part of him that needed to protect them as much as they’d protected him since he’d joined their ranks. “I’ve kept records of everyone I came into contact with since the moment I joined Sangre por Sangre , but the people I worked with were foot soldiers. Grunts who didn’t know anything. It was the lieutenants that issued the orders. The founder of the cartel kept his identity in the dark by making us go through them.”

His mind went straight to the one man who’d gotten him through most of the assignments that’d left his hands covered in too much blood. Sebastian Aguado had been with the cartel nearly his entire life. Saved Carson’s life on more than one occasion. And was rewarded for that loyalty with the loss of his wife and children—violently—after a rival cartel had abducted and killed them in retaliation. Sangre por Sangre hadn’t done anything to stop the slaughter. Leaving Sebastian with nothing. There was a chance his old friend might want to even the playing field by helping him and Ivy root out the head of the cartel. Hell, he might be the only resource they could rely on.

Ivy’s exhalation brushed the back of his neck. Too close. Too familiar. Too dangerous at a time like this. Because the moment he took his eyes off the end goal, the cartel would strike. He couldn’t risk making any mistakes. Not when it came to Ivy.

She shifted her weight away from him, as though sensing his need for space. “And from what you’ve reported…”

“They’re all dead. Socorro made sure of that.” He hadn’t meant the statement to take the shape of an accusation, but there it was. They were in an impossible situation. One he didn’t know how to fix.

Other memories, of Carson having to step up and be the man of the house when his father had left him and his mother high and dry, surged forward. He hadn’t been able to fix anything for his mother either. It didn’t matter how good the grades he earned were or how much money he contributed to their expenses when he was old enough to get a job—he couldn’t fix other people’s mistakes. And now the one person he had left in this world—the one person he trusted—was caught in the result of his own failure. There’d been a time when all Carson wanted was to do something good with the second chance he’d been given after his mother had donated a kidney to save his life. Then again when he’d lost that kidney in a fight for Ivy’s life and taken on one of hers. But this… Nothing concerning this case gave him hope this could end in anything but misery. “I’m going to get some fresh air.”

Ivy didn’t respond as he shoved away from the kitchen island and headed for the back door. He clocked the cameras positioned at the exit, but he’d ensured the cameras installed around the perimeter of the property had been taken off-line weeks ago.

Carson wrenched the sliding back door open with a bit too much force, earning himself a bark from Max. She followed him out the door beneath the covered porch. New Mexico had a peculiar habit of being too hot and too cold at the same time. Or maybe it was just his brain playing tricks on him as he stared into nothing but a fenced yard of dirt and weeds in the middle of January. Every piece of evidence, every witness statement, every lead jumbled through his mind. Out of order, upside down.

Despite years of undercover work—of following orders, of taking out every target required, of watching his fellow soldiers bleed out beside him and giving up everything he’d known in the process—he was nowhere near closing in on the killer who’d nearly taken Ivy from him. Who’d killed those women.

His phone weighed heavy in his pants pocket. There was still one option left. Sebastian had been able to avoid being buried six feet under with the rest of the cartel. Within the past month, whatever remained of Sangre por Sangre had scattered, “every man for himself” style, and his mentor had been no exception. Carson had heard whisperings the lifelong soldier in his fifties had fled back to his hometown of Aztec, but they’d just been rumors.

Carson forced himself to take his next breath slower than he wanted. Reaching out to anyone in the cartel directly—even with his cover intact—could unleash a hell neither he nor Ivy was prepared to deal with. Not to mention it could give Ivy reason to distance herself from him even further.

But what other choice did they have at this point?

Ivy had been targeted. Not just at her apartment, but possibly by a sociopath sending her a direct message by taking out one of her employees, and there was no way he would sit back and lose her. Not again. They’d fought too hard and for too long to let someone else have a say in their future. Least of all a killer. His fingers tingled with the need to send that message. He checked over his shoulder. For Ivy. But she must’ve remained in the kitchen. Most likely to go through the files they’d built over the past two hours. Carson unpocketed his phone.

Max locked her gaze on him, cocking her head to one side. In judgment.

“You want to go home, don’t you? You want to go back to sleeping in a bed with your mom instead of on the ground with me?” He was more than aware of the ridiculousness of expecting his K-9 to answer back. He was also cognizant of how he was projecting onto his partner his own internal motivations for even considering contacting a man who’d dedicated his entire life to Sangre por Sangre . But Sebastian had roots deep into the organization. Twenty years’ worth of experience, loyalty and know-how pertaining to all cartel business. Carson had heard the stories—the legend—of the soldier who had single-handedly undermined the DEA investigators over the years. Didn’t hurt that Sebastian owed him a favor.

The German shepherd licked one side of her mouth.

“That’s what I thought.” He tapped out the message one-handed and hit Send. “Time to pay up, old man.”

The back door protested on dirty tracks, centering Ivy over the threshold. “Thought I might join you for that fresh air.”

Carson slipped his phone back into his pocket, just out of her line of sight. “I’ve had worse company.”

“You’re talking about Max, right?” A smile cracked at the corner of her mouth. Something private and meant only for him. It was her tendency to only reveal bits and pieces of herself to people she trusted that had first gotten his attention in the FBI. Why he’d requested to become her partner despite his lack of experience and the fact she’d driven most of her previous partners into early retirement. He’d wanted to be one of the few she trusted. Considering their partnership had dipped into a personal relationship, Carson would say he’d succeeded. Until she determined otherwise. Ivy crossed the porch to the railing at the edge of the cement, fingers interlaced as she searched the backyard. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life, never seen something more worth fighting for than her. “It’s peaceful out here. I can see why you like it.”

He joined her at the railing. “First time I came here, I was part of a security detail for a lieutenant named Tolenado. Turned out I had the most experience of anyone else on the team. Tolenado noticed. Decided to bring me on as one of his enforcers.”

His pocket vibrated with an incoming message. Sebastian’s response.

“I remember Tolenado. He abducted and tortured a war correspondent for three days. Intended to kill her, too. Right up until my operative Jones Driscoll pulled her out.” She seemed to memorize the layout of the land spanning behind the house. “That correspondent was the one who broke the news a state senator had allowed Sangre por Sangre to kill ten US military soldiers to undermine Socorro. He failed, though.”

“That’s because you believe in what you’re doing out there,” Carson said. “From the very beginning, you were willing to do whatever it took to protect the people who couldn’t protect themselves. Including me. I like to think that conviction has rubbed off on me.”

“Except I couldn’t help Nafessa or those other women from getting killed.” Her voice hooked into him. “I went back through the intel you’ve gathered over the past two years along with the locations of the cartel’s safe houses and the names of every Sangre por Sangre operative you encountered. At this point, we’re treading water with no land in sight.”

Carson pulled his phone to his side and read Sebastian’s message. The old man had come through. “Then we start swimming. Right into the belly of the beast.”