Page 36 of Smoky Mountain K-9
“Carter.”
Pausing in the doorway, he glanced back. A pit formed in his stomach as he took in the fierce frown on Ben’s face.
“Watch your back. And Mara’s. This is connected to one of you, and the frequency of the acts bothers me. Whoever’s behind this will strike again, and they’re going to get bolder each time.”
That pit turned into a gaping hole. “I know. That’s what I’m worried about too.”
Ben’s mouth flattened.
“I ordered a security system for my house. Cameras and window and door alarms. And I paid for expedited shipping. Do you think you can come help me put it up when it arrives? It’s supposed to come in on Tuesday.”
“Sure. I’ll grab Tristan and Jake too. The four of us should be able to get it set up pretty quickly.” He let out a soft snort and shook his head. “Who’d have thought it would be the K-9 unit who has trouble with a vandal?”
Which was exactly what had Carter worried. Most run-of-the-mill vandals wouldn’t come near him. Maverick’s loud, deep bark would send them running. Whoever this was either had it out for him, or they liked the adrenaline rush that came with targeting a K-9 deputy. Both scenarios meant there would be more incidents, and he wanted to be ready.
“Well, hopefully, we can catch them in the act next time.” He took a step back. “I’m going to see if I can come up with some suspects. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.” At his boss’s sharp nod, he spun on his heel and headed for his desk, Maverick at his side. He had some digging to do.
The casters on his chair clacked as he rolled it back and sat down. With a low groan, Maverick climbed into the dog bed next to the desk. Carter’s mouth quirked as he glanced at the dog. He would owe the animal a run later so he could burn off the energy he was storing up now.
Turning, he picked up the phone and made a call to his old boss. After explaining the situation, the man promised to have an officer compile a list and forward it. Carter was grateful for email. That list was likely to be a long one.
With one department taken care of, he turned his focus to his current location and logged into the department’s system to run a search of his cases. Right away, several jumped out at him. There were some perpetrators he’d never forget. Jotting their names down on a steno pad, Carter started sifting through the less memorable cases and came up with a few possibilities. He ran all the names to get their current status and found several who were out of jail. They went into a separate column.
Sitting back, he stared at the pad, twirling his pen through his fingers. Details from each case swirled through his head as he read the names. One of them made him pause as he remembered something. Dustin Spalding had run from him on foot at a traffic stop because he had a felony amount of marijuana in his car. Carter had chased him down, using Maverick to bring him to a halt when he refused to stop. It wasn’t Dustin, though, that he remembered well. It was the man’s wife, Amy. That woman was crazy. She’d vowed revenge, arguing that her husband shouldn’t have his life—and subsequently hers—ruined for a little weed. It didn’t matter to her that he broke the law. She saw Carter as the bad guy.
He wrote her name on the list. Going through it once more, he focused on known family members, but Amy Spalding was the only one who stuck out to him. Her wild behavior fit with the pattern of vandalism at his house. The equestrian center was the outlier. It felt more planned and less like the impulsive act of someone angry at the police.
Sighing, he rubbed his forehead. It was definitely possible they were unrelated. Scott Sears had a strong motive for vandalizing the equestrian center. Either way, they had some viable suspects for all three incidents.
Carter opened his email and typed his list into a message to the detective in charge of the vandalism at his house. At the last moment, he copied Tristan and Jake. It was unlikely any of the people he listed would be responsible for the ruined horse feed, but he wanted to cover all his bases.
Having done as much as he could for now, he pushed away from his desk. Maverick lifted his head.
“Let’s go for a run, Mav.” The dog needed the exercise, and Carter needed to clear his head and get rid of the antsy feeling plaguing him. This wasn’t over, and it was driving him insane that he couldn’t do more to catch the person wreaking havoc on his and Mara’s lives.
Twenty
Car doors slammed, drawing Carter’s attention away from the sensor he was attaching to his bedroom window. Climbing off the ladder, he left the room and headed for the front door to let his helpers inside. He threw open the door as Ben, Tristan, and Jake walked up the path. Tristan carried a ladder while Jake held a drill, and Ben had a toolbox.
“Hey, guys. Thanks for coming.” He stepped back to let them enter, then closed the door.
“Not a problem.” Ben smiled. “Show us your setup.”
Carter led the men to the kitchen, where he’d laid the system out on his dining table. “Some of the sensors I’ve already installed.” He’d started as soon as it arrived this morning, knowing he could do those on his own. “I was just finishing my bedroom window when you guys arrived. I still need to do the garage windows, but all the others are done. And the doors. I haven’t done those yet, except that one.” He pointed to the back door. “I haven’t touched the cameras. I need help with the angle on those and with running wires through the attic.”
“You know, they have people who install these things for a living,” Tristan quipped.
Carter shrugged. “I didn’t want to wait two weeks.”
“Fair enough. Let’s get busy.”
Grinning, Carter laid out where he wanted the cameras. They decided to split into two teams to make things go faster. Tristan and Jake took the front of the house, while Ben and Carter tackled the back. They were going to mount everything, get it hooked up, then check the angles on the app that came with the system.
The back of Carter’s house was one long straight line, so he opted for just three cameras for the back. One motion-sensitive camera that would rotate on each corner and then a third, smaller, fixed camera over the back door. The front would be trickier because of the porch, but once they were done, every inch of the home’s perimeter would be covered.
Ben set the ladder up on the far corner of the house. Holding his drill, Carter climbed up with the template that came with the kit and drilled holes to mount the camera bracket.
For the next two hours, they worked to install the cameras. It was a much more involved process than Carter thought it would be, and he was glad Ben brought Tristan and Jake to help. They’d have been setting up floodlights in the yard so they could see to finish if it weren’t for the extra hands.