When Dylan returned to the living room, he felt a twinge in his gut again.
Something was definitely off.
He looked along the baseboards, which had not been painted like everything else had. Strange. His gaze came to stop on a dark circle, a tiny spatter that he hadn’t noticed before. He moved to the baseboard and crouched to study the spatter that was smaller than a dime. It was a dark substance that could have been dried blood.
Detective Jensen walked in the house just as Dylan looked up. Jensen appeared to read Dylan’s expression and headed toward him.
She came to a stop beside him. “Surprised you’re still here, Agent Curtis.”
He stood, towering over the petite detective, and gestured to the spot. “I believe that’s a blood spatter.” He made a motion to encompass the room and explained about Nate and the conclusion he’d come to. “I’ve got a feeling the new paint and carpet is a cleanup job.” He explained about Nate not planning to make improvements on the house and its general appearance before.
Jensen frowned and then nodded slowly. “We’ll take care of it, and I’ll give you a call when everything is processed.”
“Thank you.” He gave her a grim look. “Just to let you know, I’m taking the dog until I can find him a home.”
She nodded. “He needs a good home now.”
Dylan went to the kitchen and took the leash from its hook. He returned to the living room and picked up his hat from where he’d set it on one corner of the couch.
He settled his Stetson on his head and touched the brim as he inclined his head toward Jensen in a brief nod. His mind continued to work over the death of his friend as he turned to walk out of the house.
Dylan reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in the rain as he looked at Joe sitting in the dog run. A doghouse was at one end, but the shepherd clearly had no interest in it. With the leash in his hand, Dylan walked toward the run.
“Hey, boy.” As Dylan let himself into the run, Joe turned his gaze on him. The dog was drenched. “I won’t leave you just to see you taken to the pound.” Dylan shook his head. “Guess you’re coming home with me.”
Joe barked in response. Dylan wasn’t sure if the shepherd would leave his master’s home, but he remained still as Dylan crouched beside him and clipped the leash to the dog’s collar.
Dylan stroked the top of Joe’s wet head. “I’m sorry about Nate.”
Joe barked, as if in response to Dylan’s words.
“Wish you could talk.” Dylan frowned as he rubbed Joe behind the ears. “You might be able to tell me just what the hell happened here.”
Joe whined as if asking the same question. He licked Dylan’s fingers.
Dylan got to his feet, opened the gate, and led Joe out of the dog run.
Joe bared his teeth, growled, and jerked against the leash. He was staring at the shed where BPD officers still worked. Joe barked, the sound vicious and filled with fury.
Dylan frowned. Joe had never been a hostile dog, but he had been protective of Nate. What was making the shepherd bare his teeth, snarl, and bark like he was doing now?
For a long moment, Dylan let Joe carry on as he pulled hard against the leash. Finally, Dylan tugged on the leash to get Joe’s attention. As well trained as he was, the dog calmed and walked beside Dylan to the truck. Once Joe was settled into the back of the king cab, Dylan climbed into the driver’s seat and left the Saginaw section of Bisbee to head to the DHS office near Douglas.
~~*~~
Smells of wet dog and rain filled Dylan’s office. Joe sat by the desk, looking like a sphinx as he stared ahead, ever on watch.
No matter what he’d seen in his line of work, the calls Dylan had made were the hardest he’d ever had to make. He gripped the phone as he wrapped up his conversation with Christie Reyes.
She’d broken down, and tears were still in her voice. “I just got a postcard from him yesterday. It didn’t feel like a goodbye note.”
Dylan went still as he remembered the card in his back pocket. “You received a postcard from Nate? By U.S. Mail?”
“Yes.” She said the word in a way that told him she was having a difficult time speaking. “It surprised me. We live in the same town, yet I haven’t heard from him in so long.”
Dylan wanted to press her, but she sobbed and he made the decision to give her some time to get used to the idea of Nate’s death. He needed to read his own postcard again.
She cleared her throat and pulled it together. “I’ll make funeral arrangements.”
His voice was thick as he replied, “Thank you, Christie.”
“The CoS was Nate’s only family.” She echoed Dylan’s words to Jensen before adding, “We take care of our own.”
“Call me for anything you need.” Dylan tried to swallow. “Anything.”
“I will.” She sounded beyond sad. “I’ll call Belle and let her know.”
A rush of relief hit Dylan. He’d been dreading that phone call the most.
His gut tightened. He was such a chicken shit.
He clenched one hand on his desktop as he imagined Nate watching him, his disapproving stare burning into Dylan.
Dylan let out a long breath. “Thanks, Christie, but it’s my duty. I’ll call her.”
Christie hesitated. “Do you need her number?”
“I’ve got it.” He’d kept her number for a long time but had never called it. “Thanks again. I’ll talk with you soon.”
A sniffle. “Yes, soon.”
He touched the disconnect icon on his phone and stared at the mobile device. He’d called Leon, Tom, Marta, and now Christie. No one had taken it well, and Dylan knew they had to be feeling the same shock and ache of loss that he had in his own gut.
The only thing that matched Dylan’s pain was what he’d felt at his father’s death. Ben Curtis had been murdered when Dylan was in high school and there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t miss his dad. The man had been his hero, and larger than life. If Dylan hadn’t been bent on revenge over his father’s murder, he probably would have been a rancher just like his dad.
Dylan turned his gaze to his office window and stared out at the dark skies and pouring rain. It hadn’t let up since early that morning, as if grieving for his good friend, too. He’d need to call his mother and brother, Aspen, after he called Belle.
His gut churned again as he looked at his phone. It was the right thing for him to be the one to call Belle to let her know about Nate.
But then again, maybe she wouldn’t want to hear from him. It would probably be for the best if Christie were the one to call Belle.
Shit. Dylan clenched the phone harder. No, it was his job.
Goddamn, but he’d never been so indecisive or been known to shy away from anything.
But this was Belle.
Joe let out a long sigh, drawing Dylan’s attention to the dog that had lowered his head to his front paws. Thank God Leon had said he’d take Joe. Leon’s three kids were older and would like having a dog around. Leon said he’d come by Dylan’s office in a couple of hours to get Joe.
Dylan would have kept the shepherd, but with his job he was rarely at the ranch and Joe deserved better than that. Dylan had a ranch hand who took care of the livestock and kept an eye on things.
A knock came at the door and Dylan looked up to see Trace Davidson with his knuckles against the doorframe. Despite the fact that Trace, also a DHS agent, was a good friend, Dylan didn’t feel like talking to anyone at the moment. “You okay?” Trace asked.
“Yeah.” Dylan leaned back in his chair. “Fine.”
“If that isn’t a heaping load of bullshit, I don’t know what is.” Trace’s Texan drawl seemed more pronounced than usual. He stepped into the room and shoved his hands into his front pockets. His overshirt was slightly pushed aside, revealing his service weapon. “Nate was a good man. I’m sorry as hell to hear what happened.”
The ache in the pit of Dylan’s gut only seemed to grow worse. “That m
akes two of us.”
“I’ll let you get back to whatever you were taking care of.” Trace pulled his hands out of his pockets. “Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
Peachy. Fucking peachy.
“Thanks.” Dylan didn’t mean to sound as terse as he knew he had.
Trace gave Dylan a long hard look. “Call me if you need anything,” Trace said then walked out the door.
Dylan blew out his breath as he turned back to his phone.
He pulled up his contacts and found her name. Belle Hartford. As far as he knew, she hadn’t married, but there’d been spells where he hadn’t checked in on her. For all he knew, she could have married and kept her maiden name. He could have pushed harder, looked deeper into her life, but somehow that hadn’t seemed right.
Even though he knew he was stalling the inevitable by not calling Belle immediately, he reached into his back pocket. He grasped the postcard he’d forgotten about in his grief until Christie mentioned her own. It wasn’t like him to forget something so important, but today had been like no other.
He pulled the postcard out of its baggie and stared at the picture of Main Street in Old Bisbee, a colorful location filled with history. He flipped the card over and set it on his desk. He stared at his name and the address to his ranch scrawled on the right and then the note on the left. Nate could have sent an email, but he’d handwritten the note.
Once again Dylan read it. Two things stood out. The first was “Hey, remember when I served in Iraq?”
The second thing that bothered Dylan was that Nate had signed it “WYB.”
Dylan narrowed his gaze as he stared at the acronym he and Nate had used in school, back when they’d been young and had passed handwritten notes. Watch your back. That was long before the cell phones that kids now used to text each other.
What the hell did it all mean? Again, why would Nate write something so off, and why didn’t he just leave a voicemail while Dylan was undercover, or send an email?
Unless Nate was worried someone would overhear the call or read his email.
Why hadn’t Nate mailed the postcard? Maybe he hadn’t had time. Yet he’d had time to mail Christie one.
Had he sent postcards to everyone in the CoS? Tom, Marta, and Leon hadn’t mentioned it if they’d received anything. Of course they might have been too upset. Still, it seemed like an odd thing to not mention.
Dylan leaned back in his chair and stared through the open blinds to the window that looked out at the cubicles where support staff and some of the junior agents worked. The office was busy and it was almost like nothing had changed.
Over a year ago, the Jimenez Cartel had blown part of the DHS’s ICE building all to hell. Agents and support staff had been killed in the blast. More agents had been murdered while protecting a witness who had been set to testify against one of the key heads of the cartel.
The Feds had come down hard on the cartel, seizing assets, arresting key individuals, and making their lives a living nightmare. Diego Montego Jimenez, El Demonio, was out of the picture now. The Demon was no more.
Diego’s son, Alejandro, was also no longer a problem. Alejandro had been known as El Puño, The Fist, and the world was a better place without either one of them.
The remaining heads of the cartel had retreated, but no one was fooled. The Jimenez Cartel would be back in business, this time with Rodrigo Jimenez, El Verdugo, at the helm. It was only a matter of time before “the Executioner” would drive the cartel forward.
Dylan’s gaze returned to the postcard and again he tried to make sense of it. Finally, he put it into the center drawer of his desk and locked it.
He picked up his phone again and held his finger over Belle’s number. He pressed it and brought the phone to his ear.
CHAPTER 2
Belle Hartford tried to keep a smile on her face but let out a silent huff as she walked away from the upset patrons at table three. What a crappy day. Normally she didn’t believe in dwelling on the negative, but today was an exception.
First her car wouldn’t start and she’d had to call AAA. She’d had to buy a new battery, which she barely had the funds for now, without dipping into savings. She’d called the owner, Gerald, to let him know he’d have to open his wine bar/restaurant, D’Vine, himself. As usual, he’d been an ass.
She’d been in such a hurry to get to work that she’d gotten a speeding ticket, which she really couldn’t afford. Even traffic school would be expensive.
Once she got to D’Vine, she’d learned that a prep cook had called in sick and a server had broken her leg. Belle hadn’t been able to find anyone who could come in to take over their shifts.
And now table three. Just one more thing to pile onto all of the other problems that had come up at the restaurant since she’d walked in the door.
Belle’s long ponytail tickled her neck as it swished across her back while she strode to the kitchen. She walked through the swinging doors and headed toward the head chef, Gustav. He was a rotund man who was easygoing when not in his element, which was lording over the restaurant’s kitchen. Here he was hell to work with.
He barked orders to the prep cook then glanced at Belle. He narrowed his bushy brows, most likely reading her expression. “What is wrong?” he growled in a thick German accent.
She wasn’t about to let the big man intimidate her. “The guests at table three are complaining that each meal tastes like it was covered with the contents of a bottle of salt.”
Gustav flung out several German curse words and then some. Belle had been working with the chef for two months now, and even though she didn’t know the language, she had a pretty good idea of what he’d said just from his hand gestures.
She’d had enough today and she didn’t need to put up with Gustav’s crap. Yet she didn’t want him walking out on her either, something she’d had happen in the past. Managing a restaurant this size was like balancing on a high wire.
“Prepare new entrees for our guests.” Belle tried not to let her impatience show. She didn’t have the time or patience for a kitchen diva. “I don’t know what happened or if they’re complaining in hopes of a free meal or dessert. Just do it.”
Gustav glared at her. “I will see to every step myself.” He looked as if he was going to add more obscenities. Instead, he went to the computer and pulled up the meals he’d made for that table so he could prepare them again.
Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her favorite black slacks as she turned away from Gustav. She pulled the phone out and checked the display. It was an unfamiliar number with a southern Arizona area code. For a moment she thought about not answering—what if it was her stepfather? But she pushed that thought aside. He didn’t have her number and he hadn’t tried to contact her in twenty-three years. Why would he call now? He probably didn’t even know she was alive.
Maybe it was someone in the CoS. Marta or Leon or Tom? Nate and Christie she had programmed into her phone. It wouldn’t be Dylan. Definitely not Dylan. For all she knew it could be a solicitor or a political call. She’d had several of those from other states.
After the day she’d had so far, it would be nice to talk with one of her old friends, but which one could it be? She talked with Christie regularly and had talked with Nate a couple of times, but that was it.
She walked toward her office in the back as she pressed the answer icon and brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Hi, Belle.” A male said her name and she stilled. The voice was deeper but as familiar to her as her dreams of him. “This is Dylan.”
Dylan. It was Dylan. A sharp burst of pain shot through her chest at hearing his voice, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. “How did you get my number?” was the only thing that came to mind.
“I’m calling because I have bad news.” He sounded tired.
Her heart started thumping. “What kind of bad news?”
He hesitated. “Nate’s dead.”
“Oh, God.
” Belle’s skin went cold and all other thoughts left her mind as she tried to register what Dylan had just said. Almost robotically she walked into her office and closed the door behind her. “What happened?”
“He committed suicide this morning.”
“Suicide?” The word gripped Belle’s heart like a fist of ice. “Nate? I can’t believe that.”
“I was at the scene myself this morning.” Dylan spoke gently. “He hung himself.”
Belle leaned her back against the door and her legs didn’t want to hold her up any more. She slid down the door until her butt hit the floor, her knees bent. She’d been emotionally off balance when she’d heard Dylan’s voice, but now she felt numb to everything.
“Christie is making funeral arrangements and we’ll have a memorial,” Dylan said. Belle knew Christie always did better when she had a task to keep her busy. “She offered to call you, but Nate would have wanted me to.”
A tear rolled down Belle’s cheek as Nate’s death started to hit her as real. “I’ll drive to Bisbee tomorrow. I need to pull a few things together and then I’ll hit the road.”
“It’s a long drive from Houston,” Dylan said. “I can pick you up from the airport in Tucson if you’d rather fly.”
For a moment she wondered how he knew she was in Houston, but figured Christie had given him the information.
“Finances are tight and I’ll need a car to get around anyway.” Belle would also need money for a hotel, which meant she would have to take cash out of her savings for that and gas. It was times like this she was grateful to have a hybrid car that got nearly fifty miles to the gallon. She did a quick mental calculation to figure out how many gallons it would take to make a drive that was a thousand miles one-way.
“It’ll take me about fourteen or fifteen hours to get to Bisbee,” Belle continued, “so I’ll probably spend tomorrow night in Las Cruces, rather than driving straight through.”
“That’s good,” Dylan said. “Safer to get a good night’s sleep during a trip like that.”
She swallowed past the giant lump in her throat that had formed when she’d heard of Nate’s death. “Thank you for calling me, Dylan.” She was surprised she managed to say his name without falling apart even more than she was already.
No Mercy Page 2
