Primal Force

by D. D. Ayres

  “Nice to see that you’re keeping your body clean.”

  Law grinned wide as he lifted the massive burger to his mouth. “I’m on furlough. What about you? You heard from him lately?”

  Yardley’s face went blank as she reached for her fork.

  Law watched her while he chewed. They didn’t need familiarity to sense trouble in each other. “Has it been more than a month?”

  “Almost two.” She was still staring straight ahead.

  “He works for Doctors Without Borders, right? Why aren’t his people talking to you?”

  “I don’t have to right to ask them anything about him.”

  Law knew what that meant. Yardley wasn’t listed on the guy’s who-to-call-if list.

  “What about your spook grapevine?”

  She shook her head. “The usual channels aren’t open to me.”

  Law almost asked why before his own covert experience kicked in. She couldn’t ask because most likely he wasn’t listed “on paper” as being wherever the hell he was.

  Yardley had mentioned she was seeing a guy when she’d visited him months ago. Which had shocked him. Like him, she kept her personal life personal. Her private life was downright classified. Even now, he knew nothing about the guy beyond the fact that he worked for Doctors Without Borders. Yardley wouldn’t say what he did, or even his name. But the fact that this mystery man owned Yardley’s heart told Law all he needed to know about the guy. He had to be a stand-up, dedicated prince of badassery.

  Yardley wasn’t likely to fall for a doctor. Law suspected the man worked security, off the record, for the organization that by its very nature struggled to remain independent and neutral, not part of any government or international system. They didn’t work first-world places. More like third, fourth, and falling-off-the-map places.

  Now he was missing in some godforsaken shithole in the remotest part of one of the most dangerous places in the world. Two months was a long time to be out in the cold. Yard was worried. Now he was, too.

  Law looked down at his empty plate feeling bad for having brought the subject up. Yard was hurting and he had nothing to offer her private pain but respect.

  He didn’t bother with the usual He’ll turn up or He’s going to be fine. Those words would be wishful thinking at best. There was nothing he could do to help. He wasn’t even certain he could save himself, at the moment.

  His mind slid into his own misery. He’d walked out on Jori. And that, he was discovering, was going to bother him worse than the itch he’d gotten to scratch.

  “You seeing anyone?” Yardley was studying him now with the interest of a K-9 on the scent.

  Why had he mentioned relationships? He never talked about his. Then he remembered Yardley had talked with Jori when she answered his phone. Time to cover up.

  “Usual story. She kicked me out.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  “You helped. Thanks for being all mysterious on the phone with her.”

  Yardley chewed a forkful of salad to give herself time to think. She’d spent her professional life working with highly disciplined, highly motivated professionals, mostly men, in law enforcement and the military. Sometimes those who partnered with her highly intelligent, highly motivated animals were more in need of TLC than their canines. Dogs were better at getting what they needed than many of their human counterparts. First-responder handlers, always the ones turned to in a crisis, learned to tuck their emotions away while they coped with the needs of others. Those without strong family ties sometimes lost the ability to relate to their own needs.

  Her brother wasn’t even on the map about his own feelings. Once he’d thought he was invincible. Now that life had shown him otherwise, he was hurting in a way that might just destroy him.

  Of course, she couldn’t very well point that out. He wouldn’t thank her for it. He might even walk out. He’d done so before, most memorably at the reading of their father’s will eight years ago. His final words had stayed with her, along with a certain amount of guilt.

  He didn’t give a shit for me when I was alive. I don’t need shit-all from him now.

  Law had refused the inheritance of Harmonie Kennels and never looked back. Her good fortune, but her brother’s loss. No one, especially Law, needed to be alone forever.

  She’d seen that micro expression of hurt when she’d mentioned the woman. Maybe she threw him out, or maybe he ran. Either way, he wasn’t happy about it. And that might just be the best news of all.

  If Law was emotionally involved, even if he saw it as a negative, that was more than enough to work with for a smart woman willing to do the mining of the heart of a difficult man. A woman who trained dogs would know how to work with Law’s nonverbal way of dealing with his emotions.

  Yardley reached over and snagged one of his onion rings. “What was wrong with her?” Law looked confused by the question, but she knew it was a dodge. “The woman who threw you out.”

  It took Law a split second to choose the most offputting fact about Jori. “She’s an ex-con.”

  Yardley broke into laughter. “Oh my God. You’ve turned into a prude. I remember a time during your teens when Dad bailed you out regularly.”

  Law sent her a hooded look. “I liked you better as a distant relation. Far distant.”

  Yardley shrugged. “I’ll remember that the next time you ask for a favor.”

  Law’s interest quickened. “So where’s the file?”

  “At home. And we’re going to finish this meal before we go there. So, dig in.”

  Law stuffed his mouth with his burger as his thoughts wandered to Jori.

  She’d told him she’d be fine. But he couldn’t forget the image of her tangled in the sheets, wearing two different-colored socks and nothing else. The image burned through him like molten glass. Thinking of her equaled a hard-on. Nothing had changed because he now knew how it felt when she came with him buried to the balls inside her. No, wait, it had.

  He closed his eyes briefly. It had felt so damn good he wanted to cry.

  “She’s too nice for me.”

  Law glanced up, expecting laughter from Yardley, but she was just staring at him with a thoughtful expression. “She’s a sweet girl who caught a bad break.”

  He was pretty sure of that even though he’d stopped short of reading the newspaper about her trial that he called up on his notebook while waiting for his flight. What was he going to do with anything he learned about her? He didn’t plan to see her again. He’d deleted the article unread. But Yardley was looking at him as if she knew he’d been tempted. “What?”

  “You think she wasn’t guilty.”

  “It doesn’t matter, either way.” That much was true.

  Yardley waited for him to continue. Instead, Law pulled an onion ring from his pile and offered it to Sam. The dog scarfed it down without chewing then sat up and nosed his thigh, hopeful of another bite.

  Law broke off a portion of his burger patty and placed it on a napkin before putting it on the floor for Sam. One thing he’d discovered about his new companion, Sam liked to eat.

  “Are you going to tell me about her?”

  Law hunched a shoulder. “I got this damn doodle because of her. Sam’s a lot like her trainer.”

  “You mean she’s friendly, cute, down-to-earth, good-natured, patient, and constantly evaluating and adjusting to your moods? I can see why you wouldn’t want to be around her. Sounds like a horror of a woman.”

  Law frowned at his plate. “I don’t like me around her.”

  “And that means?”

  “I was … not kind.”

  “Oh.” Yardley swallowed her smile. Being rude had never been a problem for her brother before. “The way you left it between you, do you think she’ll call if she decides she wants to see you again?”

  He sent her a hard look. “I didn’t give her my number.”

  Yardley sat back, watching him eat but saying nothing more. She didn’t know her half brother very
well. Growing up, they’d only had contact for a few weeks a year. Their father purposely didn’t want his children to be too close.

  It had nothing to do with their different mothers. Bronson Battise’s philosophy was that if a man couldn’t stand alone, he wasn’t a man. Women were something to protect and enjoy as long as a man was interested, but no more important than that. And just as easily discarded.

  Yardley had suffered through that philosophy, becoming as much like a son as Bronson Battise would allow. It had never really occurred to her until now that Law had suffered, too.

  She’d always thought her brother was a carbon copy of their father. A man’s man whom no woman would ever tie down for long. But maybe, beneath that Battise exterior, beat a different kind of heart. Perhaps Law was like her. He had learned to cover up his softer self the way she had, for protection.

  She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and propped her chin on her fists. “It’s okay to need someone in your life, Law. It’s better than okay. I’m beginning to believe I deserve someone, too.”

  Law regarded her with a wary gaze. “You ever wonder if there are more of us Battises out there?”

  “You mean beside the two of us Dad acknowledged? Yeah. I’m sure of it.”

  Law nodded. “When I was about twelve a woman and her daughter came to the reservation to visit. My mother wasn’t very kind to the mother. The girl, nine years old if I remember right, liked to hang around me. Something about her seemed so familiar. The vibe coming off her said kin.”

  Yardley nodded. “I loved Dad but he was a bastard. We aren’t him.”

  Law slid her a hard glance from beneath his brows. “I met a woman I wanted. I scratched my itch and left. Don’t read anything more into that.”

  “If that’s all you think it was, you wouldn’t have mentioned her to me.”

  Law couldn’t argue with most of that. But he wasn’t about to own it. He scratched his chin whiskers. “Think I’ll shave.”

  Yardley grinned. He was changing the subject. That meant she’d gotten through to him. “Good beginning. If you’re done, let’s go home.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Law hesitated. The manila envelope of paperwork Yardley had received was lying on the kitchen table of her cabin in front of him. Did he have the guts for the truth? Screw that! Scud was dead. He was a cripple. Nothing on paper could hurt more than those two realities. He tore open the envelope.

  He devoured the pages with an intensity that didn’t allow for blinking. Every word seared his retinas, but he couldn’t stop or think or do anything except get to the end. When he did, his jaw was clenched so tightly his back teeth ached.

  Suddenly he shot to his feet, flinging the paperwork across the table.

  “The cowardly bastards!”

  “I told you, you wouldn’t like it.”

  Law looked over at Yardley. “My own unit shot my dog.” His voice was harsh, as if a hot wind had blown over his vocal cords, leaving them husk-dry. “The bastards killed Scud.”

  Yardley watched him closely. “I was told Scud was shot because he wouldn’t let them near you. The men were worried that you’d bleed out before another handler could be summoned to help.”

  “That can’t be right. Scud knew every man in my unit.”

  “He was wounded, Law. You read the report. He might have been too traumatized to recognize them. His Alpha was down. He was scared and in protection mode.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Law, you need to let this go. It’s over.”

  Law tried on her suggestion. Nothing he had read changed what he already knew. Only one new thing did register. Scud had died trying to protect him.

  Sensing the heightened emotional outpouring from her handler, Sam came over and pushed her head in under his arm.

  Law looked down, eyes narrowed. “Back off. Now.”

  Sam’s gaze rose to his face. After a brief stare-off in which her brows twitched constantly she lay down on his feet, no longer attempting to comfort him but refusing to back off.

  Yardley, too, took a cautious approach. “You’ve got that half-crazy-Cajun, half-inscrutable-Injun thing going on. You’re even scaring the dog.”

  Law glared at her. She held up both hands. “I’m just saying.”

  “I got nothing.” He waved at the paperwork for emphasis.

  “Maybe that’s all there is. Some things don’t have an upside. We both know that.”

  “There’s nothing else? What about the details of my wounding? There’s nothing here about that. I’ve always assumed we stepped on an IED. But it doesn’t say that here.”

  Yardley didn’t quite meet his gaze. “I was told some papers went missing from the field report.”

  Law knew that was code for cover-up. “So what? Was I hit by friendly fire?”

  She shrugged. “Afghanistan was chaotic in those days. The surge was under way. Troops moving quickly from area to area. Shortly after your incident, your unit left the area. A paper trail didn’t seem as important as tracking the enemy.”

  A muscle ticced in Law’s jaw. Yardley was trying to handle him. Soothe his irritation. Offer excuses. Which meant, she knew that whatever had really happened to him over there had been deliberately covered up. Nothing he could do now would change that. Except that Yardley was holding back. He could see it in the way she was sitting there a little too casual for the occasion.

  He straightened up and lasered his focus on her. “Tell me.”

  She hesitated, bringing her considerable determination to the sibling contest of wills. “Okay. I asked a few more questions. No one will officially verify anything I tell you. But there were originally eyewitness accounts. A couple of civvies found you first. American contractors.”

  She pulled a sheet of paper from beneath a book on the table and unfolded it. “I couldn’t get verification on the particulars, but through another connection I got the names of the contractors working the area where you were wounded.” She ran through the list.

  Law leaned forward to read over her shoulder. One name jumped out at him. “Tice Industries was in the neighborhood?”

  “You know the name?”

  Instead of answering, Law picked up and glanced again through the redacted paperwork he had scattered. There was nothing there about Tice Industries. Or why he was in that village on that particular day. But he had other, older memories to help him fill in some blanks.

  Frowning, he looked up. “Tice is an Arkansas company. There’s a history. Been on law enforcement’s radar since before my time with the state police. But they have money and connections in all the right places. Nothing ever stuck.”

  “What kind of nothing?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Yardley shook her head.

  Law was instantly alert. “What?”

  This time she just stared at the carpet.

  Law leaned toward her. “This paperwork doesn’t say why I was at that location. Command sent me and Scud out alone for a reason. I have to know what you know.”

  She nodded tightly. “I made another call, to a reporter who was in Afghanistan at the same time you were. I asked about civilian crime there. He sent me a link to a copy of an old USA Today report with a few lines highlighted.” She pulled it up on her tablet computer and pointed.

  The U.S. Army has investigated 56 soldiers in Afghanistan on suspicion of using or distributing heroin, morphine or other opiates during 2010 and 2011 … Eight soldiers died of drug overdoses during that time.

  “There are more stories on the Internet. Around the time of your wounding, a soldier in the Kentucky Guard died after using heroin allegedly bought from a civilian contractor. Ring any bells?”

  Law monitored his thoughts as he ticked off the points in his mind. Even in a theater of war, criminal investigations were done by Army Criminal Investigation Command. CID. Him. A drug investigation. Soldiers dying of drug overdoses. Civilian contractors involved in drug distribution. The words should have triggered more than a hunch. Tumblers shoul
d have fallen into place and unlocked his memory.

  Nothing.

  Law scraped a hand through his hair. “You done good, Yard. I appreciate it.”

  “What are you planning to do about this?”

  Ignoring her question, he pointed to the file. “This must have cost you.”

  “Let’s just say no one in Washington will be accepting my calls for a long while.”

  The mention of her secret sources reminded him that she’d possibly made herself vulnerable by helping him.

  “Do you trust those you’ve had contact with? This can’t blow back on you?”

  “I already thought of that, little brother. But what happened in Afghanistan is history. You’ll never pick up that trail.”

  “I don’t need to.” Tice was still in business in his backyard. If they were dirty before, they were dirtier now. “I just need to connect these new dots to the old, and wait.”

  “I don’t like that idea. You’re not the vigilante type. It’s not your problem.”

  “I am—was a cop. It’s my problem.”

  Law felt energized for the first time in four years. Something was now ahead of him, instead of it all behind him. He was a law enforcement officer, first, last, always.

  He stood up. “Guess I’ll need that desk jockey job at state police headquarters, after all.”

  Yardley picked up the pages and shoved them back in the envelope. “You said yourself Tice Industries is intertwined with political and law enforcement allies. You won’t know who to trust. You’ve been out of the loop too long.”

  Law didn’t answer. He knew one thing. He had to get Yardley off the case. For her own good.

  “Go back to your life, Yard. I got it from here.”

  “I did what you asked in the hope that answers would give you peace of mind. You sound more like I’ve given you fuel for a vendetta.”

  Law stared off in the middle distance. “Not your problem.”

  She stood up and put a hand on his arm. “About Scud. I’m sorry.”