Operation Power Play

by Justine Davis

  Rafe looked at Brett. “Ring any bells?”

  “Sort of. Rick used to take his daughter to the park a lot.”

  “This lake?”

  “Not sure. It’s a huge park. I know there’s a photo on his wall of both of them in front of a waterfall. From when Caro was a little girl. He said it was a place in the park she loved to go.”

  “Waterfall?” Tyler glanced at the other screen and quickly typed something, still talking as he did so. “That center is really a ranger station. It’s some historic old log cabin. But it’s not staffed until summer.” Tyler shifted his gaze back to his webcam, grinning. “No heat except a fireplace. Chickens.”

  “Say that again when one of those rangers takes down the bear coming after you,” Brett said mildly.

  “Bear? No, thanks. I’m a city boy.” He turned his attention back to the screen to his right. “Anyway, the rangers haven’t had a chance to get over there yet—they’ve got a search-and-rescue thing going on. I didn’t know you guys got hurricanes there.”

  Brett blinked. Rafe drew back slightly. But Sloan laughed.

  “Hurricane Ridge,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Ty said, grinning at her from the monitor, apparently liking that she got his quirky humor. “I guess they got some unexpected snow up there last night, and some hikers got lost.”

  “Snow is never unexpected up there,” Rafe said drily.

  “Hang on,” Ty said, waiting for something to appear on his other screen. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “That ranger station the car is at is also at the base of the trail to something called Marymere Falls.”

  “I’ve been there,” Sloan said. “It’s beautiful. A nice, easy hike, and close to the highway. It would be great for kids, even little ones.”

  Brett tried to rein in his suddenly recalcitrant mind, telling himself it was no business of his if she’d gone there with her husband.

  “Got a picture?” he asked Tyler.

  “Yep. Coming at you.”

  An image popped up on the wall monitor. A tall waterfall, narrow at the top, widening as it hit rocks toward the bottom and spread out and flowed downward.

  The waterfall Rick and Caro had posed in front of years ago, when she was indeed that kid.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  “Nice work, Ty,” Rafe said. Cutter woofed as if in matching approval.

  “Thanks,” Ty said with a laugh. “Both of you. But there’s more. On that Mead guy.”

  “Go.”

  “It’s not much, just something interesting. He was on the visitors log at the governor’s office in the capitol thirty-two times in the last year alone.”

  “Two hundred miles round trip nearly three times a month is a bit much even for a best friend,” Brett said.

  “And one more thing,” Ty said. “A dozen of those times, that other guy you mentioned, Franklin, was with him.”

  Brett stifled a groan. He did not like the way this was heading.

  “Thanks, Ty,” Rafe said.

  “Sure. I’ll be in touch if anything new drops.”

  “Well, now,” Rafe said after he’d signed off and the monitor went dark. “What business would a small-county department manager have that would take him to the governor’s office every month?”

  “Good question,” Brett said. “I kind of doubt Mead took him along just for the company.”

  “You said the county administrator is an old friend of the governor?” Sloan asked.

  Brett nodded. “College. So he has reason to be there. But Franklin?”

  “Maybe his business was building his profile,” Sloan said.

  “Becoming known in the halls of power?” Rafe mused aloud.

  “A certain kind of man, that’s addicting,” she said. “Or maybe he’s got future plans.”

  And she would know, Brett thought. Smart as she was, she’d probably learned very quickly to tell honest public servants from those who just wanted the power when she’d been neck deep in that political swamp.

  “But that’s not important now,” Sloan said. “Your friend is. I don’t like that his car is there but he’s not.”

  Brett had an odd tangle of reactions to her words. He was warmed that she was putting Rick first even though she’d never met the man but chilled at the implication of her words, even though he’d already thought what she was likely thinking herself.

  But there it was. Rick’s situation was bleak—he had seemingly vanished, and now his car turned up empty at a remote place where he and his daughter were once happy? It had all the hallmarks of an ugly possibility.

  “We should go there,” she said. “Look for him.”

  Brett opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. We?

  “Good idea,” Rafe said. “Sounds like it will be a while before the rangers can get there.”

  “It’s about an hour-and-a-half drive, depending on the weather. The lake’s a lot lower elevation than Hurricane Ridge, so it should be okay, but I’ll check.” She pulled out her phone and tapped an icon.

  “Damn. If Quinn or Teague were here, they could fly you in,” Rafe said. “You’d have more daylight.”

  “If we leave right away, we should still have a couple of hours. I’ll drive, since my car’s here.” Sloan looked up from her phone. “And it looks like no snow there, just rainy.”

  “I’d go with you,” Rafe said, “but I’m meeting with Drew Kiley in an hour to pick his brain on that builder.”

  Brett’s gaze went from one to the other as they took over the planning like a practiced advance team.

  “We’ll have Cutter,” Sloan said. “I’m sure he’ll be helpful.”

  Rafe nodded. “He’s a good tracker. Let him sniff around the car, then be ready.”

  Both of them suddenly seemed to realize he hadn’t said a word and turned to look at him.

  “Don’t mind me,” he muttered. Well, that sounded childish.

  “I didn’t mean to take over—” Sloan began, stopping when he waved a hand.

  “I just need to make a call,” he said.

  He dialed Lieutenant Carter, who answered on the first ring.

  “Whatever you did, Mead loves you now,” she said.

  “My life’s goal,” he said drily, then got right to it. “That personal thing I mentioned? I’m going to need some time for it.”

  “Wow, here’s a first. Brett Dunbar, the guy who never even takes a vacation day, asking for personal time?”

  “It’s getting complicated.”

  “Anything major on your desk?”

  “Nothing that won’t keep for a couple of days. Or Will can handle it.”

  “All right. You’ve certainly got the time coming. Take what you need.”

  And that easily, he’d locked himself into a road trip. With Sloan Burke at the wheel and a too-clever canine in the backseat.

  Somewhere along the line, he’d lost control. And he didn’t know whether to be worried or delighted.

  Chapter 17

  “Jason thought about going for submarine duty,” Sloan said as they hit midspan on the bridge crossing the canal that led to the submarine base several miles to the south.

  She didn’t know why she’d said that. Except that she’d been thinking a lot about Jason lately. Probably because this thing with Aunt Connie and the county felt like the same kind of fight, on a much tinier scale.

  It certainly had nothing to do with the man sitting in the passenger seat. She was wondering why she’d done that, too. She drove on, noticing that today, as was often the case, the water on one side of the floating bridge was smooth and glassy, while the other side was choppy. Sort of like her life, before and after this had all started. She’d finally achieved that calm, that internal quiet sh
e’d been striving for since Jason’s death, and then it all got torn apart. Beginning when a man and a dog had literally run into her world.

  She glanced at him. “You would have done this anyway, right? Gone to look for him?”

  “Yes.”

  That much was a relief.

  “I’m sorry I inserted myself into—”

  “Don’t be.”

  “You don’t mind me driving?”

  He shrugged. “Your car, and you’ve been where we’re going. I haven’t.”

  So he wasn’t a control freak, she thought, filing that bit of knowledge away even as she refused to admit why.

  Since she was driving—carefully, because it was raining and they were floating mere feet above the chilly water of the canal—she couldn’t study him as she’d like. But his tone was at odds with his reassurance; he sounded...not angry, but tense. No, that wasn’t right either.

  “You’re worried,” she said finally, glancing once more.

  “Yes,” he said, and she liked that he didn’t try to deny it.

  “You’re wearing the same expression Uncle Chuck always had when things got particularly nasty.”

  There was a moment of silence again, and she had just decided she wouldn’t be the one to break it when he spoke.

  “Just how nasty did it get?”

  “At first, just warnings. Our governor’s personal bodyguard didn’t like me much, and he made it rather nastily clear.”

  “Personal bodyguard? The state people aren’t enough for him?”

  “He doesn’t own them. And by comparison he was fairly mild. Once we got to the upper DC level came the rape, death and dismemberment threats, a couple of actual burglaries to our hotel room, lots of stalking. Those who weren’t threatening me were hitting on me, with my husband barely six months gone. Nice town.”

  She thought she heard him say something vicious under his breath. Cutter made a low sound from the back that sounded uncannily similar in pitch. But she waited until they were off the bridge and headed up the hill on the other side before speaking again.

  “Looking back,” she said, “I’m sure they wished they had done it differently. Done something to shut me up early on.”

  She could almost feel his gaze on her. What was it about this man that made her so aware?

  “You might not have liked what they would have done.” His tone was as grim as his expression had been, so there was no mistaking what he meant.

  “You mean take me out? Oh, I’m sure they eventually wished they’d done that, too. Early.”

  “Before you became so well-known and they couldn’t risk it.”

  She smiled. He really did get it. “I’m sure many of them saw that as an opportunity missed. They really didn’t want it coming out that Jason and his whole team died because of them and their crooked scheme. Jason was going to go himself, alone—he would never ask his team to break discipline. But they insisted on going with him because they knew he was right. But those bastards wanted the world to think it was Jason’s personal failure, when in truth it was political scum at the top.”

  “Scum,” he said, “is too kind. And you are indeed a hero worth saluting.”

  She kept her eyes straight ahead, fighting the flush she felt rising in her cheeks. No matter how many times she told herself this wasn’t personal, any of it, she couldn’t seem to control her reactions around him.

  ...the first I’ve seen you react to.

  Aunt Connie’s words came back to her yet again. And she couldn’t deny them, not anymore. Brett Dunbar was the first man she’d reacted to in years, the first to make her question if her heart truly had been buried along with Jason.

  They’d talked about that just last night, she and her aunt.

  “You loved Jason, deeply,” she’d said. “But he’s gone, Sloan. You fought that good fight, and he would be incredibly proud of you. But you know he wouldn’t want you to stay alone forever.”

  She did in fact know that. At Jason’s insistence, they’d had that discussion, given the nature of his work. Not out of any sense of foreboding or premonition, just the simple fact that it was entirely possible every time he left he might never come back.

  “If it happens,” Jason had said, “don’t you dare forget me. But don’t you dare spend the rest of your life mourning me either. Move on. Find somebody to love and who loves you the way you deserve. I will have died for nothing if you live alone and unhappy.”

  She hadn’t been unhappy. The fight had gotten her through the worst of it, she supposed, in the way having children to look after got others through it. If she’d had nothing, no distraction, she didn’t know what she would have done, how she would have handled it. But she’d had the fight, and that battle had driven her and left her no time to be unhappy.

  But she hadn’t been happy either. It was more a sort of numbness that evolved into a quiet routine that was soothing in its own way. And then one day she’d awakened and realized just how much time had passed.

  “Sloan?”

  She snapped back to reality, wondering how long she’d been driving in that sort of autopilot mode. “Sorry. I was just thinking how surprised I was every time I realized it had been another year since my husband was killed.”

  The moment the words were out she regretted them. She was sounding like a woman living in the past, unable to let go.

  “The years go fast. It’s the days that crawl.”

  Her breath caught in her throat at the simple accuracy of that observation. And with abrupt certainty, she knew that this man knew exactly whereof he spoke. He had lived it, just as she had.

  “Who was it?” she asked, her voice quiet.

  He didn’t speak, and after a long silence she doubted he was going to. Cutter stirred in the back, making a noise that wasn’t quite a whine, more of a sigh. Almost as if he was as frustrated as she was. Her past was, by its nature, an open book. Brett Dunbar was a mystery with a locked cover.

  I know the feeling, my furry friend. He’s a prickly one.

  “Never mind,” she said, careful to keep her tone even. “This isn’t some therapy session, where I share my sad story and expect you to share yours.”

  In the instant she glanced at him anew, she saw surprise in his lifted brow and the tiniest quirk in one corner of his mouth.

  She drove on for some time, enjoying the familiar yet long-untaken drive through the trees and rolling hills and glimpses of blue water, passing turnoffs to places she’d once enjoyed visiting. Perhaps she should do that again when all this with the property was settled. It would be hard. It always was, going places she had gone with Jason, but if she had cut all that out of her life, she indeed would never go anywhere or do anything.

  “You don’t mind silence, do you.”

  She flicked her gaze sideways at him. It hadn’t really been a question, but she answered anyway. “Spend enough time with blowhards who never shut up, and you treasure silence.”

  He smiled at that.

  Whether the snow at higher elevations had scared people off or it was simply the time of year and the fact it was a weekday, there was no one else there when they pulled into the parking lot near the ranger station that served as a visitors center. The lot was empty except for a blue sedan parked at one end of one of the drive-through double car spaces. She pulled up next to it.

  Cutter was instantly on his feet and demanding to be let out. Sloan glanced at Brett, who nodded, indicating it was Rick’s car. They got out, Cutter darting around them at a run as they walked toward it.

  The dog sniffed at the car the way she’d seen the bomb-detection dogs do in line for the ferry. It was older but spotless. No dings or dents, and the paint was in good shape. What she could see of the inside was tidy—only a paper coffee cup in the cup holder to the right of the driver’s
seat and a blanket folded neatly in the backseat.

  Brett tried the driver’s door. Locked.

  “Would he?” she asked. “Lock it, I mean. If he...” She let the words trail off. This was a friend of his, after all.

  “If he wasn’t planning on coming back?” Brett said. She should have known. Not as if he didn’t have lots of practice facing the uglier facts of life.

  “Might. People at that point aren’t thinking straight anyway. He could have done it without even realizing it, force of habit. And I can’t say it’s impossible. But Rick adores his daughter, and I can’t picture him leaving her alone after all they’ve been through.”

  “All right. I just wanted to be prepared.” And she was speaking from an unpleasant wealth of experience. Too many she met in her current work couldn’t endure what they went through. “Suicide is a particularly awful thing.”

  “I know.”

  There was an undertone in his voice, a grim-sounding thing that told her he did indeed know. Was that what was behind his understanding of grief? Had there been a suicide in his life? Or had he merely seen too many of them in his years on the job?

  He was studying the car. After a moment he reached toward an inside pocket of his jacket. At that moment Cutter, who had been circling the vehicle, gave a sharp bark and took off at a run. He was headed toward the log building she could see set among the trees with a clear view down to the beautiful lake.

  “Guess my car burglary will have to wait,” Brett muttered, and started after the dog.

  Sloan followed. The two-story log cabin that also served as a visitors center was clearly unoccupied. Beside the glass-paned door there was a rack with brochures and maps, affixed just below a bulletin board with an announcement that the center would be staffed starting June 1. She was too far away to read any farther, and apparently they weren’t stopping; Cutter blasted past the station. And the sign that said pets were prohibited.

  “Oops,” she said. “Smart as he is, I guess he can’t read.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Brett said drily as they followed the dog. “He probably can—he just doesn’t consider himself anybody’s ‘pet.’”