Page 14 of Honor ’N’ Duty

The critical piece of missing evidence that could have been Josh’s get-out-of-jail-free card. Instead, it was the very reason he’d been murdered. That and his testimony.

He flipped off the lights. “I can’t be certain, but yeah. I think so.”

She sat on the bed. His bed. Another sight he’d never expected to see. “But why after all this time? The government looked for it. They searched our home, Josh’s office, every computer he ever touched. I even looked for it. How do we know there ever was a ledger?”

Without thinking, he sat on the bed, too close to Laia’s beautiful bare shoulders and sleek bare legs. All he had to do was reach out and he could caress all that soft, glowing skin. He swallowed, doing his best to focus on the wall over his bureau. “Every accountant keeps a ledger of some kind somewhere. Even money launderers have one. They answer to the person they’re working for and have to keep track of all incoming and outgoing funds.”

“I know that,” she said. “I used to be an accounts manager. But why do they think I have the ledger?”

Kade followed the movement as she pressed a hand to the tops of her breasts. Clearing his throat, he forced himself to look away. “I don’t know. Josh has been gone for two years. Fernando Colon has to know the government never found any trace of a ledger, or he would have been slammed with a significantly longer prison term.”

“I never really understood something.” She pivoted to face him, bending one leg on the mattress and giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her tanned, bare thigh. “Fernando Colon was already sent to prison. He was charged and convicted of many crimes. What does the ledger have to do with him getting sentenced to more time?”

“Jail time isn’t determined solely by the crime itself. Other things factor in, such as laundering large amounts of money that was the proceeds of manufacturing, importing, or distributing narcotics. The more money involved, the more jail time. That’s the way the federal sentencing guidelines work.”

“Just how much money do you think Josh was laundering for the cartel?”

So much that even if his brother had lived and turned over his ledger to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in exchange for leniency, he still might have received several years in jail himself. Or been forced to go into the Witness Security program.

But Laia didn’t need to know that.

“Enough to send Colon away for over twenty years,” he answered.

Her eyes widened. “No wonder he wants the ledger.”

“Exactly.” But why now, and why did Colon think she had it? Something must have happened, something to trigger that belief and push him to break into Laia’s home and have her followed.

“I’d better go downstairs and feed Smoke.” And put some distance between him and Laia. Kade pushed from the bed and went to the door, turning at the last second. “I’ll figure out what’s going on, and in the meantime, I’ll keep you and Rosa safe. I promise.”

Smoke met him in the kitchen, prancing and panting as he anxiously awaited his gourmet meal of kibble and ground beef. After setting his dog’s dinner on the floor, Kade shoved his hands in his pockets and went into the hallway.

Staring back at him from the wall were family photos. Four generations of Sampson military men. Him and Josh on their graduation days at West Point. Their father during the Gulf War. Their grandfather in Vietnam. And their great-grandfather in World War II. Fighting for this country and doing the right thing was ingrained in him straight down to the cellular level.

Kade touched his fingers to the faded, graying image of his great-grandfather in the South Pacific during the war. Beneath the photo was the proverb: A hundred years cannot repair one moment’s loss of honor.

Kade and Josh had never met their great-granddad, but that phrase had been kept alive by their grandfather and father. Their father, in particular, loved reminding them of those words every time they did something wrong. Which, when they were kids, seemed like pretty much all the time. Yet it had been Grandpa who’d turned out to be the most hardcore of them all.

Great-granddad fought directly under General Douglas MacArthur. Both Kade’s great grandfather and grandfather had attended MacArthur’s retirement at West Point. Duty. Honor. Country. “Three hallowed words,” as MacArthur had said in his speech that day, “that reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be.”

Kade looked at the photo of the man he’d revered and feared. Grandpa Mike had taken the eye-for-an-eye thing to extremes, pitting one grandson against the other in fistfights meant to teach life lessons and that had often ended with Kade and Josh bruised and bloodied, lying on the ground while their grandfather towered over them spewing: Never let your heart interfere with your honor or duty. If you do, you will fail.

He rested his hands on the wall on either side of Grandpa Mike’s photo and stared into the eyes of a man who’d died only last year at the age of eighty-seven. Seemed like Kade’s whole life had been centered around honor and duty and still was.

As he had the day Laia had married his brother, Kade would continue doing the honorable thing and keep his confused feelings in check because there were more important things that took priority, and failing wasn’t an option.

If he did, Laia and Rosa could get caught up in the same deadly game that killed his brother.

His heart pounded furiously in his chest.

They already were caught up in that game, and it was up to him to keep Laia and Rosa alive.

Chapter Four

After unpacking the meager clothes she’d brought with her, including her favorite green satin-and-lace nightie, Laia stacked her toiletries on the bathroom vanity’s exquisite granite counter. She looked around at all the glistening, natural finishes. This bathroom was every bit as gorgeous as the one in hers and Josh’s Rumson house. And the tub…

She sighed, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. Prosecutors had concluded that Josh had comingled his equity in the house with drug cartel money he’d received in exchange for his “laundering” services. The beautiful house, along with everything in it, had been seized by the government. Worse, she’d made a critical error after marrying Josh—she’d comingled her own accounts with his, thereby tainting every cent she’d earned. As a banker, she should have known better.

In the end, she’d been left with virtually nothing. The only thing she’d been able to make a buck on was Josh’s Jaguar, and the only belonging she’d kept from their house was the small wood dinghy he’d planted in the backyard for Rosa to play on. The government hadn’t wanted that. Gee, go figure.