Page 55 of Honor ’N’ Duty

She shook her head.

Doing his best not to unduly damage the book, he slipped the tip of the knife between the front cover and the end paper, separating the two until he could peel the paper away. Nothing. He did the same with the back cover with the same results. Nada. Too bad. Kade had thought they were on to something.

Over the book, their eyes met, hers looking as disappointed as he felt.

“It was worth a shot.” She took the book from his hands. “I’ll see if Jamie has any glue.”

As he followed her down the stairs, Kade couldn’t help but notice her delicate calves or the gentle sway of her hips.

“Midnight shift?” Kade asked, taking in Deck’s change of clothes—black cargo pants, a matching black polo with the DEA badge embroidered on the left side of his chest, and a pair of heavy-duty, shit-kicking boots.

“Yep. Ready to rock ’n’ roll.” Thor’s big body quivered with a typical K-9’s excitement at the prospect of going to work. To Jamie, he said, “Thanks, man. It was a good day.” Jamie and Deck fist bumped.

Thor nuzzled Laia’s hand, then she leaned over to pet his head. “Goodbye, Thor.” She gave the dog one final pat. “Will we see you again before you leave?” she asked Deck.

“Depends.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket, and Thor trotted over and sat in front of Deck, his tail whipping back and forth on the tile floor. “In case you haven’t heard, the opioid crisis is at an all-time high, pardon the pun, in Denver. I might even get pulled off this detail early.” He opened the front door. To Laia, he said, “Kiss Rosa for me and Thor.”

She smiled. “I will.”

“Later, guys.” Then Deck and Thor were gone.

Jamie crossed his massive arms over his chest. “So what’s next for you two?”

“I’ll fill you in.” Kade hitched his head to the living room. Jamie joined him and sat in an overstuffed armchair, resting his forearms on his knees. Laia sat on the opposite side of the sofa from Kade, tucking her legs beneath her.

“I ran the tag we got off the Somerset Cable van,” Kade began. After dinner, he’d updated Jamie on the burglary at the Rumson house. “Comes back to a nonexistent company using a vacant lot smack dab in the middle of Newark as their address.”

Jamie grunted. Neither of them had actually expected that lead to pan out.

“I also called the Rumson PD and let them know there could be a connection to the Colon Cartel and the burglary in their jurisdiction. The chief said they had no leads.”

“What can I do to help?” Laia asked.

“Nothing.” Mainly because he wanted to keep her as far as possible from whatever went down next.

“What do you mean nothing?” She swung her legs out from under her. “I can’t just sit around and wait for the cartel to make their next move.”

Now probably wasn’t a particularly wise moment to tell her how beautiful she looked when she was angry. Or happy. Or sad. Or… To him, she was beautiful all the time.

“You’re not doing nothing,” he countered. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got the most important job of all—being Rosa’s mother.”

He could tell the instant his voice of reason struck home. Laia sat back, crossing her arms, but the wind seemed to have been taken out of her sails and she visibly deflated.

“We won’t stop working on this until we find what the cartel is after and turn it over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

“What if we never find anything?” she asked. “Does that mean we can never go home? We can’t just keep running from house to house.”

“The lady has a point,” Jamie said. “What’s your backup plan?”

Leave it to Jamie to get to the heart of the shitstorm. Kade did have a backup plan, but it was risky, and he needed to give it lightyears more consideration. Too bad he didn’t have lightyears.

“Working on it.”

“Can you at least enlighten us?” Laia asked. “I’d really like to feel as if we’re getting somewhere.”

“Like I said. Working on it. Everything needs to be done by the book.” He understood her impatience, but the fewer people who knew what he was planning the better.

Jamie arched a brow but remained silent. Initially, Kade had planned on recruiting Jamie to back up his backup plan, but his idea was so monumentally insane that he wasn’t sure involving his friend was a good idea. No sense both of them getting their asses handed to them. Or killed. Because, yeah, on the risk factor scale, ten being the riskiest, this hairbrained plan ranked a solid twenty.