Operation Power Play Read online

  The hill was still a challenge, at least to maintain his steady pace. He focused on that, telling himself it was unlikely Sloan would be there, or if she was, she wouldn’t be outside. Then again, it was one of those rare severely clear winter days that taunted with the promise of spring and generally drew everyone in the Northwest out to bask in that infrequent visitor, the sun. There had been more people out on the trail than he’d seen in a month.

  So maybe Sloan Burke would be outside, maybe pruning those roses of her aunt’s or something. Or did you do that this time of year? He knew next to nothing about gardening. He could tell an apple tree from an evergreen, but that was about it. Flowers were beyond him, except for the purple crocuses that were the first harbinger of spring and were even now beginning to pop up in some protected areas. But once you got past those and roses and daisies, he was reduced to colors. And according to Angie, he’d been helpless at that, too. Women had more names for colors than there were colors, he thought. They—

  Cutter burst into a run, tail up and bouncing happily. In seconds he’d rounded the corner and was out of sight.

  Brett knew long before he made it to the corner himself. She was there.

  She was sitting on the front steps, lacing up a pair of lightweight boots, as Cutter raced up to her. Brett picked up his pace, kept his eyes focused on her as she greeted the dog. When she straightened up, her bangs had fallen forward, nearly masking her right eye behind a red-gold curtain. He found it oddly appealing, sexy somehow. Not that she needed that to make her sexy.

  She had looked unhappy until she’d seen the dog, he thought. He hoped nothing else had gone wrong.

  A smile curved her mouth as she reached out to pet the dog.

  Lucky dog.

  Damn. Where had that come from?

  By the time he caught up, Cutter was fairly wiggling with obvious delight at her touch. And Brett was thinking he didn’t blame the dog one bit.

  She stood up as he came to a halt.

  “He got that wild hair again,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I think I needed a bit of doggy cheer this morning.”

  So he’d been right about her unhappy expression.

  “Problem?”

  She gave a one-shouldered shrug as she shook her head. “Nothing to bother you with. You’ve already done enough. Did you talk to your friend?”

  “Not yet. He’s lying low, apparently.” He didn’t expand. It really wasn’t his place to broadcast Rick’s personal problems. “And his boss wasn’t much help.”

  “If he’s the same guy we ran afoul of, I’m not surprised.”

  “Is that it? The application?” he guessed.

  “It was denied.”

  “Why?”

  She gave him a sideways look. “Trust me—you don’t want to get me started on that absurdity.”

  Cutter made a small sound that drew his gaze. The dog was giving him that look again. Apparently he did want to get her started. Brett sighed inwardly. This was the most insane thing. Letting the dog choose their route was one thing; letting him control conversations and actions was...well, crazy.

  And yet he said it. “Tell me.”

  She gestured up the hill behind the house. “They said there’s a wetland area up there. And that is, pardon the word, bu...unk.”

  He nearly laughed at her asking pardon for the innocent word until he realized the hesitation and shift midword meant she had been about to say something else less socially acceptable. Then he did laugh.

  “So there’s no wetland?”

  “I grew up in this house. I know every inch of that land up there because I played there almost every day. There has never been anything even remotely close to the proper definition of a wetland.”

  He glanced at her feet. “I gather you’re about to head up there?”

  “With my camera.” She gestured at a small digital camera on the top step next to where she’d been sitting. “I want video proof there’s no such thing before I take them on.”

  Cutter turned and sat down at her side, waiting.

  That she would indeed take them on was something Brett didn’t doubt for a moment. “I’m sure a small county official seems like nothing compared to the entire federal government and the armed forces.”

  She didn’t look at him. “I just did what anybody would have done.”

  “No,” he said. “Not everybody would have. Many would have given up, thought the fight too big.”

  She let out a compressed breath. “If they’d only told the truth, I would have been angry, but I would have eventually let it go. But they lied, then lied about the lies, then about those lies. So I kept on. I owed Jason that much. They owed him.”

  She picked up the camera from the steps. Cutter got to his feet. The dog was stuck to her like a barnacle. She glanced down at him, stroked his head, then looked at Brett.

  “I think he wants to go with you,” he said, his mouth quirking. “So I guess I do, too.”

  “You always let him decide?”

  “I’ve been told it’s best to just agree and cooperate,” he said wryly. “He’s a very unique dog.”

  “Obviously. Come on, then. I want to get this done before the sun decides to disappear again.”

  She started walking along the side of the house, headed toward the hill behind. Cutter trotted beside her, not even looking back, apparently confident he would follow.

  And why not? Brett thought. All his people followed his lead; why shouldn’t the dog think that he would, too?

  He started after them, wondering how boring his runs would be once Hayley and Quinn Foxworth got back and repossessed their uncanny canine.

  Chapter 11

  “That’s it?” Brett asked. “They’re calling that a wetland?”

  Sloan shook her head as she stared at the small puddle. All of a foot and a half across, it couldn’t constitute a “wetland” in any sane person’s mind.

  “Absurd as that is, it’s not the point,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “It’s never been here before. Ever. Not in thirty years, not in the rainiest of rainy seasons. And I would know.”

  She looked around at the landscape that was as familiar to her as her reflection in the mirror. She heard a rustling and looked back the way they’d come. Caught a glimpse of Cutter ranging through the woods below them on the hill.

  “He’ll be along,” Brett said. She looked back, caught him studying her rather intently. Something in that steady gaze unsettled her.

  Face it, the man unsettles you, she silently admitted. But then, Brett Dunbar could unsettle any woman with a pulse.

  “You really grew up here? With your aunt and uncle?”

  She nodded. “My parents were killed when I was seven. They took me in.”

  “I’m sorry. That was good of them.”

  She grimaced. “If you’d known my grandmother, who wanted to take me, you’d know it was more than good—it was lifesaving.”

  “Not the warm, fuzzy type, I gather?”

  “Hardly. I swear, she was the source of the phrase the evil eye.”

  He lifted a brow. “And I thought mine was bad.”

  She realized abruptly that she knew very little about him, that when they’d talked, it had been mostly about her. She wondered if that was because of the circumstances or his nature. Or maybe because of his job, he was used to always asking the questions.

  “Was she?” she asked, thinking it about time she turned those tables. Besides, she was curious. And, she told herself firmly, her curiosity had nothing to do with the fact that she seemed to go on hyperalert around him.

  “She was...a bit stiff. And appalled at me. She’d had only girls. And they were all very...” He stopped, looking a bit aw
kward.

  “Very what?” she asked, realizing with surprise that she was enjoying this.

  “Girlie,” he said, as if he’d searched for another word and failed.

  She laughed. “Some are, I’m told.”

  “Not you?”

  “Not since I was seven.”

  She saw him put it together. “Your parents’ deaths changed that?”

  “My mother wanted one of those girlie girls. I wasn’t one by nature and rebelled. Lord, I hated those frilly dresses!”

  He looked as if he couldn’t picture her, even as a child, in frills.

  “Don’t get me wrong—I loved her, but she wanted me to have her childhood over again. My aunt didn’t care as long as I was happy. Although I’m sure some people would think she let me run a little too wild.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “Oh, she was the font of dire predictions for my eventual fate.”

  And there she was, talking about herself again. What was it about this guy? If he got suspects to spill the way he’d gotten her to jabber, it was no wonder he was good at his job.

  “I’m glad you didn’t end up with her, then.”

  “As am I,” she said fervently.

  Cutter trotted over to them. He had a few dead leaves clinging to his coat, and Brett brushed them off as he spoke to the dog.

  “Find anything interesting?”

  Cutter let out a soft whuff, then lowered his nose to sniff at the small puddle of water.

  “Not sure you should drink that, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Brett said. “Not if we don’t know where it came from or why it’s here.”

  “You always talk to him like that? Instead of just saying ‘No’?”

  “It works,” he said, gesturing to the dog, who was not drinking but sniffing around the perimeter of the puddle as if looking for a better spot.

  “He does seem to understand.”

  “Frightening amounts,” he agreed.

  He watched the dog for a moment longer, then began to walk around the puddle himself. With each circuit he moved farther away from the water, always looking down at the ground. She could hear the faint rustle of the nylon running pants he wore today, wondered idly if he switched to shorts in the summer. Which led her to other thoughts she was better off not having racketing around in her mind.

  “Looking for something?” she asked.

  “A source. If it’s never been here before, there must be a reason it’s here now.”

  “I admit, it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been up here, but—”

  He stopped walking, looked straight at her. “You were up here that recently?”

  She nodded. “Looking at possible building sites. I came right through here and that—” she nodded toward the puddle “—was not here.”

  “Hmm.”

  What was that supposed to mean? He didn’t believe her? “It wasn’t,” she insisted.

  He drew back slightly. “I’m not doubting you. If you say it wasn’t here, it wasn’t here.”

  “Oh.” She sounded as abashed as she felt.

  He looked at her steadily for a moment. “I’m not one of them, Sloan.”

  She realized then she had reacted as if he were one of those overstuffed shirts back in DC. And that he knew it.

  “Just how much research on me have you done?”

  “Enough to come to admire you as I do few people.”

  Well, that neatly took the wind out of her sails. And now she didn’t know why she’d hoisted them in the first place.

  Cutter barked, short, sharp and sounding oddly commanding. Only then did she realize he was heading up the hill at a steady trot, his nose still to the ground.

  “Where’s he wandering off to?” she wondered aloud.

  “I don’t think he’s wandering,” Brett said. “That’s full intent.”

  “And so you follow?” she asked as he started after the dog.

  “I’m going to have to go get him anyway,” he said. Then, with a grimace, he added, “But based on his reputation, who knows what he’s on to?”

  She had to pick up her pace to stay even with his long strides. But she liked that he didn’t slow them for her, just took it for granted that she could keep up.

  “So how did a dog convince a detective that he’s worth following?”

  “Results,” he said. Then he smiled. “Well, that and the fact that none of us are entirely convinced he’s just a dog.”

  She laughed at that bit of unexpected whimsy from this man. And also unexpectedly, it made her feel good to know that despite the shadows that darkened his eyes, he could still find amusement in life. She remembered the first time she had laughed after Jason had been killed. It had shocked her, felt so foreign, and then filled her with guilt, as if it were a kind of betrayal of him to even be able to laugh. It had taken her a long time to get past that feeling.

  They caught up with Cutter when he stopped just below the road that ran along the top of the hill through a tract of large, expensive houses. He was nosing around again, and she wondered what creature had gone through here that was so fascinating to the dog.

  “Is this still their property?”

  “We’re right at the edge,” she said, pointing out the property peg a few yards away. “That’s the corner marker.”

  “Doesn’t seem like twelve acres.”

  She pointed to the west. “It goes that way from here. It’s an odd sort of L shape.”

  Cutter seemed to have settled on one spot to sniff, where the dirt looked less solid, as if some animal had already been digging around. That must be what had his attention, she thought.

  Brett looked up at the large house on the road. She followed his glance.

  “They wanted to buy this land when they were building those homes, but Uncle Chuck wouldn’t sell,” she told him.

  He looked back at her then, his brow furrowed. “Just how badly did they want it?”

  “Badly,” she said. “They actually offered a fair price for all of it except the acre their house sits on.”

  “No problem breaking it up, then?”

  She grimaced. “Not at all. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? But Uncle Chuck didn’t want to break it up then and didn’t need to. But I’ve wondered if—”

  She stopped. The theory that had occurred to her late one night was a bit out there.

  “You’re thinking there’s a connection between your uncle’s refusal to sell then and the refusal to allow him to divide the property now?”

  “I know it’s silly. That was a long time ago, at least five years. And it was the builder who wanted it, not the county, so why would the county care?”

  “Why indeed?” he said, looking back up at the house above.

  A sudden sharp bark made them both look at the dog. He was digging now, swiftly, front paws tossing dirt behind him. And all over him.

  “Uh-oh. He’s going to be a mess,” she said.

  The hole Cutter was working on was getting deep enough that the dirt at the top was starting to fall back in. The dog growled in obvious frustration, then stopped and looked at Brett.

  “Hey, this is your entertainment, not mine,” he said.

  Cutter barked sharply. He stared at Brett, then into the hole he’d excavated.

  “No way. It’s bad enough you’re a muddy mess. I’m not—” He broke off midsentence. “Muddy,” he muttered, and covered the three feet between them and the hole in one long stride.

  It took her a moment to get there. The dog was muddy now. And she realized suddenly that the dirt he’d been digging up had gotten muddier the farther he’d gone. Wetter.

  Water.

  Brett was kneeling beside the hole. And contrary to his declaration, he
began to shove some of the dirt to the side to keep it from falling back into the hole. The moment he’d done that, Cutter dived back into the hole and began digging again. The cycle happened once more, Brett clearing, the dog digging, until they were down at least two feet.

  And in the hole water was streaming, underground, headed directly downhill.

  Sloan turned to look downhill. They were a straight line up from the previously nonexistent puddle.

  “Son of a—”

  Her head snapped back around. Brett was truly muddy now, but he didn’t seem to care. He was staring sideways into the hole, and she realized Cutter had uncovered something else.

  A water pipe. The kind she’d often seen piled on city or county trucks.

  Only this one was leaking. Streaming, actually.

  “That’s it!” she exclaimed. “I knew there was something really wrong. This isn’t any natural wetland. That’s why it was never there before.”

  “So it appears,” Brett said from his rather contorted position on the edge of the hole. He was still staring at the pipe and then reached out to touch it, clearing mud away from the spot the water seemed to be coming from.

  She grabbed her camera. “Oh, I’m going to like telling them it’s their own broken pipe causing this. I hope they feel stupid.”

  “Hang on, Sloan.”

  “Oh, I know, I have to wait until Monday, but I’m still going to love it.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” Brett straightened up then. Lord, he was as muddy as the dog. She should offer him a chance to clean up. An image, sudden and vivid, of Brett Dunbar naked in her shower sent a shot of heat through her that nearly made her knees buckle.

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

  React? she thought as Aunt Connie’s words echoed in her mind. More like combust. Spontaneously.

  It had been so long she was stunned at herself. She couldn’t even look at him, for fear it would show in her face. And she already knew he didn’t miss much, trained detective that he was.

  Belatedly she noticed he hadn’t spoken again. She struggled to remember what he’d said last, before that vivid picture had fried her circuits.

  “What did you mean?” she finally got out.