Page 22 of Honor ’N’ Duty

The timing coincided too closely with when Laia started feeling as if she were being followed, then her house getting tossed. Colon’s release from prison had to be the trigger that set everything off. “Where’s Colon now?” Like Josh and Laia’s house, the fortified compound Colon had been living in had been seized by the government and sold off years ago.

“At his mother’s house.”

Kade snorted at the irony. One of the most powerful domestic drug cartel kings was living in a cop’s house.

Colon’s father had been an undercover police officer, one of the best in the state police, before he’d committed suicide. Considering Colon had managed to operate right under their noses, untouchable for over a decade, it was widely speculated that, through his father, Colon had learned crucial details about how police departments and government agencies worked. Colon’s father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew he’d unintentionally spawned a ruthless criminal.

Manny hitched his head to his cubicle. “If she really IDs one of Colon’s guys, then I’d say they’re after something, and we both know what it is.”

“The ledger.” Kade nodded, confirming the obvious. “But why now, and why right after Colon was released? His power base is still right here in New Jersey, always has been. Even in prison, he could have ordered his people to follow her and toss her new place years ago. We’re missing something.” Whatever it was, Laia and Rosa would remain in the line of fire until they figured it out.

“If she can ID one of Colon’s goons, I can get authorization to put some money on the street to try and come up with the answer.”

“I’ll do the same.” Even if the cash came from his own pocket.

He turned to head back to Laia when Manny stopped him.

“Hey, man. I know we searched the house, and we must have asked her ten times and ten different ways if she knew anything about a ledger, and she always said no. Is there any chance she was lying?”

Kade glanced at Manny’s cubicle. With his height, he could make out the top of her head as she focused on the monitor. In many ways, most in fact, they hardly knew each other. But his gut said she was telling the truth about this. “No. If she knew, she would have said so.”

“Are you sure?” Manny asked quietly. “Josh told his lawyer that he had a ledger, but he refused to say where it was. Then he requested to see his wife.”

“That doesn’t automatically mean she knew about it back then.” Kade crossed his arms. Manny was a top-notch investigator, but he was on the wrong track. “That ledger was Josh’s only chance of working out a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He might not have trusted his own attorney enough to make sure it made it into the right hands.”

Kade had learned after the fact that between the time when his brother had placed that call to Laia and her arrival at the jail, Josh had been murdered. To keep him from doing exactly what he’d planned on doing—squealing on Fernando Colon. It was the only chance Josh had of receiving a get-out-of-jail-free card. The only reason anyone knew about the ledger at all was because that lawyer had mentioned it to the prosecutor. Even after Josh was dead, they’d all looked for it.

As it had when he’d gotten word from the Marshals that his brother was dead, Kade’s breath caught in his throat, and he could barely breathe. He’d been the first of his family to view the body. It had been surreal. He half expected Josh to jump up from that cold steel gurney, then grin and call him by the same word he always had when he’d fooled Kade. Sucker.

“Okay,” Manny said. “But she’s here, and you know I gotta ask her again.”

“I know.” And it killed him. He’d known bringing her to the HSI office would be hard enough. Having to answer questions again would reopen jagged, painful wounds that he suspected had taken years to heal. If they ever really had.

“Anything?” Manny asked Laia in a casual tone when they’d returned to his cubicle.

Kade suspected she’d see right through Manny’s bland demeanor.

“Not yet.” She didn’t turn around, just kept pecking away at the return button.

Manny sat on the edge of his desk. “I have to ask you something again.”

Her shoulders stiffened, and her fingers stilled on the keyboard. Slowly, she swiveled the chair, then crossed her arms. Fire might as well have been shooting from her eyes. She’d been grilled too many times by Manny and other federal agents not to know when the questioning was about to kickstart all over again.

Kade braced himself for the explosion about to level the building.

Chapter Six

“How many times do I have to answer the same question?” Laia ground her teeth as she glared at Agent Dominguez, knowing with unerring certainty what he was about to ask. “I don’t know anything about any ledger. Josh didn’t tell me about one, and if you recall, my husband was murdered—in your care, I might add.”

“I’m sorry.” Dominguez held out his hands in a placating gesture. “We’re just trying to understand why Colon’s people would start harassing you after all this time.”

“We’re just trying to understand?” This time she turned her deadly glare on Kade. “Is this why you really brought me here? You didn’t believe me when I said I don’t know anything about the ledger?” She grabbed the armrests, resisting the urge to commit bodily assault on two federal officers.

“That’s not it, and you know it.” Kade moved closer. “I believe you.”

She let loose with both barrels. “You people,” she began, looking alternately from Kade to Dominguez, intentionally including Kade in what she was about to say, “searched my house, served subpoenas on our bank accounts, then froze all our assets. When that wasn’t enough, you seized my house, then kicked me and my three-year-old daughter out on the street.”

Kade’s brow furrowed, and his eyes shone with sympathy that only served to enrage her further. “While you were all gloating about taking down a drug cartel,” she snapped, “I was barely able to pay the bills and put a roof over my daughter’s head.”