Page 6 of Honor ’N’ Duty

“Thanks.” His K-9 weighed in at about sixty pounds, but with his thick furry coat, he looked even more massive. Beneath that coat was a lean, agile powerhouse body that could run down a perp in seconds.

As he and Smoke went inside Laia’s house for the first time, Kade couldn’t hold back a few muttered curses. The devastation was far worse than he’d expected.

An old brown sofa had been pulled from the wall and flipped over, its cushions sliced and diced, the filling strewn everywhere. The small wood coffee table that looked like it had seen better days before the break-in was overturned, two of the legs broken. Even Rosa’s basket of toys hadn’t survived. In between the balls of sofa filler were dolls and stuffed animals, including the pink sequined Rainbowcorn Kade had given her on her fifth birthday last year. The animal’s gold feet and stumpy horn glinted in the sunlight streaming through the window. Resting on the carpet beside it was the Magic Bluetooth Karaoke Microphone he’d bought her for Christmas.

As he and Smoke moved deeper into the living room, past the broken table and toys, Kade shut off his cop brain long enough to absorb the unexpected decor.

Every wall was a different color. Pale yellow, turquoise blue, peach, and light purple. The large area rug echoed the same colors in a pattern that looked as if someone had dumped four cans of paint on the rug, started stirring, and just stopped. Through the living room windows he could see into the backyard to an old wood dinghy someone had painted pink and purple. Oddly, it went with the living room colors.

Pitched here and there on the floor were broken framed photos of Laia and Rosa, one showing them fishing at the end of a long pier, another of the two of them at the beach.

His dress shoes crunched on another broken frame, this one a photo of Laia and Rosa at a carnival. Their faces were painted with what he assumed were henna tattoos. In every photo, they were clearly laughing.

“Stay,” he said to Smoke, not wanting him to step on any broken glass. His dog went completely still, arching his back with his head held high in a show dog–worthy pose.

All in all, the room was vibrant in color and spirit. If it weren’t for the devastation, he would have smiled. He suspected every room in the house had suffered the same fate, and the panic that had him racing north to Asbury Park magnified by a thousand.

The police would go through the motions, but Kade’s fifteen years on the job already told him this was no random burglary. This was cold, calculated, and thorough. Whoever did this was looking for something. If what he suspected was true, the remnants of black fingerprint powder the department’s forensic unit had left behind wouldn’t reveal any latent prints that didn’t belong here.

Laia’s house had been tossed by professionals.

Kade couldn’t see her but heard her voice as she answered the other cops’ questions. One of the officers, a tall, fit-looking Black man whose biceps threatened to bust open the seams of his gray uniform, sported three gold sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve. The other cop was equally fit, with her blond hair braided and pinned tightly to the back of her head.

He signaled for Smoke, pointing to a narrow swath of the floor not littered with shards of glass. They followed a high-pitched voice to another room off to the side of the kitchen. This one, a small office, judging by the desk and filing cabinet, had also been tossed thoroughly. Every desk drawer hung open, the contents of which had been thrown on the floor. The filing cabinet lay on its side, its drawers also open and the contents decorating the carpet.

Thick textbooks—zoology, microbiology, organic chemistry, and others his brain cringed at the thought of reading—lay stacked in messy piles against the wall, along with open spiral notebooks filled with neat script.

Sitting in the only clear space on the floor was Rosa, wearing pink shorts with a matching pink sleeveless top and pushing buttons on an interactive world map.

Smoke snorted, his tail wagging as he strained at the leash, eager to give Rosa a proper, slobbery greeting.

Rosa looked up. “Smoke! Uncle Kade!” she squealed, jumping to her feet and running to Smoke just as Kade dropped the leash.

He honestly couldn’t tell who was more excited to see who. Rosa flung her arms around Smoke’s neck, hugging him tightly while Smoke twisted his neck to land lick after lick on Rosa’s beaming face.

“Mommy called you.” Next Rosa ran to Kade, holding up her arms so that he could lift her up. When she was at eye level, she planted a squeaking kiss on his cheek, then cocked her little head. “Why is Mommy mad at you? I heard her on the phone. Did you have a fight? Why doesn’t she like you?”

Oh, boy. How to answer a five-year-old’s loaded questions because there were too many reasons to pick from and all of them valid.

On Laia’s wedding day, he’d all but flat-out accused her of not loving his brother. Yeah, that one had to be at the top of the list. Then he’d intentionally ghosted her and Josh. Every time he and Smoke had visited Rosa at his parents’ house, he’d verified beforehand that neither of them would be there. He’d turned down every single one of her and Josh’s invitations to join them at their house to celebrate family events. Including Rosa’s birth. The icing on the asshole cake was that after Josh died, he hadn’t taken any of Laia’s calls.

Kade had never been able to forget that amazing connection they’d shared, and seeing Laia with his brother would have dredged up things that shouldn’t be dredged up. So he’d kept his feelings buried. Or at least, thought he had.

There was still one other possible reason she was pissed at him.

Because she knows the truth.

About how things had really gone down the day Josh was arrested.

Now he’d suck up the guilt and endure half a decade of Laia’s pent-up anger and resentment to keep her and Rosa safe. He owed it to them.

He owed it to Josh.

Forcing down the burning grief in the back of his throat, he stared into Rosa’s green eyes, so like his brother’s. “I’ll talk to her,” he promised. “You don’t have to worry about anything, Cream Puff.” He kissed her cheek, smiling when she giggled at the nickname he’d been calling her since discovering their shared love of whipped cream squirted directly from the can—the only rebellious habit in his strict military upbringing and one that had gotten him paddled so many times as a kid it was a wonder the back of his ass wasn’t as flat as a pancake.

“Kade.” His heart skipped a beat, then another. He’d recognize that sultry voice anywhere. In his sleep. In his dreams. In the memories that would haunt him until the day he went Tango Uniform—tits up and buried on the wrong side of the grass.

With Rosa still hefted in his arms, he turned and his throat closed up tighter than a shell casing. He couldn’t have uttered a single coherent word if his life depended on it. This wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t a memory. Laia was really standing there less than three feet away. Vaguely, he registered the two cops who’d been in the kitchen now looming behind her.