Page 2 of Ultimate Justice

Creaking from the stairs told him Martinez and O’Shea were heading up. With their guns out, they checked every corner, every shadow. Still no Jones.

“You sure he’s up here?” Martinez asked.

“Gotta be.” Evan’s gaze lit on the large antique rolltop desk. How was it possible they’d gotten the desk up here in the first place? They’d had to have done it in pieces and reconstructed it in the attic.

At only five-three and a hundred and thirty pounds, Jones was a small man. When it came to homicide, size didn’t matter.

Evan walked quietly to the desk, aimed in, and whipped up the rolltop door. No Jones. Only a screwdriver and a crowbar. There had to be a hiding place somewhere up here. They just had to find it.

The aluminum AC ducts were wide enough for Jones to creep into. Evan knelt beside the magnetic flap covering the filter slot. No filter. He aimed his flashlight beam inside the duct. Still no Jones.

With the heel of his hand, he started banging on the ducts, listening for a change in sound. Nothing.

“He must have snuck out,” Martinez said. “Maybe before we got here.”

“Don’t think so.” Evan shook his head. “Stay here. I’m getting Blue.” He backed down the attic stairs, then headed to the main floor.

“Anything?” one of the other agents stationed at the front door asked.

He shook his head and continued outside onto the porch. Deck held out his arms in question.

“He’s in there.” Evan was sure of it, and he never ignored his instincts.

Assisting Denver’s Fugitive Task Force was a collateral duty for him, like it was for Deck and Brett. As a member of the FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team, following his instincts had helped him find more missing children than anyone else. But this was no child they were after.

He glanced at the pile of pool cleaning supplies leaning against the railing. A pool brush, leaf skimmer, and a few plastic tubs of pool chemicals. A white van sat in the driveway. In thick black letters, Mile High Pool Cleaning had been painted on the sides. They already knew the van was empty, and the owner of the house—Francis Manello—wasn’t home.

Evan grabbed a leash from the center console in his Expedition, then opened the door to the specially fitted dog kennel that took up the entire passenger compartment. Blue scrambled to his feet, pinning Evan with smoky-blue eyes. His dog was a big German shepherd, around ninety pounds. If not for his unusually colored eyes, Blue could have won at Westminster. But then Evan would never have met the best partner he’d ever worked with.

“Time to go to work, pal.” Blue’s thick tail wagged as he clipped the leash to his dog’s collar.

Blue hopped out, prancing as they headed back inside. Together they’d found dozens of missing children. Today, he’d put Blue’s skills to work tracking a cold-blooded killer.

They climbed the stairs to the second floor, detouring into the bedroom with the prison sneakers. He pointed to the sneakers, waiting while his dog gave them a thorough sniffing. “Find him.”

Blue rose on his hind legs, resting his front paws on the bed to sniff the sheets and pillow. He dropped back to the floor, putting his nose to the rug and following a track directly into the hallway to the base of the attic stairs.

“Good boy.” He unclipped the leash, allowing Blue to climb the stairs ahead of him. “Blue’s coming up,” he shouted to O’Shea and Martinez.

By the time Evan made it up the ladder, Blue was already circling the attic, still on a strong track. He went to a corner and sat. Evan clicked on his flashlight. Nothing seemed out of place. But he trusted his partner.

Kneeling, he eyed the boards closer. Two of them didn’t have nail heads. That could explain the crowbar he’d found inside the desk. Someone might have removed these boards with the crowbar and never nailed them back in place.

Blue sat like a statue, staring at the boards in front of his paws. Evan retrieved the crowbar, signaling for O’Shea and Martinez to aim at the floor. He jammed the crowbar beneath one of the boards and popped it off. At the same time his heart began slamming against his ribcage, he dropped the crowbar and yanked out his Glock.

Wedged into the tight space was Stonewall Jackson Jones. Jones’s hand moved—the one holding a 9mm.

Before O’Shea and Martinez had a chance to pull their triggers, Evan stomped his boot on Jones’s wrist, pinning the gun to the man’s chest hard enough to bust a rib. They were bringing this piece of garbage in alive.

Jones grimaced, his lips twisting into a snarl. “Shit.” Beneath Evan’s boot, Jones wriggled, trying to free his arm.

Evan pressed down harder with his boot. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned as he quickly relieved Jones of the gun. If the man so much as twitched again, Martinez and O’Shea would blast him between the eyes, and Evan would be tempted not to stop them.

A low growl came from the back of Blue’s throat. His K-9 was a trained tracker, but he’d defend Evan with his last breath.

He handed Jones’s gun to O’Shea and drew a set of cuffs from his belt. “Get up,” he ordered, adding, “Slowly.”

When they could grab Jones’s upper arms, the two deputy marshals hauled him to his feet. Evan cuffed him and searched him for more weapons. When he was satisfied there were none, the deputies took Jones down the ladder.