When Love Matters Most. Kate James

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the main reason Rick hadn’t already initiated the process to retire him, but well aware of Sniff’s physical limitations, Rick was careful not to overexert him.

      Maybe it was time. Sniff had more than earned the right to retire, Rick thought as he stuffed street clothes into his duffel.

      After Sniff had his breakfast, Rick helped him into the back of his police-issue Ford Explorer. On the way to the division, he pulled into a Starbucks to grab a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. Before he had a chance to indulge in his meal, his radio signaled.

      “We have a situation,” the dispatcher announced.

      Rick took a sip of his coffee and cursed as the hot liquid burned his tongue. In sharp contrast, apprehension chilled his skin.

      “What kind of situation?”

      “We have an officer down.”

      The chill slithered up his spine. Rick knew it would be one of his team if they were contacting him. “Who?” he inquired.

      The voice on the other end was barely audible. “It’s Jeff.”

      “What happened?” Jeff Bradford was one of his best officers and specialized in narcotics, just as he did. Rick prayed the injury wasn’t serious.

      “We received a tip at oh-four-hundred this morning about a drug shipment coming in. We got the route, the vehicle description and the estimated time of travel. Jeff and a couple of guys from the Narcotics Task Force took the call. Jeff was shot.”

      A million questions crowded Rick’s mind, but he asked the one that mattered most. “What’s Jeff’s condition?”

      “It doesn’t sound good, Rick,” the dispatcher responded. “Jeff took a bullet in the neck above his body armor. He was unconscious and was transported by ambulance to Ocean Crest Hospital.”

      “How did it happen?”

      “The captain is certain it was a setup.”

      “Is Jagger in?” Rick asked about K-9 Unit captain Logan O’Connor by his alias. He needed the details.

      “No. He’s at the hospital. Jeff’s family has been notified, and they’re being taken there by a couple of uniforms.”

      Rick thought of Jeff’s young wife and their two-year-old son, and grief and anger warred within him. He placed the coffee cup in the center console holder, tossed the unopened sandwich on the passenger seat and switched on his lights. “I’m on my way to the hospital.”

      “No. Wait! The captain and half the unit are already at the hospital or headed there. Jeff’ll be in surgery for a couple of hours at least. Logan asked me to contact you,” she said. “He wants you at the scene. He wants you to find Zeke.” Zeke was Jeff’s narcotics-detection dog.

      “What do you mean, find him? He’s trained in handler protection. Even if he wasn’t, he would’ve stayed with Jeff until the ambulance took him away. Why didn’t someone from the division get Zeke? There must’ve been others on the scene by then.”

      He heard a drawn-out sigh. “From what I understand, Zeke was injured trying to protect Jeff. Also a gunshot wound, we suspect. No one’s seen him since Jeff was loaded into the ambulance for transport. Logan figures that Zeke stayed with Jeff as long as he could, but his injury must be serious. In all the confusion, he must’ve gone off...”

      She couldn’t finish the thought. None of them wanted to think about losing an officer or one of their dogs. Rick assumed Logan was correct. Injured animals tended to find a quiet place to be on their own. If Zeke hadn’t been hurt, there was no way he would’ve left like that.

      There wasn’t anything Rick could do for Jeff right now, except pray, but maybe he could help the dog. “I’m on it,” he said in a flat voice as he drove out of the parking lot.

      If Rick hadn’t taken all that extra time to do what he had for that Mexican kid coming across the border the night before, detaining him well beyond the end of his shift, he was sure he would’ve been the one called in to respond to the tip instead of Jeff. Would that have made a difference? Would he have done anything different? Would he have seen something because of his intimate knowledge of the cartels that Jeff or the others had missed?

      As Rick sped along I-5, he spoke to the detectives conducting the investigation so he could gather as much information about the incident as possible. From what he was told, Jeff had done everything right. They’d found the cube van parked at the side of the road, apparently abandoned. Jeff and Zeke had been doing the perimeter check for narcotics to establish probable cause to search the inside of the van. When they’d approached the back, the doors had swung open and the shooting started. One of the Narcotics cops had been at the side of the van, out of the line of fire. He’d taken down the shooter, but it had been too late for Jeff.

      There’d been no drugs in the van. Just the shooter. It had to have been a setup, as Logan thought. Their unit had been making a huge dent in the activities of a number of the cartels. This must have been payback from one of them. The guilt burned through Rick and settled in his gut, a hard, uncompromising knot. It should’ve been him, if anyone. Not one of his men. Not a cop with a young family.

      His assumption about his own absence was confirmed when he spoke to Logan. They’d decided not to call him for the reason he’d surmised. If he hadn’t helped that kid the night before, it would’ve been him at the back of that cube van when the scum with the rifle had taken his shot. If he’d been there instead, Jeff wouldn’t have taken the bullet and wouldn’t be in the hospital with critical injuries.

      It was hard enough when one of their own got hit, but to make matters worse for Rick, the burden of guilt weighed heavily on him.

      As for Jeff, they were hopeful he was going to make it through the operation. After that...the doctors couldn’t say. The guilt surged up again and Rick tasted bile in his throat.

      Rick had to take comfort in the fact that Jeff was receiving the best possible care. Right now his concern was Zeke. He knew Zeke well. He’d helped train him when he’d come to the K-9 Unit from the Czech Republic as a cute, floppy-eared shepherd puppy. Rick wanted to stay positive, but if Zeke had gone off on his own, it wasn’t a good sign. Rick rubbed his eyes when the road blurred in front of him. He stopped by a cordoned-off area, a cube van at its center. Leaving the air-conditioning on in the back of his SUV for Sniff, he jumped out.

      By the time he got to the crime scene, there were cops everywhere. He greeted the ones he knew and headed to where the detectives were gathered. It was obvious where Jeff had been shot from the pool of blood on the pavement, but Rick could see a second, smaller pool, too...and the trail of drops that led away from it.

      He followed the trail at a fast jog to a residential yard, where it ended by a wooden step at the base of a deck.

      Rick crouched down and peered into the dark, confined space. Relief flooded through him when he heard the panting. Even before he dropped to his belly and shone his light in, he started to murmur to Zeke in a calm, reassuring tone. He wanted to reduce the chances of the injured animal—out of pain or self-defense—lashing out at him.

      He needn’t have worried. Large chocolate-brown eyes stared up at him and a warm, dry tongue brushed the back of his hand when he reached in. Zeke was lying on his left side. From what Rick could see, he must have taken a bullet on his right side. Judging by the dark crimson stain СКАЧАТЬ