It wasn’t a question. Donovan had been a K9 handler too. He knew the risks as well as I did—the concentrations in this stuff were high enough that skin contact or inhalation could trigger a reaction. Some departments had started carrying naloxone specifically for their dogs.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
I’d taken this contract specifically to give Jolly a break. Local work, lower intensity, a chance to ease him toward retirement without the high-risk deployments that had defined most of our career together. Instead, I’d walked us into a situation where every search could put him in contact with something that might kill him.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
“Does Rawlings know fentanyl is equal opportunity shit?” Donovan asked.
“He knows. He’s got naloxone in the K9 kit they’re building for the department. But knowing the risk and eliminating it are two different things.”
Donovan was quiet for a moment. “We could pull Jolly from searches. Use him for tracking, protection, keep him away from the drugs entirely.”
“We could.” But even as I said it, I knew I wouldn’t. Jolly was trained for this work. It was what he knew, what he lived for. Taking it away from him wouldn’t feel like protection. It would feel like punishment.
We’d just have to be careful. More careful than usual.
“You know what’s eating at me?” Donovan’s voice was quieter now. “Tomorrow, we’re going to stand in front of that entry team and run exercises. Teach them to be better at room clearing, tactical coordination, all of it. And one of them—maybe—is going to take everything we teach and use it to stay a step ahead.”
“I know.”
“We’re potentially making the traitor better at his job.”
I’d been thinking the same thing. Every technique we shared, every vulnerability we identified, every piece of tactical knowledge we transferred—it all went into the same pool. The good cops improved.
But so did whoever was feeding information to the syndicate.
“We could pull back,” I said. “Teach the basics, nothing more.”
“Then we’re not doing our job. And we start looking suspicious ourselves.” Donovan shook his head. “We’re stuck. Teach them everything and hope we’re helping more people than we’re hurting.”
“Or figure out who it is before it matters.”
“That would be ideal, yes.”
Through the back window, I could make out Jolly’s shape in the yard. Same spot as the past few nights, near the corner of the fence, his attention fixed on something I couldn’t see.
“Jolly,” I called through the cracked door. “Hier.”
He came. A beat slower than usual, but he came.
I let him back inside and moved to the side window. The house next door glowed with warm light behind drawn curtains. Kayla’s house.
I thought about the coffee shop. The way she’d wrapped her hands around that mug of tea, steam curling between us. The way she’d blown across the surface to cool it, her lips pursed, then relaxed as she took the first sip.
Those lips. Jesus. I’d thought about Kayla’s lips decidedly too many times.
“You ever tried lemon ginger tea?”
The words were out before I could catch them.
Donovan turned slowly from the investigation wall. “I’m sorry?”
“Forget it. Never mind.”
“No, I heard you. I’m just trying to process.” He was staring at me like I’d switched to a foreign language. “Did you just ask me about herbal tea?”
“I don’t know if it’s herbal.” Shit. I was making this worse. “Forget it. Random thought.”
