He was quiet for a few seconds. Then, quieter, he added, “The gambling. The drinking. The signs were there if anyone had been looking. I wish I’d stepped in. Maybe could’ve changed things.”
We all sat in silence for a moment.
“You can’t be responsible for everybody,” Rawlings said. “But damned if I don’t feel the exact same way.”
“What happens next?” Vance asked.
“Donovan’s heading back to Denver. Ben stays on for real K9 work. We pursue the syndicate investigation through proper channels now that the leak is addressed.”
Vance straightened. Professional. The shift was clean. He went from processing bad news to doing his job. “I’ll make sure the team stays focused. Martinez’s absence is going to create gaps in the rotation, but I can cover it. I’ll have a revised schedule on your desk by end of day.”
Rawlings gave him a nod. “Appreciate it, Eric.”
Vance stood. He was almost to the door when he paused, hand on the frame. Turned back.
“Does Martinez have family around here? I know his ex-wife moved to Grand Junction a while back, but I can’t remember if he’s got anyone else close by.”
Rawlings shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Vance nodded, almost to himself. “Might want to have somebody check in on him at some point. He’s probably not in a great headspace right now.”
Then he was through the door, and it clicked shut behind him.
A few minutes later, Donovan said his goodbyes to the chief, and we headed out to the parking lot. Daylight wasbright after the dim office. Late-morning sun off windshields. A sharp wind coming down from the peaks, carrying the first real edge of the season.
Donovan walked beside me without talking. We crossed the lot and stopped at his SUV, away from the building and anyone who might pass by.
He leaned against the driver’s door and squinted up at the mountains. “Not exactly the ending I pictured.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“No dramatic takedown. No handcuffs on a traitor.” He turned his keys over in his hand. “Just a man with a drinking problem and a department that’s going to spend the next year cleaning up the mess.”
The wind pushed between us. I watched a patrol car pull out of the far end of the lot, turn right, disappear. Routine. The work of a department that would keep grinding forward because that’s what departments did.
“I’ll head back to Denver in the morning,” Donovan said. “Ethan’s been talking about that Kenya thing—NGO security detail, threat assessment. Sounds like it needs someone with tactical experience and K9 knowledge.”
“When?”
“Soon. Not sure exact dates.” He said it how he always said it. Casual. Forward-looking. The next thing already in his sights.
“And after Kenya?”
“After Kenya, there’ll be something else.” He almost smiled. “That’s how the work works.”
I looked at him. My best friend. The man I’d served with through two tours and a decade of the kind of work that didn’t make it into the brochure.
He was more himself than he’d been when we’d started this job. Steadier, less hollow around the eyes, fewermornings that looked like they’d been fought through rather than slept through.
He was still carrying whatever had carved itself inside him during that final deployment. But lighter than before.
“I’ll miss having you around.”
It came out more honestly than I’d intended. The sort of thing that slipped past the filter because the morning had been heavy enough to loosen it.
Donovan looked at me. For a second, the humor dropped and what was underneath it showed… Brotherhood. Years of shared silence. The particular trust of men who’d kept each other alive and never needed to talk about it.
Then the corner of his mouth twitched. “You don’t need me anymore. You’ve got a woman who makes you pasta and a six-year-old who throws pinecones to your dog.”
