Page 21 of Honor ’N’ Duty

“Nice to meet you.” Brett’s enormous hand engulfed Laia’s as they shook.

“A pleasure,” Evan said.

When Laia smiled, a spurt of unwanted jealousy shot up his spine. Not because he thought his friends would ever dare make a move on her, but because he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be on the receiving end of one of her smiles for a very long time, if ever again.

“Yo, Sampson,” another voice shouted from behind Deck. “You dragged my ass in here on a Sunday, so let’s get to work. The day’s not getting any longer.”

Kade chuckled. The man was right. “Catch ya later, guys. Let’s grab a few beers before you head back home.” He touched his hand to the small of Laia’s back, urging her further into the office.

As they brushed past, Deck, Brett, and Evan clapped Kade on the shoulder. “You got it.”

“Why did your friend react that way when you told him I was your sister-in-law?” Laia asked as they walked away.

“Probably because he knows about Josh.” A partial truth.

“Are you sure that’s all it was?”

“Yeah,” he lied, thankful that Manny wanted to get to work ASAP.

Manny uncrossed his arms and grinned stupidly at their approach. “You must be Laia.” His grin widened and no wonder. Laia was a beautiful woman who had that effect on men. Including me.

“This is Special Agent Manny Dominguez,” Kade said. “Manny’s been working cases on the Colon Drug Cartel for years.”

Beside him, Laia stiffened. “I remember you.”

Manny’s expression sobered. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Sampson.”

“Thank you,” she said, then took a deep breath. This couldn’t be easy for her. “And it’s not Mrs. Sampson anymore. It’s Velez. I go by my maiden name now.”

“Okay. Have a seat.” Manny shoved aside a black plastic tech box on his desk, then indicated she should sit in front of his computer. He plucked something from his ear about the size of a small button and placed it carefully in one of the slots inside the box.

“What is that?” Kade asked. “A receiver?”

Manny chuckled. “An experimental transmitter and receiver. We just got it in. I was testing it out, and it works like a charm. Undetectable by standard bug-detection equipment and good up to half a mile away. Even comes with digital recorder capacity.”

“Not bad.” As a DHS officer, he didn’t normally get involved to any depth in investigations and rarely used covert equipment. Kade peered inside the box at the tiny gadget. “It’s so small. Doesn’t look big enough to hold a battery. What’s the power source?”

“It’s got a microscopic powerpack smaller than the head of a pin.”

“No kidding. Won’t it burn the inside of your ear?” One of the problems attributed to some wire transmitters was that they radiated a lot of heat, leaving behind nasty burns.

“It’s coated with some kind of insulating gel.” Manny snapped the box’s lid shut, then addressed Laia. “Kade filled me in on what’s been happening to you and that you might be able to ID one of the guys following you.”

When Manny leaned over and hit the return button on his keyboard, a mugshot photo populated the screen, along with the arrestee’s physical identifiers. “I’ve narrowed down the database to those individuals with confirmed ties to Fernando Colon. There are around fifty. If you don’t find who you’re looking for here, I’ll widen the database to include those with ‘suspected’ ties to the Colon Cartel. To scroll through the photos, just keep hitting the return button. Let me know if you recognize anyone.”

“Thank you. I will.” Laia rolled the chair closer to the screen and began scrolling through one image after the next.

Manny tipped his head to Kade, indicating they should talk privately.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Kade said to Laia.

She nodded and resumed clicking through the images.

“I have news,” Manny said when they were out of earshot. “You know Fernando Colon would have gotten more time in prison, but since we never found a ledger of any kind, we couldn’t nail him with the heavier money laundering charges.”

“And?” From the look on Manny’s face, whatever he was about to say would be sucky news.

“Colon only received a three-year sentence, about twenty years less than what he would have gotten if we’d been able to tie him to more drug money.” Manny shook his head, clearly disgusted. “Two weeks ago, Colon was released. Fucker shaved almost an entire year off his sentence for good behavior. Good behavior. You believe that?”