“If that’s true, I’m dead.”

  “Well then, you better help us out so that we can pin him into a jail cell before he comes after you.”

  “There isn’t a jail cell that’ll hold him,” he said wearily. “He’s damn scary. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. He kills the women if they don’t make him happy.”

  “Can the dogs eat it all?” Ansel asked the intruder, but he was staring at Caleb.

  That was something that bothered Caleb. Of course, anybody who knew that was their future wouldn’t perform in any way that would make anybody happy. This Huevo guy was somebody who just wanted a reign of terror.

  “Not always,” he said. “Then the body parts go into the freezer. Over the next couple days they’ll get another piece.”

  “Has he ever killed anybody because he ran out of dog food?” Caleb asked.

  At that, Ansel looked over at him in surprise, and then his face twisted in horror.

  “Yes,” the intruder whispered. “One of the young women. She had a scar on her face, and he figured that she would be no good on the market.”

  “Great, and I wonder if it wasn’t an asshole, like you, who put that scar on her face.”

  “It was him. He hit her too hard,” he said, “and then he shot her. He didn’t kill her though and fed her to the dogs anyway.”

  “Nice guy,” Ansel said.

  The intruder looked up at him, his eyes dark. “I’ve seen things,” he said, shaking his head. “I still can’t sleep at night.”

  “And that’s how he functions, on complete terror.”

  “It’s not fair,” he said. “Some of those women, they didn’t deserve it.”

  “And the men did?”

  At that, he winced. “No,” he said, “but they knew the game.”

  “And that makes a difference,” Caleb said in acknowledgment.

  “But not enough. You don’t know him. He’s got spies everywhere.”

  “Of course he does, that’s how he keeps everyone obedient. So he already knows that you’ve been picked up.”

  “Not yet,” he said, his voice exhausted, “but you’re right. He will soon.”

  “So what can you do to help your case?”

  “Nothing. If I go back now, he won’t believe me, and, even if somebody tries to convince him otherwise, he won’t believe them, and they’ll get shot, so nobody’ll even bother.”

  “Nice boss,” he said.

  “No, you have no idea,” he whispered. He shook his head, laid back down, and stared up at the cops. “Just shoot me, please.”

  “No, I can’t do that,” Ansel said mildly. “But you can bet we’ll take you to prison and will let everybody know where you are.”

  “I won’t last a night,” he said. “And that’s a fact.”

  Ansel looked at the intruder intently.

  “Of course, he already has several of the guards in his palm,” Caleb said.

  “Interesting,” Ansel murmured.

  “You guys have no idea how much corruption there is,” the intruder said.

  “Well, we have a good idea. We’re getting a handle on it,” he said.

  “He grabs brothers, daughters, sisters, friends,” he said. “He takes whoever you care about and holds them until he’s got you where he wants you. Then and only then he releases them, if you’re lucky. And, if you’re lucky, he releases them alive. Otherwise, he just keeps them as a threat over your head.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  “Yeah, my kid brother a long time ago,” he said. “He was really sick and couldn’t pay for the treatments he needed as he didn’t have no insurance. So my agreement was, I work for Huevo and do his dirty jobs to keep my brother alive.”

  “And how long did that last?”

  “My brother died about a year and a half later,” he said, “but, by then, I was already in so deep.”

  “Did you ever wonder if he didn’t kill your brother anyway?”

  “I did wonder, and I have no proof,” he said, “but it’s something that eats away at me.”

  “How did your brother die?”

  He looked at him. “A drive-by bullet.”

  “Well, that’s pretty obvious.”

  “And still I can do nothing about it. He doesn’t accept anything but blind loyalty. And no screw-ups.”

  “Can you identify the guys he’s killed?” Ansel asked him.

  “Some of them,” he said. “Well, most of them probably.”

  “We’ll need a list of those names,” he said, “because, if nothing else, families are out there, looking for their loved ones.”

  “Won’t even be anything left,” he said. “Those dogs are so damn vicious.”

  “And, of course, they are more vicious because he keeps them half-starved.”

  “That’s the only saving grace,” the gunman said quietly. “At least for the people still alive when they go in. They die quickly.”

  “Well, the dogs will have to be put down. You know that.”

  “I do,” he said, “and I, for one, would like to see it. I know that they didn’t deserve it and all that jazz,” he said, “but they’re too far gone now.”

  “Good to know,” Ansel said, as he looked at Caleb.

  “There still could be a chance to save the dogs,” Caleb said.

  “You know what happens when you are after killer dogs.”

  He nodded. “I know. It just breaks my heart because it wasn’t their fault.”

  “It isn’t, but it is,” the gunman said. “God, I’m so tired of this life. Good to know it will be over soon.”

  “Well, you could also do something right for a change, before it’s over,” the detective said.

  He looked at him, smiled, and said, “If it takes down that asshole, fine, but I’m telling you that I won’t live until tomorrow. So anything you want to know, you need to know tonight.”

  Chapter 15

  Laysha watched as the detective marched the intruder outside onto the porch, where she stood with the other dogs. Graynor walked over, put his heavily grayed muzzle into her palm. She gently stroked his face and whispered, “Thank you, boy.”

  His tail wagged, as he sat beside her, the other dogs milling around. They didn’t have the same guard-dog instinct that he did. They were family pets. They would bark if there was something to bark at, but they wouldn’t see it ahead of time. At least the guy from her horrible being-followed incident earlier today was now safely caught. At that, she looked up to see Caleb make his way slowly down the stairs. She winced as she saw how stiff he was. “Too bad I don’t have a hot tub,” she murmured, as he came close, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He dropped a kiss on her forehead.

  “I have to admit that sounds about right for tonight,” he said. He watched with her as the intruder was loaded into Ansel’s vehicle.

  “Is he connected to the one who abused Beowulf?”

  “Not only connected but he’s also the one who shot the guy at the rental house.”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “Seriously? He admitted that?”

  “More or less. He said it was his cousin, and he didn’t have a whole lot of choice, according to him.”

  “Well, it depends,” she said. “Sometimes you just get in so deep that there’s no way out.”

  “And that’s partly what this was. Apparently that Huevo guy has kept a grip on this area for a long time, making them do things that nobody was comfortable doing.”

  “I can believe it.”

  “So can I,” he said. “I saw it with my own eyes today.”

  “That just makes it way worse,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to see it.” Gently she wrapped her arms around him and held him carefully. She knew how sore he had to be after that long run. They had only spoken about his injuries once and not so much about his recovery, but she knew that he had both because she’d seen the scars when he took off his shirt at night before sleeping.

  And she’d seen the soreness as he tried to move sometimes and didn’t quite make it the way he thought he would. Anything that hurt him hurt her. To think about all the suffering he’d already gone through choked her up. And knowing those risks just made it that much harder to let him go off and do whatever he felt he needed to do. But she also knew that to hold the warrior back, like Graynor, she couldn’t do that to them. They would feel their lives had no use or no value anymore. She sighed as she watched Ansel and her intruder go. “It’s not over though, is it?” she asked Caleb.

  “No, not until we get this Huevo guy,” he murmured. “There’s likely to be an even stronger backlash.”

  She stiffened at that.

  He nodded. “So now I have to consider our plans carefully.”

  “But will they know where my intruder is, or that he was here?”

  “It depends on how rogue this guy is and how well he hid his tracks to make the boss think everything was okay.”

  “If he was still a trusted employee, maybe Huevo wouldn’t watch him as closely?”

  “Maybe, but in a case like that, some other guys are always out there, eager to help pull down the others.”

  “Tattletales?”

  “Possibly, and, once the news of the body in the house broke out on the media, it’s hard to say just what the boss is feeling like.”

  Ansel walked back toward them and said, “If you guys have a place to go to for a few days, it would be a good idea,” he said. “We’ll organize a raid on that compound and take them down,” he said, “but it’ll take a couple days to set it up. The property lines cross the border giving us some leeway here. And no doubt it needs doing.”

  “I’d like to be in on that,” Caleb said.

  Immediately Ansel shook his head. “Can’t do that. I understand the sentiment, but you’re not part of the team.”

  “Well, you could make me one,” he said in a mild tone.

  “No, not without training.”

  “I’ve probably had more training than all the guys on your team put together,” he said. Ansel looked at him in surprise; Caleb shrugged and gave a little bit of his US Navy SEAL private black-ops history, and he saw Ansel slowly nodding.

  “It’s not my decision,” he said. “It’ll have more to do with what the captain sees fit. You’re still a civilian in his books.”

  “Yeah, I am,” he said. “But, if you ever needed an extra set of hands, I know exactly what to do with them.”

  “Point taken.” As he walked back over to the police vehicle, he stopped, turned back, and said, “You know what? If you wanted to go into law enforcement, even if it was like I said, a K9 unit, handling something along that line, you wouldn’t need the same physical training the rest of us went through.”

  “It’s possible,” he said. “I also have some that might go a long way to convincing the higher-ups.”

  “Why don’t you set up an interview with the captain? See what he has to say.”

  “I might do that,” he said.

  Ansel nodded, got into his car, then stopped and said, “Give me a chance to talk to him first.”

  “That might go a long way to smooth that pathway.”

  And, with that, he drove off.

  “Did he just say he wanted to recommend you for some special training or some special job?”

  “I’m not sure he really knew what he was saying,” he said in a mild voice. “But I think something was in there.”

  “And you wanted to go into law enforcement?”

  “I want to do something in the same field I’ve always done, which is similar to that line, yes. A K9 unit wouldn’t be a bad idea. I’m not sure that they hire them outside of law enforcement staff though.”

  “There are so many budget cuts too,” she said. “I imagine they probably have a lot of contractors instead.”

  “And that might not be a bad idea either,” he said. “I need a place to do training though, and it takes lots of space for dogs like that.”

  “Would you do the training for working dogs or for family pets?”

  “Both. Every trained dog needs some downtime when he’s not working. So they become pets at the same time.”

  “I like it,” she said. “I always wondered if I should be doing more with mine, but that takes time, energy, and dedication. Plus, I didn’t have the motivation to take on disciplining four dogs at the same time,” she murmured.

  “How about taking on one guy now?” he said, tilting her chin up and kissing her gently.

  “Well, that motivation is definitely coming along a little bit faster,” she said with a laugh. “But, as to the here and now, what will we do about Ansel’s suggestion to stay somewhere else a couple nights?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving here because, well, we’re working on the house, and it’s your home, and I think we should defend your own place. I don’t want to see us up and running away. But, at the same time, I really don’t want you to get hurt.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. And I don’t want you hurt any more than you are,” she said. “In case you think I didn’t notice, I can see how stiffly you’re moving.”

  Caleb just shrugged.

  “Well, I vote we stay here,” she said. “We won’t find any place to take all the animals too.”

  “I agree,” he said, looking down at the dogs milling at their feet. “They should be a pretty good early warning system too.”

  “Only some of them,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t delude myself that all of them are that way.” She’d bent down and scooped Fancy into her arms. The little Pomeranian immediately licked her chin. “Especially this little one.”

  Caleb reached over and picked her up and held her against his chest, as she wiggled in delight. “And yet how can you not love her because she’s exactly who she’s intended to be.”

  “Exactly, and she is who she really is. She doesn’t put on any airs, doesn’t try to look any different. She doesn’t lie. She doesn’t cheat. She is exactly who she is,” she murmured, “and I really like that about all my dogs.”

  “You and me both,” he said. “And now I’m starved. And it’s very late. I don’t know if we’ll get a coat on that floor or not,” he said, “but it would be better if we did it tonight.”

  And she groaned and said, “You’re a slave driver.”

  “I am, but it will also take our minds off of everything else happening.”

  “As long as we don’t lose focus,” she said.

  He looked at her, smiled, and said, “Never.”

  As they walked back into the kitchen, she said, “I don’t know that we have any food though.”

  “If it is sandwiches, it’s sandwiches,” he said. He pulled out some sliced meat from the fridge and said, “It looks like sandwiches.”

  “Since that’s ham,” she said, “we can do grilled ham and cheese.”

  And, with that, they set about making enough food for both of them, sat down and ate, then fed the dogs and put on yet more coffee. However, they couldn’t sit still and enjoy their coffees.

  “I want to get started. And I’m good to drink my coffee cold.” He nodded, so they took a few sips and brought their cups upstairs.

  She asked, “Same deal as last time? You sand, and I put down the finish?”

  “I’ve got about an hour, an hour and a half left in me,” he said, “and then I don’t think I can do more.”

  “Got it. After that, a hot bath for you.”

  “We are likely not going to have access to the upstairs bathroom for baths. Or just muscle relaxants, maybe even pain pills tonight,” he admitted quietly.

  She winced, looked at him, and asked, “That bad?”

  “Well, it’s definitely not good, but I will survive.”

  With that, they got down to work. He was done within his hour-and-a-half time frame, and, for that, she was grateful. He was looking pretty damn sore, as he slowly moved all the tools back downstairs again. She was in the second bedroom, working away on the coat, when she heard him outside.

  She frowned, wondering what she heard, but she had none of the dogs with her—because there was just no way to keep them off the wet finish. As she worked on the upstairs hallway, she couldn’t wait for when these upper floors were done. By the time she stopped at the top of the stairs, she sat here, wondering how she kept biting off more than she could chew. It was almost as if her DIY home projects kept her exhausted, so she didn’t have to do anything else or maybe not even think about anything else.

  And yet she had turned the corner on that too, thinking about her future with Caleb, which was huge for her right now, and it was enough to keep her going. Even if he did go back temporarily to New Mexico, she knew he wouldn’t stay there. The more job opportunities there were for him here in El Paso, the better she felt about it all. It was just a matter of him feeling good about it too.

  As she walked slowly downstairs, her energy sagging, she saw no sign of him. She looked around, realizing she saw no signs of her dogs either. She then stepped out on the back porch to find him running her four dogs through drills and basically playing and doing training.

  He looked up at her, smiled, and walked over.

  “I figured you’d be crashed in bed.”

  “I took some medication,” he admitted. “I wanted to give it some time to work. So I took the dogs out to just see how good their training was.”

  “And how are they?” she murmured, looking down at the happy dogs at his feet.

  “Well, a little untrained, a little undisciplined, but obviously happy with their lot in life here,” he said with a bright smile.

  She looked at him and returned his smile. “It’s late,” she murmured. “You should be resting.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, but I can’t crash if you are still working. I wanted to come up, and, indeed, I called out to see if you were okay, but you were too busy to hear me.”

  “Well, I’m done now,” she said, “and I’m so glad this job is over.”

  “And it looks amazing,” he said. “So proud of you.”