Cage (The K9 Files #27)

Chapter 3

R isa woke up the next morning, pondering the empty house and the murder scenario that Celine had told her about the previous night. It was too early to call her girlfriend, particularly if she’d had somebody spend the night. When she called Cage, it was on instincts alone.

When he answered, he muttered, “That didn’t take long.”

“Does your presence have anything to do with the murder in that house?”

After a moment of silence, he asked in a brisk tone, “Who told you it was a murder?” She quickly explained about Celine. “I remember Celine,” he noted in a dry tone. “Do you really trust anything that comes out of her mouth?”

Risa winced. “Maybe not, but it did happen to be the house where you were.”

“Well, that was the area where I was,” he clarified cautiously.

“Don’t prevaricate,” she muttered. “It’s either the reason you’re here or something similar.”

“Well, it’s something similar,” he admitted. “The same little boy who lived in that house and lost both of his parents had a retired K9 War Dog,” he explained. “That dog has gone missing since the parents were killed in the accident, and we know the dog isn’t okay at the moment, since nobody knows where he is. So, I’m here to try and find him.”

She stopped and stared down at her phone. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

She gave a headshake. “I don’t even know if I should believe you.”

He half snorted into the phone. “Have you ever known me to lie?”

“No,” she replied. “That’s one thing about you. I would have said you’re very honest.”

“Would have said?” he asked sharply. “Do you really think I’ve changed?”

“No, maybe not.” She didn’t know what to say. “It all just seems so far-fetched.”

“Maybe so, but then we have a little boy who’s missing his dog, and we have a War Dog who already gave so much of his life in service for the American people. So it would be nice to think that he could at least have a few years of a nice and easy retirement.”

“Was it retirement when he lived with the little boy?”

“Yes, apparently they bonded,” Cage shared, “and, since you grew up with a dog that you absolutely adored, I’m sure you can understand.”

She winced at the reminder. “I bawled for days and weeks when I lost Roscoe.”

“I know,” he agreed, “and anybody who has a love of animals would understand.”

“Maybe,” she muttered, “but my mom sure didn’t.” He started to say something and then stopped. She smiled. “You do have a little better control over that mouth of yours.”

“No, I’m not so sure that I do, but your mother is an exception all by herself.”

“I know, and I’ve got to warn you that she hasn’t gotten any easier.”

“Why are you warning me?” he asked, with a note of humor. “It’s not as if I’m likely to see her.” She didn’t say anything to that, until he broke in with a sharp tone, “Or am I?”

“I don’t know, maybe not. I have no idea where you are and what you’re up to. I’m certain she wouldn’t be terribly welcoming regardless.”

“Of course not,” he replied. “I wasn’t good enough for her little girl.”

“Nobody’s good enough for her little girl. Not even her little girl, apparently,” Risa noted.

“Is she back to bashing you again?”

She winced as he picked up on that. “Well, you weren’t around to bash, so I became the next best thing.”

“God, she is such a bitch,” he swore.

Risa smiled at that. Cage had always been a hell of a defender, and her mother had always respected the fact that she could never push Cage around.

Cage added, “I really should have a talk with that woman.”

“Please don’t,” Risa said in alarm. “She wouldn’t take it well.”

“Maybe not,” he agreed in low tones, “but, if one person needs a good telling off, it’s her.”

“You did tell me one time that you thought you were the right person for that job,” she noted, “but she definitely hasn’t gotten any easier to live with. She’s very abrasive and always looking to criticize.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” he muttered. “She’s not my favorite person.”

“No, of course not.” Risa laughed. “You refused to follow her rules and do it her way.”

He laughed at that. “The military doesn’t exactly breed that type of person.”

“Why not?” she asked curiously.

“No room for insubordination,” he stated. “Authority and chain of command are everything, and loyalty follows that. If you’re given an order, you do it without hesitation.”

“So, it doesn’t matter what they say, you just follow through? That could also be a problem.”

“It can be,” he agreed. “Sometimes people do buck the system and create change, but a lot of times people can’t be bothered. So they just follow through with whatever it is they’re doing.”

“You were never much of a follower,” she pointed out.

“You don’t know me that well anymore,” he replied, his voice slightly rough. “I grew up a lot in the military.”

“How many years?” she asked.

“Eight. I was there for eight.”

“Amazing. Time goes by so fast, you don’t even really realize it.”

“Until you turn around and suddenly find yourself on the outside looking in at an entirely different world, one that’s changed a great deal since you went into the service,” he shared, with more of a pensive note in his voice.

She asked, “Do you regret it?”

“Going in? … No.”

She winced. What had she been hoping for, that he would have regrets, would have hated leaving her behind? Of course he wouldn’t have. It was very much who he was. He had absolutely been on fire to go. “Are you happy that you went in?” she asked.

“If I don’t regret it, then of course I’m happy,” he said, with a note of humor.

“Maybe,” she muttered, “but sometimes not everybody understands how much their lives have changed, until they come out and then have a lot of regret over things they’ve missed.”

“It has been an adjustment,” he conceded, “but I’m working on it, and I would say I’m doing just fine.”

“Of course you are,” she said, rolling her eyes. He had always been like that. “I can’t imagine you not being fine.”

“Another criticism?” he asked in a sharp tone.

“No, not at all,” she stated. “That’s really not my style, and you’ve always stuck to your guns and believed in everything you did. I’ve always admired that about you.”

He was silent on the other end for a moment. “How come you never told me that before?”

She gave a half laugh. “I don’t know.… I never thought to, I guess, and even now it feels funny. We’re strangers in the night now.”

“I don’t know that we could ever be strangers,” he noted, “but, when you’ve spent a lot of time apart, I imagine this is a fairly common side effect.”

“Maybe,” she muttered, ignoring him, while chewing on the idea of side effects. “Why didn’t we work out?”

“Because I needed to go into the navy, and you didn’t like that.” He hesitated before he added, “You didn’t want to be tied down.”

“I didn’t even know what that was back then,” she clarified. “It was more about letting you be free.”

Again came that odd silence, and he replied, “I didn’t ask to be free.”

“No, maybe not, but I guess I felt as if you needed to be free,” she muttered. When another awkward silence came, she gave herself a mental talking to. This was not going as she had imagined it would. “Look. I didn’t mean to dredge up old history. I just wanted to know if the reason you were here had to do with the murder.”

“Interesting you would even ask that of me,” he said in amusement.

“If ever anybody would get into law enforcement when they came out, it would be you.”

“I was considering it,” he admitted, “but I can’t say that I got that far.”

“No, but you haven’t exactly reached out yet either, have you? Aren’t you still looking at options?”

“You could say that, yes. But, right now, I’m really only here because of the War Dog, and I do have Jason to go home to.”

“Sure, but for how long? Jason seems to be doing pretty darn well fending for himself. I see him up here sometimes.”

“Well, if you hadn’t moved so far away, you could have seen him a lot more often.”

“Same for him too,” she pointed out, “though he comes up here all the time.”

“Good,” he replied, and again that same awkward silence fell over them.

After another uncomfortable moment, she continued. “Anyway, I’ve got to go.” That being said, she quickly disconnected.

Risa sighed, noting their socially awkward moments on the phone, the likes of which were generally only between two people newly dating or maybe between acquaintances. She never experienced the long-distance version of their relationship, as they had just broken up and gone their separate ways. She didn’t know how she felt about him anymore, except that, as soon as she’d seen him, she felt that same instinct, that same pull. She immediately wondered what he had been up to, where he had been, and why he hadn’t called her.

It was the type of a thing that came with missed opportunities and lost chances. Of course he hadn’t called her since that one attempt, and she hadn’t called him. She hadn’t reached out in any way. She also didn’t know that he’d been in a serious accident, until Jason told her something about it. Yet it was just in a passing comment. She still didn’t understand just how injured Cage had been and doubted he would even talk to her about it.

Realizing how foolish she’d made the ending of their relationship, but not knowing what else she could have done, she got up and put on the teakettle. When the phone rang, she was surprised to discover it was Cage again. “Hello?” she asked cautiously.

“Still trying to run away, huh ?”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she snapped back, “Hardly.”

“Felt like it,” he replied, his tone way too smooth.

She felt her face flushing with heat. “That’s not fair. It just feels really awkward.”

“Yet it shouldn’t be,” he noted. “We spent an awful lot of time together.”

“Sure, but that was many years ago.”

“Yes, but it felt as if some of those years just disappeared the longer we talked.” She half smiled at that. “Or do you not agree? If I’m barking up the wrong tree here, you should just tell me.”

“I’m not exactly sure what tree you’re barking up,” she began, then she hesitated for a moment. Her next words all came out in a rush. “You’re right though. It did feel as if the years were falling away. I’m not sure that’s particularly positive though.”

He snorted. “You didn’t used to be quite so cautious.”

“Right, but, then again, I’ve been hanging around Celine too much, and, if anything, that has made me even more cautious.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “Well, that’s a good thing because that girl is nothing short of a menace.”

“I haven’t heard from her this morning either, which makes me nervous, considering that she planned to sleep with some new guy last night,” she muttered.

“That lifestyle isn’t likely to keep her safe.”

“I know, and the only reason you saw me over there in the first place is because she’d been feeling very unsafe in that location.”

“And why is that? I do need to do some more research on that property and the people who lived there. I talked to a neighbor, and she gave me some information. She misses the boy quite a bit, apparently.”

“Apparently? What does that mean?”

“I don’t necessarily believe everything I’m told the first time around.”

“That’s probably a good thing. I don’t think Celine’s had anything to do with any of the neighbors yet. She’s not exactly the friendliest girl either.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Okay, my bad. She is not friendly if you’re a female. She’s not one to hide her feelings either.”

“Now that I understand,” he muttered. “If anything, she’s always been pretty standoffish with other women, hasn’t she?”

“I guess, but we’ve been friends for a long time.”

“You’re probably the one and only girlfriend she lets in. I think she sees other women as competition.”

“Which is pretty sad,” Risa noted, “because I’m not competing for anybody. I’m just working my way through the plans that I set out.”

“Are you a physiotherapist?”

“Yes.… I didn’t think you would remember that.”

“I’ve thought a lot about it,” he admitted, with a laugh. “I mean, considering how many physiotherapists I’ve visited over these last few years, it seems as if they’ve been a constant in my world.”

“Wow, that’s because of the injury you had,” she stated, “but I don’t do that kind of physio.”

“What kind of physio do you do?” he asked.

She laughed. “I’m a pelvic floor specialist.”

He digested that for a moment and admitted, “I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”

“Well, there is.” Risa was giggling now. “So, I won’t be offended if you don’t want to come and have a session with me.” They both had a good chuckle over that, and she smiled, suddenly realizing just how much at ease they had become on the phone. “You’re right. It does feel as if some of the years have fallen away.”

“Well, if you’re not doing anything, how about going for coffee?”

“Now?” she asked.

“Why not? It might be a good idea.”

“It might be a good idea?” she repeated, feeling odd when hearing his lax tone. “That doesn’t sound very positive.”

“No, but I didn’t want to push, and… sometimes anything can be seen as too much.”

“I’m not that bad,” she protested. He didn’t say anything, and she sighed. “Okay, fine, so maybe I am a little more on the cautious side than some other people.”

“And that’s a good thing,” he stated. “I won’t ever argue about your being cautious. I get it that staying safe is always paramount, and, besides, I think it’ll be good for us.”

She rather desperately wanted to ask why he thought it would be a good idea but then realized she was probably better off not even bringing it up. If she mentioned anything like that, it would make her sound as if she was being thick and deliberately trying not to understand. “Fine then, coffee it is. No promises and no strings attached.”

He burst out laughing. “I didn’t ask for any promises and definitely no strings attached . I didn’t ask for anything.”

“No, and in some ways that was always something about you that drove me crazy.”

Sounding surprised, he asked, “What? What could I possibly have done to drive you crazy?”

“You were always just so agreeable,” she replied hurriedly, “and I know that sounds strange, but it’s as if… nothing ever upsets you.”

“Lots of things upset me,” he stated, “and injustice is one of the big ones. People who don’t respect other people, people who hurt other people,” he added, “that was what I wanted you to understand. It was one of the reasons I was out doing what I was doing.”

“And here I thought it was because of Jason.”

Silence came on the other end, and then in a tone that she wouldn’t have expected from him, he shared, “You could be right. I’ve done a lot of thinking about the guilt I always carried around.”

“I never understood that,” she muttered. “I mean, why do you feel guilty? You didn’t run him over.”

“No, but my mother did, and she was a drunk. If I’d been home, looking after him, it never would have happened.”

She winced at that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No, it isn’t something any of us talked about,” he said, “and now, with her gone, it’s almost a sense of freedom for Jason. Maybe being tied to her was a hardship in its own way, you know?”

“I’m sure it was,” she agreed. “Yet he is a very outgoing, happy-go-lucky kind of guy.”

“Yeah, he is just that, but he’s done a lot of work to get there,” Cage replied warmly. “I’m really proud of him.”

“You should be.”

Changing the subject abruptly, he asked, “Same coffee shop?”

She winced. “I don’t think it’s even there anymore, and, besides, we’re still here in Detroit.”

“I know. I hate this big city stuff, but I’m here for a job. I can’t wait to go back to Lansing.”

“I’m surprised you’re even here,” she said.

“I’m here for the job, but why are you here?”

“To get away. I needed a change, and this gave me the best options.”

“Well, that’s honest at least.”

“I try,” she replied, with a smile. “I know to you it may not seem that way, but I really do try.”

“I’m not against it either way,” he murmured. “Do you want me to come by and pick you up, or is there a place close by you can walk to?”

She thought about it for a moment and then named a coffee shop just around the corner.

“Good enough,” he said. “I’ll be there in what, ten?”

“Better make it twenty.” She looked into the nearby mirror. “I’m not even dressed yet.”

He laughed. “I would tell you to come in your pajamas, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t. So we’ll make it twenty then, and thirty if you need it.”

“I don’t think I’ll need it, but you never know.” And, with that, she disconnected, a big smile on her face, and she ran to get dressed.

Cage slowly put down his phone, then got up and picked up his keys, while thinking about what to do with the information Risa had provided. Finally he picked up the phone and called Badger.

“Hey, got an update already?”

“Not really, more of a curiosity—or a question anyway.”

“Well, we’re good for those too. What’s up?”

He explained what Risa had just brought up, about there being a murder. Badger was really quiet for a long moment, then he replied, “I’ll make some further inquiries into this. So, in the meantime, you watch your back. If somebody is involved who may have had something to do with their deaths, you know how desperate people can be to keep it under wraps.”

“I do know,” he confirmed, with a note of humor. “I’m just wondering what you might have gotten me into.”

“No clue. Do you want out?”

“No, I don’t want out,” he declared instantly.

“Well, that was fast.… So that’s good.”

“Yeah, it was fast all right,” he agreed, with a chuckle, “because I don’t generally walk away from my assignments.”

“No, but nobody would judge you for it if you did,” Badger noted. “It’s not the kind of work you do anymore.”

“No, but I’ve been wondering about going into law enforcement or something along that line. I just haven’t really sorted out what I want to do.”

“Well, if we can do anything to help you get started, wherever you decide to go, you just let us know. We have a pretty solid network of connections.”

“I won’t say no, but I just don’t have a clue what I want to do yet.”

“There’s no rush either. First off, let’s solve this War Dog problem, and maybe, in the meantime, some answers will come to you.”

With that, Cage disconnected and continued on to the coffee shop. He pulled up and parked in the back, then headed to the corner table in the rear. In a way, he needed a few minutes to himself to sort through some of the information Risa had provided that could be helpful.

He expected Badger to get back to him pretty quickly, but, if Cage could dredge up anything on his own, that was all the better. As he sat here, he lost track of time. When the nearby chair was pulled back, and somebody sat down across from him, he blinked, looking up from his phone for a moment, then smiled, recognizing Risa. “Well, hello there,” he said, in a tone that used to always make her laugh.

Her eyes widened, and she burst out laughing. “My God, I haven’t heard that greeting in a very long time.”

“Well, there’s always a first, even again,” he stated, with a big smile. “You’re looking good. Did I get a chance to tell you that last night?”

She winced. “I still feel like an idiot for running away.”

He shook his head. “No need. Sometimes we just react and don’t really know what to do about it.”

“That’s probably all I did, just a blind reaction. It makes me feel foolish, but I’m willing to get past it if you are.”

“Absolutely.” He smiled. “Shall we order some coffee?” She nodded, and, as she started to get up, he shook his head. “I’ll grab it.”

He checked on what she wanted and then proceeded to the counter to put in their order in. When he got back, she looked at him and noted, “You ended up with a bit of a limp, huh ?”

He nodded casually. “Yeah. It goes with the territory, I guess.”

“I’m not sure I want to know what happened,” she muttered. “It sounds painful.”

“Waking up afterward was a bit of a shock, and it took a while to get through it, but it’s not as if I’m the first person to come home with this kind of injury.”

“Unfortunately it seems all too common these days,” she replied, studying him carefully, “but you appear to have adapted.”

“As everyone does,” he noted, with a gentle smile, “I have good days and bad days.” It was obvious that she was contemplating that when he shrugged and added, “Mostly good days though.”

“But not always?”

“No, not always. I won’t lie.”

“Of course not. That’s not your style.”

He grinned at her. “Nope, definitely not, as you should know.”

“Sometimes I’m not even sure what I know anymore.”

When the coffee arrived, he smiled over at her, lifted his cup, and said, “Cheers.”

She grinned. “Seems it’s been a long time since we had anything to say cheers about, hasn’t it?”

“Sometimes we just have to make it what we want to make it,” he murmured. “A lot of things in life we don’t necessarily like, but it’s not all bad.”

“I’m glad you think so.” She smiled at him. “So, about this murder…”

He looked at her and chuckled. “I figured you wouldn’t let that go.”

“Not if it’s about a boy and his dog,” she muttered. “That’s all I’ve been thinking about ever since you mentioned it.”

He nodded. “I have to admit it’s the reason I jumped at it. It’s hard enough for a child to lose his parents like that, but to also lose his dog? That doesn’t seem fair at all.”

“No, but it’s also not fair for the foster family to be expected to take care of the boy and the dog. Not everyone is cut out for that.”

“Maybe, but it sure would be nice if there was a way to make it happen.”

“Do you think there is?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question. There are so many unknowns, and I still don’t know much about the case.” She didn’t say a whole lot, but he knew that it was percolating in her brain. He smiled. “Still looking out for the underdog, aren’t you?”

“Is the little boy an underdog?” she asked, with a glance in his direction. “Or just somebody in need? Sob stories have always gotten to me.”

“Agreed. I remember you crying at movies and generally having a hard time with anybody being hurt.”

She murmured, “I just think that’s part of being human and how some people are softer hearted than others.”

Not a whole lot he could disagree with that, and he really had no intention to. She’d always been full of heart and a bit of a softie. Who could argue against that? He’d become a little more jaded and toughened up after seeing the state of the world around him, but that was his problem, not hers. “You should stay just the way you are,” he said suddenly. She looked at him in surprise, and he shrugged. “You’ve always had a unique outlook on life.”

“Ah, you mean, I’m na?ve?”

“I don’t know that I would call it na?ve, but I think you had a certain innocence. It’s definitely something special in this crazy world, and I think we all need more of it.”

She stared at him, but he could tell that a pleased expression was on her face, and she shrugged self-consciously. He smiled. “Honestly, you’re one of the good people in life,” he shared, “and it would be really nice if we could keep that sense of childlike wonder in everything.”

“I lost a lot of that.”

“Growing up does that,” he noted, with a smile. “It’s been a lot of years.”

“It has,” she murmured. She gave a sudden headshake and suggested, “We need to talk about something a whole lot less depressing.” She looked over at him and asked, “So, what is it that you’re doing with this dog, and what is your plan for trying to find it?”

He smiled at her and then chuckled. “Of course it’s all about the dog.”

“It’s definitely about the dog… and the little boy,” she stated abruptly. “The whole thing is a tearjerker, if you ask me.”

He nodded. “Well, I don’t have a whole lot of information yet. I’ve told my boss what you mentioned about a murder, and he’s looking into it. He has a lot of connections in the military and in agencies all over, and we’ll see what they come up with. In the meantime, I’m making an appointment to go see the little boy. I want to talk to him and see if he has any details, and I’ll talk to the foster family. Naturally I’ll have to talk to Child Services,” he noted, “and hopefully, somewhere along the line, something will pop up to help me solve this mystery.”

“It would be nice if it fell into place like that,” she said. “It’s depressing to think that he lost everything.”

“A lot of us lose everything,” he shared, “but that doesn’t mean it has to be lost forever.”

“No, but you and I both know that nobody’ll give the boy his dog back.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean the military is prepared to walk away from the dog,” he pointed out.

She shook her head at that. “As much as I want to believe that the military cares, you know it’s much harder for me to wrap my head around it.”

He nodded. “I know, and that’s okay too,” he said. “Not everything in life is so cut-and-dried or the way we want to see it. There are always other things that we don’t know about, and, until we have all the information, there’s really no point in stewing over it.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “I can’t believe how much the story of the dog upsets me though.”

“I’ll let you know what I can when I find out something,” he offered. “It’s not that I’m doing any classified work, but it is definitely not my story to share. I’ll have to ask my bosses how that works.”

She frowned at him. “Right, I hadn’t even considered that angle.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He laughed. “I didn’t either, and it’s on me to figure it out.”

She nodded. “It’s all so interesting to think about though. What happens to all of these lost War Dogs?”

“Well, in some cases, good things, and some other cases are not so good.”

“I’ve heard some terrible stories about what they did with them after the Vietnam War.”

His cheeks sucked in with the pain of that story too. “I know. I’ve heard the stories, but I choose not to focus on that now. I’m just glad we’ve learned from our mistakes, at least to some degree.”

“Sometimes it’s got to be hard not to focus on all that could go wrong,” she muttered. “I mean, to think that even more could go wrong is just heartbreaking.”

He nodded. “It is, and I agree. So we’re focusing on the good stuff and going from there.”

She smiled. “I forgot about that optimism you always had.”

“It wasn’t really even optimism,” he clarified. “I think it was an understanding, an acceptance of the reality that I can only change what I can and have to try to find peace with the rest of it.”

“That sounds like the old you.”

“I am the old me,” he confirmed. “Some things have changed, but not an awful lot.”

“So why didn’t you try to contact me again?”

He looked at her, then asked in a clipped tone, “Why didn’t you answer your phone the first time I contacted you?”

“Because I wasn’t sure what to say,” she admitted. “Just the same as when I saw you yesterday,… and I ran.”

“Yeah, I’m still pondering that reaction myself,” he said, with a look at her. “I can understand the sudden surprise and being uneasy maybe, or not sure what to say, but the running part? I just don’t get it.”

“It’s very me, or have you forgotten that too? Surely not when you accused me of running away again . Whenever I get to a place in life that’s uncomfortable,” she explained, “I just walk away because I don’t know what else to do.”

“Are you still doing that?”

She winced. “Well, considering I took one look at you and ran, I guess so.” He just nodded. “Why do you think I ran?”

“Well, the obvious answer is because you didn’t want to see me,” he replied.

She winced. “Yeah, that’s the obvious answer, but it’s not the real answer.”

“Good. Did you already know that I had an injury and didn’t want anything to do with me because of it?”

“God, no,” she exclaimed, as she stared at him. “That had nothing to do with it.”

“But did it though?” he asked, staring at her intently. “I do have a prosthetic. I just don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Sure, but, for somebody like me who’s in physiotherapy, that is not an issue.” She frowned, “And your injury isn’t obvious.”

Her tone was just firm enough that he wanted to believe her, but he still remembered her taking one look and running. He just nodded to put her at ease. When his phone rang, he looked down at it and raised a hand. “Hang on. I’ve got to take this.” Then he answered, “Hey, Badger. What’s up?”

“Well, I have a little bit of information but not a whole lot and not a lot of it good.”

“Okay. What does that mean?”

“It means that there is a chance she’s correct. The police have kept an open file. They don’t have any answers, so until something else develops,… it’s definitely an open case.”

“Yet murder by car accident?”

Risa immediately straightened, and her eyes went wide open.

Badger added on the sly, “I was asked to keep you out of their way because they are actively pursuing an investigation.”

“Well, that’s nice,” he stated bluntly. “So am I.”

Badger laughed. “I know, and I told him that. He wasn’t terribly impressed, and they won’t allow any interference.”

“I highly doubt that anything I’m looking at will affect them.”

“I did explain that we were on the hunt for a War Dog, not a murderer,” Badger shared, with humor threading through his tone, “but he’s aware that my men have a tendency to trip over things and to get in the way more than he would like.”

“That’s interesting,” Cage noted, with half a laugh. “It’s almost as if he knows you.”

“Right? He didn’t seem terribly friendly.”

“Is it a problem?” Cage asked.

“No, it isn’t. I know his buddy pretty well, and I’m sure I’ll be getting a phone call from him very soon,” Badger noted. “I expect they’ll say that you can carry on as you are, and, should the investigations dovetail in some way, they very much want to be kept in the loop.”

“Of course.” Cage glanced over at Risa, who was listening intently.

“Other than that,” Badger said, “watch your back.” And, with that, Badger disconnected.

Cage pocketed his phone and looked over at her. “So, apparently the case remains open, and it is possible that the family was murdered,” he shared in a low tone of voice.

She gasped. “Good God, is it even safe over there for Celine?”

“It’s hard to say with the limited information we have,” he replied, with a shrug. “But, unless she has done something to piss people off,” he added, with a roll of his eyes, “then I’m sure she’s safe.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about the pissing people off part,” Risa acknowledged, “since she does have a tendency to be a little blunt when she’s not happy.”

“Ya think? If I remember correctly, that girl gets into trouble without too much effort.”

Risa nodded. “I can’t say that she doesn’t because you know she can be a handful.”

“Sometimes,” Cage agreed, with a smile.

She winced. “Okay, so she tends to walk to her own drumbeat, but that doesn’t make her bad. Still, I’ll just send her a quick text and see if I get a reply. After all, she’s with her new man , and I haven’t heard from her today.”

At the defensive tone in her voice, he smiled. “Believe me that I’m not saying she’s bad by any means. I’m just not sure about this scenario I suddenly find myself in, much less her own scenario.”

“That’s the thing I don’t understand either,” Risa noted. “What are you supposed to do about it?”

“Keep an eye out for any murder clues, while I keep searching for the dog. Then, if I find anything that pertains to the murder investigation, I will let the police know.”

Her eyes widened at that. “Are you going to investigate this?”

“This?” he asked, looking at her curiously. “What is this ?”

She frowned and shrugged. “I guess I don’t really know. What is this?”

“I’m looking for a War Dog,” he stated. “That is what I am here for.”

“Right.” She frowned. “It just seems so strange that the dog would be the priority.”

“Well, it is in my case. That’s what I came for.”

“Right.” At that, her tone turned a little more formal.

He studied her across the table and asked, “Now what’s got you upset?”

“Nothing,” she declared, her tone crisp, “absolutely nothing.”

He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even know you would be here.”

“No, of course not,” she replied, her shoulders sagging. “You didn’t, and it’s not as if we’ve had anything to do with each other over the last eight years.”

“Yet you think I’ve done something wrong?”

She looked over at him and winced. “How could you have?” she asked, with a small smile. “I’m just being foolish, with old resentments coming back.”

“Well, maybe you should tell me what those old resentments are, so I can deal with them.”

“I’m not sure I can,” she said. “I didn’t realize just how much they were festering until you spoke up just now.”

He nodded. “I think that’s the trouble I’m having. I’m hearing the resentment, but I don’t know what I did wrong. As I recall, you sent me off to war quite happily. You didn’t want to be here dealing with somebody who would be coming back and forth, and you,… you wanted to be free.”

“Free?” she repeated in fascination. “I wanted you to be free to go be you.”

“And I did just that,” he stated, looking at her puzzled, “and, when I came back into town a couple times, I couldn’t get a hold of you. I even left messages.”

“No, you didn’t. I never got any messages.” She stared at him. “Left message with whom?”

He looked at her, opened his mouth, slowly closed it, and then answered, “Your mother.”

She sank back and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Good God.… You do realize I never got any of those messages, right?”

“I’m just now starting to realize that,” he replied, staring at her. “Would she really have done that?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, but my mother is certainly capable of doing things we don’t expect,” she noted, “so my guess is she absolutely did.” She shook her head as she stared around the restaurant. “Now I feel very strange.” She looked back at him. “How many times did you leave messages?”

He shrugged. “The first three times I got a chance to call you. The first time I was just…” He gave her a half smile. “I was lonely. I was out in the middle of nowhere and wanted to hear your voice. I called, and you didn’t answer, but your mother did. She told me how you were out enjoying your freedom. I asked her to tell you that I called and that I would try again. As it was, I had leave coming up, only you never answered my message. I tried calling you when I got back, and you didn’t answer then either.” He shrugged. “I left another message, but, after the third time, I figured you didn’t want to hear from me anymore. So I stopped calling. I thought if you weren’t trying to get back to me, the meaning was pretty clear.”

“But I didn’t get back to you because I didn’t even know you’d called in the first place. Goddammit.” She stared out across the room. “I didn’t know. I swear to God, I didn’t know. Then I was angry because you didn’t call, so by then I didn’t answer when you tried again.”

He nodded slowly. “It occurred to me that it might be something like that, but I didn’t have any reason to suspect that she would deliberately try to sabotage our relationship. I hadn’t thought I was on the hit list, but apparently I didn’t really understand.” Risa just stared at him, and he could see the pain in her expression. “It doesn’t really matter, you know? It’s okay.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? All that time you thought I didn’t care. And I thought you didn’t care as well.”

He pinched his lips together and then nodded slowly. “Well, that’s the way it looked, yes,” he acknowledged. “What was I supposed to think?”

“Of course that’s what you would have thought,” she grumbled, her bottom lip trembling. She pressed her lips together, and he realized she was close to crying. “When in truth I thought you didn’t care.”

“I didn’t bring it up to make you feel bad.”

She broke into a half laugh, half cry. “How can I not feel bad?” she asked. “I meant it when I told you to go off and to do you . I meant that sincerely because I really wanted you to be happy and doing what you wanted to do. It just never occurred to me that I wouldn’t hear from you again. That you wanted to be alone or at least not with me.” she explained. “Now to think that all that time I thought you had ignored me, you were expecting me to contact you, or at least to acknowledge that you had been in contact with me. It’s just…” She shook her head. “It’s just heartbreaking,” she whispered.

“Well, at least you know now,” he said.

She stared at him. “That doesn’t help.”

His lips quirked. “No, I can see that maybe it wouldn’t help, but I can’t see that it would hurt.”

The waitress came back around then to offer to fill up their coffees. Risa accepted it, numbly holding out her cup to be refilled. When Cage shook his head, the waitress left.

Cage watched Risa carefully, not at all sure it was safe to just let her be right now. “I really didn’t tell you about that to upset you.”

“Right, and that’s another thing, that if I gave it a chance, would it piss me right off, because how could you not be mad at me all these years? How could you not be disgusted, thinking I hadn’t even tried to get back to you?” She frowned. “I mean, that was the last thing I ever would have done to you.”

“I know,” Cage agreed. “That’s why I took it as being over and that you didn’t want anything to do with me and that giving me my freedom was basically you taking your own freedom in stride.”

She just stared at him numbly and pinched her lips closed together yet again.

“Hey”—he grasped her hand—“I’m sorry.”

“No,” she muttered, the tears clouding her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s not what…” The words couldn’t come out, and she stared off into the distance, blinking rapidly to hold back her tears.

He gave her hand another gentle squeeze. “On the other hand, I’m no longer in the military, and I’m here. If nothing else, seeing me should totally piss off your mother.”

She looked at him, and then a strangled laugh burst out. “Only you would see that as a positive right now,” she muttered. “To even think she did that and knowingly set it up like that for me…”

“Is absolutely freeing,” he declared. She eyed him in surprise. “It’s freeing because it allows you to know who she is, what she is, and what she’s prepared to do. She is prepared to… I don’t know. She seems prepared to intentionally stop you from being happy.”

“I don’t disagree,” she muttered, frowning at him, “but why? I’m her daughter. Aren’t we supposed to want to see our children happy?”

“Yes, but does your mother strike you as the kind of person who is like everybody else?”

“No, you’re right. She’s definitely not the mother who is ever concerned about anybody other than herself, but good God,” she muttered, squeezing his hand. “How could she do that? Why would she hurt you, who were out there in service to our country?”

“I don’t think the fact that I was in the service made a bit of difference to her at all,” he stated, with a note of amusement. “I think it was all about control, or maybe keeping you under her thumb, or maybe she really didn’t think the relationship was good for you. So she was happy to do whatever she could to confirm it didn’t continue.”

Risa just stared at him and muttered, “You are way more generous than I am.”

“When you’ve had a chance to think about it,” he suggested, “chances are you’ll understand where she was coming from.”

“I will never understand,” she bit off.

He winced. “I didn’t tell you to cause a fight between you and your mother.”

“No, that may not have been your intent,” she noted, with a look in his direction, “but that’s exactly what you’ve done.” He groaned. Seeing him react, she shook her head. “It’s not your fault.”

“You do realize that, in this instance, I am absolutely going to get blamed.”

She nodded. “For this, you probably will,” she agreed, “but, for anything else, that’s all on my mother, and that is something I cannot let her get away with.”

“What will you do?” he asked, staring at her. “It’s just the two of you. Maybe she did it to keep you close. You don’t know her reasons.”

“No, I don’t,” she replied. “It’s possible you’re wrong, but you and I both know,… chances are that’s exactly what it was.”

“But you don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t.” She shook her head again. “I’m just sitting here still dumbstruck over the whole thing, and it’s not something I’ll wrap my head around anytime soon.”

“How has your relationship with her been going?”

She stared at him, then shrugged. “Not great. She’s still very abrasive, still very critical. Even today she told me that you were a loser when I told her that I had seen you.”

“Oh, wow, that’s nice to know,” he replied, trying for a note of humor and realizing he had failed when she shot him a look.

“She had no business saying anything after what she’s done,” she snapped.

Knowing it was probably best to just stay quiet, he tried to stay out of it.

Finally Risa groaned. “And here I am, snapping at you, and it’s not your doing, or your problem.”

“Sometimes we can’t do anything about our families,” he shared. “You know as well as I do that my mother wasn’t the easiest either. Only after she ran over my brother and ruined his life did she quit drinking for a time, but it wasn’t in time to make Jason’s life any better. There was no way of saving him all that pain,” Cage shared, “and, yes, at least she finally did smarten up with the time she had left. She did all she could for him at first, but that didn’t change what happened.”

“No,” she muttered. “God, that is awful to even contemplate. I knew about that accident, but damn.… I’d forgotten the details.”

“Probably just as well,” he said. “It’s not something that Jason or I want to dwell on because there’s no joy in that.”

She smiled. “And the two of you have always managed to let bygones be bygones.”

“I think I hated her more than he did, even before the accident,” Cage shared. “It’s one of the reasons I went into the military because my attitude toward her was something I was really struggling with. When she and our father tried to make their relationship work again, I thought she might settle down. Yet all that happened was she started drinking again with our father.

“He promised me that he would get sober, and so would she. He also thought that, if I went into the service, it would be one less responsibility for them to handle. Still, it was Jason who persuaded me to go. He said I wasn’t helping and was actually hurting the issue, so I needed to find a way to control my temper and to let my anger go. I needed to find some space, some time, and some distance from all of it.

“Yet here Jason was, the wise old soul at eight years old. Leaving made me angry and made me feel guilty in so many ways, and yet I felt it was the best thing I could do to save our family. But leaving Jason?” Cage shook his head. “That was hard. And then when the accident happened? That was worse. If I had been in town, I’m not sure I could have contained myself. There I was, overseas, signed up for a four-year tour and couldn’t go back on my word. So I spent every leave with Jason.”

“I am so sorry,” she whispered. She glanced around and added, “I need to go talk to my mother.” He stared at her in horror. She smiled. “It’s okay. It’s not about you.”

“Of course it’s about me,” he countered. “Man, if that woman finds out you talked to me…”

“That’s probably why she spoke that way this morning,” Risa shared. “She knows what’s coming. Anyway, I can’t stay here and hide. I’ll face this and have a little talk with my mother about interfering in my life. What will you do today?”

“I’ll go talk to the little boy, and then to someone handling his case at Child Services to see what other information I can dredge up.” He hesitated, smiled at her, and asked, “You want to have dinner with me later?”

“Absolutely. I would love to have dinner,” she confirmed, studying him. “You should hate me for everything that’s happened.”

He shook his head. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to. I don’t hate easily. If I did, I probably would have done something to my own mother.”

She winced and then nodded. “That is a very valid point. Dinner it is. What time?”

“Seven,” he said, as he stood up. “If you need to cancel, give me a shout.” And, with that, he turned and headed to his car.