all of that. The threat to his informal investigation was the problem.
Ted stepped into Josh’s line of sight. “Hello?”
“What are you doing?”
“Focus.”
Josh watched Cassie disappear from sight. “I was. Trust me.”
“Seriously. What are we going to do?”
We. Josh liked the sound of that. Kane was both the police chief and his best friend, but with him out of town Ted was a good temporary substitute. Kane could travel around with his new wife Annie. Josh and Ted had to concentrate on the mess swirling around them.
“Josh?”
“I’m thinking.” The sound of a ringing phone wasn’t helping with that. “I’m balancing a lot here.”
Bucking his boss’s orders, conducting an undercover drug operation, and spearheading an informal and totally un-sanctioned investigation into Dan’s death. Yeah, a guy could get a bit pissed off with an agenda like that to worry about.
“What about the shots,” Ted asked over the ringing phone.
“A last-minute thing. Cassie walked right into the middle of my setup. Bobby Polk was within seconds of getting to the house.”
Ted opened the door to the back office. “And Cal?”
“Didn’t even know he was there. I was trying to get Cassie out of there before she ran into Polk. What was I supposed to do?”
“Ever think of handling the situation without bullets?”
“Uh, no.” Hadn’t even crossed his mind, actually.
“Just a sec.” Ted shouted into the opened doorway. “Anyone going to get off their ass and answer the phone, or do we not care if someone needs our help?”
The door fell shut on a few mumbled apologies, but Ted kept muttering under his breath.
Josh could not help but be impressed. “That should win over your staff.”
“Let’s focus on your problem. This Cal character brings the game to a whole new level. He’s smart enough to know something’s wrong. If nothing else, the shoot-out clued him in.”
Josh tapped his pen against his lip. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Can’t imagine that being the case.” Ted laughed. “I’m starting to think you wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit you in the ass.”
“The goal was to protect Cassie.”
“You gonna stick with that when this whole thing goes down and she decides to sue you?”
That wasn’t Josh’s biggest concern. His boss told him to stay quiet about Dan and let the NTSB handle the investigation without providing any information. Josh balked and nearly got fired. Now he had to handle the situation on his own, without DEA resources or help.
“Cassie will get the truth eventually. That’s all that will matter to her,” Josh said.
“I’ll remember that when I lose my badge for helping you.” Ted shook his head. “I can’t believe I went along with this.”
“Didn’t exactly give you a choice.”
“No wonder Kane took a six-week vacation.”
Ted was a decent man and damn good at his job, but Josh wanted Kane back at his desk. “I think that has more to do with Annie.”
“She still hate you?”
“She never hated me.” Josh smiled at the memory of his past sparring with Annie. “I saved her husband’s ass once or twice. She owes me.”
“In the meantime, we have a mess on our hands. Drug-running. A dead pilot. And now an amateur detective team determined to blow the whole thing to hell.”
“Yeah, this one isn’t exactly going according to plan.” Josh dragged his notepad out of his pocket and jotted down Cal’s name for a background check.
“Any closer to figuring out your boss’s reluctance to talk with the NTSB?”
Josh had shared the barest of details of that problem with Ted. Better he not know the entire story. As far as Ted was concerned, the folks at DEA didn’t want Josh talking to anyone about what he’d seen at the crash site that day. No one was even to know Josh had been there.
But there was more. A lot more. Josh knew his boss, Brad Nohea, was covering up a much bigger disaster. One that he did not want reported back to the home office, the Los Angeles division of the DEA. And one that could cost Nohea his job and take out Josh as collateral damage.
Josh kept those problems to himself. No need to implicate Ted or condemn Kane’s office and the decent officers who worked there. This was a DEA mistake, not a Kauai police mistake. Unfortunately, Dan was the one who paid.
“Officially, I’m on loan to the police, to you, on this one. I answer to you, not Nohea, as part of this operation,” Josh said.
“Since when?”
“Since right this second.”
“So, we’re pretending you’re working on some kind of special drug case?”
“Yep.”
Ted managed to roll his eyes and let out a loud exhale at the same time. “The same case that doesn’t actually exist?”
“Something like that.”
“Sounds like a lot of unnecessary paperwork to me.”
Josh shrugged. “Kane used to do it for me.”
“Shame we can’t wait until Kane gets back and let his butt be the one that gets in trouble.” Ted grabbed a piece of paper from under the counter and wrote down a few notes.
“Is that a no?”
“You see me writing, don’t you?” Ted shook his head while he did. “So, what are you going to do to bring this to a close?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Getting Cassie and Cal to back off will be tough.”
Josh flashed his cockiest smile. “I’m up to the task.”
“Sounds like I should start looking for another job, because chances are you’re going to get me fired with this stunt.”
“I’d say that’s likely. Yes.”
Chapter Eight
Cal kept trying to pull Cassie back to the car, but she dragged her feet and slowed him down. His dark burglar outfit had helped him blend into the night, but it would soon be
