K-9 Patrol
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Julie Miller
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Chapter One
“Me?”
Criminalist Lexi Callahan pressed her lips together, just to make sure her mouth wasn’t gaping open as she looked across the hallway to her boss, Mac Taylor, who ran the Kansas City Police Department Crime Laboratory. When he’d stopped her on the way to the break room near the end of her shift, she’d assumed he was asking for a favor or following up on her most recent crime scene analysis report—not that he was going to offer her a promotion.
Mac adjusted his glasses over his scarred face and smiled. “Don’t sound so surprised. You’ve earned the job. I think Supervisor Lexi Callahan has a nice ring to it. True, you’ll be stuck on the night shift sometimes, but you’d be running your own squad in the CSIU, reporting directly to Captain Stockman, sitting in on a meeting with me every now and then so I know what’s going on at the front lines.”
The boss of her own team. Coordinating the jobs of gathering evidence and funneling it to the seven divisions and seventy or so experts who worked on everything from digital evidence to weapons identification, from bloodstain spatter analysis to microchemistry, DNA and more.
Lexi leaned back against the steel railing that ran the length of the windows lining the long hallway and common areas that connected the individual labs and crime lab offices on the west side of the building complex to the Seventh Precinct offices of KCPD on the east. She needed to sit, and she wasn’t going to make it to a chair in the memorial lounge, where she and her colleagues often met to decompress from the stresses of the day. “Dennis is okay with this?” Her current B squad supervisor might be a stellar investigator, but he had been reprimanded, fined and ordered to attend sensitivity training to break his habit of calling the women on his team honey and sweetie, and finding subtle ways to accidentally make unnecessary contact with them.
“Dennis doesn’t get a say in this. His tenure has left morale fractured around here. He’s a liability to this entire department. I can fire him if he doesn’t complete the training or picks up his old habits again. Right now, I just need to get him off the front line. There are trust issues that need to be mended around here. I think you’re the woman for the job.”
No pressure there. Lexi inhaled a steadying breath and nodded.
“Dennis is moving over into an administrative position, opening up the squad supervisor spot sooner than we were expecting.” Kick Dennis off investigative work and stick him in an office where he had less chance of offending anyone until he hit retirement in a couple of years? Probably a wise decision for both staff morale and public relations. Putting a woman in charge would no doubt also alleviate some of the concerns from the women on staff. “These days, we’re all more specialized than criminalists were when I first started. But you have training in multiple specialties, so I believe that gives you a unique understanding into the challenges each member of the lab faces. There’s no one I trust more to bring in what we need from a crime scene. And if you can’t get these guys thinking like a team again, I don’t know who can.”
Lexi tucked a chin-length wave of golden-brown hair behind her ear. “I’m flattered, sir.”
“Don’t be flattered. Be good.” His phone must have vibrated in his pocket, because he held up a finger to pause the conversation a moment while he took it out and read a text.
While Mac answered the summons, Lexi looked to her coworkers in the lounge. Chemists and toxicologists. A nearsighted nerd with crazy mad computer skills. A blood expert who’d lost his legs in a war zone and now sat in a wheelchair. He was playing chess with a man whose prematurely graying hair made him seem older than she knew him to be. There was an ogre-sized sharps expert standing off to himself who’d said maybe ten words to her outside of a case and had yet to meet a weapon he didn’t recognize. The uniformed Black police sergeant who assisted Mac Taylor with administrative duties was chatting with a man who, like him, appeared to be in his midforties. The stranger looked like he could be a cop himself, although he wore a suit and tie beneath his winter coat. She’d seen him on the crime lab campus before, although she’d never met him.
She counted many of them among her friends. Other than the man who looked like a bulldog and was chatting with Sergeant King, they were all her coworkers. “I’d be in charge of them? That’s a lot of different personalities to deal with. A couple of them have been here longer than I have. Won’t they resent me getting the promotion ahead of them?”
“Some of them don’t want the job. They’re happier in the lab than out in the field. And not a one of them has your people skills.” Mac pocketed his phone and continued the sales pitch. “I’m not going to lie to you—people will need time to adjust to your changing role in their world. And how you deal with certain situations could impact those relationships. But if everyone is mature about it and remembers we’re a team and we’re here to help KCPD solve crimes, you can still be friends. But now you’re also their boss. After the issues with Dennis, my hope is that smart, trustworthy leadership will help this unit gel into a stronger team.”
“You believe I can do that?”
Mac’s good eye narrowed as he debated whether or not that had been a rhetorical question. “Yes.”
Stuff like this didn’t happen to her. Nothing much ever happened to Alexis Sedell Callahan. Not since her parents had been murdered during a carjacking her junior year of high school. Her overprotective big brother, who’d stepped up to parent her, had seen to that. Levi Callahan was a six-foot-two Marine with green eyes that matched her own. Lexi adored her brother, who, whether he was stateside or deployed across the world, seemed to find a way to keep his eye on her.
That protective streak had only increased after her college sweetheart had cheated on her shortly after moving in with her. He claimed she’d become a workaholic, with no time for his needs. She’d been holding down a full-time job and attending grad school at the time. Kevin Nelson had wanted them to work in his father’s pharmaceutical company together, but she’d opted for public service at the crime lab. She’d been inspired by Mac Taylor himself, after his work at the lab had identified the meth head who had shot her parents. His scientific investigation had helped get the killer sent to prison so he couldn’t hurt any more families the way he’d destroyed hers.
Now she was the one helping the police, uncovering and analyzing clues, solidifying cases so KCPD could make arrests and the DA could prosecute the perps and make Kansas City safer. If it were in her power, no one else would suffer the kind of loss she and her brother, Levi, had and not find justice.
The crime lab was where she needed to be, where she wanted to be.
If she could make it even better by taking charge of a small part of it, then she’d do that, too.
She waited until Mac had finished the texting that was making him smile before continuing the conversation. “I thought you were calling me in to ask me to cover someone’s shift over the Thanksgiving holiday this week. I know you always have a big, multigenerational family deal, and I’m...alone...this year, so I’m available. I didn’t realize the board had finished interviewing the candidates and made their decision so quickly.”
“Dennis’s actions sped the process.”
No doubt. She’d been one of the women who’d filed a grievance against her supervisor. “The science and administrative duties I can handle. It’s the team management I have to consider. I thought the interview was more of a learning exercise, building experience for me.”
“Then you shouldn’t have killed it.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to do such a good job.” Maybe she shouldn’t be making sarcastic jokes with the boss. “I mean, thank you, sir.”
He chuckled and slipped his fingers through his graying blond hair. “Your brother’s still deployed?”
Lexi nodded. “He’s based in Afghanistan right now. He gets leave over Christmas. We’re going to celebrate all the holidays then. As the newest squad leader, will I be on call over Christmas?”
Mac seemed to understand that she had several things to consider before giving him a firm answer. “You’ve got a couple of days to think it over. I’ll make sure you get time off at Christmas while your brother is home. But I’d like your first shift as squad supervisor to start on the twenty-seventh.”
“Thanksgiving Day,” she confirmed.
“That gives you two days to decide.”
Lexi pushed herself off the railing. “Thank you for the opportunity, sir. I’ll let you know ASAP.”
Mac nodded. Then he held up his phone and smiled. Although he was blind in one eye, following an explosion in the city’s first crime lab, his good eye sparkled as he mentioned his family. “My wife has informed me that our daughter’s basketball tournament is about to tip off, and I am not there. I’d better obey the boss and get over to the high school.”
Lexi chuckled. She’d had the pleasure of meeting Mac’s wife, Julia, at a few work functions, and her impression of the experienced trauma nurse was that she was a gentle, kind soul who was anything but bossy. And it was clear Mac adored her. Lexi ignored the pang of longing that tried to take hold inside her. After she’d dumped Kevin, and her brother had stepped up to screen out anyone he didn’t deem good enough for his little sister, it looked like her hope for finding a similar forever relationship of her own would be taking a back seat to her career indefinitely. Good thing she loved what she was doing and didn’t need a man to make her happy. Although, that lonely space around her heart wasn’t above wanting someone special in her life in addition to a successful, meaningful career.
Suspecting this conversation had already gone on longer than Mac had intended, Lexi sent him on his way. He didn’t need to stand here and wait while she deliberated the pros and cons of accepting this promotion right now. “You’d better get out of here, then. Tell Jules hi.”
“Will do.” He inclined his head toward the break room. “You’d better check in with your entourage. I think they’re curious about what we’re discussing out here.”
Lexi turned to see several of her coworkers’ conversations had stopped and they were looking toward the hallway where she and Mac stood. Although most of them quickly glanced away and feigned a sudden interest in coffee mugs, snacks and whoever was standing or sitting closest to them, she hadn’t missed their inquisitive looks. With an embarrassed sigh and a shake of her head, she glanced up at Mac. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. The only place news travels faster than around the Seventh Precinct/Crime Lab is between my mom and mother-in-law.” He arched a golden brow above the rim of his glasses. “Good luck if you’re heading in there.”
“They probably want to know if anyone else is getting transferred or fired. I’ll stop the rumor mill before it starts. Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Lexi.” He pointed a finger at her, even as he was backing toward his office to grab his winter coat and lock up. “Two days and I’ll need that decision.”
Two days to change the status quo of her utterly predictable life and take on the burden of safe, trustworthy leadership for all those worried souls in the break room and beyond. Right. No pressure at all.
Lexi exhaled a deep breath before she strolled to the lounge. Jackson Dobbs, who looked more like a defensive lineman for the Kansas City Chiefs than the sharps and ballistics expert he was, filled the doorway. He stepped back as though he’d been ready to leave but hadn’t wanted to pass by and interrupt her conversation with their boss. Lexi moved past him to find her coworkers all staring at her again. “You guys saw me talking to Mac? It’s not what you think. No one’s getting fired.”
“Well, duh.” Chelsea O’Brien pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her freckled nose. “Okay, yes, that’s what we were thinking at first. At least, I was. But then, Jackson was standing right by the door, so he heard the actual words and was eavesdropping for us.” She paused for a breath. “Now we know. You’re taking the job, right?”
Jackson Dobbs, the man who gave stoic its definition in the dictionary, had been relaying gossip? She tilted her gaze up to the icy gray eyes of the man who towered above her. “You were spying on me?”
He shrugged.
Chelsea got up from the tall table where she’d been working on her laptop and pointed to the hallway just outside the lounge. “You were right there. And, you know, Jackson doesn’t miss much.”
Khari Thomas’s long ebony braids stirred across her shoulders as she adjusted her white lab coat over her pregnant belly. “We made him do it.” She crossed the lounge to elbow Jackson’s arm and take the sting out of her words. “Although, he was annoyingly short on details. One word. One stinkin’ word. Promotion. We filled in the rest. Congratulations, Lexi. I’m going to like working for a woman for a change. Especially after Dennis.” She cupped her extended belly with both hands. “You’d think with him having a new fiancée, and me carrying this basketball, he’d stop looking at my butt.”
Lexi swept her gaze around the room. “You guys all know?”
Grayson Malone spun his wheelchair away from the chess game to face her. “We’re some of the smartest people on the planet.” The veteran Marine scratched at the dark blond stubble blanketing his angular jawline. “We know Hunt is on his way out. It’s not that tricky a mystery to solve. Take the job.”
Ethan Wynn was a handsome man despite his prematurely graying hair. Since the two of them had gone through orientation at the same time and worked the CSIU together ever since, she didn’t mind when he pulled her in for a quick hug. “Congrats, Lexi. Well deserved.”
She smiled up into his brown eyes as she pulled away. “Thanks, Ethan. I know you interviewed for the promotion, too. I’m sure you’ll be offered the next spot that opens up.”
He shrugged off the compliment. “It’s a sensitive time for the lab. I can see why a woman is the smart choice for the job right now. Besides, you’ll get to deal with the transition hiccups and spike in crimes over the holidays, not me.” He winked and grinned before turning back to the table and moving his bishop across the chessboard. “I’m holding out for Taylor’s position, anyway. The guy’s gotta retire one of these days, doesn’t he?”
Not anytime soon, she hoped. She couldn’t imagine a better mentor teaching her the ropes if she did agree to the supervisory position.
Lexi opened the insulated mug she’d carried into the break room and went to refill it for the drive home. But the pot was empty. Not one to leave a job unfinished, she opened the machine to dump the used grounds and refill it with fresh beans from the cabinet above her. Not only would the next shift be looking for coffee when they reported for work in about twenty minutes, but she needed the jolt to the brain to help organize all the thoughts running through her head. Once the pot started to fill with the fresh, fragrant brew, she turned to face her friends again. “You all think you can take orders from me?”
Gray moved his king to a safe position on the board. “Are you going to be more like my mother or my drill sergeant?”
Chelsea ran over and linked their elbows, standing shoulder to shoulder with her. “She’s going to be like Lexi. The team’s going to stick together and it’s all going to be fine.” Today, Chelsea’s hazel eyes were circled by tiny turkeys dancing around the frames of her orange glasses. “Seriously, I thought Mac might be transferring you to a different shift. Breaking up the team.”
“I haven’t taken the job yet.”
Shane Duvall, whose narrow black glasses were more “nerdy professor” than Chelsea’s seasonal eyewear, fit the stereotype of a scientist and lab technician better than any of them. Supremely logical, he’d probably already created a pros and cons list inside his head. “Why not? I don’t see any downside to you running the show. I appreciated your help with the chemical analysis on the Norwell case. And your suggestion that I submit the formula to the state fire office to add to their database, as well, was spot-on. That sort of interdepartmental teamwork will only continue with you at the helm.”
“You guys.” She looked from face to face, overwhelmed by their show of support. Of course, this was the grace period. The first time she had to reprimand one of them or stick them with an assignment he or she didn’t like, they might rethink their friendship with her. “We have different strengths, work in different departments. And we’ve been on the same level for a long time. It’s going to change the dynamic between us.”
Jackson finally spoke from his position at the door. “Why?”
“Jackson’s right.” Gray seemed to speak a code with the big guy, understanding far more than the words Jackson actually said. “With the exception of one divisive clunker who’s tried to undermine several of us, the KCPD Crime Lab is a well-oiled machine. We do good work. Shifting our job assignments a little shouldn’t alter that. You pretty much keep us organized and on task already. Now you’re getting the pay grade to match.”
Rufus King came up on the other side of Lexi and touched her shoulder to get her attention. Then he extended his hand to shake hers. “About time they recognized your talent, Ms. Callahan. Congratulations.”
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
“Robert Buckner.” Rufus’s friend extended his hand, as well. “Why not? You seem to be the only one hesitating here. Congratulations, by the way.”
“Um, thank you?”
Rufus explained the stocky man’s presence in the lounge. “Buck was my partner before I transferred to the lab to help run the admin side of things. He left the force about the same time. Now he’s got his own private investigation firm—still does some odd jobs for the department.”
Odd jobs? What did that mean?
“In return, we help him out when we can.” Help? In what way? But before she could ask specifically what had brought Buck to the crime lab, or what his definition of an odd job entailed, Rufus nudged his former partner toward the exit. “Come on, Buck. Let’s let these young pups stew over the decisions that you and I already know the answers to. Besides, you owe me a dinner. I’m thinking steak, since my wife will be feeding me every incarnation of turkey for the next two weeks.”
“Mr. Buckner?” Chelsea stopped the man with the salt-and-pepper hair before he headed out with Rufus. “I’ve got that file you gave me downloaded onto my computer. I’ll work on tracking down the information you asked for in my spare time. Around my duties here at the lab, of course. We won’t let it be a cold case forever. I promise.”
What kind of quid pro quo was going on here? And what did it have to do with the lab’s top computer expert using her skills to help a civilian, even if he was a former cop?
Robert Buckner patted Chelsea’s hand where it rested on the sleeve of his wool coat. “Thank you, Miss O’Brien. Any help you can give me, I’d appreciate.”
“Sure thing. And it’s Chelsea. Or Chels. I answer to both. Any friend of Sergeant King’s is a friend of mine. And, you know, I do have spare time. Too much of it, really. That’s why I’m online so much instead of hanging out with real people. Except for the folks here. I mean, they’re real people, obviously... Um, okay. TMI.”
To his credit, the older man focused on everything she was saying until her nerves kicked in and she pulled away to needlessly adjust her glasses again. “Thank you...Chelsea,” he responded in a gruff voice. “I’ll be in touch.”
Chelsea’s lips buzzed with a long exhalation as the two older men left the lounge. “That was awkward. Of course it was awkward. I was talking. I was rambling.”
“Easy, Chels,” Lexi teased, knowing enough about Chelsea’s people-pleasing personality to suspect it hadn’t taken much persuasion to secure her cooperation. Although Lexi was sensitive to her coworker’s insecurities, she was also protective of the friend who seemed to be even more alone in the world than she was. Was Robert Buckner taking advantage of the resident computer geek’s big heart? “What’s with you and the private detective?”
Chelsea’s hazel eyes darted to Lexi’s. “Oh. I can’t say. I promised to be discreet. It’s an old case that he needs solved. He’s not much for computers, but he thinks I might be able to dig up a connection somebody missed.” Her gaze swung back to the men disappearing down the hallway. “He’s lost a lot, and he seems so sad with those big puppy dog eyes.” Um, puppy dog was not the descriptor Lexi had thought of when she’d looked at the stocky man hanging out with Rufus. “I need him to smile. When Sergeant King asked me if I could help his ex-partner do some research, I wanted to.”
While Lexi felt this personal request required a little more digging into to make sure that neither the lab nor Chelsea herself was being compromised, the frown line above the brunette’s glasses made her think her friend was the sad one here. Lexi dropped a comforting arm around Chelsea’s shoulders. “Hey, if it’s anything to do with cyberspace, then he’s come to the right person.”
Chelsea grinned at the praise. “See? That’s exactly the kind of thing a good supervisor would say to her team. That makes me feel like I can really help him. You’re a natural.”
“Yeah, well, whatever you’re doing for him—it’s not impacting your work for the lab, is it?”
Lexi never got an answer for that one. Chelsea clapped her hands together and gasped with delight. “Speaking of puppy dog eyes... Blue!”
A muscular brown dog with a black face and dark eyes strutted into the lounge. He rubbed past Jackson Dobbs’s legs, pushed his nose into Khari Thomas’s hand and accepted a pat on the flank from Shane Duvall, before stopping at Grayson Malone’s wheelchair for a scratch around his pricked ears. If it wasn’t for the brass badge clipped to his collar, a stranger might mistake the Belgian Malinois police officer for some kind of therapy dog because he stopped to greet and be adored by everyone in the room. That was, until Chelsea called his name and his sharp-eyed attention shifted to her. The working dog’s tongue lolled out of his mouth as he panted with anticipation and hurried over to them.
Lexi scrubbed her palms against the dog’s jowls, smiling at the way he huffed with the excitement he felt at the familiar caress. Petting and playing with the high-energy dog added joy to Lexi’s afternoon, too.
But it was Blue’s partner, Aiden Murphy, exchanging greetings just outside the lounge, who captured Lexi’s attention.
“Murph.”
“Sarge. Buck.”
Lexi looked straight across the room to meet deep blue eyes focused squarely on her.
One of those blue eyes winked. “Congratulations on your promotion.”
The deep-pitched drawl that was colored with a hint of Aiden’s Irish ancestors when he hit his r’s danced against her eardrums. Although she managed to keep her tongue in her mouth, Lexi’s pulse fluttered with a silent echo of the excitement Blue was displaying as he rolled over onto his back to give Chelsea access to his chest and belly. The uniformed officer in the doorway was the real reason she had almost no social life, and why her ex-boyfriend and any other man who might be remotely interested in her barely got the chance to date her, much less get involved enough to hurt her.
Aiden Murphy, KCPD K-9 officer. Six feet of lean muscle put together with the same sinewy athleticism as the well-trained dog who lived and worked with him every day. Blue-black hair cropped close enough on the sides that you could see his scalp. He had a tiny scar on his chin and imperfect features that his easy smile and killer blue eyes transformed into a compellingly masculine face. Her brother’s best friend. Substitute big brother whenever Levi was overseas.
The man who would never know how seriously close she’d come to letting him break her heart growing up.
