Conall, p.1
Conall, page 1
CONALL
The K9 Files, Book 24
Dale Mayer
Books in This Series:
Ethan, Book 1
Pierce, Book 2
Zane, Book 3
Blaze, Book 4
Lucas, Book 5
Parker, Book 6
Carter, Book 7
Weston, Book 8
Greyson, Book 9
Rowan, Book 10
Caleb, Book 11
Kurt, Book 12
Tucker, Book 13
Harley, Book 14
Kyron, Book 15
Jenner, Book 16
Rhys, Book 17
Landon, Book 18
Harper, Book 19
Kascius, Book 20
Declan, Book 21
Bauer, Book 22
Delta, Book 23
Conall, Book 24
Baron, Book 25
The K9 Files, Books 1–2
The K9 Files, Books 3–4
The K9 Files, Books 5–6
The K9 Files, Books 7–8
The K9 Files, Books 9–10
The K9 Files, Books 11–12
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About This Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
About Baron
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
Welcome to the all new K9 Files series reconnecting readers with the unforgettable men from SEALs of Steel in a new series of action packed, page turning romantic suspense that fans have come to expect from USA TODAY Bestselling author Dale Mayer. Pssst… you’ll meet other favorite characters from SEALs of Honor and Heroes for Hire too!
Conall is more than happy to head out after a War Dog has gone missing, leaving a wheelchair-bound military war veteran lost and alone. Yet what seems like a simple job takes an unsavory turn, when Conall comes face-to-face with darker undertones in that town.
Bethany always wanted to have her own veterinary clinic, and she’s been doing a decent job of it, until so much of the town died that she finds it hard to get and to keep decent staff. Her temporary help suddenly embroils her clinic in a mess involving a missing War Dog, and then Bethany uncovers what else this young lady is involved in. None of it’s good.
Conall refuses to back down or to walk away from the sudden hell Bethany’s life has become. No telling how ugly this can get …
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Prologue
Kat grinned when she opened the door to see Delta standing there with Rebecca. “Now, don’t tell me,” she greeted them. “You need an ankle joint.”
Delta smiled broadly, genuinely happy to see her, and beginning to allow himself to feel the effects of the past several days.
Kat continued. “You may be surprised to hear that I have some parts for you.” Then she looked over at Rebecca, smiled, and nodded. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Kat.”
“Hi,” Rebecca replied shyly.
Kat studied the pretty woman, who looked as if her life had been flipped upside down. Yet somehow she’d landed upright. “Rough couple days, huh?” she asked Rebecca.
“You’re not kidding,” she murmured. “Yet it seems that all good things end well.”
“And that’s what we count on.” Kat nodded and smiled as she eyed Rebecca. “I also hear that you’ve done some work on prosthetics.”
“Yes, but on animals though,” she clarified. “So I don’t know how helpful that would be to you.”
“Are you kidding? It’s already helpful, especially if you know your way around a wrench, a screwdriver, a hammer drill, and a few other tools.”
“Yeah, I do,” she said. “All very necessary on the electronic circuit board side of things.”
“Good,” Kat declared, with a huge smile. “Are you looking for a job or just looking to take a holiday?”
“Well, a holiday for a little bit would be nice,” Rebecca replied, “and I still have to get some of my stuff moved out.”
“We can just hire a company for that,” Kat noted, with a wave of her hand. “There are people in the world who do that sort of thing. We’ve got other things to do.” She heard her husband coming to join them and looked over at Badger, a big smile on her face.
Badger walked up, introduced himself to Rebecca, and smiled. “How you doing there, Delta?”
“I’m doing great,” he stated, as he wrapped an arm around Rebecca’s shoulders. “If I’d realized this is the kind of shit you guys were handling—”
“You would have run in the opposite direction,” Badger stated.
Delta laughed. “I might have run, but only because I wouldn’t have understood.” He shook his head. “Now I understand, and that’s a whole different story.” He leaned over and kissed Rebecca hard on the cheek. “This would have made any trip perfect.”
Badger chuckled, looked over at Kat, and teased, “So, I guess you got another successful matchmaking feather in your cap. What will you do now?”
“Yep, I did, and I already know who I have in mind for the next job. But first things first.” She looked over at Rebecca and offered, “Why don’t you come into the office tomorrow, and we’ll see if it’s a match.”
Badger’s gaze lit with interest. “You guys think you can work together?”
Rebecca smiled. “I’m game, if Kat’s game. All I’ve heard about is this ankle joint of Delta’s.”
That set Kat off into giggles again. Badger just shook his head. “I swear to God, these two? All they deal with is that ankle.”
“But I was thinking blue steel would be cool, maybe with some filigree metal all through it,” Rebecca suggested. “That would be awesome.”
At that, Badger looked at her with interest.
Kat’s gaze lit up, and she nodded. “I really would like to get more artistic with some of this. That would be amazing.” And, with that, the two women headed off to have a chat.
Badger called out to his wife, and Kat turned and looked at him. He asked her, “What about the next one?”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll get there. I already have Conall tagged for it.”
He stopped, his hands on his hips, and asked, “Why him, for crying out loud?”
She smiled. “Because he’d be perfect for this next one.” And, with that, Kat turned and walked into the kitchen, her arm wrapped around Rebecca, as they talked about ankle joints.
Badger turned to face Delta, shaking his head. “Well?”
“Yeah, well,” he replied, with a knowing smile. “Outside of an ankle joint, I could really use a beer.”
Badger chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder. “Out to the pool then. That’s where the beer and the relaxation happens,” he declared. “That was a job well done, by the way. Now, if only Kat wasn’t thinking about Conall for the next one.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’s big, a little on the rougher-built side. Yet he’s all heart and a big marshmallow. If it’s a bad case, he’s bound to go to pieces.”
Delta frowned at him. “I think you’re considering that from the wrong angle. If it goes bad, his heart will hurt, and then he’ll move on, stronger and better than ever. But that marshmallow? We need guys like that. Most of the world is too scared and too ashamed to show any emotions. Guys like Conall, they’re all emotion, but they’re also really good men to have behind you.”
Badger nodded. “Agreed. So Kat was right, … once again.”
Chapter 1
Conall Burke had a million questions, and they all remained unanswered. He drove toward the address Kat had given him, to deal with the case of missing War Dog Bacchus. Conall didn’t have a clue what he would do about it, even if the dog were still missing. He understood from the other guys working with Badger on various projects that he and Kat had been locating lost War Dogs for the last year or so, and they’d just received another four cases.
It didn’t say much for the War Department that this many War Dogs would be missing, but since hundreds if not thousands or even tens of thousands of these dogs had been trained, maybe the ratio of lost dogs wasn’t that bad. This case, well, it struck a little too close to home for Conall. This lost War Dog had been adopted by Michael Stanford, a retired veteran, who had lost a leg.
Conall wondered if his matching injury wasn’t part of what was in the back of Kat’s mind. She was a devious woman, presumably with the best of intentions, though it often didn’t appear that way. He loved her dearly, but he just never quite understood her. No one knew where she was coming from, except maybe Badger. She always came from the heart, so Conall trusted her. Still, when she looked at you, something else was going on in those knowing eyes.
Conall shifted in the driver’s seat of his old truck, grateful that he’d been asked to travel a little closer to home than the other guys had. With only one more state line to cross, he played the audio file of the interview on his phone as he drove. He understood a part of the problem was that Bacchus had been placed with an older veteran who was in a wheelchair. He still had some mobility, but the wheelchair was to help him get around a lot easier. The dog was part companion and part guard dog, and everything had been going fine—until the nephew had moved in to help out the old man. Then it wasn’t long before the dog started disappearing throughout the day.
It started off as a little bit of straying. Then his absences went longer and longer. The uncle and nephew had no idea where Bacchus went, and any attempt to keep the dog locked up inevitably ended. As soon as Bacchus went out to do his business, he took off. He came back, but there was always a time lag. One of these times, whether coming or going, nobody seemed to know which, he was hit by a vehicle, taken to the veterinarian for treatment, then kept overnight.
According to Michael, when Bacchus was released the next day, somebody other than his nephew picked up the War Dog, and nobody seemed to know where Bacchus went from there.
A neighbor had asked him what had happened to the War Dog. She herself had applied to get one and had been refused, so she’d been keeping an eye on this one and was always friendly with it. When Michael told her what had happened, she reported it to the War Department.
Somehow that had come back down to Badger and Kat. Conall shook his head at the way things filtered through in the military. He didn’t have any reason to suspect Michael of anything bad going on, but the fact that the dog’s behavior changed after the nephew arrived did raise alarms. The behavioral change in a dog didn’t happen for no reason. Conall couldn’t say for sure that Bacchus was being abused or in any way mistreated, particularly by the nephew, yet that’s when the change had happened. Conall would definitely take a closer look at the nephew.
The other problem was the old man hadn’t reported it and apparently hadn’t found the missing dog. Now it had been weeks, so it would be all that much harder to track down where the dog had ended up. The vet clinic claimed that they received a note, saying that the dog should be released to the nephew, and it was signed by Michael, the primary caretaker. The old veteran stated that he hadn’t signed any such thing, that it was just a complete fabrication, and that he wanted his dog back.
That was an interesting point because, should the note exist, it did release the animal hospital of any kind of liability, but they should have checked with the owner first regardless.
The War Dog had been going in for its regular shots and checkups, and it was not uncommon for somebody else to take the dog in, as the old man had transportation issues, given his wheelchair, and his car was not modified for that. The nephew stated that he knew nothing about the vet visit or about the War Dog being released.
Shutting off the recording, Conall noted his turnoff up ahead. It took another twenty minutes or so to reach the small town where the dog had been living. Then Conall pulled off on the roadside and checked his GPS to see exactly where he was going. He listened to the rest of the audio file, which noted that the dog had served as an IED-locator dog and had done some chemical warfare work as well. He had been injured in one of his last missions, losing one of his legs, and had to be retired.
The dog had recovered from his war injuries and was still healthy, with three limbs intact, but he was no longer suited for the type of work he used to do. He didn’t handle loud noises well, which could also explain why he may have taken off. If a vehicle had backed-fired in the area around him or if he’d heard some sound that upset him, he may have just charged off.
If Bacchus had already detached from the old man and had become used to doing different things during the day with others or just solo, it’s quite possible the War Dog wouldn’t come home. Bond formation between dog and owner was critical, and here, the bond didn’t appear to be strong enough to keep him grounded. If the dog didn’t like the nephew for some reason, that would be more motivation to leave. It all depended on the strength of Bacchus’s bond with the old veteran, if there even were one to begin with.
Conall had plenty of things to consider, but nothing terribly suspicious, just things he needed to question and to check out. He pulled into a small roadside gas station and café, filled up his tank, hoping to find a coffee and a sandwich or something before he stopped in at the old vet’s home to talk to him. The old man should be expecting him, but that didn’t mean he would be looking for him today. Most people thought that they’d get a phone call or something along that line, but Conall was much more of an in-person kind of guy.
Parking his truck in a back lot, after having filled it up with fuel, he headed inside the café and sat down at a table in the back corner. He preferred to have his back protected and to watch the door. Maybe it was to look for an easy exit; he didn’t know.
Conall’s tours in the military seemed like a long time ago, yet remnants were still right here with him today in many ways. The PTSD would never go away, but he was managing it and would take that any day. His prosthetic leg with the knee joint was something that Kat was working on, and, so far, they’d done pretty well, and he was pleased with the progress he’d made. Was there more just waiting to be had? Absolutely. But that wasn’t on Kat. She had done a phenomenal job and so had the surgeons.
It was easy to forget how far Conall had come in the last year. Still, he used to live another life, one that he loved and enjoyed, but everything was different now. Aside from this mission, he was currently looking after the family homestead, where he had a house to himself, in New Mexico, wondering what his life would be like from here on out. He’d been cleared to go back to work, whatever work that he chose, and he would be on military disability for the rest of his life. That did give him a certain amount of freedom, but it wasn’t enough to give him full financial freedom.
So, some sort of vocation would be a good idea. He’d spent a fair amount of time working with Badger’s crews, as they built houses to help other veterans, and Conall really enjoyed that kind of work. No pressure, a little money. It had kept him busy, which was good. He just didn’t know what he wanted to do from now on. He could continue to do that and still do something else. He wasn’t limited to just one side job.
He felt as if he needed to do something more, but the difference between a need and a want wasn’t that easy to determine. In reality, he was just bored. This War Dog job—and he wasn’t even sure it really was a job—was a change. No money was involved; it was all about helping an animal, and Conall certainly had used these animal skills to his advantage in the Middle East. So, if Badger and Kat needed help, Conall was certainly willing to do his part and to give back.
He was feeling a little edgy these days, and that was probably most of the problem he had being with Badger. Conall wondered if that was why Kat had chosen him for this job, but he didn’t know for certain. He wouldn’t worry about it now. He was here. He was okay to be here, and, if the War Dog needed him, Conall would do his best to find Bacchus and to help as much as he could. He adored animals of all kinds and honestly found them easier to be with than people, a good share of the time.
He’d heard rumors about Timber wanting to start a sanctuary. That was a hell of an idea, and Conall could see himself helping out with that, but so much mystery surrounded Timber. Thus Conall didn’t know what was truth and what was rumor. Still, the guy was fascinating. Timber had a lot of stories, if you could get him to open up and talk. Most of the time, Timber didn’t say anything. He just looked at you with that gaze that kind of slipped right into your soul.
“Wonder why they never ask him to do these War Dog jobs?” Conall murmured under his breath. Maybe they would, or maybe it was just part and parcel of all Kat’s shenanigans. She seemed to have an uncanny idea of who could do what, like an all-seeing eye, and she chose the people for the job based on that. Hell, Conall didn’t know. He just knew he should do this job, based on Kat’s urging.
When he sat back with a hot cup of black coffee and a menu to peruse, he smiled as he looked around the small coffee shop. It brought to mind a million of these odd little cafés all around the country. Something was both welcoming and timeless about them, and, for him, it was almost a security. The familiarity allowed him to relax just a little bit more.
Conall considered asking the staff and the customers if they had seen Bacchus, providing them with the photo that Conall had on his phone. Yet something held him back from that. He didn’t quite know his surroundings yet, so he thought he would test the waters first.
