Chapter 2 - The Dead Captain
Briggs stepped into the hallway.
He looked older.
Thinner.
But there was no mistaking him.
"Nolan."
Rex growled.
Briggs stopped.
That reaction interested me.
Rex had known Briggs almost as long as he'd known me.
Once, Rex had greeted him by carrying a tennis ball into his office.
Now every muscle in the dog's body tightened.
Mercer moved between us.
"Captain, this wasn't supposed to happen."
"No," Briggs said. "It wasn't."
I stared at the dead man.
"You've got about five seconds."
"Before what?"
"Before I decide I'm done being confused."
Briggs looked at Dana.
"Principal Whitmore, take your staff back to the office."
She didn't move.
"This is my school."
"This doesn't concern your school."
"A police dog just tackled my custodian."
"Former police officer," Briggs corrected.
Dana looked at me.
That secret was gone.
I didn't care.
"Why are you alive?" I asked.
Briggs sighed.
"That's complicated."
"Why is Rex alive?"
"More complicated."
"Start talking."
He studied me.
"Not here."
For years I had imagined what I would say if I discovered somebody had lied about Rex's death.
I had never imagined the liar would also have faked his own.
Rex stayed against my leg.
Briggs noticed.
"He remembers you."
"Apparently better than you remembered your obligation to tell me he wasn't dead."
Pain flashed across Briggs's face.
"That wasn't my choice."
"Whose was it?"
He glanced toward the security cameras.
There it was again.
Fear.
We moved into the custodial storage room.
Dana insisted on staying.
Mercer closed the door.
Briggs immediately unplugged a small camera mounted near the ceiling.
I folded my arms.
"Talk."
He did.
The warehouse fire hadn't been an accident.
Our unit had been investigating a network stealing evidence from police storage and selling confiscated weapons.
The warehouse contained records tying officers to that network.
Rex had located a hidden room.
Before I could reach him, somebody detonated an incendiary device.
I survived.
Rex survived too.
Barely.
"Why tell me he died?"
"Because somebody tried to kill him at the veterinary hospital."
My anger faltered.
Briggs continued.
"The veterinarian called me. A man claiming to be department transport arrived with paperwork ordering Rex transferred. The vet knew something was wrong."
"So you hid him."
"We moved him that night."
"From me?"
"Especially from you."
I stepped toward him.
Mercer tensed.
Briggs didn't.
"Someone was watching you, Ben. Your hospital room. Your house. Your calls. If you knew Rex survived, they would have followed you to him."
"You let me bury an empty coffin."
"Yes."
"You watched me cry beside it."
"Yes."
"You let me leave the department believing I'd failed him."
Briggs's voice cracked.
"Yes."
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I looked at Rex.
"What happened after?"
Briggs placed a folder on the workbench.
Inside were veterinary reports.
Photographs.
Transfer records.
Different names.
Different K9 numbers.
Same dog.
Rex had spent nearly two years hidden with a retired trainer.
Eventually, Briggs believed the threat had disappeared.
Rex was transferred back into service under a modified record.
Mercer became his handler.
"Why fake your death?" I asked.
"Because the threat didn't disappear."
Briggs pulled out another photograph.
It showed a burned sedan.
"My car."
The date printed beneath it was eleven months earlier.
"Someone planted explosives. I wasn't inside when they detonated. Federal investigators convinced the public that I was."
Dana whispered, "Who are these people?"
Briggs looked at me.
"People Ben almost exposed six years ago."
"Almost?"
He slid another file toward me.
The warehouse evidence hadn't been completely destroyed.
Rex had escaped carrying something.
A small waterproof evidence pouch.
Inside was a memory card.
My pulse quickened.
"What was on it?"
"We never found out."
"Why?"
"Because Rex hid it."
I almost laughed.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"You trained him to secure evidence if separated from his handler."
That was true.
During tracking exercises, Rex had been taught to conceal recovered objects at designated safe points.
"If he couldn't return to me," I said, "he'd take it to our secondary location."
Briggs nodded.
"Exactly."
My stomach dropped.
Our secondary location wasn't a police facility.
It was an abandoned training cabin thirty miles north.
Only Rex and I routinely used it.
"Did you search it?"
"Repeatedly."
"You didn't know his hiding cues."
"No."
"Why bring Rex here today?"
Briggs looked at Mercer.
Mercer answered.
"We weren't bringing him to you."
"What does that mean?"
"We received information that someone connected to the old network was operating near Franklin Ridge High."
Dana went pale.
"At my school?"
"Possibly."
Briggs opened another file.
A photograph showed a man entering the school's rear service entrance.
The timestamp was three nights earlier.
I recognized him.
Thomas Vane.
Assistant superintendent.
The man who had personally approved my employment five years ago.
"He knows who I am," I said.
Briggs nodded.
"We think that's why you got this job."
I stared at the photograph.
I had believed Franklin Ridge was where I disappeared.
Maybe it was where someone had placed me.
Dana whispered, "Thomas has access to every building."
"Including security footage?" I asked.
"Yes."
A sound came from the hallway.
Rex turned.
Three soft taps.
Pause.
Two taps.
My blood went cold.
That wasn't random.
It was an old K9-unit signal used when radio silence was required.
Briggs reached toward his jacket.
I grabbed his wrist.
"Who else knows you're here?"
"Mercer."
"Anyone else?"
"No."
Three taps again.
Pause.
Two.
Rex walked toward the door.
"Don't," Mercer whispered.
Rex sniffed underneath it.
Then sat.
Alert indication.
Someone was outside.
Dana's phone vibrated.
She looked at the screen.
Her face changed.
"What?"
She handed it to me.
A text from Assistant Superintendent Thomas Vane.
I'M OUTSIDE THE CUSTODIAL ROOM. OPEN THE DOOR.
Briggs drew a pistol.
Mercer reached for his.
I looked at Rex.
Six years ago, the warehouse had exploded seconds after Rex gave me this exact same alert.
The door handle slowly turned.
Then Thomas Vane spoke from the other side.
"Ben, I know you found out Rex is alive."
May you like
He paused.
"And I know where he hid the evidence."
