Page 24 of Chasing Justice
“Yeah, but do you have my personal number?” Josh asked, taking out one of his cards and jotting down his number on the back. He handed it to Maya. She took it reluctantly.
“Thanks,” she muttered.
“You know, I have some K-9 experience. If you need some help with training, let me know.”
“You said that yesterday. What do you consider K-9 experience?” Maya asked.
“I helped decoy for the Chicago PD. Helped with tracks, hid narcotics. Things like that. Went through all the proper training.”
“My dog taking a big bite out of you would be something I’d like to see,” Maya said. She had to admit, she and Juniper needed to train together before they went to certification. Good agitators were hard to come by because they had to be willing to put on a bite sleeve and have the dog run at them, latch on to the sleeve, hopefully not another body part, and then absorb the dog’s energy correctly. They also needed to know how to encourage and entice the dog to stay on the bite. If you did it wrong, you could hurt the dog as well as discourage them from biting. Maya had taken the bite sleeve from Doug’s house. “I don’t have a full bite suit, just the sleeve.”
“I’m fine with that.”
“You know that dogs have been known to not attach to the sleeve, but sometimes go for other body parts. Especially those important to guys.” Maya laughed, thinking about how in their military training a dog had bit a guy in an extremely sensitive area. They had all given him a hard time about speaking an octave higher.
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Okay, when Juniper gets medically cleared, I’ll give you a call.” Maya held up Josh’s card. “But if you get bit somewhere else, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be in touch about the tox report.”
Maya put her window back up. Once again, she realized Josh was easy to talk with, but she reminded herself not to trust him. She didn’t know him that well.
She glanced in the back where Juniper was now curled up in a little ball, golden eyes staring at Maya. “Well, guess I better get you home. You’re supposed to stay quiet for a couple more days, but somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Chapter Fifteen
Carson stomped his way to Cody’s room. The worthless kid had really made him mad now. Jenna had filled him in about Cody harassing the fed. Not just any fed either. He had to pick the sheriff’s granddaughter. They didn’t need anyone on their back right now, least of all any type of law enforcement. His son was screwing things up.
Throwing open the door, Carson wished he hadn’t barged in. The smell of feet permeated the room and Cody was asleep in his boxers on top of the covers. He reeked of stale alcohol.
Carson kicked Cody in the butt. “Wake up.”
Cody startled, drool coming out of his mouth, turned over and, seeing his father there, shut his eyes. “What?”
Carson went over to the window, avoiding boots, jeans, and other things littering the floor. He opened the curtain and allowed the sunlight to hit Cody in the face. “I need you to get up, get dressed, and try to look respectable for a meeting in a half hour. We need to get some things in order before Lana arrives to discuss business.”
“Why do we need a meeting?”
“Because I say so, for starters, and because we have a situation.” Carson booted some items out of his way as he navigated through the room.
“A situation?” Cody asked sarcastically.
“Yeah. A situation, like one of our members was arrested last night. Appears he might be sampling a little bit of the local flavor we’re producing. I want to know how he got it. We all agreed that no one around here would sell or use our product.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Cody whined. “Let me go back to sleep.”
Carson marched back over to Cody’s bed and said, “You get your butt out of bed now. This is a problem for everyone.”
Carson picked up Cody’s jeans and flung them at him. As he threw them, some cash came out of the pocket. A couple of Ben Franklins landed on the floor.
“Where’d you get this cash?” Carson asked.
Cody shrugged.
“Are you the one selling to people around here? You better not be using.” Carson started to look around the room, opening dresser drawers and seeing what else his son was hiding. Lately, Cody seemed more like a teenager, not a young man in his twenties. Carson had noticed Cody sleeping more and having some nosebleeds along with bloodshot eyes and some shakiness. All signs of someone using and staying irresponsible rather than growing up.
When Carson came to the top dresser drawer, he found some paraphernalia—a couple pipes, needles, and syringes.
