Guardian. Terri Reed
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I know, sweetie. A bad man is after us.” Staring into her son’s trusting gaze, Alicia vowed she’d do whatever it took to keep her son safe. “So I need you to be very quiet, okay?”
The skidding of feet on the gravel echoed through the still air. The killer had reached the parking lot. She shuddered with dread.
Please, let him think we went to the boathouse, Alicia prayed.
She scooted closer to the car so that her feet were blocked by the tires in case he looked beneath the undercarriages of the row of vehicles hoping to pinpoint where they were. Terror ricocheted through her and she held her breath. As if sensing her fear, Charlie buried his face in the side of her neck and grabbed fistfuls of her shirt.
Listening intently, she made out the crunch of heavy steps on the loose rock as the killer moved closer. She tilted her head and closed her eyes. He was coming down the lane to her right. Adjusting her grip on Charlie, she edged to the left and around the back of the vehicle.
In a low crouch, she risked sprinting to the rear end of the next vehicle. She pressed her back to the tailgate of a truck and waited. After a moment, she darted to her car. Carefully, she opened the back passenger door far enough for her and Charlie to climb inside.
Pulling the door closed but not latching it for fear the click would alert the killer, she squatted awkwardly on the floor and set Charlie on the seat. She quickly undid his life vest and set it aside. “Charlie, I need you to get into your seat and buckle up, okay?”
He nodded solemnly, his eyes big and his lower lip quivering. She hated scaring him like this, but there was nothing to be done. They needed to get away.
She stayed crouched behind the driver’s seat until he was secured in his car seat. She grabbed the life vest and pressed it to his chest. “Hold on to this, okay?”
It wouldn’t stop a bullet but she had nothing else to provide a barrier.
Taking a deep breath, she squeezed herself across the middle console and climbed into the driver’s seat. She slunk down in the seat and could barely see over the dashboard. Adrenaline surged as she saw the back of the killer’s head as he lumbered toward the boathouse. She hesitated with her hand on the key in the ignition. The second she fired up the engine, he’d know where they were.
When the killer reached the boathouse and disappeared inside, she sprang into action. She started the car, threw the gearshift into Reverse and stepped on the gas. Heart in her throat, she barely managed to brake before hitting the car parked in the opposite space. She spun the wheel, put the vehicle into Drive and stomped her foot on the gas pedal. The car tires spun and found traction, and they hurtled forward.
The killer ran out of the boathouse with the gun aimed at the car. Alicia sucked in a quick breath and took a sharp turn at the end of the lane. She sped toward the main road, which would take her into town and to the police station.
Up ahead one of the three traffic lights turned red. She took her foot off the gas, letting the car slow, and glanced in the rearview mirror. A big 4x4 truck barreled out of the marina parking lot and raced toward her.
Her breath hitched. She looked in both directions for oncoming traffic. Seeing that it was safe, she gunned the accelerator. The car shot forward through the intersection. She hung a quick right on Elm Street, then a sharp left on Cedar Drive, hoping that the killer wouldn’t be able to track her. Racing down Cedar, she hooked another right on Evergreen Avenue. Up ahead the new brick building of Settler’s Valley police station was a beacon of sanctuary.
The squeal of tires behind her sent a chill of terror over her flesh. The killer’s truck rounded the corner and roared down the street after her. She gripped the steering wheel so tight that her hands ached.
Only a few more feet to safety. She laid her hand on the horn in an effort to attract attention. She lifted a prayer to God that someone inside the building would hear the commotion and come out to investigate.
Because surely, the killer wouldn’t risk doing something to her and Charlie within plain sight of the police station, would he?
* * *
Leo and True slipped through the ground-floor doors of the FBI’s Tactical K-9 Unit headquarters in Billings, Montana.
His boss, Max West, had called for a team meeting, pulling Leo and True in from a morning run. His T-shirt was damp with sweat and his running shoes were silent on the concrete floor. He hoped this powwow meant some news about Jake.
Leo left True in the care of one of the dog trainers, then scrubbed a hand over his bristled jaw as he took the stairs. He’d hardly slept in the week since Jake went missing. They’d had no word on his whereabouts. The silence and lack of information concerned him deeply. For the millionth time, Leo prayed that his buddy was alive and that the team would find him.
The six-story brick building was the unit’s base of operations, but at any moment each team member could be deployed to any crime scene in any state in the country. That was how they’d ended up in that Los Angeles warehouse a week ago.
The K-9 unit consisted of the training facility on the ground floor, while the second floor housed the agents’ offices and computer tech center. The other floors were occupied by a variety of government officials. Both the training center and the presence of other governmental employees helped to disguise the team’s covert operations.
Stopping by his desk in the bull pen, Leo shrugged off his lightweight jacket and hung it over the back of his desk chair. He checked for messages in his inbox on his FBI-issued laptop, flagged a couple to return to later, then headed to the communications center. Pausing in the doorway, he noticed the team wasn’t gathered there. There was only Dylan O’Leary, the computer genius. “Hey.”
Dylan spun from the bank of computer monitors to grin at him. His spiky, sandy-blond hair and dark-framed glasses screamed techno geek while his loud Hawaiian shirt over his official FBI Tactical K-9 Unit polo made it clear he was a man with a sense of humor. “How’s it going, Leo?”
“Going.” Leo leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “You?”
Dylan sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I miss Zara, but Radar and I are doing okay. We’re getting along.”
Leo was glad to hear his fiancée’s dog wasn’t giving him trouble. Zara was at Quantico, training to be an official FBI agent so that she could come back and officially join the team. “Where is everyone?”
“The debriefing room.”
Leo chuckled. In other words, the kitchen. “You coming?”
Dylan turned back to his computer monitors. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Leo left Dylan to his gadgets and headed into the large open area of the “debriefing” space. Along the far wall was a state-of-the-art kitchen, complete with oven, stovetop and fridge, all in stainless steel. A bank of windows provided natural light and an extra-large monitor hung on the wall near the door.
A long hand-carved wooden table with bench seats dominated the middle of the room. The team was already seated and munching on fruit platters and trays of pastries from Petrov Bakery, a favorite with all the agents.
Max stood at the coffee machine, making himself a latte. He glanced up and tipped his chin at Leo. He was a tall man with short blond hair and a ragged scar on one side of his face. “The gang’s all here.”
Not quite. Jake was missing.
The familiar burn of guilt ate at Leo, killing any appetite he might have had. He straddled the end of the closest bench next to Ian Slade. The tall, muscular agent cracked a joke that had Harper Prentiss and Julianne Martinez and the team’s general assistant, Christy Burton, laughing. As usual, the good-humored Ian was charming the ladies.
Max moved to the head of the table and sat. “Where are we with the Dupree case?”
“Reginald Dupree isn’t talking,” Harper replied. “He’s