Page 2 of K-9 Guardians

Only the cartel didn’t make that move.

Seconds split into minutes, into what felt like an hour, as the rising sun glinted off the SUV windshields.

Impatience undermined her forced calm. She really did have an oatmeal bake in the microwave, and her stomach wasn’t too proud to admit its desperation for calories. “What are they waiting for?”

“I don’t know.” That wasn’t like Granger. Certainty had always been one of the qualities she most admired the few times they’d been partnered on an assignment together, but this was something neither of them had experienced. Sangre por Sangre had always moved with compulsion rather than strategy. This...this was something else.

The hatch of one SUV raised behind the lead SUV. A dark, heavy tarp rolled out of the cargo area and hit the ground. Dust exploded from the impact and punctured Scarlett’s resolve. She took a step forward. The Dobermans were ready to follow, but one throaty warning from Granger pulled them all up short. “What is that?” she asked.

The answer was already shoving to the front of her mind. Cartels like Sangre por Sangre lived for theatrics. Tires filled with accelerant and set on fire draped around victims’ necks, raids on innocent towns, underage recruits, bombings of high-level law enforcement officers, soccer balls packed with nitroglycerin that exploded on impact in civilian parks. More recently, the abduction and torture of a war correspondent who’d seen too much.

The cartel’s MO was bloody and violent and usually followed by weeks of media coverage. Sangre por Sangre’s leadership wanted their name to be known, to be feared. It was domination, manipulation and control in the purest form. Because as long as the general public feared them, there was no one brave enough to stand up to fight them.

But Scarlett was. She had to be.

Engines caught, one after the other. Daytime headlights lit up as the SUVs backed away from the package and retreated. Billows of dirt scattered into the air, surely making it hard for Cash and Jocelyn to keep the targets in their sights.

Scarlett stared at the tarp. Willed it to move.

“Wait.” Granger hugged his rifle close to his chest. The wear in his face was more evident than it’d ever been before. It was as though he’d aged a decade in the span of ten minutes.

This job... It was getting to him. To all of them. The constant threats, the need to be in the center of the action, the physical and mental scars that came with fighting an enemy a whole hell of a lot stronger and more violent than you. Who gained pleasure from hurting the very people you swore to protect. All she and Socorro had done was wait. And now the cartel had the upper hand.

“No. I’m tired of waiting.” Scarlett took that first step, breaking Granger’s order. Then another. She picked up the pace to a jog, then a flat-out sprint as she closed the distance between her and the elongated shape under the tarp. Her muscles ached as she pulled to a stop a few feet away.

Hans and Gruber dashed ahead, circling the package. A corner lifted on a dry breeze and gave her the first glimpse of what was inside.

A human hand.

She captured the tarp on the next gust and ripped it back as Granger stepped into her peripheral vision. But all Scarlett had attention for was the blade stabbed through a law enforcement shield and into the body’s chest. Her stomach knotted tight. “He’s a DEA agent.”

HISPARTNERWASDEAD.

King Elsher stared down at the body, not really seeing the man unmoving on the examination table. Adam had gone missing three days ago. No activity on his credit cards. No outgoing calls from his cell phone. It was as though his best friend and partner of three years had up and vanished.

Only that wasn’t true, was it?

Sangre por Sangre had finally found a way to get their message to King. Though why they’d delivered it to a private military contractor’s doorstep, he had no idea.

The DNA, dental records and fingerprints all lined up. There was no denying his partner was the one lying here in the middle of the Alpine Valley morgue.

Cold air tightened the tendons in King’s hand, making them ache. A blue papery sheet hid the stab wound centered in Adam’s chest. Two inches in length, a few centimeters wide. Photos taken from the scene where his partner’s body had been dumped showed the blade had gone through Adam’s badge. Something that would’ve taken a lot more force than your average stabbing. This had been methodical. Purposeful, even.

“Do you have any questions, Agent Elsher?” The medical examiner—a guy who looked on the verge of retirement if it weren’t for the fact he probably didn’t have a cent to his name—stuffed thin hands into his white lab coat. Round wire-framed glasses slid down a beak-like nose, and the examiner scrunched up his face to put them back in place. Practiced. This was a guy used to multitasking when his hands were busy.

“Who found him?” That wasn’t what he meant to ask. King had wanted to know if his partner had suffered. If he bled out in a slow crawl or if the blade did the job quickly.

But he already had the answer. Cartels like Sangre por Sangre—viruses that had no care for their hosts and fought against every vaccine in its path—didn’t believe in mercy. They would’ve ensured Adam knew what was happening, felt it. For as long as possible.

The pathologist broke his statue-like observation and reached for a clipboard off to the side of the examination table. He flipped through a few pages. “There’s a Scarlett Beam listed in the report. One of those private military contractors up at Socorro Security. I don’t see any contact information, but I imagine you and the DEA know how to get in touch with her.”

The DEA. Right. Because this was now an official investigation. Everything King had done to find a way into the cartel would come to light. There was no more hiding. No more unofficial requests or surveillance. No more covering his personal mission to dismantle the cartel on his own. Adam’s case was about to expose him in every way. Had that been Sangre por Sangre’s plan? To find a way to take King off the board? Hell. It would work. Unless...

Socorro and private military contractors like them had their own set of rules. They didn’t answer to anyone but the Pentagon. The past few weeks had proven that with coverage of a New Mexico state senator accused of using his own resources to render Socorro’s federal contract void, claiming the company was intentionally letting Sangre por Sangre increase in size and strength for the sole purpose of keeping operatives employed. The accusation lost its merit when a journalist widely exposed the senator for working with the cartel to achieve his goals.

If King played his cards right, Socorro could legitimize his investigation. Assuming Ivy Bardot and her operatives wanted to know who’d ordered the murder of a DEA agent as much as he did. Which, based off the reports he’d read on the company’s dealings with the cartel, collaboration between their agencies was looking like a good option.

King scrubbed a hand down his face, taking in the dry skin around Adam’s eyes, the darker coloring of a bruise settling along his partner’s jaw. No. Sangre por Sangre didn’t get to slink back into the shadows and use his partner as an example. Adam deserved better. His family deserved better. And King was going to make the people who’d done this paid. Starting with finding Scarlett Beam. “Thanks, Doc. I’ll be in touch.”

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