Page 40 of Her Delta Force Protector

Tristan gave it to his detective. “Here, Bentley. Looks like our shooter left a piece of his shirt behind. You get photos of the shoe prints?”

“Sure did, Chief.”

Kade jumped down. The shooter had picked up the shell casings and taken them with him, which meant the man knew the police would love to have that evidence. Probably someone who watched a bunch of TV police shows. They had the bullets, though. What was left of them after they were embedded in the house.

He was still enraged that someone would dare shoot at a house where a child had been playing minutes before. Duke and Fuzz were running around the tree with their noses to the ground. Bentley was sliding the piece of material into an evidence bag, and Kade glanced from it to Duke.

“Let me have that back,” he said.

Bentley’s brows lifted, but he handed it to Kade.

This would be another good test for Duke. “Duke.” The dog lifted his head. Kade opened the baggie and held it in front of Duke’s nose. “Find him.” Keeping the material inside was going to be a real test of Duke’s tracking skills.

Duke sniffed inside the baggie, then Kade closed it before letting Duke have it. Duke lowered his nose back to the ground, zigzagged around the tree for a minute, then headed to the back of their property. He led them to the road behind their property where he made several circles, then stopped and looked up at Kade with a puzzled expression. Fuzz had followed them, and he walked to where Duke was standing. It seemed as if the two dogs were communicating, then both sat.

“He had his car parked here,” Kade said, taking the evidence from Duke and giving it back to Bentley. “We need photos of those tire tracks.”

“On it,” Bentley said.

Their property bordered the road, and assuming the shooter had a car parked somewhere in this vicinity, Tristan had sent two of Skylar’s deputies to go door-to-door to the houses on this street. Hopefully, someone would have seen something, and even better if someone had a doorbell camera that had caught something.

His phone chimed, Talon Security coming up on the screen. “Church here.”

“This is Chase. Got something for you on those license plates.”

“Great.”

“Someone got into the DMV’s files and deleted the original plate numbers. They no longer exist.”

“That’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible if you got someone who’s good at hacking.”

“Like a black hat?”

“Yeah. I’d say that’s what we have here, someone who’s done stuff like this before. We don’t have names yet because the plates don’t exist anymore, but Nick’s intrigued now, and he won’t be happy until he gets to the bottom of it.”

One possible scenario crossed Kade’s mind. “What if they knew Harper had their plate numbers, so they destroyed those, got new plates, and their black hat guy created new files for the cars? Could this person do that?”

“I don’t see why not if he or she is really good. I’ll pass that idea on to Nick. That might help him know what to look for.”

“Appreciate it. Things are escalating. Someone shot at Harper.”

“Shit. She okay?”

“Yeah. I saw the glint of a rifle and managed to take her to the ground a second before he pulled the trigger, but it was damn close. I’m royally pissed, and not just about that. My five-year-old niece was playing in the yard just minutes before.”

“Damn. Not cool, man.”

“Roger that.”

“What’s your plan?”

Good question. “I’m working on a plan, but the priority is to make sure my family is out of the line of fire, so I’m going into hiding with Harper. After that, I’m not sure. I need to figure out who these bastards are, and how they found Harper.”

“You’re positive you weren’t followed after you picked her up?”

“Definitely, so they’re tracking her somehow. Once I figure out how, I can use that to bring them to me on my terms.” Terms that were not going to be fun for these assholes.

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