Page 34 of K-9 Confidential

This was worse.

She’d been right there, within reach, and he’d somehow lost her all over again. Granger tightened his hold on his gear. “You brought me into Socorro because I know the way terrorist organizations and the members inside them work.Sangre por Sangremight not fit the bill exactly, but they’re desperate. This is their last stand, and I’m not going to let them use her like so many people have before. Like I have. So you can get out of my way or get in the vehicle, Ivy. Either way, I’m taking the fight to the people who started this. Maybe then Charlie will finally feel she’s earned her freedom, and she can stop running.”

“All right.” Red hair escaped the tight bun at the back of Ivy’s head, something Granger had never seen before in all the years he’d operated at Socorro. The former FBI agent had tried so hard to keep her hands on the reins, but something had happened. She was slipping. “But there’s something you need to know before you charge straight at the cartel and start a war.”

Ivy handed off her phone. “The coded notes on the blueprints. We weren’t able to identify the owner of the handwriting, but Scarlett was able to decipher the notes a few minutes ago.”

“How did she find the key so fast?” He read through the translated sentences. He took in times, dates and directions that didn’t make any sense.

“It was easy after I explained there was a killer who’d used this code before he disappeared off our radar withinSangre por Sangre,” Ivy said. “She took a chance on thinking of it like a calling card.”

“He used the same key for both codes?” he asked.

“No. This code has been altered. There are only a few characters left from the original code. It’s very sophisticated. Something that would’ve taken years to create.” Ivy took a step into him. “But it did require a three-­letter key. Just like the first. Scarlett believed it could be a set of initials.”

The notes seemed to indicate a schedule of some kind. But for what? Or who? Henry Acker’s name came to mind, but there was no way the general of Acker’s Army would be able to waltz into the state capitol building with his face plastered all over federal databases. “Whose?”

“It was Charlie’s, Granger,” Ivy said.

Granger didn’t understand. He pried his attention from the phone. “CGA. Charlie Grace Acker. Why would he use her initials to decrypt notes meant for Henry Acker? As a threat? To keep Acker from forgetting what was on the line?”

“We don’t believe he did.” The hardness in her voice

Acid surged up his throat as the pieces of Ivy’s theory stitched together in the silence between them. “Tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“There’s a reason you couldn’t find her for those ten years, Granger. Think about it.” Ivy’s gaze refused to let him go. “You approached Charlie in an effort to gather inside intelligence on Acker’s Army. You recruited her to undermine and dismantle her father’s organization with the promise to get her and her sisters out from under his control. But Sage and Erin are dead, and she blames him for their deaths. She’s hurting. She’s angry, and there’s no way she can destroy him on her own. What better way to get back at him than by fighting fire with fire?”

“This is insane.” Granger maneuvered around Ivy and headed for his vehicle. “Charlie isn’t working withSangre por Sangre. They tried to abduct her. They nearly killed her.”

“Unless it was a failed extraction. She survived, Granger. Against all odds. How do you explain that?” Ivy latched onto his arm to get him to stop, and he turned on her.

“Sheer will.” He tossed his bag into the back seat and let Zeus climb inside. “She was raised to fight, Ivy. It’s all she knows.”

“You’re right. Fighting is all she knows, except now she has no one to fight. So what do you think is going to happen next?” Ivy asked. “She refused medical care and ran, Granger. Why?”

He didn’t have an answer for that.

“You have to move past your feelings and see the truth.” Socorro’s founder was waiting for him to see reason, but he couldn’t. Not when it came to Charlie. “That code we decrypted tells me Charlie Acker is the one calling the shots. And whatever she’s planning, she knows we’re coming.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

This was the only way to end the bloodshed.

Charlie had no idea if she was in the right place, butSangre por Sangre’s dilapidated headquarters had made headlines over the past two years. There had to be something here that would help make sense of this mess.

She angled the SUV Ivy Bardot had let her take alongside what remained of a parking garage. Boulders of cement and rebar blocked any kind of entrance, but Charlie had snuck into her fair share of construction sites over the years. She knew what to avoid, how to spot a building’s vulnerabilities and the general design of structures like this. Her head pounded as she stepped free of the vehicle.

Cool night air mingled with the sweat in her hair. She’d chugged three bottles of water and a couple of ibuprofen from the back cargo area to counter dehydration, but there was no guarantee her self-medicating would do any good. But tucking herself away in Socorro’s fortress only delayed the inevitable, and she was tired of hiding. Of pretending she’d made the right choice by running ten years ago. Charlie took that first step toward the building, one of the flashlights she’d found in the back in one hand. She couldn’t ignore the sick feeling in her gut that all of this—Erin’s death, her father’s suicide, the cartel’s plan for her—wasn’t as it seemed.

She needed the truth.

Hesitation wormed through her veins as she approached a hole where the cement hadn’t closed off a section of the underground parking garage. The flashlight beam skimmed over hard cracked earth, not revealing much other than snake holes and ant mounds. No signs anyone else was here. Or that she was walking into an ambush. She’d watched the site from the broken chain-link fence surrounding the property. If the cartel was still working out of this location, they’d somehow masked their vehicles, their footprints and their perimeter security.

“It’s now or never.” Charlie angled the flashlight toward the largest break in the debris. Her body ached as she climbed through the mouth and into the belly of the expansive building. Darkness spread out in front of her as the structure seemed to groan. Dust fell from the ceiling and slipped beneath the scrubs she was still wearing. This was a bad idea, but it was her only option. To get the truth about Erin. To protect Granger.

Drops of water pattered somewhere inside the collapsed section of garage and echoed off the walls, and her skin suddenly seemed too tight for her body. A vehicle had crumpled beneath the weight of the ceiling coming down off to her left, and Charlie couldn’t help but think one wrong move would deliver her the same fate. The sharp odor of fire and mold collected at the back of her throat. Parking garages didn’t usually stand alone. There had to be an entrance in the main building.

Debris caught on the toe of her boot. She lost her balance for a moment and cut the flashlight across the room. There. A corridor of some kind held its own against the weight of the collapsing structure. Charlie headed straight for it. “Here goes nothing.”

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