Page 7 of K-9 Confidential

“I didn’t have a choice.” The bite of sweet-and-sour chicken coated her tongue and sent the first real glimpse of relief through her. One bite. That was all it took to lose herself in the experience, to the point this place, the cartel, her father—none of it existed. All that was left was this sweet-and-sour chicken and Granger. A laugh rushed up her throat. “Thank you for this. I haven’t had something this good in a long time. Not a whole lot of options while you’re in hiding. Going to restaurants or anyplace with security cameras was too big a risk”

“And yet the cartel got you on surveillance,” he said.

“I was careful.” She was getting full, but she didn’t dare stop eating for fear she’d never have this small joy again. “Those photos you have of me must be from street cameras, because I sure as hell didn’t put myself at risk. Not after everything I worked to keep.”

He didn’t seem to have an answer for that. Or he’d decided she wasn’t the person to trust with one, and that…hurt.

Deep. Where she thought she’d buried everything about the past and him. It hadn’t been easy. Granger Morais had been a big part of her life there for a while. In more ways than one. But she couldn’t think about that right now. Erin was dead. She needed to know why. Charlie stared down at the mix of vegetables, sauce and chicken, no longer captive to her appetite. This thing that’d brought them together was more important than either of them. “My goals haven’t changed, Granger. I still believe my father and his army are a massive threat. I want to tear them apart.”

“Then why did you leave?” That last word seemed to catch in his throat. “We had a plan. You signed an agreement with the US government, Charlie, and you backed out by running. The feds have your name and picture at the top of their terrorism list, and there isn’t anything I can do about that. If Homeland realizes you’re alive, they’ll do whatever it takes to put you behind bars and keep you there for a very long time.”

“I know.” She’d lived with the reality of what she’d done every day since crawling away from that explosion. And not without scars. “You trusted me, and I… I got scared.”

“Scared.” Granger turned away from her. “From what I remember, there isn’t a damn thing in this world that scares you, Charlie. You were willing to give us intel on your father and the people who raised you, knowing exactly what they would do to you if they found out. Hell, you weren’t even supposed to be there the night of the attack.”

“I thought…” An uncomfortable pit weighed heavy in her stomach, and suddenly Charlie wished she hadn’t eaten before having this conversation. There were still pieces of the past that could get to her. No matter how far she tried to run. Tossing the meal he’d brought her back onto the tray, she slid her clammy palms down her jeans and shoved to stand. Her sister’s journal bounced with the absence of her weight on the mattress. “You know what? It doesn’t matter what I thought. The only reason I’m here is because Erin is dead, Granger. And you’re right. We had a deal. I gave you everything you needed to take down my father a decade ago and get her away from him, but it seems you didn’t hold up your end of the deal either. So here we are. You said this cartel you’ve been fighting might have something to do with her death, to get to my father, and now they’re gunning for me. I want to know everything you know, and I want to know now. Who killed my sister?”

Mountainous shoulders pulled tight and accentuated his chest. Granger didn’t look strong in the sense of the other male operatives she’d clocked in the building. He didn’t need hours in the gym or gallons of protein powder to incapacitate a threat, though she knew he took care of himself. No. He had something far more dangerous packed into his lean six-foot-two frame. Something far more valuable: hard-to-come-by skills the US government wouldn’t have wanted to lose. Strategy, foresight, high deductive reasoning. Not to mention extensive training in surveillance and combat. Everything a counterterrorism agent would need to save the world. In truth, he’d intimidated her the first time they’d met. Though she could argue they were evenly matched in many respects, Granger Morais always seemed to surprise her in the best of ways.

“What makes you think Erin didn’t die in a hunting accident as the coroner reported?” His voice had slipped back into that near-whisper—too calm, too distant.

“Because Erin was the best damn hunter our father has ever trained. She knew her way around a rifle better than any of us. It was one of the reasons Sage and I always felt she was the favorite.” Which left the question of whether her father had anything to do with his third daughter’s death. Had he grown so callous, so vengeful, that he’d sacrifice one daughter to get to the other? Had he known Charlie had survived the explosion before she’d broken into the house last night? He’d seemed genuinely surprised to see her, but Henry Acker was a strategist. Never one to show his hand until the perfect moment. “Erin could hit a buck from five-hundred yards dead between the eyes. There’s no way she made a mistake and got herself killed. Something else is going on here.”

“Could someone have killed her to draw you out of hiding?” he said.

Charlie kept herself from folding her arms, from giving any kind of clue as to what was going on in her mind. She’d already come to a conclusion. The answer to that could be all right there in Erin’s journal. She just needed to decode Erin’s final days. Find the decipher key that would unlock the whole entry. “It crossed my mind.”

“All right.” Granger crossed the room to the built-in bureau taking up one side of the room. He popped the cabinet open and hit a series of numbers on the gun safe inside. The door swung open, and he pulled a sidearm from inside. “Let’s go test that theory.”

* * *

This was thestupidest idea he’d ever considered.

Setting foot in Vaughn, New Mexico, could only end in a death sentence now that he wasn’t employed by the federal government. Henry Acker had all the rights and reasons to shoot him on sight. And all the answers as to why theSangre por Sangrecartel had targeted Charlie.

She hadn’t said a word from the passenger seat. Though Granger could argue she wasn’t really taking in the sights out the window either. Her hands were too tense, fingernails digging into her knees with every mile gained on Vaughn.

He checked on Zeus through the rearview mirror. The overstuffed K9 was asleep across the back seat after having gorged himself on the leftovers of Granger’s lunch.

“You don’t have to go in with me.” It wasn’t the first time he’d made the offer. “I’ve done this a few times. I’m kind of good at gathering intel and working my way into places I’m not supposed to be.”

“You think my father is going to just let you walk up to his front porch?” Charlie graced him with one of those rare smiles, as though the thought of him taking a bullet center mass entertained her, before she turned back to the window. “You’ll be dead the second you cross the town border unless I’m with you.”

“And if he’s not in the welcoming mood?” Granger tried not to let his hands tighten around the steering wheel at the thought. Not of him being taken down in action. He’d signed on with Socorro knowing exactly what he was getting himself into and was carrying a piece of a bullet around to prove it. But Charlie was a civilian despite her militaristic upbringing, and there was a difference between thinking she’d been dead all this time and watching her take her last breath beside him.

“We always knew there was a chance he’d kill us for working against him.” Her inhale shook more than he imagined she’d intended. Fear did that to a person. Took everything they believed in and turned it against them. Charlie might believe some part of her father still loved her enough not to shoot her on sight, but there was still a high chance neither of them would walk out of Vaughn alive. “I guess now we’ll find out if that’s true.”

“He didn’t shoot you when you broke into the house last night,” he said. “I’d take that as a good sign.”

“I didn’t really give him the chance.” She pressed her shoulders back into the seat, tense. “I might hate everything he stands for and the way he brainwashes people into following his beliefs, but the only reason I was able to disappear was because of the things he taught me. How to live off the grid, which high calorie foods would serve me better in the long run, how to recognize if I’m being followed. In some weird way, I owe my life to him.”

Granger didn’t know what to say to that, what to think. Trials had a way of preparing the sufferer. Some better than others. “Where have you been living?”

“Here and there. Nowhere longer than a couple weeks at a time. I took odd jobs for cash and stayed in hotels. I couldn’t take the risk of…wanting more,” she said. “North Dakota, Montana. Visited Washington state for a while. They were nothing like this place. Everything here is so…harsh. And up there, I felt like myself. Surrounded by trees and the smell of dampness from the rain. It was like I’d become someone else. Almost enough to convince me I could escape what I’d done.”

“Yeah. I bet it was easy to pretend after convincing everyone who cared about you that you were dead.” Granger regretted the words the moment they escaped his mouth. This wasn’t about him. This wasn’t about them and what they’d lost that night. The cartel had plans for Charlie, and it was his job to figure out what they were. Nothing else mattered. He was here to do a job. Nothing more.

Charlie swung her gaze toward him. “I’m sorry. For everything, Granger. If I’d stuck to the plan, maybe none of this would’ve happened. Maybe Sage and Erin would still be alive.”

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