Page 5 of K-9 Justice

Metal reverberated through her a split second before a strong hand wrapped around her wrist and drew her gaze upward. Carson. He’d taken the leap. He was the only one keeping her from falling. His strength gave her enough direction to swing her legs back around. They still had another floor to go before they landed on solid ground, but right then it felt a little more possible with him watching her back.

Movement registered from her bedroom window.

“Watch out!” She pulled Carson over the railing as the gunman took aim. His weight intensified the pain in her shoulder and nearly dislodged her hold altogether. They had nowhere else to go. The first spray of bullets missed by a hair. The gun jammed, the click of an empty magazine echoing through the alleyway. Ivy had the feeling they wouldn’t be so lucky the second time. The small muscles in her arm stretched longer than they were meant to. Any second now she’d drop him. “I can’t hold on.”

“Ivy, you have to let me go, or we’re both going to die.” Her partner seemed to gauge the distance between them and the ground.

Let him go? Had he lost his mind? No. She wasn’t letting him go. She needed him alive. There was no way she could find Dr. Piel’s killer without his insight into the cartel and the man she believed responsible for the murder.

The shooter slammed a new magazine into place and lowered the barrel of his assault rifle. At her. And yet Ivy couldn’t seem to let her hand relax. Carson’s weight was tearing her apart from the inside. She couldn’t let him go. Not again. Not after everything they’d already survived together.

“You can do this. You have to do this, Ivy.” Carson stared up at her, those dark eyes as familiar and foreign as she remembered. “I’ll be fine.”

She released his hand.

Carson hit the ground. At least twelve feet below. He landed hard enough for his legs to buckle, but then he was rolling out of the shooter’s range. Ivy didn’t hesitate. She released her own hold on the railing. The ground rushed up to meet her harder and faster than she expected. Her knees launched into her chest, but her backpack forced her to roll and redistribute the weight to save her from breaking her legs.

Asphalt exploded around her, and she forced herself to her feet. “Run!”

Only Carson wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.

A high-pitched whistle from the end of the alley pierced her attention. Ivy pushed everything she had into pumping her legs. The gunman was three floors up. He would have a hell of a time intercepting them.

Unless he had a partner.

Drawing her weapon into her hand, she registered a cascade of police sirens in the distance as she rounded toward the front of the building. Mrs. Orson probably wasn’t the only resident to call 911 at the sound of gunfire. Ivy just hoped no one had been hurt in the ambush. As much as she could leave the apartment and anything else connecting her to this life at the drop of a hat, the people in this building didn’t have that luxury.

She caught up with Carson at the corner and followed him down the street to a black SUV stashed in one of the parallel alleys. Her vehicle wasn’t an option. Whoever had targeted the safe house would already have her registration details, and if this was some kind of coordinated effort to hunt down and ambush Socorro operatives, none of them were safe.

“Get in.” Carson climbed behind the wheel, with Ivy collapsing into the front passenger seat. Max made her presence known with a series of too-loud barks that could summon demons under the right circumstances, but apparently, Carson didn’t have the heart to quiet her excitement for seeing Ivy. The engine growled to life at the touch of a button, and they sped onto the street. Keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, her partner relaxed over a series of seconds. “The life you built is over, Ivy. From here on out, we can only trust each other.”

* * *

His heart ratehadn’t come down yet.

Seemed no matter how many miles Carson put between them and Ivy’s safe house, having his former partner here kept his entire nervous system on edge. Adrenaline had started to drain and left him feeling keyed up and exhausted at the same time. A dangerous combination when facing the possibility his cover had been blown. That he’d been followed. Or that someone had come for Ivy.

“Where are we going?” She stroked Max’s fur with a soothing calmness that, at that moment, Carson wished she’d paid toward him, but two years was a long time. They’d kept in touch. Him slipping her cartel intel, her providing him the plan to dismantleSangre por Sangreand the warning to steer clear of Socorro’s next move. They worked well together in that respect, but in this case, time had made their wounds deeper. Not given them a chance to heal.

She didn’t like not knowing every detail ahead of time, and she sure as hell didn’t like not being in charge, but there were certain things he couldn’t tell her just yet either. At least, not without him logically defending his use of cartel resources available to him, and he wasn’t running on logic right now. “We’ll be there soon enough.”

“You’re very good about avoiding having to answer questions,” she said.

“How do you think I’ve been able to survive this long undercover?” He’d meant to lighten the mood. Because they both knew, out of the two of them, the FBI had chosen the wrong agent to send undercover withinSangre por Sangre. The only reason it hadn’t been her was because of his skin color. His mother’s Asian roots had made their mark around his eyes, but it was his father’s Mexican heritage that defined him on the outside. That heritage had given him an entry point inside the cartel, but to survive its ranks, he’d learned the rest violently and strategically.

Ivy directed her attention out the passenger-side window but stayed physically connected to the dog they’d once shared as a couple. “Good point.”

They’d gotten out of the city without incident, heading north, but it was only a matter of time before whoever’d come for Ivy scorched through the rest of her life as they had her safe house. Which meant her team could be at risk, too. And not just them. Anyone connected to Ivy. Operatives’ families. Clients. Any family she might have left.

“The shooter was sporting an M4 assault rifle. Exclusively a military model with a high-capacity magazine. Not something you would normally find on the streets.” Ivy’s voice had taken on that tone she used for interviewing witnesses and suspects. Strangers. “Which makes me think Dr. Piel’s murder and this ambush are tied back to the cartel. The timing would be a hell of a coincidence if they weren’t.”

He’d made the same connection. “She was your friend. The way you talk about her. It’s not the same as when you’ve talked about your other operatives.”

Ivy rolled her head back toward the center console. “It didn’t start out that way. I hired Dr. Piel because she was the mostqualified for the job. She was a general surgeon at Columbia University. The only female in the entire emergency department. I saw how hard she had to work just to prove she was meant to be there, while getting a fraction of the salary as others less qualified. Not just as a woman, but as a Black woman.” There was that sadness again. A mere hint of the grief Ivy was most likely hiding from him. “She reminded me of…me. Of my time in the FBI. So I made her an offer on the spot. I convinced her to uproot her entire life to come to New Mexico. I provided her a surgical suite and clinic, paid her three times what she was worth and watched her do what she did best. Saving the lives of my operatives. Without her, Socorro wouldn’t have been possible. I owe her a lot. Only I’m just now realizing I never took the chance to tell her that.”

The SUV’s headlights bounced as he turned onto an unpaved road cutting off the I-25. It wasn’t well-worn like most others. Practically hidden in the expanse of the desert. Purposefully out of reach of wandering hitchhikers and curious civilians. Carson carved up the single-lane dirt path partially overgrown from lack of use. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been out here. Didn’t know what was waiting for them at the other end either. “Did Dr. Piel talk about her personal life? Maybe a falling-out with friends, family, a neighbor?”

“No. Not that she mentioned.” Ivy stared out the windshield, the lights from the console glimmering off the line of unshed tears in her eyes. His partner never cried. Not even when she’d believed she was about to die. Then again, a lot could change in two years. “And before you ask, I’ve already looked into her finances and phone records. She didn’t have any money problems, and there wasn’t any suspicious activity in her messages or calls. We drug test regularly due to the nature of our work and the missions we take on. Her results have nevergiven me reason to believe she’s anything more than the woman I believed her to be.”

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