She nodded, blood coating her gun hand.
“Keep low, move fast and use me as cover if you have to.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond as he kicked the screen door aside and rushed them onto the covered back porch. A gust of freezing December air took the breath from his lungs. Hiking the Beretta shoulder-level, he sidestepped along the side of the house, making them as small a target as possible in case the shooter decided to come around the corner.
Snow crunched under their steps. Once they reached the corner of the house, they could make a run for it. Until then, the snow would only slow them down. Instincts on high alert, he listened for movement—anything—that pointed to an ambush.
“On my count.” He had the SUV in his sights and Glennon glued to his side. “One.” He studied the fast-spreading pattern of blood across her T-shirt. “Two.” There were no other options at this point. They had to run. Now. He slowed his breathing, wrapped his free hand around her upper arm. A rush of electricity shot through him at the contact. “Three.”
They raced toward the open white-picket-fence gate. A third shot exploded from the trees. Then a fourth. Anthony maneuvered Glennon to his opposite side, using his body as a shield, and emptied the Beretta’s magazine toward the trees.
Alaska winters were some of the darkest on the planet. He couldn’t see a damn thing, let alone narrow down the shooter’s location in a patch of thick trees without stopping. Getting Glennon to safety had to be his priority. Pocketing the empty gun as they crossed the cul-de-sac, he unholstered another weapon and fired.
“Go, go, go!” Fifty feet. Thirty. The SUV came to life at the press of a button and, within seconds, he’d shoved Glennon into the back seat. He ripped open the driver’s door, hiked himself behind the wheel and rammed the vehicle into Reverse. The houses that lined the street blurred as he leveraged his arm against the passenger’s headrest and slammed his foot against the accelerator. One last bullet fought to penetrate the windshield as he maneuvered the SUV out of the neighborhood, tires screaming in protest, but didn’t make it through. One of the perks of working for a heavily resourced security company: bulletproof glass. He’d never been more grateful for it than right that second.
He spun the vehicle around and sped away from the abandoned house and the single shadowed figure standing in the middle of the street. The gunfire died, his fight-or-flight response returning to normal. The SUV’s engine roared as he pushed it faster. One glance at Glennon in the rearview mirror and he white-knuckled the steering wheel. He inhaled deeply to slow his racing heart rate. “You still alive?”
“I’m alive. Thanks to you.” She refused to look at him, staring out one of the back windows. Pretending the last few minutes hadn’t happened—that she hadn’t just been shot—wouldn’t get her out of answering his questions.
He relaxed against the seat, finally able to take a full breath since setting foot in that house. “Good, then you can tell me who the hell tried to kill you.”
* * *
SEVENTY-TWO HOURS. That was how long her partner, Sergeant Bennett Spencer, had been missing.
Criminal Investigations Special Agent Glennon Chase read his last text message on her phone’s screen for the hundredth time as the SUV plowed through the snow-covered streets of her hometown.
I found proof.
What did it mean? She hadn’t been able to locate him since. He wouldn’t return her calls, hadn’t been seen anywhere near his army barracks or shown up at the temporary office they’d been assigned to complete their investigation. On top of that, the GPS on his phone had gone offline. Or been destroyed.
But Bennett was alive. She had to believe that. Otherwise...
“Your guess is as good as mine at this point.” Glennon pressed her palm against the bullet wound in her left shoulder as she shifted in the back seat. Pain flooded through her but it kept her focused. In the moment. Her attention slid to the wall of pure muscle in the driver’s seat. Because letting her guard down around Sergeant Major Anthony Harris would be a mistake she couldn’t afford. Not again.
The former Ranger hadn’t changed a bit. Aviator sunglasses hanging from his T-shirt, sandy-brown hair, full beard, thick muscles strapped inside that familiar Kevlar vest adorned with a patch of the Grim Reaper. Gun at his side. He was attractive, intelligent, protective—everything she’d imagined she’d needed when they’d first gotten together after basic training. He’d still been in the army then, her weapons instructor out of Fort Benning. And those eyes...the darkest blue she’d ever encountered. Dark and deadly.
“Hope a bullet in the shoulder was worth it.” Anthony kept his focus on the road, but the dangerous sinking of his tone meant his focus rested one hundred percent on what had happened back at that house. She didn’t blame him. An ambush had been the last thing on her mind when she’d tracked Bennett’s GPS to that location. “Did you at least find what you were looking for?”
Right. Focus. She swallowed the rush of warmth spreading through her chest and stared out the passenger-side window into the cold. “You mean aside from proof someone doesn’t want me to find my partner?” She inhaled through another round of pain and pressed her shoulders into the leather seat as a distraction. “No.”
The house had been abandoned long before she’d gotten there, but Bennett’s GPS hadn’t lied. He’d been there for close to an entire day before his phone had been turned off. Or died. Which didn’t make sense. They’d been assigned by the provost marshal general to investigate a stolen shipment of military hardware out of JBER here in Anchorage. Guns, ammunition, rocket launchers. At no point in their investigation had an abandoned house located downtown come into the equation. Bennett shouldn’t have been there.
“One-word answers aren’t going to help me keep you alive.” The rough edge to Anthony’s voice added to the weight in her stomach.
Relief flooded through her, however fleeting. She shouldn’t have called him, but after two days of no leads and running into dead ends, she’d run out of options. Going to the police, even involving the army in her partner’s disappearance, could put her son in danger. Because while she didn’t know exactly what’d happened to Bennett, her gut said he hadn’t walked away. In the end, Anthony was the only person she could trust not to get himself killed and to protect her in the process. “Does that mean you’ve decided to help me?”
Anthony pressed a button hidden beneath the driver’s sun visor and swung the SUV down into an underground parking garage. The building wasn’t familiar. At least, she didn’t recognize it. Several SUVs, exactly like his, lined the parking stalls. No other personnel were visible in the cement fortress. No security guards. No employees. The place was empty.
“We’re here,” he said.
She caught sight of four cameras mounted to the ceiling, all with small red lights beneath the lenses. That, coupled with the Batcave entrance, gave her an idea of where they’d ended up.
Blackhawk Security. His new employer.
Anthony shouldered his way out of the vehicle and rounded back to open her door for her, weapon in hand. Always the gentleman, always prepared for the worst.
“I’ve got to say, I never imagined you working in the private sector.” He certainly hadn’t been willing to change careers when they’d been a couple.
She slid out of the SUV, but fell into him when another round of pain shot across her shoulder. With one hand on his chest to keep from face-planting on the cement, she tried to ignore the seductive