Page 35 of K-9 Confidential

Water seeped from the ceiling. Flooding must’ve occurred upstairs. That explained the cloying scent of mold. Shards of cement flaked off as she ran her fingers against the wall. She followed the hallway to a T, swinging the flashlight from left to right. If the cartel was here, they could come and get her. Finish this. “Hello?”

Her voice seemed to echo on forever, and she suddenly found herself colder than a moment before. There was no way for her to search this entire building alone. Not without getting lost or injured in the process. Her vision swam, and she realized she’d been holding her breath for the past few seconds. She’d made her choice. She’d left Granger and the rest of the Socorro team behind in a twisted attempt to protect them, but the truth was she couldn’t even protect herself.

Not really. She’d expended massive amounts of energy trying to hide from the world, isolating herself, moving from one location to the next in an attempt to grant herself one more day of freedom. But it hadn’t done a damn bit of good. Because now she was alone. She’d burned the bridges that had sustained her through the past ten years, and no one was coming to fight for her.

Not even the one man she’d trusted to do the job. Granger had slid back into her life as effortlessly as he had the first time. With promises of protection and concern and respect. He’d been intense—more so than her father—in all the right ways, and had given her something she’d never been granted before: choice. He saw the things she’d tried hiding from her family and the people she’d been raised around, even those she’d tried to hide from herself. Was that what had pressed him to approach her all those years ago and offer her an escape? Had he seen that somewhere deep down she’d never believed in her father’s war, that she just wanted to experience the world outside of Vaughn for herself? Somehow, he’d come to know her better than anyone, and Charlie realized, standing in the basement of a crumbling building, surrounded by the putrid stench of death and destruction, she’d never really wanted to be alone after all. She’d just been waiting for him.

Because she was still in love with Granger. Recklessly, ridiculously and resolutely in love with the counterterrorism agent who’d gifted her more than an escape plan ten years ago. He’d given her strength and purpose and trust. Something far more valuable than the inside intel she’d handed over as his confidential informant.

And she’d thrown all of it away out of fear.

Just as she was doing now.

Granger prided himself on never making the same mistake twice. Why was it she couldn’t learn from hers?

Charlie directed her attention to the left and followed the corridor as far as it would take her. The power was off, casting her into darkness aside from her flashlight, and it felt as though the walls were slowly closing in. Which was impossible. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Making her feel as though she were being watched. Like the floor was moving.

There was nothing here, and if there was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to stick around to find it. She backed out the way she’d come.

She’d made a mistake coming here. She saw that now. Charlie picked up the pace, trying to remember the turns she’d taken. There were so many, just as there had been in the Socorro headquarters. The hallways weren’t meant to make the building easier to navigate. They’d been designed to keep people in, and she felt as though she’d stepped into a prison of her own free will.

Panic clawed at the edges of her mind. Her bones ached, the muscles in her legs had tightened to the point they were pulling on the tendons in the backs of her heels. She couldn’t see save for a few feet in front of her, and Charlie could’ve sworn the shadows up ahead had moved.

She was delirious. Most likely from dehydration and a head injury and the emotions that came from watching her father take his own life right in front of her. It’d all caught up with her, despite her determination to keep running. To never feel as though she couldn’t win.

“Let me out of here!” Her own voice echoed back to her as she turned another corner. They all looked the same. Had she come this way? Why the hell hadn’t she brought crumbs to mark the way out? Charlie misidentified a corner up ahead. Her shoulder slammed right into it, jarring her back into the moment. Cement crumbled in her hand as she pushed away from the wall. “I want out.”

The building moaned as though it’d heard her pleas and mocked them back to her.

She wanted nothing more in that moment than the assurance of her partner and his obese dog. For Granger to tell her they were going to get out of this together. There hadn’t been a single moment in the past three days she’d felt as empty and lonely as she did now. She’d always had her sisters or her father or the entire town of Vaughn on her side, even the counterterrorism agent who’d used her for nothing but information. But now? Now she truly had lost everything and everyone she’d convinced herself she could live without. And found she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to be alone anymore. She didn’t want her freedom if it meant isolation. She wanted Granger and Zeus and even Ivy Bardot to have her back. She wanted to be the one the families of her victims could look at and forgive. She wanted a life. “Can anyone hear me? Hello?”

“I hear you,” a voice said from the darkness.

Charlie recognized that voice. Though she’d hoped she’d never have to hear it again. She raised the flashlight, but there was no one there. It’d been so clear. So close. Swinging the beam to her left, she followed the corridor. Had her brain played another trick on her? Had she really become so desperate, it’d supplied something for her to focus on? No. It’d been real. “You know why I’m here. I want this to stop.”

Her hand shook as she glanced back over her shoulder. The atmosphere had shifted. No longer cold and dark and damp, sweat built under her arms and at the back of her neck.

“That’s not for you to decide, Charlie.” The words filtered in from the right, but they couldn’t have. Nothing but a wall faced her. He was playing games with her. “We’re all just following orders here, even you.”

“I don’t give a damn about your orders.” Charlie stopped dead as the corridor opened into a wide alcove. The floor was bare, but her flashlight beam picked up stains of brown spreading out from epicenters. Five, maybe six, in total. Blood. “So you can stop playing your mind games and tell me what the hell the cartel wants me for.”

A whisper of an exhale brushed against the back of her neck. “But we were just beginning to have some fun.”

Charlie turned, flashlight raised to defend herself.

Pain shot across her face, and the world went black.

* * *

Granger floored the accelerator.

The GPS in Charlie’s SUV hadn’t moved in the past thirty minutes. She’d headed straight for the abandonedSangre por Sangreheadquarters, feeding into the doubts Ivy wanted him to have. But Granger knew her. He knew her better than anyone on his team. “Give me an update.”

The sound of Zeus’s collar registered from the back seat as though the K9 was waiting for an answer too.

“The GPS hasn’t budged.” Ivy pressed another bullet into the magazine in her lap. Uneven landscape threatened to tip the ammunition and her weapon to the floor, but she’d done this thousands of times in a thousand different scenarios. She slammed the magazine into the base of her weapon and holstered it alongside her rib cage. “It doesn’t mean she’s still there, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to—wait. The signal just cut out.”

“The cartel must’ve figured out the SUV is one of ours.” Granger had never known Ivy to join any of her operatives in the field, but with the final stage of eliminatingSangre por Sangre, the agent had apparently taken it upon herself to see the job through. “She’ll be there. And I’ll prove she’s not the one behind this.”

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