Page 6 of K-9 Confidential

“At Henry Acker’s instruction,” Ivy said.

Charlie notched her chin higher. A visible struggle twitched the corner of one side of her mouth. A fight between defending herself or defending the man who raised her. Henry Acker was responsible for three separate attacks aimed at government property, like the one carried out at the Alamo pipeline. That they knew of. Dozens of innocent lives taken. Massive amounts of financial damage, not to mention the installation of fear across the state, but in the end, he would always be Charlie’s father. She tented her fingers over the top surveillance photo. “That was a long time ago. What does any of this have to do with a drug cartel?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Granger said. “Sangre por Sangreisn’t in a position to waste resources at the moment. What’s left of the cartel is scattered and in hiding after they attacked Socorro head on three weeks ago, but this surveillance tells us they’ve got their sights on you. Why?”

Charlie folded her arms across her chest. Not in defense. He knew as well as anyone the kind of rigorous combat training she’d been put through as a kid. No. She was hiding something. Trying to keep him at a distance. “How should I know?”

“Because you’re the only Acker daughter still alive.” Ivy leveled the statement almost like an accusation. The last connection to the inside of Acker’s Army. “Sangre por Sangremight be on its last legs, but they still have resources we can’t even begin to imagine. It’s possible whoever is targeting you knows you and your sisters were involved in the Alamo pipeline attack and want something specific from you.” Ivy slid her hands into her blazer pockets. “Or this could have nothing to do with you and everything to do with getting to your father. Through you.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

“Henry Acker has continued his mission since you’ve been gone, including two other attacks in the state.” Granger leveraged his weight against the oversized conference room table. “Both were aimed at undermining the government, and by doing so, Acker’s Army has proven themselves a real threat.Sangre por Sangremay be taking notice. Might even use his daughters to get to manipulate or influence him.”

“Wait.” Charlie released her hold on herself. A physical calm washed over her features, a stillness that could only be achieved through years of training. “You think this cartel could be involved in my sister’s murder?”

“Murder?” Granger stood a bit taller as he cut his attention to Ivy and back. “As far as Vaughn PD and the media are concerned, Erin died in a hunting accident.”

Charlie’s mouth parted on a shaky inhale. The first real sign that something was very wrong.

“That’s why you came back.” Granger should’ve seen it before now. There was no plausible situation he’d been able to think of that would explain her return to New Mexico, and yet here she was, after all this time. The muscles down his back pulled tight as a chain reaction of sympathy and anger and grief charged through him. Erin Acker didn’t have the same views of her father and his anti-government protests as her sister, but Charlie had loved her sister all the same. Even tried to get her out of Acker’s Army before the attack on the pipeline. Only she hadn’t been fast enough. “You don’t believe your sister’s death was an accident.”

“No. I don’t.” Charlie locked away the vulnerability that’d taken over for a brief moment. “And I’m not going anywhere until I find who killed her.”

CHAPTER THREE

This place was so cold.

Not in the sense she expected. Just…empty. Lonely. Though she should’ve been used to that by now. North Dakota, Montana, Utah, parts of Colorado. She hadn’t let herself stay in any of them long or get to know anyone. She couldn’t take the risk with her father and his army on the hunt, but Socorro’s headquarters felt even more isolating. Like a prison.

Charlie lowered herself onto the edge of the mattress. The bedroom Ivy Bardot and Granger had stuck her in looked comfortable enough, but there was a reason she’d survived this long. She never took anything at face value. What was this place? A private military contractor and bed-and-breakfast? Her stomach growled at the thought. She hadn’t stopped moving since she’d crossed state lines.

Pulling Erin’s journal from the back of her waistband, she flipped to the first page. She could still recall the expression on her father’s face as she’d sped away last night, but disappointment came with the job of being that man’s daughter. And Henry Acker was the kind of person to never forget a grudge.

He would punish her if he got the chance. Just as he had when she’d been a kid. Whine about how much her body hurt after training all day? Run ten laps around the farm. Fail to clean her rifle that week? Stand outside in below freezing temperatures until her fingers no longer worked.

At the time, she hadn’t considered how wrong those punishments had been. How…traumatic. She’d simply seen them as a way to become a better daughter, facing them head-on and believing her father was only doing it because he loved her. In reality, all he’d wanted was another soldier to add to his ranks.

Tears prickled at her eyes as she traced the well-loved leather of her sister’s journal. Erin and she used to write notes to each other in a journal exactly like this. They’d designed a secret code only they knew. If their father ever found it, he wouldn’t know what to make of it, because they’d been the only ones who’d had the key to decipher the message. She missed that. The cover wasn’t new. It’d once belonged to their mother. Erin had reused it a hundred times as she recorded events throughout their childhood, a much-needed habit the Acker matriarch had instilled in only her youngest child. Charlie had always claimed to have better things to do. Learning the latest war-game strategy, checking the perimeter of the farm for the dozenth time, running inventory on emergency supplies. Though there were times she wished she’d journaled. For evidence. But maybe there was something in these pages that could help. Could point her in the right direction.

She flipped through the notebook. The contents were routinely swapped out for new pages whenever Erin filled the latest journal up. This one was half-full of coded handwriting, with the final entry dated four days ago. The day of Erin’s death. Only this code wasn’t the one they’d created as kids. This was something more…complicated.

“Thought you could use something to eat,” that deep voice said.

She hadn’t heard him come in, too distracted by Erin’s final words. Rookie mistake. If Henry Acker had witnessed her slip, she’d have to dig ditches until her hands bled. “How long have you been standing there?”

He moved slowly, as though approaching a wild animal, and, in a sense, that was exactly what she was. Feral, without a home, alone. Granger maneuvered to her side and set a tray of what looked like sweet-and-sour chicken and white rice on the bed. The scent alone was enough to remind her she hadn’t been taking care of herself the past few days. Hell, he could probably smell the three days’ worth of sweat and tears on her. “Not long.”

She wouldn’t get anything else out of him. Not unless it was on his terms. That was one of the things she’d liked about him the most when they first met, one thing that they’d had in common. It wasn’t much, but it’d been more than she’d had with anyone else. “Thank you.”

He added a good amount of distance between them. At least as much as the room would give him. “Is that Erin’s?”

“I took it from her room last night.” Her attention was split between her need for answers in the journal and her need for calories. Her father would be so disappointed to learn her stomach was winning the fight.

“You went back to Vaughn.” A concern she recognized from the old days tinted his words and set her nerves on red alert. They weren’t friends. They weren’t even acquaintances at this point. “And you lived to tell the tale.”

“I saw him. My father.” Charlie held herself back from shoving in more food than her mouth could take, simply pulling the tray onto her lap. She stabbed at a hefty piece of chicken covered in sauce and sticky rice, and her mouth watered. Chinese food had always been her favorite. It’d been such a delicacy compared to the canned and dehydrated foods she’d grown up on. Had Granger remembered that? “He caught me, tried to drag me back. Even had a couple of his lieutenants try to bring me in.”

“But you escaped.” Was that a hint of respect she sensed in his tone?

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