Page 15 of K-9 Confidential

Panic swelled in her throat as her mind processed the meaning of each of those words. They’d escaped her father’s house. Granger had been grazed by a bullet. She’d treated the wound as best she could and secured it with her jacket. And then…they were running. A flash of red shot across her mind. The flare gun. Someone had shot at them with a flare gun. “Granger.”

“Tranquila,”that voice said. Quiet.

Grabbing for a half-buried rock, she tried to wrench herself out of the man’s hold, but it was no use. He was too strong and had too much leverage. She secured her hand around the base of the next tree and kicked with everything she had.

Her boot slipped free in her abductor’s hand. He turned on her, his features aglow in the flames spreading fast through the woods. Charlie rolled out of reach and dodged his attempt. She grabbed for her ankle holster, coming up empty.

“Looking for this?” The clarity of her attacker’s features diminished with the appearance of her knife in his hand. He tossed her boot out of sight. “There’s nowhere for you to run,chica. No one escapesSangre por Sangre.”

Sangre por Sangre?The cartel? Understanding hit. These men didn’t work for her father. The cartel Granger and Socorro had warned her about had finally found her. How?

Smoke burned down the back of her throat. The heat intensified, beading sweat along her hairline. The fire was consuming everything in its path. And sooner or later, it would consume her and everyone left in these trees. Charlie turned her attention on a way out, but the man holding her at knifepoint was blocking the only escape. She would have to go through him. “What the hell do you people want from me?”

“To restoreSangre por Sangreto its original glory,” he said.

Charlie dared a step back. Her heel landed on a smoldering branch. The wood cracked and sent embers around her legs. “I’m not doing anything for you or the people you work for. Understand?”

A low laugh crackled over the flames. “Not even when your father’s life depends on it?”

“What are you talking about?” A thread of cold worked through her. “How do you know my father? And where is Granger?”

“We know everything about you, Charlie Acker.” The man with her knife stepped to his left, forcing her to counter as he attempted to circle behind her. He was giving her an opportunity to run. Almost as though he was daring her to take the risk, to give him the chance to hunt her down. The steel of her blade glimmered in the reflection of flames. He was all that was standing between her and freedom from this place. “The work you did for your father. Where you’ve been hiding all these years. Did you really think my superiors fell for your ruse?”

He tsked, shaking his head. “You planned the attack on the Alamo pipeline. It was you who put Acker’s Army on the map. Not your father. And now, you’re going to do the same for us.”

The need for answers battled with her survival instincts until paralysis held her in place. The fire would be seen for miles. Vaughn didn’t have a large fire department, but the people of this town were prepared for any disaster, natural or not. Someone was coming. Charlie spotted a downed, rotted-out branch between her and the only escape. “Did your cartel kill my sister?”

“You’re wasting time,” he asked. “Pretty soon neither of us will be able to walk out of here alive.”

“Then I suggest you answer the question.” The sweat was almost suffocating now, prickling along both sides of her face, but the worst was at her back, where the blueprints poked into her skin. “Did the cartel have her killed? WhenSangre por Sangrecouldn’t get to me, did they kill her and leave her to rot in these woods to draw me out?”

“Come with me without a fight, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know about your sister’s death.” The promise hung between them for two seconds. Three. Her attacker closed the blade in his hand, offering it to her. It would be so tempting to believe she could just reach out and take it. That she could escape, but Charlie had learned to recognize false promises long before the cartel had come into her life. He was trying to establish a rapport, trying to take the fight out of her. He wasn’t going to give her any information. Instead, he and the people he worked for would dangle that carrot and the lives of everyone she cared about in front of her until they forced her to do what they wanted. Because that was how power worked. “Or…start running. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a challenge, but I can’t promise how our game will end.”

Charlie had been controlled enough in her life.

“That’s it? I come with you willingly, you leave my family alone and you tell me what happened to my sister?” She took a step forward as though to accept his offer, one hand stretched out.

“That’s it.” That voice eased through her. Trusting, confident.

“Why don’t I believe you?” Charlie lunged for the downed branch at her feet and swung as hard as she could. The tip of the rotted wood slammed against her abductor’s head, and he shot off to one side. Her blade hit the ground in a burst of embers. She grabbed for it, burning her hand on the growing flames, and ran.

His scream bellowed behind her as she raced for the only clearing of trees not on fire.

“Get her!” Anger replaced the trust and confidence in her attacker’s words, and Charlie pumped her legs faster.

Her pulse skyrocketed with the added pressure on her lungs to keep up, but she couldn’t stop. Not until she found Granger and Zeus. Shouts bled through the trees around her. There were four of them. Maybe five. All closing in on her position.

Shadows shifted up ahead, and Charlie darted to the left to avoid contact. She had no idea where she was. No idea where the cartel would take Granger and Zeus. A tremor vibrated through her legs the harder she pushed. She was running on empty and most likely suffering from a concussion, but experience told her all those punishing laps she’d run around the farm would keep her on her feet for hours if necessary.

Charlie heard the snap of wood behind her.

A force she’d only ever encountered in the aftermath of the Alamo pipeline explosion slammed into her. She hit the ground face first. Air crushed from her chest as the weight on her back increased.

“I told you. No one escapesSangre por Sangre.” Her attacker dug his knee into her back to make a point.

Flashes of memory—of being pinned beneath a man twice her size and struggling to breathe—forced their way to the front of her mind. A training exercise. One in which she’d lost consciousness as rain pounded on her back. Her father’s face in the center of her vision. Only she wasn’t twelve years old anymore.

The glow of flames grew brighter. Ash collected around her face. Sweat collected on her upper lip. She could hear the roar of the fire drawing near. This was her last chance.

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