Guardian. Terri Reed

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СКАЧАТЬ more feet to safety. She laid her hand on the horn in an effort to attract attention. She lifted a prayer to God that someone inside the building would hear the commotion and come out to investigate.

      Because surely, the killer wouldn’t risk doing something to her and Charlie within plain sight of the police station, would he?

      * * *

      Leo and True slipped through the ground-floor doors of the FBI’s Tactical K-9 Unit headquarters in Billings, Montana.

      His boss, Max West, had called for a team meeting, pulling Leo and True in from a morning run. His T-shirt was damp with sweat and his running shoes were silent on the concrete floor. He hoped this powwow meant some news about Jake.

      Leo left True in the care of one of the dog trainers, then scrubbed a hand over his bristled jaw as he took the stairs. He’d hardly slept in the week since Jake went missing. They’d had no word on his whereabouts. The silence and lack of information concerned him deeply. For the millionth time, Leo prayed that his buddy was alive and that the team would find him.

      The six-story brick building was the unit’s base of operations, but at any moment each team member could be deployed to any crime scene in any state in the country. That was how they’d ended up in that Los Angeles warehouse a week ago.

      The K-9 unit consisted of the training facility on the ground floor, while the second floor housed the agents’ offices and computer tech center. The other floors were occupied by a variety of government officials. Both the training center and the presence of other governmental employees helped to disguise the team’s covert operations.

      Stopping by his desk in the bull pen, Leo shrugged off his lightweight jacket and hung it over the back of his desk chair. He checked for messages in his inbox on his FBI-issued laptop, flagged a couple to return to later, then headed to the communications center. Pausing in the doorway, he noticed the team wasn’t gathered there. There was only Dylan O’Leary, the computer genius. “Hey.”

      Dylan spun from the bank of computer monitors to grin at him. His spiky, sandy-blond hair and dark-framed glasses screamed techno geek while his loud Hawaiian shirt over his official FBI Tactical K-9 Unit polo made it clear he was a man with a sense of humor. “How’s it going, Leo?”

      “Going.” Leo leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “You?”

      Dylan sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I miss Zara, but Radar and I are doing okay. We’re getting along.”

      Leo was glad to hear his fiancée’s dog wasn’t giving him trouble. Zara was at Quantico, training to be an official FBI agent so that she could come back and officially join the team. “Where is everyone?”

      “The debriefing room.”

      Leo chuckled. In other words, the kitchen. “You coming?”

      Dylan turned back to his computer monitors. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

      Leo left Dylan to his gadgets and headed into the large open area of the “debriefing” space. Along the far wall was a state-of-the-art kitchen, complete with oven, stovetop and fridge, all in stainless steel. A bank of windows provided natural light and an extra-large monitor hung on the wall near the door.

      A long hand-carved wooden table with bench seats dominated the middle of the room. The team was already seated and munching on fruit platters and trays of pastries from Petrov Bakery, a favorite with all the agents.

      Max stood at the coffee machine, making himself a latte. He glanced up and tipped his chin at Leo. He was a tall man with short blond hair and a ragged scar on one side of his face. “The gang’s all here.”

      Not quite. Jake was missing.

      The familiar burn of guilt ate at Leo, killing any appetite he might have had. He straddled the end of the closest bench next to Ian Slade. The tall, muscular agent cracked a joke that had Harper Prentiss and Julianne Martinez and the team’s general assistant, Christy Burton, laughing. As usual, the good-humored Ian was charming the ladies.

      Max moved to the head of the table and sat. “Where are we with the Dupree case?”

      “Reginald Dupree isn’t talking,” Harper replied. “He’s lawyered up and so have his henchmen. The US district attorney is spitting mad about it.”

      “Angus Dupree escaped—we assume on the helicopter,” Timothy Ramsey, a junior agent, added. He sat across the table from Leo between Harper and another junior agent, Nina Atkins.

      “And Agent Morrow?” Max asked, his piercing blue eyes surveying his team. “Jake’s brother, Zeke, has been hounding me for answers. I don’t have any to give yet.”

      Leo’s jaw tightened. It had to be tough for Zeke, thinking he’d never see his brother again. Jake had mentioned once he and his brother weren’t close and barely spoke, but still... Family was family.

      “The press is also pestering me for a statement,” Christy said with a flip of her auburn hair. “I can’t keep them in the dark for much longer.”

      “It’s been a week and no word,” Julianne said, her voice soft. No doubt she was thinking Jake was dead. Leo wouldn’t accept that.

      “Angus took Jake,” Leo stated. “We know that. We tested the blood we found at the scene. It was Jake’s.”

      Ian swiveled toward Leo. “Why would they take him?”

      “For leverage. To get information out of him.” Leo couldn’t help the growl in his voice. He should have had Jake’s and Buddy’s backs.

      “Angus might use Jake to reduce Reginald’s sentence,” Harper added.

      Ian shook his head, his normal good humor disappearing as he sobered. “If Angus was going to use him, he’d have done so by now, right?”

      “Jake has intimate knowledge of our investigation into the Duprees,” Harper said. “He knows that we have Esme Dupree stashed away in witness protection, ready to testify against her brother.”

      “But Jake doesn’t have access to Esme’s whereabouts,” Ian pointed out.

      Dylan stepped into the room carrying a computer device. “Hey, guys, I received an alert on a crime I think you might want to hear about.” He tapped some keys on his console. “A witness in Settler’s Valley, Wyoming, claims to have seen a man dumping a body into the Blackthorn River. By the description, it sounds like the victim could be Esme Dupree.”

      Leo’s stomach muscles clenched. Could the report from Wyoming be true? Had a witness seen Esme Dupree’s dead body? Without Esme, their case would fall apart. “Is the witness reliable?”

      “The Settler’s Valley police chief thinks so,” Dylan replied. “A schoolteacher named Alicia Duncan. She saw the killer, who she claims shot at her and her three-year-old son.”

      Leo’s breath caught in his throat. A child. Memories assaulted him. He fought them back with the practice of over two decades. He focused his gaze on his boss. “We’ll go. True is the only dog qualified for the task.” True’s specialty was Water Search and Detection.

      Max’s eyebrows hitched upward. “Good point. СКАЧАТЬ