K 9 detection, p.1
K-9 Detection, page 1
“We have to get out of the building.”
Jocelyn took out her cell from her cargo pants and whistled low for Maverick to follow her out. The K-9 growled low to argue, but he’d obey. He always obeyed when it counted. Someone had planted a device in the police station. She needed full response.
“What?” Baker asked. “I can’t just leave, Carville. In case you weren’t aware, I’m the only officer on shift today.”
They didn’t have time for bickering. She latched on to his uniform collar and rushed to the front of the station with Baker in tow. “We have to go!”
Fire and sharp debris exploded across her back.
Jocelyn slammed into the nearest wall.
The world went dark.
K-9 Detection
Nichole Severn
Nichole Severn writes explosive romantic suspense with strong heroines, heroes who dare challenge them and a hell of a lot of guns. She resides with her very supportive and patient husband, as well as her demon spawn, in Utah. When she’s not writing, she’s constantly injuring herself running, rock climbing, practicing yoga and snowboarding. She loves hearing from readers through her website, www.nicholesevern.com, and on Facebook at nicholesevern.
Books by Nichole Severn
Harlequin Intrigue
New Mexico Guard Dogs
K-9 Security
K-9 Detection
Defenders of Battle Mountain
Grave Danger
Dead Giveaway
Dead on Arrival
Presumed Dead
Over Her Dead Body
Dead Again
A Marshal Law Novel
The Fugitive
The Witness
The Prosecutor
The Suspect
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Jocelyn Carville—Socorro logistics coordinator Jocelyn Carville has reason to believe a device planted by the vicious Sangre por Sangre cartel was meant to destroy evidence in a murder investigation—but convincing the grumpy chief of police becomes a mission in and of itself.
Baker Halsey—Chief of police Baker Halsey doesn’t trust private military contractors. But as the investigation comes to a standstill, he’ll have to turn to the enthusiastic operative intent on tearing down his guard...before the syndicate strikes again.
Socorro Security—The Pentagon’s war on drugs has pulled the private military contractors of Socorro Security into the fray to dismantle the Sangre por Sangre cartel...forcing its operatives to risk their lives and their hearts in the process.
Marc De Leon—Suspected of hiring someone from within the cartel to plant the bomb that destroyed the police station, Marc is the only one who can give up Sangre por Sangre’s motives...if Jocelyn and Baker can find him.
Driscol Jones—Socorro’s combat controller is all too familiar with explosive ordinance in the field, but as the cartel turns its sights on his team, Driscol finds himself back in the middle of a war zone.
For you.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Excerpt from Swiftwater Enemies by Danica Winters
Chapter One
She was making the world a better place one cookie at a time.
And there was nothing that said I’m sorry that your deputy ended up being a traitorous bastard working for the cartel than her cranberry-lemon cookies.
Jocelyn Carville parked her SUV outside of Alpine Valley’s police station. If you could even call it that. In truth, it was nothing more than two double-wide trailers shoved together to look like one long building. The defining boundary between the two sections cut right down the middle with a set of stairs on each side. One half for the courts, and the other for Alpine Valley’s finest.
A low groan registered from the back seat, and she glanced at her German shepherd, Maverick, in the rearview mirror. “Don’t give me that pitiful look. I saw you steal four cookies off the counter before I wrapped them. You’re not getting any more.”
Collecting the plate of perfectly wrapped sweets, Jocelyn shouldered out of the vehicle. Maverick pawed at the side door. Anywhere these cookies went, he was sure to follow. Though sometimes she could convince him they were actually friends. He was prickly at best and standoffish at worst. Good thing she knew how to handle both. His nails ticked at the pavement as he jumped free of the SUV.
“Jocelyn Carville.” The low register in that voice added an extra twist in her stomach. Chief of Police Baker Halsey had come out of nowhere. Speaking of prickly. The man pulled his keys from his uniform slacks, hugging the material tight to his thigh. And what a thigh it was. Never mind the rest of him with his dark hair, deep brown eyes or the slight dent at the bridge of his nose telling her he’d broken it in the past. Nope. She’d take just his thigh if he were offering. “Here I was thinking my day had started off pretty good. What’s Socorro want this time?”
A tendril of resentment wormed through her, but she shut it down fast. There wasn’t any room to let feelings like that through. Jocelyn readjusted her hold on the plastic-wrapped plate, keeping her head high. “I’m here for you.”
Maverick pressed one side of his head against her calf and took a seat. His heat added to the sweat already breaking out beneath her bra. She was former military. It was her job to call on resources to aid in whatever situation had broken out and stay calm while doing it. To look at pain and suffering logically and offer the most beneficial solution possible. She was a damn good logistics coordinator. Most recently in the Pentagon’s war on the Sangre por Sangre cartel. Delivering cookies shouldn’t spike her adrenaline like this.
Baker pulled up short of the ancient wood stairs leading up to the front door of the station’s trailer. “For me?”
“I brought you some cookies.” Offering him the plate, she pasted on a smile—practically mastered over the years. Just like her cookies. “They’re cranberry-lemon with a hint of drizzle. I remember you liked my lemon bread at the town Christmas bake sale last year. I thought you might like these, too.”
“Cookies.” He stared down at the plate. One second. Two. Her arms could only take the weight for so long. Lucky for her, she didn’t have to wait more than a minute. Because the chief walked right up those stairs without another word.
Maybe prickly wasn’t the right word. A couple more descriptors came to mind, but her mama would wash her mouth out with soap if she ever heard Jocelyn say them out loud. Well, if her mama made an effort to talk to her at all.
She didn’t bother calling Maverick as she hiked up the three rickety steps to the station’s glass door and ripped it open. Her K-9 partner was always in hot pursuit of any chance of cookies.
This place looked the same as always. Faux wood paneling on the walls, an entire bank of filing cabinets with files that had yet to be digitized, with the evidence room shoved into the back right corner. Though it looked like someone had gotten the blood out of the industrial carpet recently. Courteously put there by said deputy who’d turned out to be working for the cartel. Jocelyn tracked the chief around one of two desks and moved to set the plate on the end. “Have you had any luck finding a replacement deputy yet?”
Frustration tightened the fine lines etched around those incredibly dark eyes. “What do you want, Ms. Carville? Why are you really here?”
“I told you—I brought you cookies.” She latched on to Maverick’s collar as he tried to rush forward toward the treats.
“Nobody just brings cookies.” Baker locked his sidearm in a drawer at the opposite end of the desk. “Not without wanting something in return, and certainly not when that someone is attached to one of the most dangerous and unrestricted security companies in the world.”
And there it was. Him lumping her in with her employer. Seemed every time she managed to get a word in edgewise, Baker couldn’t separate her from what she did for a living.
“I don’t want anything in return.” She motioned to the cookies she’d stayed up all night to bake. For him. Maverick was pawing at the carpet now, trying to get free. “I just thought you could use a little pick-me-up after everything that went down a couple weeks ago. I wanted to say—”
“A pick-me-up?” His dismissal hit harder than she’d expected. Baker faced her fully—a pure mountain of muscle built on secrets and defensiveness. He was a protector at heart, though. Someone who cared deeply about the people of this town. A man who believed in justice and righting wrongs. He had to be to do this kind of job day in and day out. “Let me make one thing clear, Ms. Carville. I’m not your friend. I don’t want to pet your dog. I don’t want you to bring me cookies or make arrangements for you to check on me to make sure I’m doing okay. You and I and that company you work for aren’t allies. We won’t be partnering on cases or braiding each other’s hair. Police solve crimes. All you mercenaries do is make things worse in my town.”
Mercenaries. Her heart t hreatened to shove straight up into her throat. That...that wasn’t what she was at all. She helped people. She was the one who’d gotten Fire and Rescue in from surrounding towns when Sangre por Sangre had ambushed Alpine Valley and burned nearly a half dozen homes out of spite. She didn’t hurt people for money, but no amount of explanation would change the chief’s mind. He’d already created his own definition of her, and any fantasy she’d had that the two of them could work together or even become acquaintances instantly vanished.
Jocelyn’s mouth dried as her courage to articulate any of that faltered. She almost reached for the cookies but thought better of it. “For your information, Maverick doesn’t let anyone pet him. Not even me.”
She dragged the K-9 with her and headed for the door, but Maverick ripped free of her hold. He sprinted toward the chief’s desk. Embarrassment heated through her. Really? Of everything she could’ve left as her last words, it had to be about the fact her K-9 wasn’t the cuddly type? And now Maverick was going to make her chase him. Great. No wonder she’d never won any argument about the importance of bonding as a team back at headquarters. She let herself be railroaded in the smallest conversations. No. She squared her shoulders. She wasn’t going to let one tiff get the best of her. She was better than that, had overcome more than that.
But Maverick didn’t go for the cookies.
Instead, he raced toward a door at the back and started sniffing at the carpet. The evidence room. Crap on a cracker. She didn’t need this right now.
“You forgot your dog.” The dismissiveness in Baker’s tone told her he hadn’t even bothered to look up to watch her leave.
“Thank you for your astute observation, Chief.” Jocelyn dropped her hold on the front door. She’d almost made it out of there with her dignity in one piece. But it seemed that wasn’t going to happen. At least not today. “You wouldn’t happen to have any bomb tech in your evidence room, would you?”
Maverick’s abilities to sniff out specific combinations of chemicals in explosives was unrivaled in his work as tactical-explosive-detection dog for the Department of Defense. And here in New Mexico. As cartels had battled over territory and attempted to upend law enforcement and local government, organizations like Sangre por Sangre had started planting devices where no one would find them—until it was too late. Soccer balls at parks, in a woman’s purse at a restaurant in Albuquerque, a resident’s home here in Alpine Valley. No one was safe. And so Socorro Security had recruited K-9s like Maverick onto the team in the name of strategy—find the threat before the threat found them. They were good at it, too. Protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves. Ready to assist police and the DEA at a moment’s notice. Founded by a former FBI investigator, Socorro had become the premier security company in the country by recruiting the best of the best. Former military operatives, strategists, combat specialists. They went above and beyond to take on this fight with the cartels. And they were winning.
Frustration and perhaps a hint of disbelief had Baker setting down his clipboard and pen on the desk. Closing the distance between them, the chief pulled his keys from his slacks once again. “Not that I know of. I can’t account for every case, but most of what we keep here is from within the past five years. Unregistered arms, a few kilos. Maybe Fido smells the cheese I left in the rat trap last week.”
Moving past her, Baker unlocked the door, shoving it open.
“He’s a bomb-sniffing dog, Chief, and his name isn’t Fido.” She barely caught Maverick by the collar as he attempted to rush inside the small, overpacked room. The fluorescent tube light overhead flickered to life and highlighted rows and rows of labeled boxes in uniform shape and size.
A low beeping reached her ears.
Pivoting, Jocelyn set sights on the station’s alarm panel near the front door—though it’d been disarmed when Baker had come inside a few minutes ago. “Do you hear that?”
Maverick pressed his face between two boxes on the lowest shelf and yipped. Her skin tightened in alarm.
“We have to get out of the building.” Jocelyn unpocketed her cell from her cargo pants and whistled low for Maverick to follow her out. The K-9 growled low to argue, but he’d obey. He always obeyed when it counted. She hit Ivy Bardot’s contact information and raised the phone to her ear. Someone had planted a device in the police station. She needed full response.
“What?” Baker asked. “I can’t just leave, Carville. In case you weren’t aware, I’m the only officer on shift today.”
They didn’t have time for bickering. She grabbed on to his uniform collar and rushed to the front of the station with the chief in tow. “We have to go!”
Fire and sharp debris exploded across her back.
Jocelyn slammed into the nearest wall.
The world went dark.
* * *
HE SHOULD’VE GOTTEN out of the damn trailer.
Baker tried to get his legs underneath him, but the blast had ripped some crucial muscle he hadn’t known had existed. Oh, hell. The wood paneling he’d surrounded himself day in and day out warbled in his vision. That wasn’t good.
The explosion... It’d been a bomb. She’d tried to warn him. Jocelyn. Jocelyn Carville.
He shoved onto all fours. “Talk to me, Carville.”
No answer.
Heat licked at his right shoulder as he tried to get himself oriented, but there was nothing for his brain to latch on to. The trailer didn’t look the same as it had a few minutes ago. Nothing was where it was supposed to be, and now daylight was prodding inside from the corner where the evidence room used to be. Flames climbed the walls, eating up all that faux wood paneling and industrial carpet inch by inch. A weak alarm rang low in his ears. Maybe from next door?
They had to get out of here. “Jocelyn.”
A whine pierced through the crackle of flames. He could just make out a distant siren through the opening that hadn’t been there before the explosion. Fire and Rescue was on the way. But that wasn’t the sound he’d heard. No, it’d been something sullen and hurt.
“Come on.” His personalized pep talk wasn’t doing any good. Baker shoved to stand, though not as balanced as he’d hoped. His hand nearly went through the trailer wall as he grasped for support. Smoke collected at the back of his throat. He stumbled forward. “Where the hell are you?”
Another whine punctured through the ringing in his head, and he waved off a good amount of black smoke to make out the outline ahead. The dog. Baker couldn’t remember his name. The German shepherd was circling something on the floor. “Damn it.”
He lunged for Jocelyn. She wasn’t responding. Possibly injured. Moving her might make matters worse, but the walls were literally closing in on them. He’d have to drag her out. The shepherd had bitten on to the shoulder of her Kevlar vest and was attempting to pull his handler to safety. Baker reached out.
The K-9 turned all that desperation onto Baker with a warning and bared teeth. His ears darted straight up, and suddenly he wasn’t the bomb-sniffing dog who’d tried to warn them of danger. He was in protective mode. And he’d do anything to keep Baker from hurting Jocelyn.
“Knock it off, Cujo. I’m trying to help.” Baker raised his hands, palms out, but no amount of deep breathing was going to bring his heart rate down. His mind went straight to the drawer where he’d locked away his gun. He didn’t want to have to put the dog down, but if it came to getting Jocelyn out of here alive or fighting off her pet, he’d have no other choice. Though where the desk had gone, he couldn’t even begin to guess in this mess.
He leaned forward, moving slower than he wanted. The fire was drawing closer. Every minute he wasted trying to appease some guard dog was another minute Jocelyn might not have. Baker latched on to her vest at both shoulders and pulled, waiting for the shepherd to strike. “I’m here to help. Okay?”
The K-9 seemed to realize Baker wasn’t going to hurt its handler and softened around the mouth and eyes.
“Good boy. Now let’s get the hell out of here.” He hauled Jocelyn through a maze of debris and broken glass out what used to be the front door. His body ached to hell and back, but adrenaline was quickly drowning out the pain. Hugging her around the middle, he got her down the stairs with the German shepherd on her heels.
