Rules in Rescue

by Nichole Severn

  “I heard about the investigation against Mascaro.” Even after leaving the military, he still had contacts. Although, he hadn’t known she’d been involved so closely in the staff sergeant’s arrest. A swell of pride rushed through him and he straightened a bit more. She was a damn fine investigator, no doubt about it. But something didn’t sit right. Anthony thought back to his source. “But there’s no way one man could run that kind of operation on his own.”

  “You’re right.” Glennon sat back in her chair. “Despite what Bennett and I wrote in our report, the army couldn’t definitively tie anyone else to the staff sergeant, let alone place him at the head of the entire operation. And he’s not giving up any names. So Mascaro made a deal and the investigation was officially closed.”

  Confusion furrowed his brow. “Then why are you and your partner here?”

  “A second shipment of weapons was stolen from JBER three days ago. After Nicholas Mascaro was arrested. Bennett believed someone took control of the operation while their patsy took the fall.” Glennon stood. Collecting his weapon and holster from the countertop to her right, she offered it to him, grip first. “And I think he was trying to tell me he found the proof.”

  * * *

  THE HOUSE HADN’T changed in the last two hours, aside from the extra bullet holes peppering the walls. Fresh blood spatters added to the stains on the west side of the living room. Her blood. The hole in her shoulder ached as if to remind her of the last time she’d stood in this spot. Her attention slid to Anthony as he riffled through a stack of old newspapers, the muscles along his back hardening with every move. If he hadn’t been there...

  Memories of her four-year-old flashed across her mind like lightning. His blond hair, his perfect smile, the way he’d held on to her so tight before she’d left.

  Hunter was fine. He was safe. She’d made sure of it. And if anything did happen to her, he’d be cared for. Arranging his future in case something happened to her had been the only way she could track down Bennett without the army at her disposal.

  Glennon ignored the tightness in her throat as she wiped at her face with the back of her hand. He was fine.

  Focus. There had to be some kind of evidence pointing to the reason Bennett had come here. She kicked at a loose floorboard, but the space underneath had either never been used or been emptied out. They’d been here an hour and come up with nothing. No bullet casings. No new skid marks on the road aside from theirs. Nothing from the neighbors. Whoever had taken those shots had been either a professional or a soldier.

  Glennon laughed to herself. She was getting ahead of herself. They had nothing tying Bennett’s disappearance to her current investigation or the military. For all she knew, he’d needed a couple days away from the pressure of the marshal breathing down their necks for results. Her gut instincts said they were connected, but the courts didn’t prosecute based off something that couldn’t be proved.

  “Anything on your side?” she asked.

  “Not yet.” Straightening, Anthony stretched to his full, muscular height. The beginnings of sunrise glinted off a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead as he ran a hand down his face. He’d come prepared. Well, more prepared than usual. The Beretta in his shoulder holster had a couple new friends hidden in his cargo pants, his Kevlar vest, even the holster strapped around his thigh. He wasn’t about to be taken by surprise again. “You?”

  She studied him from the safe distance she’d decided to put between them back in the medical suite. At least three feet of space separating them at all times. That’d be the only way she could think straight during their time together. Although, now that she watched him, her body urged her to close that space. Five tours in extreme conditions ranging from jungle to desert hadn’t taken away from his overall attractiveness. Hardened him, yes, but not in a bad way. And damn if that didn’t resurrect some of those feelings she’d buried. But she hadn’t come back here to make the same mistakes. She hadn’t even planned on seeing him at all during her assignment on JBER.

  “Glennon?” The weight of those dark blue eyes pinned her to the spot.

  “No. Nothing.” Glennon sank against one wall, exhaustion pulling at her. She wiped a bead of sweat off her neck. What were they supposed to do now? She had zero jurisdiction off base as long as Bennett’s disappearance was considered a simple missing persons case. And she couldn’t bring in the local police. Not yet. Not until she could guarantee her name would be left out of the reports. “Has your computer expert come back with a history on this place yet? Who owns it?”

  “Last time I checked in, Elizabeth was working her way through an entire network of shell corporations without any end in sight,” he said.

  Defeat spread fast. Her partner had been here. How could he disappear without anything to show for it? This couldn’t be it. She’d been trained for this. She couldn’t have failed him already. Stalking across the empty living room, she picked up an old two-by-four covered in spider webs. “There has to be something here.”

  She shoved every ounce of energy into her swing. The board vibrated in her hands with each strike, pain exploding through her shoulder. She didn’t care. Pins and needles crawled up her arms as mildewed drywall peeled away from the wall, but she wouldn’t stop. Not until she found a clue.

  “Glennon.” The concern in Anthony’s tone tunneled deep into her bones, but she only pushed herself harder.

  She wasn’t leaving this house until she had proof Bennett had been here. It was the only lead she had. He was the only person who could help her bring down the rest of Staff Sergeant Mascaro’s team. Another streak of sweat slipped from her hairline and down her neck. Why was it so damn hot in here? Shouldn’t the gas company have turned off the furnace when the house was abandoned?

  A calloused grip encased her hands from behind, his arms caging her against a wall of muscle. Anthony turned her into him and Glennon froze. The lines at the edges of his eyes creased as he stared down at her. His grip still wrapped around hers, he studied her with determination etched into his features. “We’re going to find your partner. I promise.”

  Promises. What good were they when nobody lived up to them? Glennon nodded, her attention wandering to the condensation building on the large front window. “It’s twenty degrees outside. Nobody has lived in this house for years.” The two-by-four grew heavy in her hold. She dropped it to her side but didn’t let go. “Why is it so hot in here?”

  “Because someone turned on the furnace.” The revelation hardened Anthony’s expression. He stepped away, surveying the rest of the room before unholstering the Beretta at his side. Checking the magazine, he chambered a round into the barrel. The action, so simple, forced her to swallow the tightness in her throat. This was what he did best, what she’d tracked him down for, but the sudden change consuming him from head to toe urged her to take a step back. She’d read his classified files. She understood what the “Grim Reaper” was capable of and a shiver ran through her. “Stay behind me.”

  “What makes you think you get to have all the fun?” Setting the two-by-four on the moldy carpeting as quietly as she could, Glennon took his left side as she withdrew her service weapon. One bullet. That was all it’d take to seal her and her partner’s fates. The army would court-martial Bennett for going MIA, no matter what his reason, and drag her through the mud alongside him. She shifted her finger off the safety. Couldn’t happen.

  They moved as one, just as they had when he’d gotten her out of the house the first time, her steps in sync with his. Nervous energy skittered up her spine. She’d gone into plenty of dangerous situations like this before. Soldiers-turned-criminals, bullets, blood. Every investigation she’d worked had left its own mark. It was part of the job. But moving along this hallway, with him by her side, sent a tingling sensation down her spine that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Moonlight filtered through broken windows and bullet holes the s
hooter had added to the walls, playing across Anthony’s face as he stalked through the house. For such a large man, he barely made a sound. He motioned with two fingers to their right. The signal was clear. They’d reached the stairs leading to the basement. And whoever had turned on the furnace after the shootout could still be down there.

  Anticipation hummed through her veins. Glock raised to eye level, she fought off the shot of pain spreading through her shoulder. She was ready. This was it. With a single nod, Glennon took the first step. The unfinished wood groaned under her weight, and she paused to listen. No movement below. Nothing to suggest they were in for another ambush, but she wouldn’t relax just yet. She’d had too many close calls already. Her mouth dried up; her breathing became shallow.

  She paused on the last step, nothing but darkness ahead. Something brushed across her right side. Anthony. His clean, masculine scent filled her lungs, and she surveyed the full unfinished basement before they made their next move. But something charred and rotten replaced his scent within a few seconds of her hitting the bottom stair. She covered her mouth and nose in the crook of her elbow. “I recognize that smell.”

  She’d come across it only once since she’d been with the Military Police. An arson investigation at Pope Army Airfield in North Carolina, one of her first for the army. The fire had consumed an entire C-130J Hercules plane right before takeoff. The pilot had been sealed in the cockpit after an altercation with another airman. The smell. That was what she remembered most. “Charred remains.”

  Reaching for the flashlight strapped into her Kevlar vest, she brought it to life and swept the beam across the floor. Large boot prints had been preserved in a thin layer of dust. Fresh, from the look of it. But the uneven lines beside them? Those were drag marks.

  A groan interrupted the heavy silence and they swung their weapons to the left in tandem. Anthony’s boots hit solid cement. Weapon aimed high, he moved farther into the darkness.

  Dread sank like a stone to the bottom of Glennon’s stomach as she followed suit.

  A click of his flashlight expanded their visibility, but only slightly. There were still three other corners of the room they couldn’t see, but her gut told her whoever had turned on the furnace had disappeared long before they’d showed up. Still, she couldn’t shake the vein of ice working its way up her throat. Whatever was down here—whatever they found—would make or break her investigation into Bennett’s disappearance.

  They reached the furnace as it kicked on for another round, the struggling mechanical groan raising the hairs on the back of Glennon’s neck.

  Holstering his weapon, Anthony ran his fingers over the side of the unit then lowered his flashlight beam to the floor. Four screws had fallen into the dust building up around the furnace. Glennon holstered her own gun as he handed her the flashlight. The reverberation of metal on cement as he set the panel down vibrated through her. A rush of foul air hit her hard and she buried her mouth and nose into her elbow. Anthony did the same, reaching into the unit with his free hand.

  His mountainous physique blocked her view into the blackened depths. “Can you see anything?”

  “Yep.” A hiss escaped from between his teeth. He turned toward her, the burned remnants of a rifle highlighted by the flashlight beam. “What’s left of a Heckler & Koch G28 sniper rifle. Still hot, too. Safe to assume it’s the same model used to put a bullet in your shoulder three hours ago.”

  “The shooter tried to clean up his mess by destroying the gun in the furnace.” Not a bad idea. But that left them no closer to recovering her partner. Unless... Hope spread through her chest as she stepped closer to him. “You’re the weapons expert. Do you think any fingerprints survived to track down the owner?”

  Leaving the rifle inside, Anthony shifted out of her way so she could see the rest of the furnace, both flashlights highlighting what else had been stuffed inside. “Looks like we already found him.”

  Chapter Three

  Red-and-blue patrol lights deepened the shadows under Glennon’s eyes as she watched the scene from the SUV. When was the last time she’d slept? Twenty-four hours ago? More? He couldn’t imagine the thoughts running through her head as the remains of her best lead were loaded into the back of the coroner’s van.

  Anthony had kept her name out of his statement to Anchorage PD after he’d put in the initial call about an incinerated body in the furnace. Whatever was going on here—whoever had killed the shooter who’d ambushed them—it had obviously been to keep Glennon off the investigation into her missing partner. His gaze drifted back to her. She’d been right from the start. Sergeant Spencer’s disappearance had something to do with the missing shipment of weapons. Why else would a shooter try to take her out, too?

  “We’re done here,” he told the officer. “You know how to contact me at Blackhawk Security if you have any other questions.”

  He had to get her to safety, someplace off-the-grid where nobody—not even his team—could find her. Where he could protect her. Anthony maneuvered around the officer and headed for the SUV.

  Glennon followed his movements slowly.

  Wrenching the vehicle door open, he dropped into the driver’s seat. Her sweet scent hit him hard, but he didn’t try to fight it off this time. After the night they’d had, he needed that piece of her with him. He breathed her in a bit deeper. Anything to ease the tension of nearly losing her all over again tonight. Spots of blood seeped through her bandage.

  “What did you tell them?” she asked.

  He turned the key in the ignition. The engine growled to life and he forced his eyes to focus on the road. “That we were looking to spice things up in our sex life.”

  She smoothed her expression. “And they believed you?” Motioning to his clothing, she leaned against the passenger-side door. “You, in all this Kevlar, with at least three weapons strapped to your chest? They believed you?”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t give them your real name.” In reality, Anchorage PD hadn’t asked too many questions about what he’d been doing in the house at all. After what had happened back in November, they recognized him and understood what kind of work he did on a regular basis. And who he did it for. Blackhawk Security had become a company the police could rely on after its CEO, Sullivan Bishop, had taken down one of the worst stalkers in city history, a case the department had moved to the bottom of their priority list. Anthony shoved the vehicle into Drive.

  “Very funny.” She crossed her arms over her chest, accentuating the lean muscles through her forearms. “What are you doing? We can’t leave.” She surveyed the cul-de-sac as he swung the SUV around, spinning her upper body toward him from the passenger seat. Her icy glare shot through him, but he wasn’t about to stop. “That body is our only lead to finding my partner. Do you trust the police to fill us in if they find something?”

  “We searched every inch of that house tonight, sweetheart. What exactly are you hoping they’re going to find that we couldn’t?” Anthony pressed his foot down on the accelerator when they hit Spenard Thruway. “Besides, you’re beat. We need to take a look at that wound again, then you’re going to get some sleep while we wait for the ballistics report on that bullet to come in.”

  “I’m fine.” She settled back into her seat. “And don’t call me sweetheart. You’re here to protect me while I search for Bennett. Nothing more.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tightening his grip around the steering wheel, Anthony studied Westchester Lagoon as they headed south. Nothing but blackness and the hint of lapping waves stared back at him. Wasn’t that just the perfect metaphor for the growing silence between him and Glennon? Damn, he’d screwed things up with her to hell and back. He should’ve been there for her while he’d still had the chance, should’ve been satisfied with what he’d done for his country the first four times instead of hopping on the next transport. Maybe then she wouldn’t treat him as though he were a stranger now. />
  He headed farther south, out of the city. Miles of nothing but trees and starlit sky stretched out before them. It was the best place to hide. No one would be able to track them out here. And even if they did, he’d be ready. The familiar rise and fall of the south end of the Chugach Mountains indicated they were close. A few more minutes and he could relax in his own territory.

  “Where are you taking me?” Her voice barely overrode the sound of the heater, and he chanced a quick glance toward her. Adrenaline could only take the human body so far, and Glennon’s supply had run out. Lids closing, she fought to stay awake, but wouldn’t last much longer.

  “Where no one can find us.” Within a few minutes, gravel crunched under the SUV’s tires as he pulled into a long driveway. The cabin was dark. Isolated. And, after discovering the shooter’s body in that furnace, it was the best chance they had of recovering in peace.

  He pulled to a stop beside the small lakeside cabin and then unloaded his gear as she made her way inside.

  Dropping everything on the floor, Anthony turned on the nearest light switch. “The place isn’t much, but it’s fully stocked and secure.” He studied her expression, trying to read any sign of what she had planned for their next move, but she’d always kept a good handle on the thoughts running through her head. “You can take the guest room at the back. Bathroom is right next door to it. Just the one, unfortunately, so we’ll have to share. I never bring anyone up here.”

  “Never?” She surveyed the two-bedroom, one-bathroom space then moved to the front window. “It’s perfect. Suits you.”

  “Thanks.” He liked his solitude, but liked it better with her here. Hoisting his bags over his shoulder, he felt the first effects of having gone over twenty-four hours without sleep. Her call had pulled him off another assignment, but he couldn’t fault her for that. “Let me unpack my gear while you settle in, and I’ll bring you something to eat in about ten minutes.”