The commanding voice, underlain with humor, made Sabrina’s gaze jump from the dog up to the man coming in behind her. Nerves immediately followed.
Officer Tate Emory. She’d seen him around town over the past six months and been immediately drawn to him. She’d even talked to him a few times. Back in her old life, the six-foot-tall man in the police uniform with the angular cheekbones and the dark, serious eyes would have had her flirting hard. Here, she’d stammered her way through their brief conversations, her gaze mostly on the floor, hoping she’d be unmemorable.
That was what her stalker had reduced her to. Hoping no one noticed her. Hoping she could slip through life silently, until what? He finally caught up to her and killed her and no one even knew to look for her body?
Shaking off the morose thought, Sabrina glanced at the dog she’d never seen before, who had followed instructions to sit—right at her feet.
Tate shook his head at the dog. “She’s still a puppy. She finished her K-9 training, but sometimes she needs to be reminded about her manners.”
At the words, Sitka glanced back at her owner and wagged her tail.
Tate’s smile at his dog faded as his gaze locked on the paper Sabrina was still holding up. Then, his attention was entirely focused on her. “Is someone harassing you?”
She nodded, then blurted, “Stalking. For two years.” She almost succeeded in keeping her voice steady as she added, “He’s found me again.”
Tate walked past her, using a key card to open the door marked Police Only.
“I’ve got this, Nate,” he told the other officer.
Then he looked at her again, his gaze projecting confidence. “Come on back with me, Sabrina. Let’s talk through what’s going on, okay? We take care of each other here. We’ll take care of you, too.”
As she followed him, Sitka sticking close to her side, something fluttered in her chest, something that felt suspiciously like hope.
* * *
THIS WAS NOT how he’d hoped to strike up a conversation with Sabrina Jones.
Tate Emory had seen her around town for the past half year, usually on the outskirts of Desparre. But to his frustration, it was always when he was in uniform, on the job. He’d struck up a few short-lived conversations with her, but he kept hoping to run into her when he was off duty. He’d wanted to get to know her a little more, maybe even ask her out.
Right now, though, seeing the fear in her green eyes, he just wanted to help. Holding open the door to the back of the station, he ushered her through.
His newly certified K-9 police dog, Sitka, followed. She was seventy-five pounds of Alaskan Malamute, a funny mix of puppy energy and police-dog intensity. He’d been petitioning the department—and his previous chief—for a K-9 practically since the day he’d joined the force five and a half years ago. The last thing Chief Hernandez had done before leaving Desparre was grant approval.
Now, after two months of training, his shelter-dog adoptee was a full-fledged police dog. He smiled down at her as she stayed in Sabrina’s footsteps like the woman’s protection detail.
“This way,” he told Sabrina, leading her through the mostly empty bullpen toward the glass-encased office at the back where the chief worked.
When he knocked on the door, the new police chief, Brice Griffith, called out, “Come on in.”
Chief Griffith was seven years older than Tate’s thirty-one, with fourteen years of experience in police work back in Vancouver. He’d made the jump to Alaska with his young daughter in tow when the town’s old chief had decided to follow her new boyfriend to Anchorage and return to detective work.
So far, Chief Griffith seemed like a fair boss. He was personable enough, though like most of the people in this town, he’d definitely come to Desparre to outrun something.
Not that Tate could throw stones. If the chief knew Tate’s true history, he’d probably be fired on the spot.
“What’s up?” Chief Griffith asked, standing as Sabrina followed Tate into the room.
“This is Sabrina Jones,” Tate said, noting the surprise on her face that he remembered her full name. “She’s being targeted by a stalker.”
The chief frowned. “Take a seat,” he told Sabrina, then added to Tate, “Close the door.”
Tate did as he was told, then sat in the chair next to Sabrina. Sitka settled in the space between them, her ears perked as she glanced from Sabrina to Tate.
“This was left on my doorstep today,” Sabrina said, handing the note to the chief.
The chief read it, then stared at Sabrina. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been contacted by this person, I take it?”
“No. He followed me from New York.” She took a shaky, visible breath. “I’ve been running for two years. I thought I’d lost him here.”
Two years? Tate stared at her, wondering how he hadn’t realized sooner she was trying to escape a threat.
He should have. Every time he’d spoken to her, she’d directed most of her responses to her feet. He’d thought she was shy, maybe even nervous because the attraction he felt for her was reciprocated. But the truth was that she’d been afraid of anyone taking too great an interest in her.
Had he gotten so comfortable here that he’d forgotten what it had been like in the beginning? Gotten to accept this life so much that he’d completely let his old one go?
The idea made an old ache start up in his chest.
Even though his previous chief had known his history, had helped him come on board with his faked background and fake last name, he’d spent a long time thinking he’d made a mistake. That staying in police work would be a way for the people who’d tried to kill him once to find him again.
He should have recognized that same fear in Sabrina, should have found a way to help her sooner. Some police officer he was.
Chief Griffith’s eyes narrowed at him like he could see Tate’s internal struggle, like he suspected Tate wasn’t quite who he said he was. Then his attention was fully on Sabrina. “Tell us about this stalker.”
She shifted forward in her seat, her hands gripping the arms of her chair as her wavy, blond hair fell over her shoulder, obscuring part of her face. “It started two and a half years ago. I began getting notes on my doorstep.” She nodded in the direction of the note the chief had placed on his desk. “They all looked like that, with the red text and the creepy messages. The first one just said I’ve been watching you. They were always short, usually things like One day, we’ll be together or You must know how much I love you.”
She shuddered a little, glancing at Tate and then back at the chief. “The first one spooked me, and my friends convinced me to call the police. Initially, they took my report but didn’t seem that interested. But when this guy kept writing, they said they could officially call it a stalking case. Still, it didn’t feel like much was happening until—”
Her head tilted toward her lap, her hair falling over her face even more until Tate couldn’t see her expression at all. “I started dating someone.”
Dread sank to his gut, suspecting where this was going before she continued. “Three months later, he was shot in his home. Then my stalker left me a note saying Don’t be sad. He was just in our way.”
“That’s when you ran,” the chief said, sympathy in his voice and an expression on his face that told Tate he was familiar with that kind of pain.
The expression was gone too fast for Tate to figure out what it meant. Next to him, Sabrina swiped at her face quickly, like she hoped no one would notice.
Her head lifted again, and she squared her shoulders, nodding. “Yes. I hired a PI to help me disappear. I spent a year and a half running from one tiny town to the next, trying to stay below the radar. I never got another note, but sometimes I’d just start feeling...jumpy. So, I’d go somewhere else, get a different car, leave anything unimportant behind. Then I arrive
d here.”
A smile trembled on her lips. “I’ve been in Desparre for six months. I’ve felt more normal than I had in a long time. I thought... I really thought I’d finally escaped. Then I got this letter. I considered running, but...” Her knuckles whitened around the edges of the chair, her jaw clenching. She turned toward Tate, pleading and hope in her gaze. “I want this to end.”
The new chief had been here for a few months. Most of that time, Tate had been doing K-9 training with Sitka. But he’d still felt constantly on edge, worrying Chief Griffith would notice something off in his doctored personnel file and realize Tate wasn’t who he said he was. He’d feared that the life he’d built for himself here could be destroyed at any moment. He’d worried about a threat to his life, too, but he was a trained police officer. He was armed and relatively dangerous if provoked.
What must it feel like to be a civilian with no training? What must it feel like to be completely alone, being chased by a threat that hadn’t even been fully identified?
Not waiting for the chief’s assessment, Tate said, “Desparre isn’t New York. We have resources we can put on this.”
He kept his gaze fully on Sabrina, wanting her to see in his expression how committed he was to helping her, but from the corner of his eye he could see the chief’s raised eyebrows. Still, Chief Griffith didn’t contradict him.
The fear in Sabrina’s eyes started to shift, turning into tentative hope.
“We’re going to find this guy,” Tate promised. “It’s time to stop running and let us make a stand for you. We’re going to get you your life back.”
Chapter Three
Sabrina Jones had chosen a good place to hide.
Desparre was a big town in terms of geography. It stretched from wooded patches with houses hidden among the trees through small commercial areas and across half a mountain. Besides the tiny downtown, they had other, more out-of-the-way spots to get supplies if you really wanted to stay unseen.
Tate had grown up on the other side of Alaska, in a coastal town that was much bigger and busier than Desparre but still boasted that wide-open-spaces Alaskan charm. But he’d lived in Boston for so many years that when he’d moved to Desparre, the expansive spaces without people had felt as foreign as the big city had initially seemed.
Still, he’d never hidden away in the woods or up in the mountains, like so many people did who came here running from something. He’d been confident in the backstory that had been created for him, confident that Alaska was too far for anyone to even think about searching for him. But the threat against him was one of revenge, not an obsessed wannabe-lover.
The fact that Sabrina’s stalker hadn’t given up after two years, hadn’t found someone else to fixate on, was worrisome. His department back in Boston had handled a couple of stalker cases. They’d tried but been unable to keep either of those stalkers locked up, and he’d felt frustrated for the targets who’d continued to live in fear.
Tate frowned as he opened the back of his modified police SUV for Sitka to jump in. The department didn’t have the money for a true K-9 vehicle; they’d barely been able to cover his and Sitka’s K-9 training.
But all he’d really needed was the official approval. He’d been happy to shell out the money for Sitka’s special stab-and bulletproof vest, happy to pay out of pocket for her vet bills and food. She was his partner, but she was also his pet. Every night after their shift was over, she came home with him. If all went as planned, eight years from now, she’d retire and just be his dog.
His puppy’s tail wagged as she leaped into the vehicle. She knew it meant they were going to work.
He glanced back at her as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “How about we practice your tracking today?”
Her tail thumped harder, and she gave an enthusiastic woof!
Grinning, Tate put his SUV in gear. But his smile faded fast as he thought about the message Sabrina had found. Being such a small town, they used the state’s forensic lab for big, complicated jobs, but all of the local officers knew how to do basic work, like dusting for fingerprints. The note left on Sabrina’s doorstep had none.
Maybe her stalker had left something else behind, like his scent.
Heading out of downtown, Tate turned onto one of the dirt roads that passed as a highway around here. Sabrina’s address wasn’t in the most remote part of Desparre, but she’d definitely picked a spot where people weren’t likely to know she lived there unless she told them. Or unless someone spotted her elsewhere and followed her home.
Once they did that, the location was much less appealing. It was too far for neighbors to hear a cry for help, too secluded for anyone else to see a threat.
Gripping the wheel tighter, Tate wondered if they were doing enough. Based on what Sabrina had said about the investigation back home, there wasn’t much to go on there, especially since NYPD had determined it was someone on the very outskirts of her life. Still, she’d been cagey with the details, flat out refusing to give them her boyfriend’s name or the names of the investigating detectives back in New York. She’d asked them not to contact the police department there, insisting that her family’s safety would be compromised if they learned where she was.
She’d looked so panicked that they’d finally agreed. The fact was that if the NYPD had gone two and a half years without being able to identify her stalker, even after he became a murderer, the leads in New York were slim. For now, it made more sense to concentrate on new arrivals to Desparre, people who might have tracked Sabrina here. After Sabrina had left the station looking a lot more confident and hopeful than when she’d walked in, he and the chief had finished mapping out a plan to keep her safe. They’d already given her an emergency-alert button that connected directly to the station. They had scheduled police drive-bys of her house multiple times a day, with scattered times to prevent her stalker from seeing a pattern. Sabrina was supposed to call them if she had the slightest concern, wanted a police escort somewhere or just wanted someone to do a walk-through of her home.
Hopefully, they’d spot the guy before he could get close again. But Tate and the chief had agreed they needed to get more proactive rather than just hoping her stalker made a mistake.
So today, he and Sitka would get a chance to test out their training.
As he pulled into Sabrina’s long dirt driveway, Tate glanced around. There wasn’t much to see besides trees. Someone passing by on the street wouldn’t spot the cabin without binoculars or very keen eyesight. To drop the note on the doorstep, her stalker had probably left his vehicle on the road and crept through the trees. Otherwise, Sabrina could have seen him coming.
When Tate put the SUV in Park, the curtain moved on the front window, and Sabrina’s face appeared in the crack. He hopped out of his vehicle and waved at her, then let Sitka out, too.
Sabrina stepped outside, scanning the woods before her gaze settled on him.
“Sitka and I are going to try a little tracking work,” he told her.
She looked surprised, probably having expected he was doing a check-in. Her gaze went to Sitka, whose tail wagged at the attention.
“She’s a tracker dog?”
“Actually, she’s a dual-purpose dog.” He rubbed her head, the thick coat perfect for Alaska, even if Malamutes weren’t usually used as police dogs. “She specializes in both patrol and tracking.”
“Patrol?” Sabrina smiled, humor in her eyes that had been missing every other time they’d spoken. “Does she write speeding tickets with those big paws?”
Tate smiled back at her, wishing he’d realized something was wrong one of the dozens of times he’d chatted her up around town and reached out to her sooner. “Close. She’s my partner. So, if I need to chase someone down, she can help me. Or she can clear a building or provide security. She’s trained to bark and detain, too. That’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. She finds s
omeone and keeps them from running so I can come in and cuff them.”
“Can I pet her, or is that off-limits when she’s on duty?”
“Go ahead.” Although he didn’t let civilians pet Sitka while she was actively tracking or doing a specific patrol task, she was great with people. Letting the people in Desparre pet her also made them comfortable having her on the force, something which was brand-new for the town.
She was off leash now because they weren’t downtown, but at the chief’s request, Tate had been using a leash in town while people got used to her. He hoped she’d bring good press and pave the way for expanding their K-9 team in the future.
Sabrina smiled at Sitka as she rubbed the dog’s ears.
Sitka’s head tilted up like she was enjoying the attention, and her tail thumped.
When he’d gone to the shelter, he’d been hoping to find a young German Shepherd or Malinois, both typical breeds for police work. But as soon as the little Alaskan Malamute had seen him, she’d dropped her chest to the ground, backside still in the air, tail wagging, and barked. She’d wanted to play. And he’d been totally charmed.
The shelter hadn’t known anything about her background, other than that she was obviously a Malamute and not afraid of people. She’d been found alongside a highway, way too thin but anxious to please.
Although he’d been approved to become a K-9 officer back in Boston before the attempt on his life, he’d never actually gotten a dog or gone through training. He’d done research on traits that made good police dogs, but ultimately he’d known that whether or not Sitka would make a good partner would only be determined once they started training.
Still, his mind had been made up the moment she’d demanded his attention. He had to take her home.
After some initial hurdles with her energy level and distractibility, she’d received high scores in all of her certifications. But now was the real test.
She’d only been patrolling with him for a few weeks, not enough time in a place as low in crime as Desparre to really test out her skills. And so far, there’d been no reason for her to do any tracking in real conditions.
K-9 Hideout Page 2
