Sharon Dunn - Courage Under Fire

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A killer in the shadows watches…and waits The thrilling True Blue K-9 Unit continuesA deadly stalker has Rookie K-9 officer Lani Branson in his crosshairs, and he won’t stop until she’s dead. Her boss, K-9 Police Chief Noah Jameson, won’t let that happen on his watch, especially since there’s a chance this is the same person who killed his brother. Can they unmask the murderer who’s been terrorizing the unit before he strikes again?

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All the same, the streets already bustled with activity, visual and auditory. Oscar heeled with his head up, taking in the buzz of the city. Pedestrians brushed past them on the sidewalks. Car horns blared as traffic rolled by. In the distance, she detected the intense rhythm of a jackhammer.

This was her city. Walking the dogs was part of her routine while on duty. Still, a fearful hesitation made her a little less confident in her step. The boat her attacker had escaped in was never found. She’d gone for a run on her day off which usually cleared her head, but not this time. Her sleep had been fitful.

Oscar’s tail wagged when a group of children walked past him. She gave the leash a slight jerk to let him know that as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t interact with the children.

“We’re on duty,” she said.

The crowd thinned as they approached an abandoned building that used to be a multistoried department store. She could feel the soreness from the attack. She increased her pace. Oscar’s little legs kept up with hers. If she slowed, he responded. The dog was sharp. She loved all the K-9 recruits, but she liked how quickly Oscar picked up on her cues. They seemed to be dialed into each other, a quality that was essential in working with a partner, K-9 or human.

She’d requested that he be brought out of foster care to see if he’d be good K-9 material. Not all dogs had the temperament to be K-9s. In her first encounter with Oscar, when he was just weaned at eight weeks, he had sat back on his haunches and looked up at her, tilting his head to one side as if to say, At your service, ma’am .

Oscar seemed to have alerted on something across the street. She followed the line of his gaze. Noah Jameson stood beside a coffee cart waiting for his morning cup. He offered Lani a small wave before he turned back toward headquarters. He must be busy today if he was getting his coffee from a street cart. Most of the officers went to Griffin’s diner for coffee. Scotty wasn’t with him. He must be back at Noah’s office.

“He’s all right, isn’t he, Oscar?” Noah had always struck her as being emotionally closed down. She had seen a more caring side to him after the training exercise fell apart. Maybe he was human after all.

A scraping sound above her caused her to tilt her head. A large square object came right toward her at a rapid speed, filling her field of vision. She jumped to one side, falling against the brick exterior of the building. The few people on the sidewalk scattered as well. In her panic, Lani had let go of Oscar’s leash.

An air-conditioning unit shattered on the concrete. Some of the pieces still vibrated from the impact.

An older man rushed toward her. “Are you all right?”

Dazed and in shock, Lani got to her feet with the man’s help. She brushed the dust off her uniform.

“What a bizarre accident.” An older woman approached Lani. She tilted her head. “It must have been loose or something.” The woman patted Lani’s shoulder. “Are you all right, dear? That was quite the scare.”

Lani’s heart raced a mile a minute. She glanced around. Where was Oscar? “Did you see where my dog went?”

Both the old man and woman shook their heads. People had begun to move past her on the street, stepping around the pieces of the shattered air-conditioning unit. She stared through the forest of feet, not seeing the puppy as fear gripped her heart all over again. The poor thing had probably gotten frightened and run off.

A yelp came from inside the building. She pressed her face against the dusty window. She could just make out Oscar’s face by a pile of scrap wood. The poor dog had been so afraid he’d run for shelter.

“Hang on, Oscar. I’m coming to get you.”

She tried one of the double doors that were the main entrance to the building. Locked.

Oscar had gotten in somehow. She saw then a hole in the display window. Not big enough for her to slip through. She walked around to the side of the building and found a door that looked like it had been jimmied. Someone desperate for a place to sleep on a cold fall night had probably done that. Knowing that she might surprise someone, she pulled her gun.

She rushed in. She heard Oscar’s whimper before she saw him in the dark corner. Broken display counters and pieces of mannequins still remained in the dust and debris.

A sense of relief flooded through her as she ran over to the puppy. She holstered her weapon and gathered him in her arms. “It’s all right, buddy. That was scary for me too.” The pup licked her face.

Thudding sounds came from the floor above her. Footsteps. Her heart beat a little faster. Maybe the air conditioner had had a little help by being pushed. Maybe the lock was jimmied by someone up to no good, not just looking for a place to sleep.

“Tell you what, buddy. You’ve had enough excitement for one day.” She wrapped his leash around a door knob. She still hadn’t been issued a new radio. Protocol would be to call for backup. That wasn’t possible right now. She’d neglected to get another cell phone after hers was damaged by the water last night.

Chances were she was dealing with a vagrant, nothing more. He or she could have leaned against the air-conditioning unit...or the destruction might have been on purpose. Or just someone so high or drunk, they didn’t know what they were doing.

Oscar yipped as if to offer encouragement. More footsteps sounded above her. She pulled her weapon and headed up the wide staircase in the center of the floor. The second floor was an open area with broken glass and display counters largely dismantled and probably used for firewood. Mattresses and dusty clothing scattered throughout the floor indicated the homeless had taken up residence at one time. Maybe they were still here. None of the big front display windows on this floor contained air conditioners.

She scanned the open floor area one quadrant at a time. There were places someone could hide, behind the piles of busted furniture and boxes and the display counters. She detected no movement. She held her own breath and listened, sensing that someone was watching her. Her mouth went dry. “NYPD. Please show yourself.”

Turning quickly and aiming her weapon, she thought she saw someone in her peripheral vision. She let out a breath. Just a mannequin. She shook her head and dryly laughed.

There were smaller rooms on the south side of the building that might have been offices or storage spaces. Some had doors, some did not. With her heart drumming in her ears, she made her way toward the rooms.

Her own footsteps seemed to echo on the floorboards. The first room had no door, she peered inside seeing only empty shelving. She lifted her weapon and made her way to the second room. She held her gun in one hand while she opened the door with the other.

A hand went over her mouth and jerked her back. The attacker had come up from behind. “I got you.” He pinched the nerves on her wrist. “Drop the gun.”

Pain shot up her arm, but she held on to the gun. She angled her body side to side trying to escape his iron hold on her. In the struggle, she dropped her gun. She broke free, whirled around and slammed him hard in the stomach. The man, who was wearing a blue baseball cap, bent over. She scrambled to get her weapon.

The man recovered quickly and took off running just as she picked up her gun. Footsteps pounded behind her. Not another one. She whirled around aiming her weapon just in time to see Noah coming up the stairs.

On reflex, Noah pointed his gun at her. “Whoa.”

Unable to form the question, she shook her head as if to ask what he was doing.

“I saw movement on the third-floor window where that thing fell out. I was just getting ready to walk around the corner to headquarters, but there was a construction accident that blocked the sidewalk, so it took me a minute to run back over here.”

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