Elizabeth Heiter - K-9 Defence

“Okay,” Kensie said, obviously not realizing the dark place where his thoughts had traveled. She strode up the snowy walkway toward the store.

He followed, trying not to be distracted by the subtle sway of her hips under her parka. Rebel trotted along beside him, ready for the kind of action she’d been trained to handle.

As soon as they walked through the door, a bell dinged and Jasper Starn glared their way. With his chrome-silver hair slicked back on his head and his dark skin over-weathered by the Alaskan wind, he could have been anywhere between sixty and a hundred. He’d lived somewhere on the outskirts of Desparre and run this store for as long as anyone in town seemed to remember. And he was possibly the crankiest store owner Colter had ever met.

When they approached him instead of walking around the store, Jasper looked them up and down like he was cataloguing places they might be hiding weapons, then grunted.

Seemingly not put off by the less than cordial welcome, Kensie gave him a wide smile. It didn’t seem to do much for Jasper’s mood, but dang if it didn’t make Colter feel a little lighter.

“I’m Kensie Morgan.”

His lips pursed, but he made no other sign he’d heard her.

Kensie’s smile faltered a little. “I’m Alanna Morgan’s sister. I know you found the note—”

“I got nothing to say about that.” Jasper cut her off, then angled his glare toward Colter. “No pets in the store. I’ve told you that before.”

Colter nodded at Rebel, who promptly sat. At sixty-five pounds of pure, lean muscle, and always at attention, she could be intimidating. “We just have a few questions. The quicker you answer them, the quicker we’re all out of here.”

“I already talked to the FBI and the police. You want to know about it, ask them.”

Kensie’s smile dropped off. Probably she was used to people being accommodating—or at least polite—when she asked them about her missing sister.

Colter took an aggressive step forward, slamming his hand down on the counter. Sensing his mood, Rebel came up next to him, baring her teeth a little.

Then Kensie’s hand landed on top of his. It was soft and slender and unexpected and it totally threw him off his game.

“I was there the day she went missing,” Kensie said, her voice a pained whisper that made even Jasper freeze. “I was thirteen. I was supposed to be watching her, but I was reading a book up by the house while she ran around the front yard.”

A sudden, wistful smile broke across her face. “Alanna was five. She was wearing this blue flowered dress, covered in dirt because she liked to play with everything. She was so grubby—her hands, her face—but the cutest little kid. She had these dimples you wouldn’t even know were there until she grinned, and then this sparkle in her eyes that told you she was about to be trouble.”

Kensie took a deep breath and Colter felt the shaking through her hand. He flipped his over and closed it around her palm, trying to give her support even as his mind warned him he was treading in dangerous territory. Connection.

Kensie’s fingers spasmed slightly in his, but that was the only sign she’d noticed. Her gaze was laser locked on Jasper. “I saw the car pull up. I saw the guy grab Alanna.” Her voice broke. “I dropped my stupid book and ran after them, but they sped away. It was the last time I ever saw her.”

Colter had been in Jasper’s store more than a dozen times since he’d moved to Desparre. For the first time, he saw the man twitch and his glare soften.

“Look, I’m not playing games here,” Jasper said, his tone conciliatory. “I found the note stuck in a stack of money in my cash drawer at the end of the day two weeks ago. I don’t know how it got there.”

“Okay,” Kensie said, leaning forward. “Do you remember any of the people who came in the store that day? Maybe a young woman—about nineteen—who looked like me?”

Jasper’s lips twisted as he stared at Kensie. “Maybe. Someone with dark hair like yours did come in that day, but she was with her family. I don’t know who she was. Hadn’t seen her before and haven’t seen her since.”

Jasper’s was a regular stop for people who really lived off the beaten path. So if Jasper had only seen the girl once—if it was even Alanna—she might have just been passing through.

Kensie’s shoulders dropped and her gaze sought his, as if she was looking for him to find a new path forward. But he wasn’t sure there was one.

If Alanna had been in the store on her way to some even more remote part of Alaska, how would they ever trace her?

Colter knew what it was like to live with a desperate, burning hope, as painful as it was powerful. But he also knew that sometimes there was relief in release, too. He’d never return to the person he’d been before he lost his brothers. But when he’d woken in the hospital and no one would tell him if his brothers were okay, he’d been frozen. Sometimes he wished he could return to that state of hopeful ignorance, but it meant being stuck, unable to move forward at all.

Finding Alanna might be impossible. If it was, what if Kensie was frozen forever?

* * *

“WE NEED TO talk to the police.”

Colter leveled his best Marine stare at Kensie across the table in the tiny restaurant off the main strip in Desparre. He’d pulled in on a whim because she’d looked so defeated after talking to Jasper that he hadn’t just wanted to drop her at her truck all alone. And if he was being honest, he didn’t want to say goodbye quite yet.

Because it was a place he came semiregularly and because Desparre was usually low-key, they let Rebel sit beside the booth as he and Kensie quietly sipped coffee. Her eyes were downcast, maybe to avoid his stare. But then, it hadn’t worked on her the first four times he’d suggested this course of action.

“What’s your hesitation? I know you talked to them once, but they’re not going to spill everything they know just because Alanna is your sister. If we go in and ask pointed questions about the note, we might get somewhere.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

He frowned, trying to figure out if talking to Jasper had discouraged her as much as it had him or if something else was going on. “It’s worth a shot, right?” he pressed, surprised with himself for playing cheerleader. He’d known this woman less than a day and already he’d spent more time with her than anyone else since his doctors at the VA hospital. Not only that, he was actually pushing her to press forward, when he’d been the one who’d wanted out in the first place.

Truth be told, he still wanted out. The last thing he needed was a mission. But Kensie had a pull about her he couldn’t deny.

She took a heavy breath before meeting his gaze. “You’re right.”

“Okay, then,” he said, forcing himself to sound more cheerful than he felt and praying he wasn’t just giving her false hope. “Let’s do this.”

At his words, Rebel’s head popped up and a grin tugged his lips. This time, instead of leading him down memory lane toward a panic attack, the idea of having a mission just made him feel wistful. If only it happened like that more often. But although he’d gotten better at avoiding triggers, it wasn’t the same thing that set him off every time.

“We’re not working, girl,” he told Rebel, who yawned and settled down on her tummy.

Kensie gave him an incredulous stare. “She understands you, doesn’t she?”

His smile grew a little. “You’ve never had a pet, huh? Trust me, they understand way more than you’d think.”

She shook her head. “Nah, we lived in the city until I was ten, then my parents finally decided three kids in a walk-up was too much and moved out to the suburbs. By then I’d kind of given up asking for a pet. I thought Alanna was going to be the one to wear them down about getting a dog. After she was gone, none of us had time for things like that.”