Nichole Severn - Rules In Rescue

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 shooter 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.”

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.