K-9 Defence. Elizabeth Heiter

for the computer paper.

      It was a photocopy, but her heart beat faster at the slanted cursive handwriting. She read it aloud. “My name is Alanna Morgan, from Chicago. I’m still alive. I’m not the only one.”

      “You recognize the writing?” the chief asked, skepticism in her voice.

      “Alanna’s? No.” How could she? Her sister had been five years old when she’d been kidnapped out of their front yard. At five, everything had been big sloppy letters, forming words that were often misspelled. There was no way to know what Alanna’s handwriting looked like now. If she was really still alive, she’d be nineteen.

      Nineteen. The very idea made pain and longing mingle. What would a nineteen-year-old Alanna look like? What had happened in all the years between? Kensie had missed all of her sister’s milestones.

      Focus on now, Kensie reminded herself. Focus on what you can change. “What do you know?”

      Chief Hernandez shrugged, then frowned, like she regretted the motion. “Not much, I’m afraid. We don’t know who left it. We can’t be sure it’s even real. It says—”

      “I know,” Kensie cut her off, not wanting to hear a repeat of the FBI’s depressing analysis. “But you must know something. What about the store owner who found it?”

      “It was in a stack of bills. He couldn’t even say who put it there or when.”

      Chief Hernandez tilted her head in what Kensie had long ago come to recognize as a pity gesture. “I’m sorry. You came a long way for nothing.”

      The tears surprised her. They rushed hard and fast to her eyes and Kensie ducked her head, trying to blink them back.

      “Miss Morgan—”

      “Thanks,” she said, handing back the photocopy of the evidence—the photocopy of what might be her little sister’s writing. Without another word, she rushed out the door.

      This time, the cold was just what she needed. It slammed into her face, stinging her eyes and probably freezing the tears on her cheeks.

      Get it together, she told herself. Ducking her head against the wind, she hurried for her rental, parked across the street.

      It didn’t matter what the police thought. It didn’t matter what the FBI thought. It only mattered what her heart was screaming.

      Alanna was still alive. And Kensie might finally be able to bring her home.

      The gunning of an engine ripped her from her hopeful thoughts. Her head jerked up and right, toward the source of the sound.

      A station wagon the size of a small boat was plowing down the street, spraying snow and coming straight for her.

      * * *

      COLTER HAYES DIDN’T know what happened.

      One second, his retired Military Working Dog, Rebel, was goofing off, chasing a stick as naturally as she’d once tracked dangerous bombers back to their hideouts. The next, she was racing away from him so fast he knew her injured leg would be acting up later.

      He heard the engine a second after that, spotted the old station wagon careening around the corner, cutting through the slippery snow way too fast. And a woman frozen in the middle of the street.

      “Move!” he screamed at the woman, cursing the injury in his own leg—sustained at the same time as Rebel’s—as he raced for both of them.

      He’d never make it in time.

      The world around him seemed to move in slow motion as panic shot up his throat, mingling with the cold and making it hard to breathe. The car slip-sliding out of control. His five-year-old Malinois–German shepherd mix—the only friend he had left in the world—running straight in front of it.

      Colter pushed his leg as hard as he could, trying to follow, trying to be of any use at all. But it was no good.

      Rebel leapt up high, slamming into the woman’s chest with her front legs, knocking both of them out of sight as the car raced past Colter. It slowed for a second, then sped off.

      The panic dropped lower, making his chest hurt and his heart beat too fast. The memory of a year ago, of Rebel jumping on him as a bullet passed so close he felt its trajectory over his head, made it hard to breathe.

      He tried to push it out of his mind, willed himself not to fall into that darkness as he raced across the street, sliding in the snow toward the two figures lying prone on the ground. He dropped to his knees, ignoring the pop in his knee and the pain that rushed up his thigh.

      Another memory from a year ago, of surgery after surgery as he begged to know the condition of his unit. No one would tell him.

      Colter blinked the present back into focus.

      Rebel climbed off the woman, her movements a little stiff. She nudged her way under his arm, like she knew he was hurt.

      Colter dug one hand into the soft fur on Rebel’s back, reassuring himself she hadn’t been hit.

      Still lying flat, the woman groaned and reached a trembling hand up to the back of her head, poking around like she was searching for blood. But her hand came back clean and he helped her to a sitting position.

      She stared at him with haunting brown eyes framed by dark lashes. Long, silky dark hair slid over her shoulders and across the back of his hand. The kind of woman he wouldn’t have been able to resist once upon a time.

      But she was as stupid as she was gorgeous.

      “What were you thinking? Crossing the road without paying any attention?” His voice rose even as Rebel pushed her wet nose into his neck, something that usually made him laugh.

      But nothing could make him laugh today. “You almost got yourself killed. You almost got my dog killed!”

      “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, sounding more shell-shocked than scared at her near miss. She reached a still-trembling hand out toward Rebel, gently stroking his dog’s brown-and-black fur.

      Rebel ate it up, the little traitor, giving the woman a solid push with her nose as if to ask for more.

      The woman laughed, a deep, rich sound that seemed to curl around his body.

      Colter scowled at both of them, but tried to keep his anger in check. Stupid or not, she had almost died a few minutes ago. And she wasn’t a soldier in battle, but a civilian clearly out of place in Alaska.

      To his surprise, his voice came out calm, almost soothing. “Let’s get you out of the street before another car comes through. Everyone’s going too fast today. Living here, they should know how to drive in the snow, but with the first snowfall of the season, it’s like everyone forgets.”

      “Thanks,” she whispered in that same soft, slightly husky voice.

      It would have been a voice for his dreams, back when he had dreams. These days it was nothing but nightmares.

      “Come on, girl,” he told Rebel as he planted his hands in the snow and pushed himself clumsily to his feet.

      “Are you okay?” the woman asked, her eyes even wider than they’d been a minute ago.

      “Yeah, fine.” It felt like his knee was on fire, but experience told him it didn’t warrant a trip to the doctor. He’d just twisted it wrong and the rod and screws holding together his right thigh didn’t appreciate it.

      He had a few nights of ice and elevation in his future, but he’d been through worse. Much worse.

      “I’m so sorry.” Her voice wobbled, like she was on the verge of tears.

      He prayed she’d keep them in check. “It’s not your fault. It’s a war injury.” He held out a hand to help her up, but she frowned at it, climbing slowly to her feet on her own.

      Colter felt his face