held a hand to her mouth, watching as Slade dived to the ground to avoid being hit, but got off a couple of rounds before the man returned fire. One of Slade’s shots hit the side of the van, but missed the moving target. The suspect did a nosedive into the open vehicle and the van spun around in Reverse and took off. Two of them. He’d had a getaway driver.
Slade took one more shot, but the van swerved and skidded out onto the side street, then the driver gunned it and disappeared into the burnt dusk. Slade squinted into the sunset, trying to see the tag numbers. All he saw was a temporary tag with smeared letters and numbers. He couldn’t get a read on it.
Nothing to do there. He got on the radio and alerted the switchboard operator. “McNeal, K-9 Unit 601, 207-A averted, back parking lot behind the training yard. Suspect got away. All clear.”
Holstering his weapon, he hurried to where Kaitlin still sat pressing her entire body in between the prickly shrubbery and the building bricks, her eyes bright with fear and relief. This whole event had lasted a couple of minutes, but it sure felt like a lifetime.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked, placing a hand on one of her arms. With a gentle tug, he pulled her out of the shrubbery.
She jerked away, then looked up at him. “Slade?”
“Yeah, it’s me. They’re gone. You’re safe now.”
She nodded and then plowed into his arms and held on for dear life. “Thank you.” Her voice was shaky but getting stronger with each inhale of breath. “Thank you.”
Slade allowed her to hug him close, his fingers hovering in the air before he put his arms around her shoulders and patted her on the back. “You’re all right now. It’s over.”
The woman in his arms clung to him for a while longer.
Slade didn’t try to pry her away. Her whole body seemed to tremble against him. His own heart echoed that trembling, but maybe for an entirely different reason. It had been a long time since he’d held a woman so close. But it hadn’t been so long that he could get past the image of his wife walking out the door and getting in that car.
He wanted to hold Kaitlin and comfort her, but bitter memories tinged with regret pulled him back.
Besides, he knew if anyone saw this, they’d both have some explaining to do. And with a K-9 dog barking and shots fired in the back of police headquarters, the entire department would be rushing around the building any moment now.
He backed up, took her by her arms and set her a few inches away. “Kaitlin, listen to me. You’re okay. I need to ask you a few questions.”
Her shock changed to embarrassment, her face blushing pink against the pale white of her skin. Shimmying out from under his grip, she bobbed her head. “Before I give a statement, I have to check on Warrior.”
Slade stopped her from bolting by standing between her and the fussy dog. “Warrior will be fine for a few more minutes. Listen to me, okay?”
She exhaled, called a command to the animal, then glanced back at Slade. “You need a description?”
“Yes, but first what happened?” He scanned the perimeter of the practice yard and the parking lot. Nobody. But he heard doors opening in the distance and voices echoing out over the headquarters’ parking lot. Maybe someone else had seen something.
Kaitlin glanced toward the sound of running feet. “I heard Warrior barking. He alerted me.”
“I heard him, too,” Slade said as he grasped her wrist. “Let’s move toward the kennels so we don’t get shot by one of our own.”
She let him guide her until they were a few feet from Warrior’s kennel. Then she pulled away and ran to the dog, her key ring jingling as she quickly opened the mesh-wire door.
Warrior bounded out, his frustrated whimpers echoing over the yard. The dog paced toward where Kaitlin had been snatched, then glanced up at his trainer.
“Sit. Stay.”
The order wasn’t as commanding as in the practice yard, but the dog did as Kaitlin said.
Slade saw two uniformed officers push around the building, guns drawn. He held up his hands. “Hey, over here. We had an intruder but...it’s okay now.”
As the officers gathered around, Slade explained what had gone down. “I exited my office and heard a K-9 officer barking. Someone tried to abduct Miss Mathers. He held a gun to her head, but she managed to get away. I pursued the attacker and called for him to halt. He refused and fired back. We both shot off a few rounds, but he managed to make it to the getaway car. Black, late-model van, old with a dent in the front passenger-side door. Temporary tag, smudged and unreadable. Vehicle headed west on Trapper Street. I got off a shot that hit the right back side of the van.”
“We’ll put out a BOLO.”
Slade nodded on that.
“Get a good look at the attacker?” one of the officers asked.
Kaitlin spoke up. “He was wearing a dark mask like a ski mask. His eyes looked...so black, an eerie black. He must have been wearing special contacts because even the whites of his eyes looked dark.”
Slade saw the shudder moving down her body. And felt the hair on his neck rising. This wasn’t the first time he’d had a run-in with a man fitting that description. Last month, he’d glimpsed a masked gunman with blacked-out eyes fleeing Melody Zachary’s hotel suite after a tense standoff that left K-9 detective Parker Adams with a gunshot wound. However, he didn’t let on in front of Kaitlin that this suspect had to be the hooded man who’d been wreaking havoc on his entire department. The body count kept rising due to the heavy-handed work of a local crime syndicate run by a mastermind known as The Boss. And now someone within this criminal’s organization had made a bold attempt right here on police grounds. Five months ago, his K-9 partner Rio had been stolen and now this. Someone was deliberately taunting him.
He wanted this case over and done with before someone else got killed.
Turning to the officer, he said, “That’s an apt description. He was average height, maybe a hundred and seventy pounds, medium build. He wore black coveralls.” Slade stopped, a shiver of familiarity moving down his spine. He shook it off, figuring things had happened so fast he still had a lot of images running through his head. Especially the one of Kaitlin being held a gunpoint.
“There was a wide silver zipper down the front,” she added, her voice becoming stronger. “He had a...raspy voice. He kept telling me I had to go with him.”
Kaitlin kept her hand on Warrior and petted the dog over and over. She was scared but was clearly putting on a brave front. Slade’s heart still thumped against his chest. The image of that masked man holding her at gunpoint would stay with him for a long time.
After the officers took their statements and along with the crime scene unit, covered every inch of the area where the van had been idling, Slade finally told the others he needed to get Kaitlin home.
“I can drive myself,” she insisted tersely, her pupils settling into a stubborn dark green. “Warrior always goes home with me. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m taking you home,” Slade said in his best
