she retorted. “Then you won’t be upset that you’re wrong this time.” She whirled around and would have walked away, but King blocked her path, pressing in close to her legs.
She shot a look in Ian’s direction, her eyes still flashing with anger. “Call off your dog.”
“Release,” he said, and King pranced back to his side.
“Thanks.” She probably would have walked away, but he held up her pack.
“Forgetting something?”
She reached for it and King growled.
“He doesn’t like people taking things from me.”
“I don’t like people touching my things,” she responded, her focus on King. She looked scared. He didn’t blame her. At home, King was goofy and friendly, funny and entertaining. On the job, he was intimidating, his tan face and dark muzzle giving him a wolflike appearance.
“Sorry. I’ve got to check the contents before we move out.”
“I think I made it clear that—”
“You plan on going it alone. You’ve made it very clear. Unfortunately, my job is to get you to trial safely. I can’t do that if we’re not together.”
“We’re at cross purposes, then, and I don’t see us finding common ground.” She stepped back, and he thought she might be looking for an escape route. One that King wouldn’t be able to follow.
“The common ground is this—we both want to keep you alive. How about you let me do what I’m trained to do?”
“Which is?”
“Protecting people like you.”
King growled, the sound low and mean.
Esme froze, but Ian could have told her the growl wasn’t directed at her. It was a warning. One that sent adrenaline shooting through Ian’s bloodstream. He grabbed Esme’s wrist, dragging her close.
“What—” she began, but Ian held up his hand, silencing her so that he could listen. The evening had gone eerily quiet, King’s rumbling growl the only sound.
He pulled Esme to the thick brush that surrounded the campsite, motioning for her to drop down into the cover it offered. She slipped into the summer-soft leaves silently, folding herself down so that even he could barely see her.
King swiveled, tracking something that Ian could neither see nor hear. He wanted to think that it was a panther, a bear, an alligator, but King was trained to differentiate between human and animal threats. Besides, thanks to former team member Jake Morrow, the Dupree crime family seemed to always be just one step behind the K-9 team. There was every possibility that one or more of Angus’s henchmen was wandering through the Everglades.
He thrust Esme’s backpack into her arms, leaning close to whisper in her ear. “Stay down. Stay quiet. Don’t move.”
She nodded, clutching the backpack to her chest.
King’s growl changed pitch. Whoever was coming was getting closer. It wasn’t local law enforcement, and it wasn’t a member of the K-9 team. They were back at headquarters waiting for word that Ian had finally found Esme’s trail.
That left only one other option.
Angus Dupree or his hired guns.
Ian acted quickly, shoving the canoe into the water with just enough force to keep it moving. He gave King the signal to heel and went with him into the shelter of thick vegetation. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed around King’s head, but the dog didn’t move; his attention was fixed on a spot just beyond the clearing. Ian knew the area. He’d walked it several times the past few days, certain that Esme would arrive there eventually.
She was smart.
There was no doubt about that.
Ian had done his research. He knew as much as there was to know about her childhood, her schooling, her college years. He knew she’d built her business without the help of her older sister, that she’d never taken a dime from her brother. Everything she had, she’d earned on the right side of the law by using the brain God had given her.
The fact that she’d escaped witness protection and had stayed under the radar for months was even more proof of her keen intelligence. Smart people didn’t go into situations without a plan. Ian had visited the trailer she’d been renting at the edge of the Everglades. He’d seen the old boathouse and the dock, and he’d known she’d had an escape route in mind when she’d chosen to rent the place.
All he’d needed was a map and a highlighter. He’d done some calculations, tried to think of how far someone like Esme would be willing to travel in a hostile environment. It hadn’t taken any time at all to figure out that the quickest, most direct route out of the Everglades brought her here.
He’d staked out the area, walking a grid pattern every day, waiting for her to show.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d been haunting this place looking for her. She was smart, but she’d have been better off leaving the area. She hadn’t had the backpack with her while she was in protective custody with the local police, and she hadn’t visited any of the local outdoor supply stores, either. He had to assume that she’d returned to the rental to retrieve the pack. Which meant there was something she needed in it. Money seemed more likely than anything.
King’s growl had become a deep rumble of unease. Scruff standing on end, muscles taut, he waited for the signal to go in. Ian waited, too. He didn’t know how many people were approaching or what kind of firepower they’d brought. Backup was already on the way. He’d called in to headquarters as soon as he’d seen Esme paddling toward the campsite.
A shadow appeared a hundred yards out, and King crouched, ready to bound toward it. Ian gave him the signal to hold, watching as two more people stepped into view. A posse of three hunting a lone woman. If Esme had been bedded down for the night, they’d have been on her before she’d realized what was happening.
An unfair fight, but that was the way the Duprees did things.
One of the men turned on a flashlight, the beam bouncing across the camping area and flashing on the water. Twenty feet from the shore, the canoe floated languidly.
“There!” the man hollered, pulling a gun, the world exploding in a hail of gunfire.
If she’d been in the campground, she’d be dead.
Every bullet fired, every ping of metal against metal, reminded Esme that her family—the one she had loved and admired and been so proud of—wanted her dead.
Traitor. Benedict Arnold. Turn-tail. Judas.
Uncle Angus had whispered all those names as he tried to choke the life out of her four nights ago. The words were still ringing in her head and in her heart, mixing with the echoing sound of the automatic weapon Angus’s hit men were using.
She
