Page 6 of K-9 Guardians (New Mexico Guard Dogs #4)

It was all there.

Scarlett had read the file they’d recovered from Adam’s office so many times the words were starting to blur together. Every detail accounted for. Every move Munoz had made over the past decade. It all made sense.

Sangre por Sangre hadn’t just started consolidating power by taking out the heads of the other cartels during that DEA operation ten years ago. They’d been absorbing the orphaned soldiers left behind. And accepting funds from an outside source.

Overseas funds.

The kind that never ran out. The kind that came from organizations that had outlived the fall of governments and were impossible to dismantle because of their sheer size. Sangre por Sangre had always been in the drug business, but the partnership that Agents Dunkeld and Roday theorized was slowly taking place revealed something so much worse.

The drugs confiscated at the borders every day were a mere fraction of what actually got through. Cartels were willing to take the risk, knowing the payoff was worth a small sacrifice of product, but with this? Sangre por Sangre would have unfettered access. Humans. Drugs. Weapons. There was no limit if this intel was right.

“Ten years of operations.” King pressed his thumb and index finger into his eyes. He checked his phone again. She’d lost count of how many times, but there was no word about Julien. The tension in his shoulders relayed nothing but concern and impatience. Albuquerque PD had nothing. “Neither of them said a word.”

She and King had been at this for an hour, trying to absorb as much of Adam’s notes as possible. The sun had dipped behind the half-moon ring of mountains to the west. All of this... It was too much for any one person. Or maybe the information was meant to be shared by a team. Designed to ensure one person didn’t have to take it all on themselves.

Scarlett closed the file on her lap. Sweat built along the collar of her shirt as Hans and Gruber kicked in their sleep from the corner of the room.

Turned out the vent in this office wasn’t actually functional for anything other than a poor man’s safe. Adam Dunkeld purposefully put himself in misery every time he sat down at this desk to work the investigation. As though he were punishing himself.

But he had company every single time. Scarlett’s gaze turned to the family photo facing off with her from the corner of the desk. Of smiling faces and happier times. The chair protested as she leaned forward. Her joints screamed for release. “I imagine Eva wanted it that way. In case something happened to her. That way Julien had somewhere to go. Somewhere he’d be safe.”

“Maybe you’re right.” King tossed his section of the file onto the desk and pushed to stand. “Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, though. Because now my son is right where Eva didn’t want him, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to help him.”

Not until they figured out Munoz’s involvement in all this. Adam Dunkeld and Eva Roday had stumbled onto something Socorro hadn’t even considered possible for the enemy they’d been fighting, but the intel fit. The increase in soldiers, the upgrade in weapons and armored vehicles. The escalation in violence, abductions and raids. Sangre por Sangre wasn’t the same small-time cartel Socorro had been contracted to dismantle. This was a new threat altogether. One they didn’t know.

“You haven’t heard anything?” Scarlett asked.

“No. No ransom call. No request for money.” King did that thing where he scrubbed a hand down his face before checking his phone. “Which means they’re not interested in negotiating.”

He didn’t need to finish that sentence. It was already burned into the front of her mind. Julien’s abductors weren’t interested in negotiating because they had no intention of letting the ten-year-old come home alive. It’d taken all her persuasive powers to get him to slow down enough to uncover some kind of lead from these files. But was it enough?

Scarlett couldn’t take the thought of watching King lose someone else. This man who’d already sacrificed so much for the innocent lives he protected from the cartel, who’d already lost everything and everyone. She needed to contact Socorro and hand over the intel they’d uncovered. Ivy had to know what they were up against. Every second Sangre por Sangre was connected to whoever was funding them overseas, the less chance she and her team had of winning this war.

But there was something she had to do first. Something only she could fix. “What if we don’t wait for Julien’s kidnappers to contact you? What if we go get Julien ourselves?”

A mirrored ache to do something carved into King’s expression. “We don’t have proof Lieutenant Munoz is behind my son’s abduction. If we go in there without a solid lead, we could be putting Julien in more danger.”

“You’re right. But what if we find him?” And Scarlett wanted to find that boy. More than anything. For King. “We might not have hard evidence, but there’s enough in these files to support a real DEA investigation into Munoz. And it all started with that operation ten years ago. That can’t be a coincidence. What if your suspicion hasn’t been for nothing? What if Munoz is at the center of all of this? That he had Eva Roday and your partner killed. That he’s the one who sent his crew after Julien.”

King’s left hand fisted and released. “I can’t walk into DEA headquarters with a theory and authorize a raid team, even with Adam’s proof that there’s something more going on inside the cartel. And I know Ivy Bardot well enough to know she’s going to want solid evidence that Sangre por Sangre has my son before she signs off on any operation Socorro will be linked to.” His shoulders hiked on a deep inhale. “So how would we do this?”

Scarlett dragged out a photo from a decade’s worth of surveillance. “We start here. As for backup, you have me and the twins. That’s all you’ll need.”

“You certainly think highly of yourself, don’t you?” King studied the photo of a warehouse. Ten years ago, the DEA had found the hefe of the Marquez cartel handless with a bullet between his eyes. This was where it had all started for Adam Dunkeld and Eva Roday. Investigators had needed to scrape the body of the former Marquez cartel leader off the floor to collect his remains that day, and King had been there. Was everything that’d happened since then punishment?

“With good reason.” Scarlett tapped the photo.

“What makes you think Munoz stashed Julien here?” he asked.

“Because he knows you were there that day during the DEA operation.” Her brain had settled into strategy mode. Where she took apart the problem in front of her and figured out a way to go around it. Or through it. It was one of the skills her instructors and the army had taken advantage of more often than not. “Munoz is smart. He’s managed to gather support for overthrowing the head of Sangre por Sangre while keeping himself alive these past few months. He doesn’t leave anything to chance, because one wrong move could take him out. Which means he’ll have studied you. Your habits, routines, the people you surround yourself with. He’ll want to know everything about you, including your operation history, which cases you seem to take a particular interest in, how you approach an investigation. He would’ve known Adam was your partner and started looking into him, too.”

“Doesn’t explain why Adam’s body was dropped outside Socorro headquarters. But you think he’s been watching me?” His voice hitched on that last word. “Watching Julien?”

“And anyone else in your life. It’s what I would do.” The plan was already taking shape in her mind. Where she would be, how she’d breach. All from a single photo. Though a decade-old surveillance picture wasn’t enough to make a move on. She needed up-to-date intel. “But I’d bet Munoz’s fascination with you started when he suspected Eva Roday was closing in. She most likely led the cartel to Adam, then to you.”

“And now Julien.” King seemed to break free of the stiffness in his body. “Do you think... Do you think they know Julien was there the night Eva was killed? That he saw the person who killed his mother?”

Scarlett lost her train of thought, taken aback by his concern for a little boy he hadn’t even known existed up until a couple months ago. And remembering the utter look of sheer terror on Julien’s face from that surveillance footage. King had stepped into the role of father despite not knowing how the hell to take care of anyone but himself, and it looked good on him. All that intensity, all that defensiveness and lack of trust he applied to saving lives through his work was nothing compared to the obvious love burning through him. That was what would bring his son back now. “No. I don’t think the cartel is aware Julien was there that night. If they were, he would already be dead.”

There would be nothing left for them to save.

“Okay. What now?” He nodded, seemingly convincing himself this was the best course of action, that at the end of this, he’d have his son back. No matter the consequences.

She gathered the file together in one pile and whistled low to call the Dobermans from sleep. Each snapped to attention and got to their feet. “We need to get eyes on the warehouse. Photos help, but they don’t tell me everything I need to know.”

“All right. Let me tell Jen we’re leaving.” King stepped free of the hot, too-small office and headed down the lengthy hall to the back of the house.

Investigation file in hand, Scarlett caught sight of the interaction that seemed to stretch mere seconds into full minutes. Of King’s hand on the widow’s arm, of how he’d lowered his voice as another sob shook through the woman.

A knot twisted in Scarlett’s stomach, reminding her of a time when she’d needed someone like King there when her entire world had fallen apart. But she’d had no one. Too ashamed to tell her parents the truth, outcast by the rest of her unit. Dishonorably discharged with nothing and no one to fall back on. If it hadn’t been for Granger Moraise and Ivy Bardot, Scarlett would hate to think of where she’d have ended up. Who would’ve come for her if she hadn’t had Socorro’s protection.

Her throat dried as King secured his partner’s wife in his arms, and Scarlett didn’t have the guts to watch anymore. Jealousy had the ability to do that. To take a heartfelt moment and twist it into something ugly and lacking, and she hated herself for it. That no one had been there to do the same for her when the person she’d cared about the most had betrayed her and everything he’d believed in.

Didn’t matter. Rescuing a ten-year-old boy from his abductors mattered. It was the only thing that mattered, and the only way Scarlett could redeem herself.

King broke away from the grieving widow and headed toward her. “I’m ready. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

There was a level of trust in that statement. It dug beneath the shame and guilt of her past life and burrowed deep in her chest, annihilating any lingering layer of jealousy and resentment for not getting the care she deserved all those months ago. King was willing to give up the ego built over years of DEA operations for the slightest chance of recovering his son.

She had a plan. They could do this as long as they worked together. Scarlett headed for the door. “Have you ever handled C-4 before?”

H E HADN ’ T EVER planned on coming back here.

Old yellow external spotlights peppered the building and chased back the closing darkness. Didn’t help. No matter what Scarlett had planned for them to get inside, they would be working in the dark. And King hoped like hell he’d be enough to get Julien through what came next.

“Place is registered under a shell company. It’ll take a while to untangle who really owns it, but that’s not the purpose of today’s field trip.” Scarlett swiped her finger across the tablet, casting a white-blue glow across her face and chest from the driver seat. “Doesn’t look like it has any active permits. At least not from what I can see, which means there’s a chance we could be walking into an empty building. It’s got a great security system, though.”

He ran his gaze over the harsh corners and along the rooftop. No cameras. “How can you tell?”

“The keypads on the doors.” She nodded through the windshield to the nearest side door, an outline that nearly bled into the rest of the building. “That brand is one of two Socorro installs for our clients. I’ve already checked. We weren’t the ones who put it in, but no one installs that kind of system on an empty building. They’re trying to keep people out for a good reason. Oh, they have Wi-Fi. That helps.”

“Or they’re trying to keep somebody in.” The words didn’t quite make it across the center console. King memorized the outlines of rows and rows of orange cable he usually saw on the side of the road during the summer lined up behind the warehouse. Construction crews always seemed to be closing lanes to lay it down somewhere, but it was hard to imagine Sangre por Sangre creating a utility business and benefiting the infrastructure of the state they were trying to take control of. Which could mean they were in the wrong place.

Dead flat landscape stretched out into a sea of nothingness. The other warehouses in the area had gone dark a long time ago. Years of threats and instability in the area had driven out a good chunk of businesses as the cartel grew. If King remembered right, there was a dried-up canal just on the other side of the single construction trailer to the right.

The warehouse itself wasn’t anything special—a rectangle with gray-white panels for walls. The bright blue rolltop door stood out, though. Julien’s favorite color of the week. His son could be behind that door. Scared. Calling for help and not getting a single answer back. The thought heated King’s palms. “Are we doing this or what?”

“I’ve piggybacked off their W-Fi and accessed the security system.” Scarlett’s fingers moved across the screen as though she were playing the most complicated piano concerto. Pure magic. “I can take it down from here.”

King tried to get a good look at her tablet screen, seeing nothing but a mess of code he didn’t understand. “Wait. You can do that?”

“Ride with me long enough, and you’ll see that’s not the only thing I can do.” Scarlett reached into the back seat, rousing the Dobermans as she pulled a heavy Kevlar vest forward. One for her, then one for him. “We have about ten minutes before the security company realizes the system isn’t reporting back and brings the system back online. You ready?”

He slipped his head through the opening in the vest and strapped it tight. Nervous energy prickled at the back of his neck, almost as if in warning, but there was no way in hell King was going to turn around now. Not with the possibility his son was in there. “Let’s do this.”

They shouldered out of the vehicle at the same time, keeping low and to the shadows. Hans’s and Gruber’s nails tapped against the asphalt but not loud enough to illicit a security response. King slid through the long line of cement parking space barriers. No vehicles in the lot, and half of the pine tree rooted at the corner of the building had succumbed to dry rot. They should have a straight shot inside, but his gut was telling him it wouldn’t be that easy.

It never was with Sangre por Sangre.

Unholstering his sidearm, King crossed the crumbling parking lot to where the tree provided cover. And waited. His breath lodged in his throat. The night was thick with heat, and he couldn’t swallow past the doubt. This didn’t feel right. Of all the raids he’d executed over the years, this one felt uncomfortable.

King didn’t have time to dig into that now. Julien needed him.

He scanned the surrounding desert as Scarlett reached for the pocket door nearest their location. Ten minutes wasn’t enough time. Not for a place this size, but he’d do whatever it took to recover his son before those seconds ran out. He gave the okay to breach as he had a dozen times before.

Scarlett wrenched the door back on its hinges and stepped into the blackness waiting to consume them, weapon raised. The Dobermans followed without hesitation. Just before King was swallowed by a vast emptiness on the other side.

His heart rate doubled, thudding hard behind his ears as his senses tried to make up for the complete lack of stimulus. He pressed his feet down harder into the cement floor. He was grounded. As for everything else, he was at a loss.

A click registered in his ears, and a beam cut across the floor in front of him. Holding up one hand, he tried to block the onslaught of light, but it was no use. His senses couldn’t adapt that fast.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Scarlett directed the beam toward the floor and the K9s at her feet. “Come on. We don’t have much time before the security company alerts whoever owns this place we’re here.”

He followed Scarlett’s outline. Both hands gripped around his weapon, he took in as much as their limited light source provided.

The layout had changed in the last ten years. Now it was designed as a completely open space with exposed girders stretching across the ceiling. Some kind of inventory created a maze with pallets of crates stacked four or five high. Each box sported red-and-yellow stripes along one side, as if Scarlett and King had been thrown into some kind of messed-up circus he didn’t want to get lost in. Two forklifts were wedged under pallets ahead. But it was the unending rows of product that had him picking up the pace.

There was no evidence a bomb had gone off in here ten years ago that’d required the ATF to consult. No sign of the past infiltrating into the present. It was as though that operation had never happened, and yet Adam and Eva couldn’t seem to let this place go during their investigation into the cartel.

It didn’t matter. King was here for one reason. “They wouldn’t leave Julien out in the open. There’s got to be offices or something around here.”

“Follow me.” Scarlett pressed forward with all that confidence King wished he could siphon for himself. She was every bit the military operator she was supposed to be, and there wasn’t a single cell in his body that wasn’t grateful for her at a time like this. A time when his training had seemingly gone out the window in search of the only person he had left.

She carved a path to the right, weapon held high as though the weight wasn’t getting to her like it was to him, and heel-toed it forward like she’d already memorized the layout. Which, she probably had. They passed a steel support running straight up to the ceiling with another row of the red-and-yellow-striped boxes to his left, and that obsessed part of himself that’d pushed him from case to case all these years King prodded him from inside.

He slowed, trying to keep an eye on Scarlett and the Dobermans as he studied the nearest box.

“What are you doing?” The flashlight beam landed at his feet. Scarlett retraced her steps to him. “We have to keep moving. We have about two minutes before the security system pings.”

“The photos in Adam’s file. He and Eva were watching this place.” King holstered his weapon, punctuated by one of the Doberman’s low groans. He wasn’t sure which. “I need to know why my partner and Julien’s mother were killed. I need to know what the cartel is trying to hide.”

He pulled a switchblade from his pocket and sliced the packing tape straight down the middle. Grabbing on to Scarlett’s wrist, he forced her to angle the flashlight inside.

Packing peanuts stuck to the liner of the box and threatened to go everywhere with one wrong move. He drove his hand inside and felt around.

Then hit something solid. He grabbed on to it, even as he felt every second slipping through their fingers, and pulled the object free. Big blue eyes stared back at him.

A baby doll—heavier than he thought it should be—closed its eyes the farther he leaned it back. Her purple pajamas were pristine with yellow-and-white stripes, but there was something wrong about the angle of her head. King gripped the doll’s head with one hand and her body with the other and pulled.

The jolt dislodged hundreds of light blue pills from inside.

“Holy hell.” Scarlett followed the spill, crouching to get a better look. “These are fentanyl tabs. Enough to kill a herd of elephants.”

There weren’t many people outside of the DEA who could identify a pill just by the look and color of it. He was impressed.

Cutting the flashlight back to the box, Scarlett shoved to stand and sank her hand back into the box. She pulled out nine more dolls before turning the beam out into the rest of the warehouse. “Ten dolls per box.”

King followed her line of thinking. “In a warehouse packed with boxes. Shit. There has to be enough to here to OD fifty million people.”

“Sangre por Sangre has never dealt in fentanyl before.” There was something off in her voice. A combination of shock and anger and heaviness they didn’t have time to sit with. “Do you think this has something to do with the overseas resources Agents Dunkeld and Roday uncovered?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled a small rectangular bag from his back pocket—a necessity for DEA agents—and bagged a few of the pills as evidence.

A trio of beeps echoed through the warehouse and singed every nerve King owned. “What the hell was that?”

“The security system. It’s back online.” Scarlett cast the flashlight beam down the row of boxes that didn’t seem to have an end. “They know we’re here.”