Page 25 of So Savage (Faith Bold #21)

Baseline Road stretched from the U.S. Army Reserve Center along the southern shore of Lake Superior for six miles, then curved west and continued for another five miles before ending at a forested park. Jennifer Martinez lived right in front of that park. It was an excellent place for a killer to conceal himself and sedate both Martinez and her dog.

Tranh and Garcia drove their cruiser onto the grass and straight around back when they arrived. They weren’t going to waste any time putting together an assault plan. The goal was to get in as quickly as possible and put Kane down as quickly as possible.

So, as soon as Marcus’s truck skidded to a halt, Faith and Turk were out the door. Turk sprinted ahead, but Faith called for him to stay close. Turk looked at her, confused.

“I want you close to me, boy,” she repeated. “With Kane, I need you close.” The last thing she needed was Turk sedated while they were dealing with Kane.

“Peter Kane!” Marcus shouted as he approached the house. “If you’re in there, you need to surrender now! Come out, keep your hands where we can see them, and so help me, do not reach for a weapon!”

“Jennifer!” Faith called. “If you can hear me, please respond!”

The only response was from Turk, who barked in alarm and leaped over the five-foot wooden fence surrounding the backyard.

“Turk!” Faith cried. “Damn it!”

She vaulted the fence, landing on her shoulder on the other side. She rolled through the landing and got to her feet, gun drawn.

Her heart sank when she saw Turk. He was standing over the still body of another German shepherd, this one golden everywhere except for his black muzzle. Turk was barking and licking the shepherd, frantically trying to wake him.

Faith forced her eyes away from the dogs and kept her gun pointed at the house. “Marcus, we have a sedated dog in the backyard! Are you inside the house?”

She heard a crashing noise as Marcus kicked the door in, answering her question. She started forward, but hesitated. Turk was still trying to wake the unconscious German Shepherd up. She couldn’t leave him by himself.

“Turk, come on!”

Turk looked up at her, whining plaintively.

“He’s fine,” Faith said. “I promise. We need to go find Jennifer.”

“Damn it!” Marcus cursed over the radio. “House is empty.”

Faith’s heart sank further. “What? You’re sure?”

“Yes, Faith, I’m sure,” Marcus snapped. “We just cleared the whole damned property, so unless Garcia finds a mysterious hidden compartment somewhere, the house is fucking empty!”

“Keep it together, Marcus,” Faith said sternly. “Put an APB out on both of them now. Get the MPs looking for her. Call the airport police too. In fact, it might be worth calling neighboring agencies.”

"Yeah, I'll do that, Faith, but what are we gonna find? You think Martinez will survive the ass-whooping Delgado got?"

“Focus on what will go right, Detective,” Faith said, echoing her mentor’s mantra. “Not what could go wrong.”

After a brief pause, Marcus said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just… Shit!”

“I know,” Faith agreed. “This sucks. Call animal control for the dog, then meet me in the house. We’re going to set up here for now while we try to figure out where he might have taken her. Do you still have units at Kane’s house?”

“Yeah, Garland and Eli are there waiting for CSI.”

“Keep them there even if CSI finishes. And send more units to back them up. Do we know what kind of car Peter drives?”

“I’ll look it up. Let’s see, uh… Shit, we don’t have his license.”

“Stay calm, Marcus. We can ask Public Safety—”

"I know how to get a driver's license, Faith."

Faith clammed up. She was clearly not helping the situation. She resisted the urge to throw her radio into the fence, and that told her that her own emotions weren’t under control.

Turk whined and looked back at the dog. Kane clearly wasn’t here, so she decided to let Turk stay with him. “Go ahead, Turk. Protect.”

Turk sped to the downed dog’s side and stood with his head high and his ears alert. Faith jogged into the house, cursing inwardly and struggling to stay calm.

Marcus stood in the living room talking to dispatch. “…white Jeep Gladiator, Minnesota license plate HHR093. Driver is Peter Kane, thirty, Caucasian male, six-foot-four, two hundred twenty-five pounds. He is believed to have kidnapped Jennifer Martinez. There are signs of a struggle at the residence and a chemically sedated K9 in the backyard.”

When Marcus mentioned a struggle, Faith looked around and realized that the living room was indeed torn up. The tv had fallen over and the screen had shattered onto the carpet. The couch was pushed off of center, and in the dining room beyond, Faith saw that one of the chairs was on its back.

Jennifer had fought too. That worried Faith. Peter had badly beaten Delgado when she fought him.

He might not know that we’re after him. He might think he’s in the clear, and that might keep her safe until he gets where he’s going.

The problem was that Faith had no idea where he was going. For all she knew, he was already there, and Jennifer was already dead.

No! She couldn’t believe that. They’d saved people buried underground before. They could save her. They had to.

She wished desperately that wanting something badly enough guaranteed that you’d receive it, but she knew better than that. Sometimes you could do everything right and still fail.

Not this time. Please, not this time.

***

Jennifer’s head smacked against something hard. She jolted to wakefulness and reached for her rifle. “Shit! ISIS units attacking! Everyone move your asses!”

Except she didn’t reach for her rifle because her hands were bound behind her back, and she didn’t warn her squad about ISIS because she had tape over her mouth. She blinked and looked around. She wasn’t in a foxhole. She was in the backseat of a pickup truck. The man driving the truck was one of those tall, lanky-muscular types.

Her memory came flooding back to her, hearing noises outside, coming out to see Bear on the ground with a needle in his leg, hearing the whoosh as another needle missed her by inches. She'd run inside and locked the doors to call nine-one-one, but he found a way in anyway. She'd fought as well as she could, but he had jammed her in the thigh with one of those darts, and less than a minute later, she was dead to the world.

God, I hate that that’s how I phrased it.

Panic slid up her spine, gripping her heart like a vise and threatening to overturn her sanity. She’d been kidnapped. A freaking man had kidnapped her and was now taking her away in his truck. She wasn’t sure what he planned to do with her when they got wherever they were going, but none of the answers to that question were good.

She tried to sit up, only to find that, of course, her legs were bound too. He had been careful.

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. His eyes widened. “Holy shit. You’re awake already?”

His voice sounded normal. For some reason, she found that hilarious. She had been kidnapped by a guy who looked like he bumped metalcore in his earbuds while lurking at the gym waiting to hit on girls in yoga pants and sounded like Joe McSchmoe who you’d meet anywhere.

She giggled, the sound muffled and distorted by the tape covering her mouth. Her head hurt. Whatever he’d given her had made her loopy.

“Hmm. You must have a tolerance for ketamine. I would have used the pheno, but that chemical’s potent. It can be dicey for dogs that weigh less than a hundred pounds.”

That explained why she was awake. She’d taken ketamine off and on for ADHD for years. She had built up a bit of a tolerance for it. Not enough to save her, though.

“We’ll just leave you awake,” her captor said. “I don’t usually get to talk to you guys before I kill you, but I guess it’s fair that one of you know why I’m doing this. Especially since you’ll be my last one in Duluth.”

Jennifer twisted her wrists and ankles to try to pull out of the bonds, but they held tight. She was well and truly stuck. She had no choice but to listen to Forever Frat Boy while he told her why it was okay for him to murder her.

“I lost my dog last year,” he explained. “Monkey. He was a golden German Shepherd, just like Bear. I loved that dog more than I loved myself.”

He paused a moment, his knuckles going white as his grip on the steering wheel strengthened. He took a deep breath and continued. “So anyway, Monkey and I were assigned with a few other K9s to sniff out stragglers from the ISIS retreat outside of Damascus. Our glorious leader, Captain Fucknuts McRetard, decided that the best way to do that was to put the K9s ahead of everyone else. I don’t know what movie he saw that made him think this was a good idea. We have drones for a reason. K9s shouldn’t be doing that kind of recon anymore. But McRetard didn’t care. Nope. Use the dogs.

“Well, we used the dogs. All four of them died.”

He fell silent again. His shoulders shook, and after a few seconds, Jennifer realized he was crying. “Monkey… He got… I saw him get shot. He was cut in half by machine guns. Literally cut in half. I saw it happen.”

He took a deep breath and got himself under control. "We took the position. After, I… kind of lost it. I don't remember everything, but I guess I put Captain Fucknuts in the hospital. They did a hearing and decided that it was my fault that Monkey had died. Can you imagine that? My fault that my German Shepherd did exactly as he was ordered to by my commanding officer. They had a Marine NCO head up at the hearing, too. I guess he's a big boy in the K9 world. Was, anyway. I killed him. Sliced both of his carotids open."

An involuntary whimper escaped Jennifer’s throat.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the man said. “I’m not going to cut you. I’m going to hang you.”

Another whimper escaped, followed by a shiver. Jennifer hated to show her fear to him, but she was afraid. She was terrified. This man was going to kill her in one of the worst ways imaginable.

“I know it’s brutal,” he said, “but I’m angry. It’s not fair. You got to come home with Bear because of the policies that I insisted they implement. They listened to me, but they also dishonorably discharged me. They stabbed me in the fucking back. I didn’t deserve that.”

I don’t deserve to die either , she thought. Why the hell are you punishing me ?

“So, I’m going to tie a rope around your neck, throw it over a girder and pull up on it until your feet leave the ground. Then I’ll just leave you there until you stop kicking.”

While Jennifer tried to comprehend what she was hearing, the truck pulled to a stop. “Okay,” the man said. “We’re here. Hop on out.” He looked at her. “Nothing personal, kiddo. I just need to do this.”

Jennifer wanted to beg him, to plead with him and convince him that he didn’t need to do this.

But her lips were taped closed. She had no choice but to sit where she was and wait for him to do whatever he wanted.

The man sighed and pulled him out of the truck. “Okay. Come on. Let’s not make it any harder than it has to be.”

She stumbled after him, praying silently that someone would find her before it was too late.