Sworn to Protect Page 3

  “I’m okay,” she assured Jordan’s brother. “And so is your mother.”

  She wasn’t sure if he heard.

  The police sirens were loud. An ambulance was screaming into the parking lot. A large crowd had formed, the murmur of panicked voices drifting beneath the cacophony of emergency sirens and squawk of radio communications.

  There were dozens of people around.

  But, somehow, Katie felt completely alone.

  * * *

  Katie and the baby would be fine, Tony told himself as he jogged along the railroad tracks that cut through Forest Park. Rusty was in front of him, following a scent trail through oak leaves that partially covered the railroad ties that stretched between the rails. The Lab had an exceptional nose. They’d spent countless hours together training in wilderness-air scent and urban recovery. They were a team, partners in a way people who have never been dog handlers couldn’t understand.

  Jordan had understood. Just like he had understood the desire to go into law enforcement, the deep-seated need to see justice done. They had been best friends for years. Jordan’s death had been a blow that Tony was still trying to recover from.

  Martin Fisher was a cold-blooded killer—evil. When Tony thought about the horrific lengths Martin had gone to... Threatening to kill Katie via a bomb he’d said he’d rigged, Martin had forced Jordan to write his own suicide note, then had given him drugs to simulate a heart attack. The “suicide” had seemed plausible to some, but not to the Jameson clan or to Tony.

  Jordan had been happily married, excited about life and enthusiastic about the future. He’d had everything to live for.

  The discovery that Jordan had been murdered had not surprised Tony. He had been taken by surprise by the reason for his best friend’s murder. Every police officer understood the dangers of the job. Tony and Jordan had discussed what would happen if one of them were killed in the line of duty. Jordan had promised to always be there for Tony’s family; Tony had, of course, promised to always be there for Jordan’s. During Jordan and Katie’s wedding reception, Jordan had pulled Tony aside and reminded him of that promise.

  If anything happens to me, you’ll make sure she’s okay, right?

  You know I will, but nothing is going to happen to you, bro.

  Something had happened, but not in the way either of them had imagined. There had been no gunfire during a robbery, no ambush during a response to a domestic incident. As far as Tony could ascertain, Jordan hadn’t even had a chance to fight. He had been murdered by a man who was obsessed with Katie, and he’d seemed to have been taken as much by surprise as the rest of the team had been.

  Jordan’s German shepherd partner, Snapper, had been missing since the day the suicide note had been found. Recently the team had learned that Snapper had been picked up by an animal shelter not too long ago and adopted out. The once-majestic canine had been a stray on the streets for so long that he had become unrecognizable. The NYC K-9 Command Unit was attempting to contact the man who had adopted Snapper. So far, they’d had no success.

  Jordan would want Snapper home.

  He would want Martin prosecuted and tossed in jail.

  He wouldn’t want anyone on the K-9 unit to circumvent justice and mete out punishment without due process.

  Tony knew that. He had been working hard to keep his emotions in check and not allow anger to skew his perspective, but he was angry. Jordan had been one of the best. Not just at his police work but at his friendships and his life. He had been loyal, brave and devoted. He should have had decades of service left to the community. He should have grown old with Katie, raised a bunch of kids with her and retired into a life of leisure. Tony frowned, stepping over a downed tree that had fallen next to the tracks.

  He had grown up in Queens and still lived there, renting a one-bedroom floor unit in a multifamily house right on the edge of Forest Hills. He and Rusty spent their downtime in this park, walking the trails and hiking through the oak woods. They both knew the area, and Rusty was confident as he loped ahead. After Tony had freed Rusty from his lead, the dog had circled back to find Tony in the park and then led him here. Like any well-trained search dog, he knew his job. Find the subject and return to the handler again and again, until the handler and the subject were in the same place.

  With backup arriving and fanning out across the five-hundred-acre expanse of trees and trails, it wouldn’t take long to find Martin if he had stayed in the park. Based on the direction Rusty was heading, Tony didn’t think he had. There was a crossroad ahead, dirt and gravel that cut through the park. Vehicles were prohibited, but that didn’t keep teens and young adults from driving through.

  Rusty sniffed an area in the center of the road, circled around and headed east. Tony followed. Tire tread marks were clearly visible, all of them sprinkled with leaves and debris. They had been there awhile. From the look of things, Martin wasn’t in a vehicle.

  “Find!” Tony called, encouraging the Lab to keep searching.

  Rusty made another circle, sniffing the ground and then raising his head. He had caught the scent again. Tony followed him off the road and into the woods.

  The day had the crisp edge of winter, the bright sunlight filtering through a thin tree canopy. From his position, Tony could see a trail that wound its way through the trees.

  If Martin knew the area and the park, he would know that the trail led to a busy road and an easy escape. Tony had every reason to believe Martin was familiar with the area. He had been renting an apartment just a few miles away before his arrest for Jordan’s murder.

  A murder Martin had tried to make look like a suicide. Tony shook his head, unable to stop thinking about it, what Martin had done. Tried to do. If he had gotten away with it, Jordan’s family would have spent a lifetime trying to understand how they had missed signs of Jordan’s depression. They would have wasted energy on unfounded regrets.

  The thought still filled Tony with fury.

  Again, he had known immediately that Jordan would not have taken his own life. His friend had had too much respect and appreciation for all that God had given him.

  There were others who had doubted, though. People who had whispered that Jordan might have had secrets or addictions or relationship troubles that had sent him into a spiraling depression.

  Those whispered rumors had only compounded the tragedy of Jordan’s death.

  Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, the sound carrying on the breeze. Another joined the chorus, the wild baying of a hound on the scent. This was Tony’s music, his symphony. He loved the sound of working dogs doing their thing. He loved being part of the NYC K-9 Command Unit. His father had wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a homicide detective, but Tony enjoyed pounding the pavement, interacting on a daily basis with the community he served. The fact that his job choice had led him into K-9 work was something Tony was constantly grateful for.

  He loved what he did.

  He loved the life he led.

  But, a piece of his soul seemed to have disappeared the day Jordan died.

  They had been as close as brothers.

  Losing him had left a giant hole in Tony’s life.

  He had been trying to fill it with work, but even that had begun to feel hollow. There had to be more than long days stretching into long nights and a quiet apartment.

  He frowned.

  He hadn’t been sleeping well lately. That had to be the reason for his melancholy mood. Nearly eight months after Jordan’s death, and he was still burning the candle at both ends. In the first few months, he had been trying to figure out exactly what had happened to his friend.

  Now, he was desperately trying to get a step ahead of Martin.

  He was close. Tony could feel it.

  Rusty growled softly, and the warning made the hair on the back of Tony’s neck stand on end. He knew his canine part
ner better than he knew the park or Queens or New York City. Rusty only growled when he sensed danger.

  Tony whistled to call the dog back, then stood still, listening to the sudden silence of the park. A bird took flight, zipping away from a tree a dozen yards away. Leaves rustled. Branches snapped. Someone was coming, and he wasn’t being quiet about it.

  Tony pulled out his gun and aimed it in the direction of the sound. Martin had dropped his gun near the clinic, but if he’d been able to get his hands on one firearm, he could certainly have another.

  Seconds later, a teenager stumbled from the woods, his face ashen. Thin and gangly, his entire body trembling, he looked to be thirteen or fourteen. Probably a kid playing hooky from school who had run into a lot more trouble than he had expected.

  “Hold it! Hands where I can see them,” Tony shouted.

  The kid whirled in his direction, his eyes wide with fear. “Some guy has got my friend. He has a knife to his throat.”

  Tony didn’t need to ask who. He knew. This was exactly what a coward like Martin would do. Find an innocent bystander and use him as a shield during his escape.

  “Which way did they go?” Tony asked.

  “That way!” The boy pointed through the trees.

  “Stay here. Rusty, find!” The Lab plunged into the undergrowth. Tony followed, branches snagging his clothes. Rusty bounded ahead, ears flapping, tail high. He knew where he was going, and he shot straight as an arrow toward the scent pool.

  He disappeared into a thicket.

  Tony raced after him, radioing in his location and hoping backup would arrive quickly. Martin had already committed murder; there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it again. The teenager he’d kidnapped could be as easily disposed of as he had been abducted.

  Rusty barked, and the sound reverberated throughout the woods.

  “Call your dog off!” a man shouted, the voice high-pitched and filled with anger and fear.

  Tony plunged into the thicket, pushed through the heavy bramble and thick vines and shoved his way into a small clearing.

  Martin was just ahead, his arm around a young teen’s waist, a knife held against the boy’s throat. Rusty was snapping and growling nearby.

  “Let the kid go, Martin,” Tony said calmly.

  “Call off your dog,” Martin responded, the knife nicking flesh, a tiny bead of blood sliding down the kid’s throat.

  He didn’t flinch, didn’t cry out. He just stared into Tony’s eyes, silently begging for help.

  “Rusty, off,” Tony commanded.

  The Lab continued to growl as he backed off and took his place next to Tony.

  “That’s better,” Martin muttered, stepping backward, the knife blade still pressed against the boy’s neck. “Now, put your weapon down, and we’ll all be just fine.”

  “You know I’m not going to do that, Martin.”

  “Then, I guess this kid is going to die. Just like your buddy.” Martin’s eyes were cold, his tone emotionless.

  “Put the knife down, let the boy go and we’ll get you the help you need.”

  “I don’t need help. I need to get back what your friend took from me.” Martin nearly spat the words, his gaze suddenly sharp with rage.

  “Please let me go,” the teen gasped, his eyes wide with fear, the thin trickle of blood staining the collar of his jacket.

  “Once we’re out of the park and away from the police, you can go on with your day. If you cooperate.” Martin dragged the boy to the edge of the clearing, his focus on Tony. “None of this needed to happen. None of it. Jordan could have had any woman. He didn’t have to go after mine.”

  “Katie was never yours, Martin. You know that.” Tony followed Martin across the clearing, Rusty close to his side.

  “She was always mine. She will always be mine. She knows that. I know it. It is just the rest of the world that needs to understand.” Martin’s knife hand slipped away from the boy’s neck.

  Tony lunged toward Martin, grabbed his wrist and dragged it away from the boy’s throat. The teen twisted free, shoving into Tony as he tried to run. He tripped, sprawling on the ground, his shoulders knocking Tony’s arm. Tony’s hand slipped, and the knife slid across his shoulder, slicing through fabric and flesh. There was no pain. Just the desperate need to regain control of the weapon.

  Martin jerked back, the knife still in his hand. He swung, the blade arching through the air inches from Tony’s face.

  “Back off!” Martin spat as he raised the knife again.

  This time Tony was ready.

  He gave Martin a two-armed shove backward, pulled out his firearm and aimed for Martin’s arm. He didn’t want to kill the man. He just needed to stop him. “Freeze!” he yelled, as the teen jumped to his feet and darted between them.

  It was the second of opportunity Martin needed.

  The knife blade dropped again, this time slicing across the boy’s cheek. He darted away, pushing through a patch of brambles and darting from the line of Tony’s gunfire.

  Blood spurted from the wound in the teen’s cheek. He wobbled as Tony shoved past, ready to follow Martin.

  “Stay here!” he shouted at the boy.

  But, the kid didn’t seem interested in listening.

  He followed Tony, rushing after him as he shoved through the patch of brambles and called in his location.

  “I said, stay put!” Tony repeated, concerned for the boy, but more concerned that Martin would escape again. He had proven to be cunning and dangerous, and he needed to be apprehended before he hurt someone else.

  “I’m not staying there waiting for him to come back for me,” the teen responded, his voice muffled and faint. One minute he was running behind Tony. The next, he was falling, his scrawny body knocking into Tony as he went down.

  “You okay?” Tony asked, still moving. When the teen didn’t respond, he glanced back. The kid was lying prone, blood seeping from his cheek, eyes closed. He was clearly unconscious.

  Tony itched to go after Martin, but he couldn’t leave an injured and unconscious teenager lying in the park alone.

  Frustrated, he jogged back, crouching near the young man and feeling for a pulse. Every second he spent there was a second more of distance Martin put between them, but this wouldn’t be the end of the chase. As soon as backup arrived, Tony and Rusty would return to the hunt.

  I’ll get you, Tony vowed. For Katie. For Jordan.

  For himself.

  THREE

  Katie didn’t like hospitals. The scents and sounds brought back memories she’d rather forget. She had been ten when her parents died. An only child being raised by only children, she had had an idyllic childhood—a pretty house in the suburbs, nice clothes, good food and parents who’d loved her.

  That had changed the night of her parents’ fifteenth wedding anniversary. She had been at home with a babysitter when a drunk driver had blown through a red light and hit her parents’ sedan. Her father had been killed instantly. Her mother had lived for nearly a week. Katie had visited her every day, standing alone in the ICU and listening to the whoosh and beep of the machines keeping her mother alive. She’d had no grandparents, uncles or aunts to support her as she grieved. Just strangers who had meant well but who had not been able to give her the only thing she had wanted—her parents.

  Even now, all these years later, hospitals made her stomach churn.

  She touched her abdomen, her fingers skimming across the fetal monitor that was strapped there. The baby was moving, her rapid heartbeat filling the silence of the room. The contractions had ended as abruptly as they’d begun, and for the past two hours, she had been lying in the hospital bed, watching the clock, wondering how Ivy was doing and if Tony and Rusty were all right. Worrying about what Martin might be doing.

  He’d tracked her here earlier. Walked right into the clinic, don
ned a lab coat and fooled everyone he’d passed. He could do it again. Had he managed to circle back to the building? Was he inside right now?

  Breathe, she told herself. An officer is stationed outside your room. Martin can’t get you. Or, hurt the baby.

  She wanted the thought to be comforting, but Jordan had been tough, strong and smart. Somehow Martin had managed to get to him. If that could happen, anything seemed possible.

  She had not heard anything from her father-or brothers-in-law since she had insisted they stay by Ivy’s side. They had left reluctantly, but they had left. Katie hadn’t expected or wanted anything else.

  That didn’t mean she liked being alone.

  For the first hour, regular contractions had distracted her.

  Now, with the pain gone, her mind was spinning, her thoughts jumping from one thing to the next. She had spent nearly nine months preparing to give birth without Jordan, but the threat of an early labor, even just by a couple of weeks, had made her realize how desperately she still wanted him there.

  He’d promised her a lot of things before they had married.

  He had promised her even more when they’d stood in front of friends and family and spoken their vows. He had said he would love her always, that she would be first in his life after God, that he would put her needs in front of his own and be the family she longed for. That he would always be there for her.

  She had believed him. But, even in the first few months of their marriage, she had known that her needs were secondary to the needs of the K-9 unit and the community. Jordan had taken his responsibilities to both seriously. He had worked long hours and devoted himself to justice. She had admired that more than she had resented it, but there had been a tiny bit of jealousy—a small part of herself that had wondered how they would both feel in a decade or two, after his job had pulled him away from anniversaries and holidays and birthdays a few too many times.