Sworn To Protect

“Martin, really. I can’t.”

There were people all around, shocked, afraid. Watching but not intervening, and she couldn’t blame them. Martin was armed and obviously dangerous, his eyes gleaming with the fire of his delusions.

“Hey! You! Let her go!” A security guard raced toward them. No gun. Nothing but a radio and a desire to help.

Martin moved the gun, and Katie had seconds to shove him sideways, to try to ruin his aim, save the guard and free herself.

The bullet slammed into the wall, and a woman shrieked.

For a split second, Katie was free, running back to the stairwell, clawing at the doorknob, trying to get back up the stairs and away from Martin.

He grabbed her jacket and dragged her backward, nearly unbalancing her. She felt the barrel of the gun against the side of her neck.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Katie,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear.

She froze again.

“That’s my girl. Now, let’s go.” He grabbed her hand, the gun slipping away from her neck, and dragged her outside.

Tony Knight had been a police officer for enough years to know how to stay calm in the most challenging of circumstances.

The current situation demanded every bit of the discipline he had learned during his years on the force.

He watched as Martin Fisher dragged Katie across the crowded parking lot. She wasn’t fighting or protesting, and Tony couldn’t blame her. Martin was swinging the firearm in the direction of anyone who dared to call for him to stop.

Katie had to be terrified.

Katie.

His best friend’s widow.

The word still made his chest tight and his jaw clench. Jordan should be alive, getting ready to celebrate the birth of his first child.

Martin Fisher was responsible for his death.

That was reason enough to take him down.

But, Tony came from a long line of police officers. He believed in the criminal justice system. He believed in due process and trial by jury. He did not believe in vigilantism. To get Katie safely away from Martin, Tony would use whatever force was required. But, he also didn’t believe in risking the lives of innocent civilians—Katie and the big crowd watching. The moment Tony pulled the trigger, so would Martin—with the gun pointed at Katie’s heart.

Tony also didn’t like the idea of firing his weapon when he was aiming at a target so close to Katie.

“Let her go, Martin,” he called, his service weapon aimed at the killer’s head, his police dog, Rusty, by his side. The chocolate-colored Lab growled quietly. Trained in search and rescue, he had a powerful build and split-second reaction time. If asked to, he’d go after the perp and attempt to take him down.

Tony didn’t want to ask him to. Martin would shoot Rusty and have the gun aimed back at Katie in a heartbeat.

“Or what?” Martin asked, his yellow-green eyes focused on Tony.

“I don’t think you want to find out,” Tony responded, trying to keep him talking and buy some time. Backup was on the way. A 911 call had been placed moments before he had arrived at the medical center. He had been running his regular patrol route through Queens, detouring past the four-story brick building every few minutes. Worried, because he knew that none of Jordan’s brothers had been available to accompany Katie to her appointment.

“You’re a big talker, Knight,” Martin snapped, yanking Katie backward. Of course, he knew Tony’s name. He was obsessed with everyone and everything that had anything to do with Katie’s life.

“I’m also big on action. Let her go.”

Martin scowled. He was moving Katie to the edge of the paved lot. A few feet of lush grass separated the medical clinic’s property from the edge of Forest Park. Tall oak trees marked the eastern edge of the public area.

“But, you won’t risk Katie’s or the baby’s life,” Martin said. “For the sake of your buddy Jordan, if nothing else.”

He was right.

Tony couldn’t take a chance. He was confident in his ability to hit his mark, but if Katie moved, if Martin yanked her at just the wrong moment, she or the baby could be injured.

Or, worse.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Put your gun down, Martin. Let her go. We’ll get you the help you need.”

“I don’t need help. I need my family.” He pulled Katie into his chest, pressing the gun against her side. The barrel was hidden by the soft swell of her abdomen, but Tony could see her face, her blue eyes and her blond ponytail snaking over her shoulder.

“Please, Martin,” she said, her voice shaking. “Just let me go. We can talk things out after you’ve gotten treatment.”

“Treatment for what?” Martin asked coldly, his eyes blazing hot in his impassive face.

He was delusional and dangerous, and he was stepping into the grass, dragging Katie with him.

Tony needed to stop him before he made it into the park.

“You were in the hospital,” Tony pointed out, stepping closer, his gun dropping to his side. He wanted Martin to be off guard and vulnerable, unprepared for what was going to happen. “And, from what I heard, you were doing well there.”

He hadn’t actually heard much, but Martin would do just fine locked up in a mental health facility for the remainder of his life.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion. Or, the opinion of anyone else,” Martin snapped, but the gun had fallen away from Katie’s side, and he was glancing back, eyeing the sparse growth of oaks that heralded the beginning of parkland.

The proximity of Forest Park might make it more difficult to apprehend Martin. Tony was determined to get Katie away from the guy, but if Martin managed to disappear into the park, there would be plenty of footpaths and several roads that he could use to make a quick escape.

“Get back in your car,” Martin said coldly. “I would never hurt Katie, but Jordan’s kid means nothing to me.” He jabbed the gun into Katie’s stomach, and she winced.

“You can’t hurt the baby without hurting the mother,” Tony reminded him.

“I’m not as stupid as people think I am. I know a lot of tricks.” Martin moved backward, away from Tony, his K-9 vehicle and the parking lot.

Tony unhooked Rusty’s lead from his collar so he could release him. Normally the chocolate Lab wouldn’t attack. He was a placid, easygoing house companion and a die-hard worker when it came to search and rescue, but he hadn’t been trained to unarm dangerous criminals. He did, however, have a fierce desire to protect his pack.

Right now, he was barking, sensing the tension and anxiety and ready to do what he had to in order to make certain his people were safe.

“And don’t even think about releasing that dog!” Martin screamed, the gun shifting away from Katie as he focused on Rusty.

Katie slammed her elbow into his stomach.

Martin gasped and dropped the gun from his hand.

“Go!” Tony shouted, releasing Rusty as Katie darted away.

TWO

Fight. Free yourself. Run.

Jordan’s words echoed through Katie’s head as she sprinted away. He had said them dozens of times when he had taught the self-defense class she had signed up for a few weeks after taking the job teaching in Queens. The neighborhood had been safe, but she had grown up in the suburbs, and the hustle and bustle of the city had been disconcerting.

Plus, she had been a young woman, alone.

She had wanted to know that she could defend herself.

She had not been thinking about defending an unborn child.

She hadn’t been thinking about being a wife or a mother. She had been thinking about living life on her terms. That was something she had not been able to do when she had been a teenager moving through the foster-care system.

Rusty growled and snapped as he dashed by.

She ran in the opposite direction, darting off the curb, her ankle twisting. She tried to right herself, but the pregnancy made her ungainly, her body front-heavy and cumbersome.

She tripped and went down, hands and knees skidding across asphalt. Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. It had to be Martin!

She fought the way Jordan had taught her.

Elbow to the stomach, pushing back into his weight.

“Katie, stop. It’s me,” Tony said.

She knew his voice.

If she had not been so panicked, she’d have known his gentle touch—his fingers curving lightly around her upper arm.

He had done the same at the funeral, standing beside her as Jordan’s coffin was lowered into the ground.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

She stopped struggling and whirled toward the park. “Where did he go?”

There was no sign of Martin, but Rusty was nearing a copse of trees, still barking ferociously. He was trained in search and rescue and had no business going after a deranged and dangerous man.

“Rusty is going to get hurt,” she said, her voice shaking. “You need to call him back.”

“He’ll be okay,” Tony responded. He was tracking the dog’s movements as he relayed information into the radio.

If he was worried, she couldn’t hear it in his voice.

But, then, he was one of New York’s finest. Just like Jordan had been. He had great training, a good head on his shoulders and the ability to stay calm even in the most challenging circumstances.

He and Jordan had been best friends.

My fourth brother.

How many times had Jordan said that?

And how often had Katie set an extra plate at the dinner table? How often had she watched as the two men tossed balls for their K-9 partners in the yard behind the three-family house they’d shared with the Jameson clan? Countless times. She and Jordan had lived on the second level of the home. His parents just below them. His brothers and young niece above. They were the family she had longed for after her parents had died. They were the connection she had prayed she would have during the years she had spent drifting from one foster home to the next.

She had thought life would keep going in the same positive direction. She had thought—wrongly so—that the tragedy of losing her parents in a car accident when she was ten was enough for a lifetime.

She should have known better.

There was nothing in the Bible about life being easy.

There were no promises made to the faithful.

Except that God would be there. Guiding. Helping. Creating good out of bad.

The problem was Katie couldn’t see how anything good could come of losing Jordan. Or, of being stalked by a deranged man.

She shuddered, then her eyes widened. “Ivy! My mother-in-law. He hit her with the gun. Is she all right? I need to know that Ivy is all right!”

Word came over the radio just then that the building was secure, the suspect was on the loose and one victim, Ivy Jameson, had come to and was being treated for a minor head injury.

“Thank God,” Katie said, the breath whooshing out of her.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tony murmured, his hand still on her arm. “We’ll get him.”

“I hope so,” she replied.

His gaze dropped from her face to her belly.

There was a smudge of dirt on her shirt.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, meeting her gaze again.

He had the darkest eyes she had ever seen. Nearly black, the irises all but melding with his pupils.

“I don’t think so,” she responded. The baby was turning cartwheels, little elbows and feet and hands jabbing and poking. She would be an active child, and Katie wondered if Jordan had been that way.

It bothered her that she didn’t know.

They’d known each other for only a few years. They’d met, dated and married so quickly, people had probably wondered at their rush.

“You aren’t sure?” Tony released her arm and turned her hands over, frowning as he eyed the scraped and bleeding flesh.

“I’m fine. I just... I’d be better if you were going after Martin. I want him caught.”

“We all do,” he replied. “I called in the direction Martin took. Police are all over Forest Park, looking for him.” He held her gaze for a moment, then motioned at a small group of medical personnel that had emerged from the building and were standing near the clinic’s door.

“We need some help over here,” he said.

A nurse rushed over.

That was no surprise.

Tony had a way of getting people to do what he wanted. He wasn’t manipulative. He wasn’t demanding. He simply had an air of confidence that people responded to.

“Mrs. Jameson!” the nurse cried. “I’m so glad you’re safe!”

“Me, too,” she murmured, suddenly faint, her heart galloping frantically. She couldn’t catch her breath, and she sat on the curb, the edges of her vision dark, sounds muted by the frantic rush of blood in her ears.

“Katie?” Tony said, his voice faint, his palm pressed to her cheek. She realized he was crouching in front of her, his face filled with concern. The nurse was beside her, checking the pulse in her wrist.

“I’m okay. I just want Martin caught.”

“Me, too.” He glanced toward the parking lot’s entrance. Several patrol cars were pulling in, with their lights and sirens on.

“You can go, if you want,” she said. “There are dozens of people around. Martin would never try to...”

She stopped, because she knew he would try anything to get to her. There was no telling what he might do. No one had imagined that he’d enter the clinic and go after her there, but he had. He had killed Jordan. He’d kill again to get what he wanted.

And, what he wanted was Katie.

Her pulse jumped at the thought, and her abdomen cramped with such surprising intensity, she gasped.

“Hun, are you okay?” the nurse asked, laying a hand on Katie’s stomach as if she knew exactly what was happening.

“Yes,” she replied, but she wasn’t certain.

“Feels like you’re having a contraction,” the nurse said.

“A contraction?” Tony frowned. “As in the baby is coming?”

“No. We’re a couple weeks out from that,” Katie managed to say.

The nurse smiled kindly. “The baby will come when he or she decides it’s time. If today is the day, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it.”

“Today can’t be the day,” Katie said.

“If it is, you’ll be fine and so will the baby. You’re at what? Thirty-six weeks? That’s early, but we deliver thirty-six-weekers all the time. They do remarkably well.” The nurse straightened and turned back toward the building. “I’ll get a wheelchair, and we’ll bring you back into the clinic, hook you up to a fetal monitor and see what’s going on.”

“Today can’t be the day,” Katie repeated, but the nurse was already hurrying away.

“She’s right,” Tony said quietly. “You and the baby will be okay. Even if she arrives today.”

“I don’t want to give birth until after Martin is caught.”

She didn’t want to give birth alone, either, but she didn’t tell him that. She hadn’t told anyone how afraid she was to go through this without Jordan.

“Like the nurse said, the baby will decide.” He smiled gently. “Noah just arrived. I’m going after Martin.”

He touched her cheek, then stood.

When he moved away, she could see her brother-in-law, the new chief of the K-9 Command Unit, rushing across the parking lot, his rottweiler partner, Scotty, bounding beside him.

“Katie!” Noah shouted, his expression and voice only hinting at the fear she knew he must be feeling. The baby she was carrying was the Jameson family’s last link to Jordan. She knew Jordan’s parents and three brothers cared about her, but the baby was blood.

“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 partner better than he knew the park or Queens or New York City. Rusty only growled when he sensed danger.