Chapter 2

Someone had blown up the police department.

It was bad enough starting a new job in a strange town, but it was even worse to find a charred shell where the department was supposed to be. Kit glanced at the printout of the most recent email from her new chief, but the address listed hadn’t changed from the last time she’d been there: 101 Pickard Street, Monroe, Colorado. It was the same as what was printed on the Monroe Police Department sign—the sign directing her into the empty parking lot butted up against the blackened skeleton that, not too long ago, had been a functioning police station. Just a few months earlier, she’d been interviewed in there. It was surreal to see the burnt wreck it was now.

Justice whined from the back seat, and she reached back to pet his silky, floppy ears. “I know, buddy. As soon as I find what’s going on, we can finally get out of this car.”

Pulling away from the curb, Kit headed back toward the town’s main street. There had been a half-hearted effort made to plow, but several inches of packed snow still covered the roads, making her grateful for her SUV’s all-wheel drive. She slowly headed toward downtown, figuring that Monroe was small enough that any random townsperson would know where the police department had moved. She just needed to find that person.

Like everyone else in the country, she’d heard the news about the drug lord’s attack on this tiny mountain town just a few weeks ago, but she was shocked by the extent of the damage. She’d interviewed with the Monroe police chief over three months ago, when the tiny town was still intact and bustling with tourists. Monroe had seemed like a perfect escape then, with quaint shops lining downtown and quiet streets dotted with cedar-sided cabins. Set in a valley and surrounded by snow-peaked mountains with bright yellow aspen trees scattered over the slopes, the town could’ve been used as a movie set.

Now, as she drove slowly through that same downtown, the difference was shocking.

The general store was gone, as was the diner, both just blackened holes in the line of shops. Most of the other places had closed signs in the windows, and the streets and sidewalks were empty. It still looked like a movie set, just one with a post-apocalyptic plotline now—probably involving zombies.

Despite the cold, Kit rolled down her window several inches so she could hear what was going on outside her car. It was a habit she’d developed while patrolling, and now, even though she wasn’t technically on duty, she felt uneasy with the windows up. The silence was eerie.

The town was too quiet for seven on a weekday morning. People should’ve been heading to work and getting their kids to school, but there was no one in sight. The only sound was her SUV engine and the crunch of snow under her tires.

As she passed a shuttered restaurant, the VFW parking lot came into view, and she sat straighter. A dozen or so cars—including two squad cars—were scattered throughout the lot.

“Look, Justice,” she said, glancing in the rearview mirror to see that the bloodhound was sitting up, ears perked as he looked out the window. “Actual people. I was beginning to think that we’d stumbled into a horror movie.”

She pulled into the lot, backing into a space next to one of the squad cars. A Belgian Malinois in the back stood up and started barking, and Justice’s tail thumped against the seat. He’d never met another dog he didn’t like.

Kit smiled as she got out of her SUV. After driving through the creepy, bombed out town, it was reassuring to see another dog. Being part of the K9 unit was her life—at least, it had been. She didn’t feel so much like the last remaining survivor on earth anymore.

After checking to make sure Justice’s heater was on, she carefully made her way across the snowy, icy lot to the VFW entrance. As she stepped inside, she removed her sunglasses and stayed in the entry for a minute, allowing her eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight reflecting off the snow outside to the dim interior. It smelled like every VFW she’d ever been in—a mixture of musty old building, years of cigarette smoke, and home-style food.

She followed the sounds of chatter and the scent of bacon into a dining area that looked as if it had been converted into some sort of restaurant. Remembering the destroyed diner down the street, she wondered if this was where they’d relocated. Scanning the patrons, her gaze immediately caught on a table with three uniformed cops, and she headed in their direction.

People quieted as she moved through the dining area, weaving between tables, and the cops spotted her quickly. All three were men, and Kit wondered if there were many women on this small-town force. She hoped so. Although she’d been in the minority at her last department, they’d had a great group of female cops. The thought of being one of only a few women in a sea of guys was daunting.

None of the cops watching her were smiling. Automatically, her shoulders drew back and she raised her chin a little, striding confidently to their table. If she was one of a few or—God forbid—the only woman at her new department, it was especially important to show them right off the bat that she could hold her own.

As she got closer, the guys got bigger, and she swallowed a groan. At a few inches over five feet, she was going to be dwarfed by them. She made a mental note to find whatever gym this town had as soon as possible. She might not be able to grow any taller, but she could always get stronger.

By the time she reached the cops’ table, the diner was quiet except for the occasional clink of a coffee mug hitting a saucer and the sizzle of food cooking on the grill in the kitchen. With a mental grimace, she realized that she was going to become the crowd’s morning entertainment. Welcome to small-town life.

“Hi.” She held out her hand to the closest cop, who happened to be the biggest one. “I’m Kit Jernigan. I accepted a job with the Monroe PD. Today’s my first day.”

He studied her for a moment before accepting her outstretched hand. He looked reserved and wary, but not hostile, and Kit took that as a good sign. “Otto Gunnersen.”

Turning to the man sitting next to Otto, she offered her hand again.

This one had a shaved head, and he introduced himself as Hugh Murdoch as they shook hands. He studied her with a slight upward twist of his mouth, and she kept her expression bland, hoping he wouldn’t turn out to be an asshole. Smirking was rarely a sign of a pleasant personality. Not really wanting to hear what smart-ass comment was going to come out of his mouth, she quickly turned to the last cop, the one with dark hair and eyes and a hard cast to his face.

He waited the longest before shaking her hand, but she refused to flinch, just holding his gaze while keeping her hand extended. Finally, he accepted it, giving a firm shake. “Theo Bosco. Have a seat.”

She remained standing, knowing that these three would make her grueling hiring interview seem like friendly chit-chat. “It’s my first day, so I should check in with the chief. I just stopped in to get directions to the police station—the new location.”

“Right across the street,” Hugh said, typing something on his phone as he used his foot to slide out the chair across from him. “Sit. I’ve sent a text to the chief to let him know you’re with us. Roll call’s in a half hour, and Theo and I will be starting our shift then. We’ll show you where to go—well, the two of us will. Otto’s on nights, so he’s done.”

Resigned to her fate, Kit took the chair they offered, and a pretty server hurried over. The other diners had gradually started talking again, and the noise level returned to its earlier volume.

“Good morning. Coffee?” At Kit’s nod, the waitress poured her a cup and then moved to the other side of the table to top off all the others’ mugs. Kit watched as she worked, wondering why the waitress seemed so nervous. Even when she was in uniform, Kit knew her appearance wasn’t intimidating—not like these three burly cops—but the waitress kept giving her anxious glances.

Once everyone’s coffee mug was full, she stopped next to Theo’s chair. When he rested a hand on her lower back, she seemed to relax slightly, giving him a sweet smile before turning back to Kit. “Would you like a menu?”

“Coffee’s fine, thanks.” She gave the server a smile, figuring that would be the end of the conversation, but the woman lingered.

“Are you a reporter? I hate to ask, but everyone is going to harass me all day if I can’t answer their questions about you.” The server’s words were rushed and thick with a Southern drawl. Her nerves were obvious, even if her fingers hadn’t been clamped so tightly around the coffee pot’s handle that her knuckles had turned white. “Most of the news crews left last week, but we don’t see many other strangers around here, especially now.” Her laugh was quick and jittery. “Monroe isn’t really a tourist destination at the moment.”

Theo gave Kit a look she couldn’t interpret before turning to the waitress. “Jules,” he said soothingly, rubbing her back in small circles, “she’s not a reporter.”

“The newspeople were everywhere last week,” Hugh explained to Kit. “Like a plague of camera-toting locusts. I couldn’t go anywhere without having a microphone jammed in my face and some well-coiffed journalist demanding to know how I felt about the town exploding. It was like twenty-four-hour mandatory counseling.”

Otto grunted in what sounded like agreement, but Theo raised his eyebrows. “Well-coiffed?”

“What?” Leaning back in his chair, Hugh gave a slight, pained wince. It was so quick that Kit wondered if she’d imagined it. “Are you mocking my excellent vocabulary?”

“Yes.” Even though he was looking at Hugh, Theo continued rubbing Jules’s back.

When Hugh started to respond, Otto cleared his throat gently.

“Right,” Hugh said. “Back on track. Jules, meet Monroe’s newest K9 officer, Kit Jernigan.”

Jules jerked slightly, and Kit was pretty sure she would’ve taken a step back if Theo’s hand hadn’t been there. Kit studied the woman carefully, wondering why that information had scared the waitress. If appearances were correct, Jules was dating Theo and was friends with the other two, so the presence of one more cop shouldn’t have been frightening. For some reason, though, it was. Although she tried to hide it, Jules was visibly nervous.

“Nice to meet you.” Kit tried to keep her tone low-key and friendly, but Jules still looked like she thought Kit was about to leap out of her chair and grab her.

“Hi.” Jules attempted a smile, but it trembled at the edges before collapsing completely. “Welcome to Monroe—what’s left of it, at least.” She turned her head, glancing behind her. “I’d better get back to work.”

As she started to move away, Theo caught the hand not clutching the coffeepot. “Jules.”

She smiled at him, but gently slipped free and headed for the kitchen. Theo watched her go before turning back to Kit. He didn’t look happy. “Where are you from?” he demanded.

She had been expecting this. “Gold Mill, Wisconsin.”

“PD or county?”

“Police.”

“How long?”

“Eight years.”

“All with the same department?”

“Yes.”

“Why’d you leave?”

For the first time in their rapid-fire exchange, Kit hesitated. After numerous interviews, she should’ve been used to the question, but it still managed to throw her off guard, kicking up the same cloud of bitterness and grief it always did. It took a few seconds before she recovered enough to pull out her stock answer. “There was an incident that created some bad feelings. It was time for a fresh start.”

From the look on Theo’s face, he’d noticed her hesitation, and Kit knew the topic would come up again. Next time, he wouldn’t let her get by on vague generalities. “Why here?”

“Gold Mill has about eighty thousand people and a huge opioid problem. After dealing with that for eight years, I was…tired.” She almost laughed at the understatement. “When I interviewed with the chief in early September, Monroe seemed like a nice place, a peaceful place, somewhere I could be part of the community that I served. Plus, I like snowboarding, and it’s much more fun here than the tiny hills we consider ski resorts in the Midwest.” She attempted a smile at the last bit, but none of the other three returned it, so it quickly faded.

Her apprehension from driving around the bombed-out town had faded when she’d entered the VFW, but now it returned in a rush. These were her fellow officers, the people who were going to have her back when she was in a life-threatening situation—or they were supposed to be, at least. By the way they were staring at her, they’d just as soon toss her off the nearest cliff than work with her. She’d expected it to take a while before she integrated into the department, but she hadn’t thought there’d be such instant resistance.

“Yeah, peaceful.” Hugh huffed a laugh as he shifted in his chair and winced again. This time, Kit knew she hadn’t imagined it.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and all humor immediately disappeared from his face. “Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine.” The words came out with a sharp snap.

Otto turned his head toward Hugh. “What’s wrong? Is it your arm?”

“No. My arm’s fine.”

“The cast just came off two days ago.” By his concerned frown, it didn’t look like Otto believed his partner’s denial. “Shouldn’t you have it in a sling?”

Hugh let his head fall back in an exaggerated motion. “It’s fine. Want me to prove it?” He smirked at Otto. “I could punch you in the nuts, and then you could tell me if you think it’s healed enough.”

Although Otto didn’t look too concerned about the threat, he stopped grousing and turned to Kit. She braced herself for more questions. Of the three, this one made Kit the wariest, maybe because he’d been so quiet this far. “You’re K9?”

“Yes.” She was much happier to be talking about dogs than what had happened at her old department. “For the past six years. After working with a K9 partner, I could never go back.”

Otto didn’t smile, but he looked slightly less serious, so Kit decided it was close enough. “Bet it was hard to leave your dog.”

“I didn’t.” She grinned, still thrilled that everything had worked out as it had—even despite the apocalyptic state of her new town. She’d found Justice at a rescue a year ago, and she’d done all of his training, so she would’ve been heartbroken to leave him behind. “My bloodhound came with me. Chief Bayard agreed he’d be an asset, so I bought him from my old department.” They’d given her a really good deal, which hadn’t surprised her. No one she’d worked with had been too impressed with Justice. Training him had been a long, slow slog, but it had been worth it.

All three cops eyed her with renewed interest. “Patrol?” Theo asked.

“No.” The memory of that complete fail made her grimace. “He doesn’t have the drive. He’s an amazing tracker, though.”

“We don’t have any trackers,” Hugh said, rubbing his arm. Kit was pretty sure that he wasn’t aware he was doing it. He seemed to be a show-no-weakness kind of guy.

“We do now,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. It’d take time before they accepted her, she knew that, but sitting through this tense mini-interview with her new partners made her realize just how much it was going to suck until they did. Quickly shoving away the thought, she reminded herself that it couldn’t be any worse than the past six months at her old department.

Hugh made a noncommittal sound just as Theo glanced at the entrance. “Incoming.”

Resisting the urge to duck at his warning—which she felt she couldn’t be blamed for, considering the current state of the town—Kit followed his gaze to the door. A tall, beautiful woman in a down coat, skinny jeans, and amazing boots that Kit instantly coveted walked in. After giving their table a quick, guilty glance, she made a beeline for the kitchen, tipping her head forward so that her hair—glossy and ink-black—fell forward to hide her face.

“Gra-cie,” Hugh called out in a singsong, but she didn’t turn or even look at him.

Theo snorted. “What’d you do to piss off Grace?”

“Nothing.” Hugh stood up, his lips tightening slightly as he got to his feet. Although Kit recognized the pain that flashed across his face for a microsecond, she didn’t mention it this time. He hadn’t seemed to appreciate it when she asked about his arm earlier, and she didn’t want to compound her mistake. “Everything was bubbles and puppies when I saw her last night. Something’s up.”

As Hugh started to weave his way through the tables toward Grace, Jules came out of the kitchen, and Grace nearly ran toward her.

Theo gave a long, drawn-out groan. “Jules is involved?” He got up and followed Hugh.

Glancing toward Otto, Kit saw he was tapping at his phone, frowning.

“What’s going on?” she asked, feeling lost. It hit her how much she’d have to figure out—a new job, a new town, all these new people—and she was suddenly overwhelmed. In Gold Mill, even though it was a much bigger community than Monroe, she knew people, knew the players on both the shady and the bright sides, knew who to go to for information, knew where to find the suspects when they bolted, knew which people to check on to make sure they had food and heat, knew who to trust and who to listen to with a high degree of skepticism. The amount that she’d need to learn about Monroe and its citizens seemed momentous.

“Guess we’ll see.” Despite Otto’s calm, even tone, the line between his eyebrows deepened as he glanced at his phone again.

Figuring she wasn’t going to get any information out of him, she turned her attention to the other four. After a short, intense conversation with Grace, Jules peeled away and delivered the food she was carrying to a family sitting at a table in the corner. Although Theo stopped several feet away, he still seemed to be looming over her. As she passed him on her way back to the kitchen, she smiled, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, not seeming at all intimidated by the looming. They exchanged a few quick words that Kit couldn’t make out before Jules patted his arm and hurried away. After watching her for a few broody seconds, Theo started back toward their table.

Hugh, it appeared, was having a much more exciting time of it. He and the very stylish-looking woman—Grace, he’d called her—were having a low-voiced argument that involved a lot of dramatic gestures and facial expressions. Watching them, Kit was positive that they were together—or had been very recently. No one argued that passionately unless there was some chemistry involved.

Kit turned her attention back to their table as Theo sat in his recently vacated seat. He looked even crankier than he had before the mini-drama. When Otto raised his eyebrows in question, Theo gave an irritated shrug.

“She’s going to fill me in later.”

“About what?” Otto asked.

“News.”

“What kind of news?”

Theo’s frown deepened as he took a drink of coffee. He even drank angrily, Kit noticed, trying not to smile. “She didn’t say.” Glancing at Hugh and Grace, Theo scowled. “Doesn’t look like Hugh knows, either.”

“Sarah knows.” Otto held up his cell phone for a moment, face-out, and Kit saw a screen full of texts. “Says she’ll tell me about it when she gets home from work this afternoon.” He dropped the phone back into his pocket.

“Work?” Theo asked Otto, although his gaze found Jules and followed her around the dining area. “The general store is gone. Where’s she working?”

“Grady’s house. She’s helping him with his insurance paperwork,” Otto said absently as Hugh returned, dropping into his chair with an exaggerated scowl that Kit suspected hid a wince of pain. She glanced over to the door to see Grace leaving the dining area.

“That woman is incredibly stubborn.”

Theo gave Hugh an incredulous look. “You’re just learning this now?”

“She needs to be,” Otto said mildly. “You’d steamroll anyone who wasn’t.”

With a gasp, Hugh clutched his chest as if mortally wounded by Otto’s words. When no one else reacted, Hugh dropped his hand and shrugged affirmatively. “That’s probably true. Did either of you get any information?”

“No.” Theo had mellowed slightly, but the reminder made him scowl again. “She said later.”

Hugh grunted. “I didn’t even get that promise. All I got was a ‘mind your business.’ Obviously, she’s forgotten that everything is my business—everything interesting, at least. My curiosity is hungry and must be fed. Otto? Anything from the lovely Sarah?”

Otto shook his head silently.

“It has to be a new arri—” Hugh cut off so quickly that Kit was pretty sure someone had kicked him under the table. He turned to eye Kit with a thoughtful gleam in his gaze, one that made her want to scoot back a little, to keep from being sucked into his shenanigans. Her younger sister, Casey, had a look very similar to that, and it had gotten Kit into a lot of trouble when she was little—a lot of fun, maybe, but mostly a lot of trouble. From Hugh’s expression, Kit guessed he was even more of an imp than Casey had been.

He smiled, and her suspicions quadrupled. “Let’s go, greenie.”

Although she had to press her tongue against the back of her teeth to keep from telling him that she was not green, that she’d had eight years of experience in a much bigger and busier town than this bombed-out little hamlet, Kit managed to stay silent as she stood.

“Where are we going?” The suspicion in Theo’s voice confirmed it. Hugh was planning something that would get them into trouble. So much for having a quiet first day consisting of filling out forms and getting measured for her uniform.

The way Hugh widened his eyes in a look of innocence made Kit brace herself and Theo groan. “We’re giving our newest officer a tour of the town, of course. We could start at Jules’s place. See if any…old friends happened to stop by for a visit.”

“If you wait until this afternoon, Sarah will tell me what’s going on,” Otto said.

“I’ve always been bad at waiting.” Hugh headed for the door, and Kit followed, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Bending the rules was sometimes necessary when it was the right thing to do, but she had planned to stay out of trouble at her new job—at least on her first day. The problem was that she didn’t know enough about the situation or Hugh to make a judgment. She glanced over her shoulder at Theo, hoping he’d be the voice of reason.

Instead of trying to rein in his partner, though, Theo was wearing a look of grim determination. With a silent sigh, Kit ignored her instincts and followed Hugh out of the diner. It looked like she needed to start trusting her new partners. Hopefully, they wouldn’t get her killed…at least not on her first day.