Searching for the Truth (Colorado K-9 Unit Book 1)

Chapter 1

ONE

Then she heard a muffled thump. Someone was in the house! Autumn moved quickly toward her bedroom door. Wrenching it open, she quickly peered down the short hallway.

A figure dressed in black, a hood covering his head, emerged from the kitchen.

“Stop! Police!” The warning barely left Autumn’s mouth when the figure whirled toward her, lifted a gun and fired.

She ducked back into the room as the bullet punctured the edge of the wall only a few inches from where she’d stood. Her heart pounded in her chest. This wasn’t the first time she’d been targeted by gunfire, but something like this had never taken place in her own home.

“Police!” she shouted again, then peered around the corner. The figure dressed in black had disappeared.

No! He was getting away!

“Come, Bear. Search.” Autumn rushed forward, holding her weapon ready.

Seeing how the back door leading into her kitchen hung ajar, she raced toward it, then barreled into the cold darkness.

Puffs of steam formed in the air with every breath.

Her house was located on a dead-end street at the southern part of the city.

Far enough from the downtown area to give her some peace of mind, but that fact worked against her now.

Up ahead, she caught the faint outline of a person running away. “Stop! Police!”

Her shout only caused the intruder to turn and fire at her again. She ducked instinctively, grinding her teeth together, annoyed with this guy’s recklessness. Thankfully, shooting while on the run wasn’t as easy as it appeared on TV. The last shot missed her by a mile.

Unlike the one inside the house, which had come too close for comfort.

Her gut was telling her this was more than just a random robbery.

In her experience, most burglars didn’t fire weapons at the homeowners.

Determined not to let this perp get away, she put on a burst of speed, trying to close the gap.

Bear easily kept up with his long body and droopy ears.

She loved her K-9, who was excellent at his job of tracking live perps and finding cadavers, but Bear wasn’t exactly an attack dog known for his high-speed chases.

Still, the dog could go for miles at his usual pace, if needed. “Search, Bear! Find him!”

Her dedicated K-9 loped beside her, sweeping his nose along the ground, gathering scent particles with his long ears and jowls.

Headlights pierced the darkness—a car coming down the road behind her.

Autumn wondered if the perp had an accomplice, but surprisingly the figure in black abruptly veered off in the opposite direction. Moving away from the oncoming lights.

Also away, Autumn noticed, from the downtown area of Canyon Creek, Colorado.

The lights of the oncoming car grew brighter now, making it easier for her to see the figure in black. She wanted to tell the driver to get away, to stay back out of the line of fire, but doubted they’d be able to hear her.

Then the car passed by, the headlights illuminating the perp as he ran through an open field toward the wooded area of the park beyond. As much as she appreciated the driver’s efforts to help her catch the intruder, the last thing she wanted was for a civilian to get hurt on her watch.

She tried to wave the driver of the pickup truck away, but just then the figure in black turned and fired at the truck. The sound of a bullet striking glass echoed through the night. She ground her teeth hard enough to crack. This was exactly what she was afraid of!

The truck swerved but kept going. She put on another burst of speed, desperate to catch up.

Bear stayed close, his nose hot on the scent.

The car abruptly pulled off to the side of the road, and a tall man swiftly emerged from behind the wheel.

Then he darted after the perp, who had disappeared from her line of sight.

“Stay back!” Her heart was lodged in her throat at the risk this citizen was taking on her behalf.

There was another crack of gunfire, causing the tall man to drop to the ground.

Then she heard the distant sound of a car engine and knew the perp was about to get away.

“Stay back, Bear. Stop! Stop the chase!” Bear couldn’t catch up to a car.

She quickly reached the tall man’s side, breathing heavily as she knelt beside him. “Are you hit?”

“No.” The man lifted his head, his expression grim. With his profile illuminated in the headlights, she easily recognized him.

“Jordan Clarke?” She frowned as the handsome, dark-haired local rancher pushed himself upright.

Jordan’s estranged half sister had been missing for well over eight months now.

She knew him because Jordan showed up on a weekly basis at the Canyon Creek precinct requesting an update on the case. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“Trying to help.” He sounded frustrated as he brushed dirt from his jean-clad legs. He wore a canvas jacket over a Western-style shirt. “I didn’t want that guy to get away.”

She bit back a wave of annoyance. “You could have been hurt—or worse.”

He scowled. “And maybe if more people got involved when they saw something bad going down, Jenny wouldn’t still be missing.”

It was a fair point, and normally she applauded the see-something, say-something efforts of the public. A handful of crimes had been solved by someone stepping forward with seemingly random information. But not when she was chasing down an armed perp who’d broken into her house.

Her house. Just thinking the words was sobering. Did the hooded intruder know the house he’d broken into belonged to a cop? Or had her home, which was admittedly somewhat isolated from the rest, been targeted at random?

Based on the weird feeling of being watched over the past few days, Autumn was leaning toward the intruder not choosing her home on a whim.

As a cop, she’d arrested several perps over the past few years. But none who stood out as someone who would do something like this.

“I saw you running and thought I’d lend a hand.” Jordan frowned grimly. “I didn’t realize the guy was armed until he shot at my truck.”

“Yeah, which is why I tried to get you to stay back.” She drew in a ragged breath. “I appreciate your efforts, but why are you out here at three in the morning, anyway?” She couldn’t hide her irritation.

“Just driving around looking for Jenny. I do that a lot when I can’t sleep. Is that a crime?” Jordan sounded testy, too.

“No, it’s not.” She swallowed a sigh, feeling bad for him.

“Bear!” She turned to scan the darkness for her K-9.

She’d called him off the search, but had he kept going?

She frowned, shivering when the breeze kicked up.

Her long-sleeved T-shirt did not offer much protection against the chilly spring Colorado wind. “Bear! Here, boy!”

“I thought I saw your dog. Wait, is that him over there?” Jordan gestured to toward their left. “Looks like something has caught his attention.”

She turned to find Bear stretched out on his belly, his nose touching a mound of rocks. Then he lifted his snout to the air and let out a baying sound.

His alert? She frowned, glanced at Jordan then broke into a run to reach her dog.

“What is it, boy?” She peered at the rocky area through the darkness, wishing she had her flashlight. The rocks didn’t appear to have been recently disturbed, but they were also grouped together in an odd fashion. Almost as if they’d been stacked there on purpose. “What did you find?”

Even as she asked the question, she already knew the answer. During his scent-tracking training, Bear had shown an affinity for being a cadaver dog, too. His alerting here in the middle of an otherwise empty field could only mean one thing.

Her talented K-9 had found a dead body buried beneath the rocks.

* * *

The tiny hairs on the back of Jordan Clarke’s neck lifted in alarm as he followed Autumn Riley to where her dog was stretched out on the ground. He could tell by Autumn’s body language the dog hadn’t stumbled onto this spot by accident.

“Stay back, Jordan.” Autumn’s harsh tone had him stopping dead in his tracks. “I’m sorry, but you can’t come any closer.”

“Why not?” He noticed she was shivering in the cold, wearing nothing but a light gray T-shirt and matching leggings with her running shoes. “What did he find?”

“I’m not sure. But this is likely a crime scene.” She grimaced and took a few steps back from her dog. “Actually, I need to borrow your phone.”

“Uh, sure.” He pulled the device from his pocket and held it out for her.

Jordan wanted to ask what sort of crime had been committed, but her shivering distracted him.

Spinning on his heel, he strode back to his pickup truck.

The cracked windshield made him angry, but he told himself to be glad the damage wasn’t worse.

He found his spare jacket from the back seat, and quickly carried it over to Autumn.

He remembered seeing her at the Canyon Creek Police Department when he’d stopped in for his weekly update on his sister’s disappearance.

A rather futile effort on his part, as every single time Detective Peters bluntly told him that nothing had changed.

That the Canyon Creek police did not believe his half sister was missing due to foul play.

Apparently, going missing at the age of nineteen and newly pregnant after being dumped by her boyfriend was perfectly acceptable as far as the local police were concerned.

According to the detective, girls who were at odds with their families often picked up and moved to avoid conflict.

Peters insisted they had no reason to suspect Jennifer had been taken against her will.