Kurt (The K9 Files Book 12)

by Dale Mayer

  “Go back inside,” he said, “and stay. Don’t make a sound.”

  She looked up at him. “Did he come?”

  “He is here,” Kurt said, in that superquiet voice of his. “I don’t want you getting in the middle. Please, go inside and stay.”

  She nodded, softly closed the door, and sat on the bed. And immediately felt trapped. Nothing quite like a closed door, knowing that all kinds of hell were going on outside, to disturb your peace and quiet. But she didn’t know what she could do to help. Then Kurt also had Sabine, which Laurie Ann hadn’t seen or heard just now. She frowned. Maybe the dog was also scared. Maybe it had been through too much and was no good as a watchdog anymore.

  Her heart immediately melted, thinking about the hardship the dog might have gone through, and, of course, Laurie Ann couldn’t do anything about it right now. But, as she sat on the side of her bed, every sound she heard was amplified. Front of the house, back of the house, she heard every little creak, every little whisper, every little groan, as the night air changed temperature.

  She got up, grabbed her robe that she had brought into the room with her, put her socks back on to keep her feet warm, and padded over to the window, where she peeked out from behind the curtains. It was dark and stormy. Of course it was. Why couldn’t it be a bird-singing night and a clear early dawn? Instead it was cloudy and gray and ugly outside. But as she watched and studied the street, she noted a car she didn’t recognize was on the street outside the neighbor’s house up one. She pulled out her phone and sent Kurt a text, letting him know. She hoped the sound on his cell was off, in case he was waiting for the intruder.

  He responded immediately. Good, keep an eye on it.

  And, with that, she settled in for the wait. Because, if that guy was waiting for his partner, then she wanted to make sure that he didn’t get away either. But she had no way of seeing the license plate. She didn’t dare go downstairs, and she couldn’t take a useful picture of it from here. She had tried and took several blurry ones but couldn’t zoom in close enough. It was an old Oldsmobile, as far as she could see. But that in itself was a unique vehicle. At least they weren’t that common in her day and age. As she stayed and waited, she kept listening and turning toward the other rooms to see if she heard anything happening. Every time she found nothing.

  Finally she wondered what would happen if she walked over to the door and opened it. As she reached out and touched it, the knob turned under her hand. She slid behind the door. When it opened, a large hairy hand moved inside. She knew it wasn’t Kurt. And then all kinds of possibilities came to her, but the head just poked in, looked around at the room, and then popped back out again. She let her breath out ever-so-slowly.

  Dear God, what had happened to Kurt? Where was he? What had happened? And she couldn’t even breathe, thinking that the stranger was already in the house. How the hell had he gotten in?

  And while she tried to figure out what she should do, staring down at the 9-1-1 already keyed in on her phone, she heard sounds outside her door in the hallway—a series of thuds and a growl and another series of thuds and then complete silence. She held her breath, her eyes closed, as she crouched in the corner.

  “Laurie Ann, it’s okay. Open the door.”

  She immediately opened the door and bolted into the hallway and stared at him. The intruder was on the ground, and he looked to be unconscious, but Kurt stood tall, bare-chested, just his jeans on, the dog sitting at his side, looking down at the intruder. Laurie Ann raced forward and threw her arms around Kurt’s neck. His arms closed tightly around her, and he just held her close. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, “he came into my room.”

  “Well, he poked his head in, yes,” he said. “Don’t worry. He wouldn’t have gotten any farther because I was right behind him.”

  She let out her breath. “I was so scared,” she said. “I figured the only way that he would be coming into my room was if something had happened to you.”

  “No, I was trying to see what he would do, but, as he went through the master bedroom, and then realized that you weren’t there, he carried on. And that’s why I was trying to see if he would check every room, which he did. He checked your son’s room, and then he checked the spare room.”

  “So he was looking for me?”

  “I think so,” he said. “I’m not sure what else to make of it.”

  “But why?” she asked. “I didn’t have anything to do with anything.”

  “Except for those five gang members,” he reminded her.

  She winced at that. “That’s a scary thought,” she said. “Nobody really wants to think that a conversation like that will go down a path to this end.”

  “Exactly,” he said. He rolled the stranger over, and she hit the light switch on the wall.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, “it’s one of the five kids from that gang.”

  “Yep,” he said, “it is.” He took a photo of the kid and then said, “Shut that light off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll go down and have a little talk with the guy who drove him here.” And, with Sabine in tow, Kurt left the intruder securely tied up, and he said, “Don’t touch him. If he wakes up, don’t even talk to him. The cops are on the way.”

  She hesitated.

  He looked at her and said, “He can’t get loose. I promise.”

  She took in a long slow breath. “That’s fine,” she said. She walked over to Jeremy’s room, picked up his favorite baseball bat, and brought it back with her. “If he wakes up, he’s got me to contend with.”

  Kurt gave a bark of laughter and said, “That’s my girl.” And he raced downstairs.

  Laurie Ann had always been full of grit like that. Kurt loved it. Loved her. Always had. He was just a fool for not even realizing it. It had taken a trip back here for him to figure out what was important in his life, and, now that he found it, he didn’t want to lose it. She was just too damn special. And he would do an awful lot to keep her and his son safe and in his life.

  He made his way downstairs, and, instead of going out the front door, he went out the back door. Keeping the dog close to his side, loving the fact that she was so well trained that she understood even his rough commands, he let himself out the side gate and headed behind the neighbor’s house and down one more. Only her place was fenced; the others just had trees dotting their backyards. And when he got past the car, he stepped out on the front walk and then strolled along the sidewalk casually, as if nothing was on his mind. He checked out the vehicle. It was a dark-colored old Oldsmobile. That, in itself, was interesting because you didn’t see too many of them. They were gas guzzlers of the ’80s.

  As he walked closer, approaching the trunk of the car, he appeared to look at the vehicle, as if it were something unusual—which, in this day and age, it was.

  As he stopped to look at it and stepped around it, checking out the tires and the hub cabs, the driver stuck his head out the car window and said, “Keep moving, old man.”

  He looked his way, smiled at a face in the dark that he couldn’t see—and hopefully the driver couldn’t make out his face either—and said, “Just admiring the car.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you’ll never drive her,” he said with a laugh.

  Kurt thought he recognized that voice, but he couldn’t see the face, still in the shadows. “Hey, no harm done,” he said, lifting a hand. “Nice car.” Then he stepped back ever-so-slightly and, as he walked about midway along the car, he bent to take a closer look in the interior. And recognized the driver as one of the other kids who had attacked him.

  The kid looked at him, recognized him too. “You,” he snarled in fury.

  “Wow,” Kurt said, looking at him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Kurt turned, as if innocent, to look around and stopped
, stared, and, in a move that surprised the kid entirely, Kurt opened the passenger door, sat inside, and pulled the keys out of the ignition. All before the kid knew it was done.

  “Give those back,” the kid yelled, hitting and punching Kurt. Sabine immediately jumped in on top of them, growling at the kid.

  “I would stop doing that if I were you,” Kurt said.

  “Get the fuck out of here. I’ll have you arrested for this.”

  “Oh, is that right?” he said. “Arrested for what? For being the getaway driver as a crime was being committed?”

  The guy just stared at him, his eyes huge. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice squeaking.

  “You’re already out of your free passes,” he said. “It’s jail for you next time around.”

  “You don’t know anything about it,” he said.

  “Yeah, I do,” Kurt snapped. “I was once here, and you seem to be determined to follow in my footsteps, but I got out, and you won’t. Bad choice to be here tonight.”

  “I’m just parked, man. I don’t have anything to do with nothing.”

  “You can try telling the cops that,” he said.

  “What do you mean, cops?”

  “They are on the way, in case you didn’t know.”

  He shook his head. “I have to get out of here. I can’t do no cops.”

  “Well, you could if you had keys, but you can’t, so too bad.”

  And with that, he stepped back out of the vehicle with the dog. The kid hopped out and said, “Gimme my keys, asshole.”

  “Nope, I’m not. You’re sitting here as part of a crime being committed,” he said. “I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

  “I don’t have anything to do with anything. It’s not my deal. He asked for a ride, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, and you’re sitting here, waiting for him to come back out, after he kills an innocent woman.”

  “She’s not fucking innocent,” he snapped.

  “No, maybe not.” At that, he heard other neighbors coming out on their doorsteps. “You see? Look at the commotion you’re causing.”

  “I’m not causing anything. Gimme my keys,” he roared. He turned to one of the neighbors. “This guy, this asshole, stole my keys.”

  One of the neighbors came down, half-dressed, a robe around his chest. He looked at Kurt. “Is that true?”

  “He’s the getaway car for a break-in two houses down—the doctor,” he said. “We already caught the intruder and came out looking to see who his partner was. Cops are on the way.”

  At that, the older man turned and looked at the kid. “Punk-ass kids. They don’t even know how to work for a living anymore, and they just want to steal everything.”

  The kid glared at him. “I don’t know what this guy’s talking about.”

  “I don’t know about that. You just said something about she’s not innocent. Did you go in and attack that poor woman? After all she’s done raising her own kid so he becomes a decent citizen of the world. She’s a doctor for Christ’s sake. Who’ll look after you when you end up in the hospital?”

  “Nobody’ll look after me,” he roared. “I’ll rule the world. You guys are all assholes and need to die. You’re all useless.”

  The older man looked at the punk and said, “Right, like we haven’t heard that before. Petulant bloody kids, that’s what it is.” He turned to look at Kurt. “You okay with this guy? I want to go in and get a shower and get away from the stench.”

  “Go for it,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You with her?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I’ll be around a lot now.”

  “Good,” he said, “we don’t need any more of these guys.” And, with that, he shot the kid another look and said, “Let me know if we need to call more cops,” he said.

  In the distance they heard the sirens coming closer. The kid started to scream again. “Gimme my keys! Gimme my keys!”

  “Nope. Not going to,” Kurt said. “So you can either run and I’ll come after you and tackle you to the ground,” he said, “or you can just sit here and take your punishment, like a man. But, of course, you’re not a man,” he said. “You’re nothing but a punk headed for juvie.”

  “I’m not going to juvie.”

  “No, you’re probably not,” he said. “You’ll go to adult court now,” he said. “You’ve mucked up and lost all the goodwill that’s available. We’ll see how you like jail.”

  “I’m not going to jail,” he said. “No way.”

  “Yeah, why is that?”

  “I’ve got protection,” he said.

  “Protection? You mean the guy who is in the hospital?”

  “He was in the hospital, asshole,” he said with a sneer. “You don’t know anything.”

  “No, maybe not,” he said, “but I do know that you made the mistake of coming after this woman,” he said, “and, for that, I’ll make sure you go down.”

  “You don’t know nothing,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “It’s just a matter of time,” he said, “but that’s okay. I can see that you don’t understand how life really works. Not too smart of you though.”

  The cops pulled up where they stood, as Kurt talked to the punk. And, sure enough, the detective was in one of the two cars. He got out, glared at Kurt, and then looked at the punk. His eyebrows shot up. “What’s this?”

  The punk immediately jumped in. “He stole my car keys.”

  At that, the neighbor came stomping back down. “No, he didn’t,” he said.

  And then the detective faced both of them.

  “He’s the getaway car for the asshole tied up in Laurie Ann’s house,” Kurt said, his arms crossed over his chest. “That one broke in her house.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Well, when I said to this one that he went in to kill an innocent woman, this asshole here jumped in and said she wasn’t innocent.”

  At that, the detective’s face turned a thunderous color, and he glared at the kid. “Three strikes and you’re out. You know that, right? Now you’re involved in a felony crime.”

  “Nobody got hurt,” he snapped. “He was just doing a little R&D for a B&E job.”

  “Says you.” Amos grabbed him and hauled him to the cruiser. Amos looked back at Kurt. “Where’s the other guy?”

  “In the house still with Laurie Ann,” he said.

  He studied him for a long moment. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I left him tied up and unconscious, and she was sitting there with a baseball bat, standing guard, so I’m pretty sure, yeah,” he said, “but you can follow me.”

  With that, the detective put one of the other officers on the kid that he had in the back of his car, and then he followed Kurt into the house giving the dog a wide berth.

  Kurt called out, “Laurie Ann, you up there?”

  “I’m here. He’s still out cold,” she said. “Too damn bad because I’d like to pop him one myself.”

  He brought the detective upstairs. She glared at him. “You let the kids out, didn’t you? And look what they did.” The detective rolled the kid over, took one look at his face, and swore. Amos asked, “How badly hurt is he?”

  At that, the kid moaned. He opened his eyes and tried to straighten up but fell back because of the ties on his hands and ankles. He glared up at Kurt. “What the hell? What are you doing to me?”

  “Well, you broke into this lady’s house with all kinds of wonderful intentions,” Kurt said. “So we just made sure that you couldn’t fulfill any of them.”

  He shook the cobwebs from his brain, as he turned, finding Laurie Ann and the baseball bat in her hand, his gaze widened. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit,” Kurt said. “What do you expect when you come in here and attack a single woman? You gonna get upset when she defends herself?”

  “Hey, it was supposed to be a simple job,” he said, “just a little payback.”

 
; “Really?” he said. “A little payback for what?”

  He just shrugged. “For that scene at the parking lot.”

  “Yeah? Well, how do you feel about a little payback now?” she said in a threatening manner.

  He cringed, but he was already tied up and had no place to go.

  She looked at the detective and said, “So do you need any more to put this asshole away or will you just let him back out again?”

  He shrugged and said, “Again, three strikes out, so this guy will go to jail now.”

  “Nope, can’t,” he said. “I’m still a juvie.”

  “Nope, not now. Not with this kind of a record, you aren’t,” he said, “You’re considered eighteen.”

  “I’m seventeen,” he said quickly.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the detective said. “For something like this, you’ll be tried as an adult. Particularly if you came in here with a weapon.”

  “I didn’t,” he said, but his response was way too quick.

  At that, Kurt looked at her and asked, “Did you check your bedroom?”

  “I haven’t left him at all,” she said.

  Kurt motioned to the detective. “While he’s lying here, let’s go check her room where he came in.”

  “Hey, I didn’t come in with anything,” he said. “Anything you find is hers.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” the detective said. “We can get DNA off anything now.”

  And the kid started blustering with denials. As they walked into the bedroom, they stopped short because, there on the floor, he had a small hatchet and a handgun and rope in a canvas bag.

  “Why would he have dropped those here and then gone from room to room?” Amos asked, pulling on disposable gloves.

  “I suspect that he didn’t. They were either there for another purpose—or for a second intruder—or he figured that she would be easy to overcome, and then he could come back and deal with her.” He paused, looking at Amos. “You could always ask him,” he said, “but I think he was just too stupid to realize that he would need them against her.”

  “Is she the one who captured him?”