Ultimate Courage

by Piper J. Drake

  He stood there with Souze for a few more minutes, listening to the sounds of the men downstairs training. He needed to be sure he was in the here and now, not trapped back in places he’d left far behind. As a Navy SEAL, his missions had been in and out of hot spots, focused and comparatively short in length in terms of deployment. There wasn’t any one mission haunting him. They all did, in one way or the other. It made figuring out his own triggers a struggle, made every day an unknown minefield to navigate.

  When he was sure he was steady, he wiped the cold sweat from his brow and palms and pulled his tee on over his holster. Then he continued down the stairs, opening the door slowly.

  Revolution MMA was exactly the way it should be. The blinds were up, letting in the morning light, and four men were training hard on the mats. One of them was Cannon. Cannon must’ve left Souze to hang out loose downstairs without a placement command. Good thing he had.

  As Rojas stepped out, a couple of them gave him an upward chin jerk in greeting but didn’t pause in their timing drills.

  Rojas led Souze straight to the back door and let them both out into the open.

  They should head back to Hope’s Crossing Kennels, but he was steady now with Souze’s timely help, and there was still a pressing need for action.

  He had no doubts Elisa’s car would still be under surveillance. Even though there weren’t yet signs of someone tapping into the surveillance feeds at Revolution MMA, it was only a matter of time. Her stalker would likely hack into other stores with security coverage of the parking lot as well. Elisa hadn’t been back in a day or more as far as her stalker could tell, and efforts would increase in intensity to gain some sort of control over her again. If it’d been Rojas or any of his team monitoring a target, they’d have sent someone to keep direct eyes on the car.

  It was the most recently known connection to Elisa.

  So he started them on a long walk around the perimeter.

  “Time to work.” At his words, Souze’s posture changed from easygoing to alert.

  It was a familiar phrase, one Rojas used at the beginning of every training session with Souze. It let the big dog know they were getting to serious business.

  He and Souze made their way around the front of the building. At this time of the morning, there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic since most of the stores didn’t open for a couple more hours. But there were a few people walking along the main road and a few joggers.

  The two of them walked the length of the row of cars, stopping at Elisa’s and cutting between the driver’s side of her car and the one next to it. Rojas paused, mimicking searching his pocket for keys as he let Souze sniff around the cars. The big dog put his nose to the ground, followed a scent trail practically under Elisa’s car and up the side of it.

  Either the GSD had Elisa’s scent or the man who’d placed something on her car.

  Rojas faked looking in the window of the car he was facing, doing his best to look like a man who’d locked his keys in his car, then led Souze away. They headed straight out of the parking area up to Revolution MMA and went inside as if they belonged. Because they did. And it was much more natural-looking than their not-friend snooping around the cars the previous day.

  Stopping at the drink station, Rojas snagged a cup and let it fill with water. He wet his throat and then held the cup low for Souze. Summer heat was lingering even through the early fall and Souze’s nose would be more sensitive if the dog was well-hydrated. Besides, Rojas wanted to give anyone who might be watching time to relax somewhat after he’d been near the car.

  After a few minutes, he and Souze went back out the rear entrance and swung around the shopping strip from the opposite direction.

  “Such.” Rojas issued the command quietly, with a firm tone. The German word sounded like “tsuuk” where the K was almost silent. It was short, sharp, and Souze responded immediately.

  The big dog moved ahead of Rojas, stretching the lead. Systematically, the dog moved in a zigzag across the sidewalk as he first scented the ground then lifted his nose to catch what he could on the air currents.

  German Shepherd Dogs were extremely versatile and very good in a broad range of skill sets. Souze, in particular, had a good knack for scent work. Good enough for K9 or military if he didn’t have other behavioral issues holding him back. As it was, Rojas was glad he hadn’t completed Souze’s rehabilitation yet because the big dog was proving himself a real asset now and a solid companion.

  They’d progressed at a slow walk about halfway to Revolution MMA when Souze froze. Rojas studied the way Souze kept his nose to the ground, staring intently at the pavement. The person in question had to have walked across the pavement here.

  “So ist brav.” Souze responded to Rojas’s praise by relaxing from his frozen stance and dropping his lower jaw to let his tongue loll out.

  Rojas took in their location, right in front of the entrance to a Cluck U. If he was a betting man, and he didn’t need to be to recognize a sure thing, he’d bet his target was conducting surveillance from a car of his very own and came into this place at least once to use the facilities and fuel up on grease-covered protein.

  Not that he could blame the guy because the chicken strips were great and the wings could be amazing. Boom loved the potato wedges covered in melted cheese. And they had these fried dough things that could feed a hobbit for weeks.

  Boom would’ve mentioned if she and Elisa had made a stop here, for sure, so he was certain he had the trail he was looking for now.

  All right. They had a trail. Rojas didn’t want to spook his man until he’d had a chance to circle around and locate him, so he gave Souze’s lead a gentle tug and the two of them continued forward as if they were on a normal walk. Anyone watching them would probably assume Souze had paused at the smell of food like a normal dog.

  As they walked, Rojas scanned the parking lot. More cars had arrived, mostly employees coming to open up the stores. There was one luxury sedan with tinted windows parked on the far side of a beat-up pick-up truck about midway down the aisle from the Cluck U. It was a straight path to the fast food place and back, minimum time away from his point of surveillance. Convenient.

  First of all, no man owning such a nice car would park next to a truck whose owner obviously didn’t care about it when there were dozens of other parking spots to choose from. It was just asking to get dinged up, or its paint scratched, or worse.

  Second, the tinted windows weren’t a thing in this area. A car with them stood out almost as badly as an ominous black SUV could.

  Rojas took Souze out to the end of the strip mall and around the far end of the parking lot as if they were taking a lap around the perimeter. A couple of joggers had done the same thing. He kept his pace easygoing and casually kept his gaze on what was in front of him as they closed in. Keeping an eye on the car of interest was easy, too easy. He looked beyond the car for what was less noticeable. Once he found what he was looking for, he had Souze turn and head back across the expansive blacktop.

  When the two of them came around, Rojas kept the beat-up pick-up truck directly in the line of sight to cover his approach.

  When they got within a few yards, Rojas gave the track command again, “Such.”

  Souze moved forward a step, maybe two, toward the luxury sedan and froze.

  Positive confirmation.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Well, it wouldn’t hurt to introduce himself. Not to this guy.

  Rojas lifted his arm, phone already in hand, and snapped a quick picture of the back of the vehicle with a clear shot of the license plate and the driver’s incredulous face reflected in the side view mirror. Jersey plates. He could’ve approached from the front, but there were no parking blocks in this lot to keep the driver from pulling forward and running him over.

  Approaching from the rear gave Rojas a little more time to get himself and Souze out of the way.

  As it was, the driver didn’t even start up the engine. The man actuall
y got out of his car.

  Rojas grinned.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” The man was dressed in a basic blue dress shirt and cheap khaki slacks. There were a few grease stains down the front of the shirt, and Rojas was willing to bet there was a discarded tie lying in the passenger seat.

  “Making sure I can track you down if I have any questions after we’re done here.” Rojas made his statement simple in a flat tone.

  The lack of intimidation on Rojas’s part seemed to deflate the other man’s bravado some but after a moment, the man recovered and jutted out his chin. No blustering boast or threat, though, so the man was at least somewhat intelligent.

  Rojas decided to go with the direct question, the easy one. “What do you want with Elisa Hall?”

  Elisa had her opinion on the reason for her ex coming after her, but there could be other possibilities.

  The other man smirked. “I’m just here on an errand. No particular reason.”

  What a shitty liar. Or, more likely, the man wasn’t bothering to dissemble. He was just going to try to mock Rojas into an altercation.

  Rojas matched his smirk. “Errand? I could believe that. The real team is watching us speak. They’ve probably captured images of both of us with their telephoto lens and they’re going to report back to your mutual employer that you were made. I’m guessing you’ll be contacted soon to be told your services are no longer necessary.”

  The man’s jaw dropped open. Rojas revised his opinion of the man’s intelligence from somewhat to dubious.

  “See. You were identified, caught on security feed.” Rojas decided to add on to the pressure. “I’m guessing you placed a GPS tracker on a car and decided to wait for the owner to return. But none of the information you’ve gathered to date is anything your employer won’t already have. Because he sent a second team to watch from a distance while you did the ‘errand’ run.”

  The other man’s eyes darted left and right as he scanned the parking lot. Rojas watched as the man spotted the slightly dinged silver SUV with “baby on board” sun blockers in one too many windows parked down by the grocery store, much less noticeably. The man and the woman inside were dressed casually. They blended in. And there wasn’t any reason to notice an SUV in front of a grocery store that opened significantly earlier than any of the other stores in the strip. One of them had even gotten out and made a run into the grocery store and come back out. But they’d been there way longer than they needed to be.

  “What the fuck?” The man took a step forward, but Souze uttered a low growl.

  The man blanched white and stepped back.

  Rojas remained relaxed, unhurried. He planned to have a similar conversation with the others he’d spotted next. “Your job is over, regardless. It can’t hurt to tell me what you’re doing here.”

  There was a possibility the man would give up information they didn’t already know, or a different spin on the situation to give them an angle toward resolving it more permanently.

  “Maybe.” The other man spit on the pavement between them. “For all you know, I could have backup.”

  “Really?” Rojas didn’t bother to modulate the incredulity in his own tone. “Let’s be real here.”

  The other man ground his teeth as he worked his way through admitting he’d already given away his ignorance. “Look. I was asked to locate and retrieve property for my client. It seems to have gone astray.”

  Rojas raised his eyebrows. What bullshit. “What’s the property look like? Could be that I could help you recover it.”

  “Yeah?” The man cracked a grin and studied Rojas with a calculated look. “I might be convinced to split my fee if you lend a hand in retrieval. Your mutt there could be good at distracting people.”

  Rojas felt his face go blank as he shut down the reasoning side of his personality. No. There wasn’t going to be an easy way forward with this situation. Not with this man’s attitude. “Elisa Hall is not property.”

  “Not saying that’s who I’m looking for but if it were, my client would think so.” The other man shook his head ruefully. “And as you pointed out to me, there’s other people here to ensure my client’s property is returned in a timely manner. If you help me, then you can be sure she will be delivered in one piece. I won’t harm a hair on her head. The others may not be so careful with her.”

  A red haze developed along the edges of Rojas’s vision. “Leave.”

  “So that’s a ‘no’ then.” The man looked from Rojas to Souze and back again. “Look, it’s best to stay way the hell away from this girl. Even if my contract ends here, they may have paid me very good money to locate her and possibly install a tracking device on her vehicle. My client’s not going to stop just because of one scary boyfriend and his killer mutt.”

  Rojas took a step forward, letting Souze have some slack in his leash. The big dog took up the slack, his fur bristling until the GSD looked significantly larger than he had even a minute prior. “Tell me how you report in. What’s the contact number?”

  The man’s eyes widened. He held up his hands, fingers spread wide. “No, man. No. I’m a private investigator. I guarantee my clients’ anonymity. You’d ruin my business.”

  Rojas took another step forward. Then another. Souze was almost in snapping range, and Rojas wasn’t particularly worried about this guy making a run for it. He wouldn’t be caught running in front of his competition. No, he was going to try to keep up appearances.

  “You can give me the number or I can hand over the security feed showing you tampering with Elisa Hall’s car to the police.” Rojas decided to keep his tone pleasant. It freaked people out more than rage. “After you spend a few hours explaining yourself to them, you can convince your client that you didn’t breach his privacy.”

  The other man broke out into a sweat. Literally. Oh, he might be good at tailing spouses heading out for clandestine meetings with their illicit lovers. He might be good at tracking down the odd person trying to avoid a debt or fulfilling a contract. He was probably capable of putting on a good show, intimidating the run-of-the-mill person guilty enough to have something to hide. But he wasn’t someone who made his life in the business of real violence.

  As Souze uttered another low warning growl, Rojas made sure he had a good grip on the dog’s lead. This man might piss himself in another five seconds, but if he did something stupid, Rojas didn’t want to sully his dog on this slimy bastard’s flesh. It was one thing to intimidate but another thing entirely to let Souze loose in an uncontrolled civilian environment.

  Fortunately, the other man didn’t know that.

  “Okay. Okay. Here’s the agency’s card.” With a shaking hand, the man fished a card out of his shirt pocket and tossed it to the ground at Rojas’s feet.

  Rojas didn’t bend to pick it up. He kept his gaze steady on his target. “You can get in your car and drive away now.”

  * * *

  Rojas pulled in to Hope’s Crossing Kennels and put his car into park. “Why don’t you take Souze for a walk around the perimeter?”

  Elisa looked at him, surprised.

  He’d disappeared once he’d come to get Souze and she’d ended up waiting a decent amount of time for him to come back. It’d been awkward, actually, but the men training at Revolution MMA had been very polite and charming as they invited her to wait on the benches where parents usually sat to watch the kids’ classes.

  Once he’d returned, Alex had hustled her into his car with little explanation. He’d also been silent on the drive over. The tension in the car upset her until she realized she was trying to make herself as small as possible as she sat in the passenger seat. Even then, she couldn’t bring herself to ask him what he was thinking about or otherwise break the silence.

  Conversation was not one of Alex Rojas’s strong points.

  “If you just took Souze for a walk, why does he need to go again?” He might not be used to someone calling him out, but she wasn’t going to just go do thin
gs without a reason. Employer or not.

  Alex didn’t seem irritated, though, only distracted. “I’ve got a couple of things to talk to Forte and Cruz about before we start the day. Souze is a little worked up, so the walk would do him good.”

  Elisa chewed on her lower lip and made a guess. “You went out to my car this morning. Did you find out anything?”

  He hesitated for a long time. She got the sense he wasn’t going to lie to her, but he wasn’t ready to tell her what had transpired yet. “Some, but we’ve got a couple of facts to check first.”

  But he’d found out some things. Several things, if there were facts to check. She didn’t want him to filter for her. “Will you talk about it with me there?”

  His brows drew together but he maintained steady eye contact with her and didn’t dismiss the question. “If you insist. But I think it’d be a lot clearer if you let us sift through what I’ve found out and make some sense of it first. Otherwise, it’s going to be a whole lot of worrying.”

  “You all are way more involved than you should be. I hate dragging you into it.” The sadness, guilt, twisted in her stomach. Suddenly she was glad she hadn’t had one of the protein bars the guys had offered her this morning. It would’ve compacted into a rock in her belly by now.

  “Hey.” He turned in his seat to face her and reached out for her hand. After a moment, she placed hers in his. His fingers closed around hers, and she was struck by how much bigger his hand was. “This thing is more than one person should have to deal with. I’m very glad you and I met. I’m glad we can help you. Let us. I promise we’re more than able to meet this head on and give you alternatives you wouldn’t have on your own.”

  Maybe. But it’d taken everything she had to get out on her own in the first place. It shouldn’t be only to hide under someone else’s direction. “How is this different from letting him take over my life? You’re going to leave me out here and make plans for me, at least for the near future.”

  The bitterness was back, but she didn’t try to hide it from her tone. It was a fair question.