K-9 Defense (HQR Intrigue)

church. She felt like she’d stepped back in time to the eighteen hundreds. The only thing missing was horse-drawn carriages. But it was probably too cold for horses. Even the monstrous all-weather truck parked up the street seemed ill prepared for Desparre once winter descended.
Chicago got cold, but after not even one day in Desparre she was longing for the ridiculously cold-but-not-this-cold windchill off the lake.
With the exception of a guy playing with his dog down the road, she was the only fool outside. Kensie hustled, careful not to slide in the snow as she yanked open the door to the tiny police station. Her stomach churned as reality set in. She was finally here.
This time will be different, she told herself, trying to bolster her courage.
The officer behind the counter looked up as she entered, but she wasn’t sure if the scowl on his face was for her or the blast of cold air she brought inside. “Can I help you?”
Desparre probably didn’t get a lot of outsiders, so she was going to stand out here. Kensie had gotten the same questioning looks each time she’d stopped to ask for directions on the outskirts of town.
If her sister Alanna really was here, maybe she’d be the one to find Kensie.
If only it could be that easy. But fourteen years of bright, painful hope drawn out for days or years and then dashed in yet another dead end, in yet another godforsaken town, told her that nothing about finding Alanna would be easy.
But if the note was real...
The hope that bloomed inside her now brought tears to her eyes.
The officer stood and rushed to her side. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”
She blinked the tears back and prayed her voice would be steady. “I need to talk to someone about the note you found from Alanna Morgan.”
Frown lines dug deeper, creating grooves across the officer’s forehead. He looked like he belonged in a rocking chair with a couple of grandkids on his knee, not wearing a police uniform. “Why?”
“I’m her sister.”
The flash of emotions on his face was quick, so quick Kensie might have missed them if she hadn’t seen them so many times in her life. Surprise, discomfort and pity first. Then something hard and distant—law enforcement probably learned to compartmentalize to keep themselves from going crazy case after case, victim after victim.
“You shouldn’t have come all this way. Didn’t you talk to the FBI?”
The FBI had spoken to her and her family, of course. They’d been the ones to call and inform Kensie about the note found in Desparre in the first place. But that didn’t matter. “I needed to see for myself.”
The frown was back, this time mixed with worry, but the officer nodded, patted her on the arm and then said, “I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared through a door marked Police Only and Kensie took a deep breath.
You can do this, she reminded herself. She was just out of practice. It had been years since the last lead on Alanna.
Standing in a police station now took her back to her childhood. All those years of waiting in hard plastic chairs, her mom’s hand clutching hers way too tight, as they prayed for any shred of good news. Her dad standing stiffly beside them, his arm wrapped around her brother, holding him close as if that could keep him safe. Officers catching her gaze and then looking quickly away. Kensie’s palms damp and her heart thudding way too fast.
Missing Alanna. Knowing it was all her fault her little sister was gone.
“Ma’am?”
Kensie looked up, realizing her eyes had glazed over as she’d stared at the floor, getting lost in her past. She stiffened her shoulders, tried to look like the professional woman she’d become instead of the terrified thirteen-year-old who always reappeared whenever she heard Alanna’s name.
She held out a cold hand, shook hard and stared the new officer directly in the eye. Let her know she couldn’t be sent off with a “sorry” and a pat on the back.
“I’m Chief Hernandez.”
From the slight grin the chief gave, Kensie’s surprise probably showed. She was young for a police chief, likely only a few years older than Kensie’s twenty-seven.
But there was wisdom in her steady gaze and strength in her handshake.
“Kensie Morgan. I want to see the note that was left at the store.”
Chief Hernandez held out her other hand and Kensie reached for the computer paper.
It was a photocopy, but her heart beat faster at the slanted cursive handwriting. She read it aloud. “My name is Alanna Morgan, from Chicago. I’m still alive. I’m not the only one.”
“You recognize the writing?” the chief asked, skepticism in her voice.
“Alanna’s? No.” How could she? Her sister had been five years old when she’d been kidnapped out of their front yard. At five, everything had been big sloppy letters, forming words that were often misspelled. There was no way to know what Alanna’s handwriting looked like now. If she was really still alive, she’d be nineteen.
Nineteen. The very idea made pain and longing mingle. What would a nineteen-year-old Alanna look like? What had happened in all the years between? Kensie had missed all of her sister’s milestones.
Focus on now, Kensie reminded herself. Focus on what you can change. “What do you know?”
Chief Hernandez shrugged, then frowned, like she regretted the motion. “Not much, I’m afraid. We don’t know who left it. We can’t be sure it’s even real. It says—”
“I know,” Kensie cut her off, not wanting to hear a repeat of the FBI’s depressing analysis. “But you must know something. What about the store owner who found it?”
“It was in a stack of bills. He couldn’t even say who put it there or when.”
Chief Hernandez tilted her head in what Kensie had long ago come to recognize as a pity gesture. “I’m sorry. You came a long way for nothing.”
The tears surprised her. They rushed hard and fast to her eyes and Kensie ducked her head, trying to blink