Oh, he’d dated on and off since he’d arrived in Pennsylvania. A couple evenings here and there in Philly. He’d had a few hot women but nothing had lasted more than a few sweaty nights, and he had no plans to change the trend.
“I bet the club scene isn’t your style either.” Cruz preferred to spend some time every day hanging out in Atlas’s kennel, talking. Gave the dog a chance to get to know him again, become used to his presence as a companion and not just as a temporary handler or his once-upon-a-time trainer.
But the indefinable moment when a dog chooses a new master? Hadn’t happened yet. Not with Cruz or Rojas or Forte, the three best dog trainers on the East Coast. It’d been Calhoun that Atlas bonded to and now his handler was dead.
And contrary to bills of sale or certificates of ownership, it was always the dog’s choice as to who his next master was going to be.
“We’ll see what Miss Jones prefers to be called on a first-name basis.” He wouldn’t admit out loud, even to Atlas, how curious he was about the things she liked to be called. Not as if Atlas was going to go around telling anyone stories.
His smartphone vibrated in his back pocket. Cruz reached for it and gave the picture password lock screen a tap and a swipe in the right places to get past the security. A little more effort than the usual pin or swipe to unlock apps that came standard with a smartphone, but maintaining higher security was a habit he didn’t intend to let go.
An alert flashed across the screen.
“Hold the fort, Atlas. I’ll be back.”
In moments, Cruz strode into his office cursing. His computer was still running and it took less than a few seconds to authenticate and gain access past the screen saver protection.
A few seconds too many.
Whatever virtual intruder had tripped his network security was long gone. Best he could hope for was to follow any tracks left behind to trace whoever it was back to their source. ’Course, the person had only been nosing around the edges of the security system. They hadn’t stumbled into it the way a random Internet intrusion would occur. No, whoever it was had known this system was here and had been testing to see just how sensitive the security measures were.
He glowered at his screen as he attempted to trace them back to their IP, only they’d gone through several servers. And by the time he did locate the originating IP, he cursed even more. Random computer terminal in a cyber café in Japan. Not likely.
Weird.
He didn’t like weird. Nor did he believe in coincidences, so he locked down his computer again and pushed away from his desk, rising and heading for the door. Something like this didn’t happen randomly, considering the other new things here at the kennels. There was Atlas’s arrival and the circumstances around it, Miss Jones arriving to insist on working with Atlas, then this.
Atlas’s handler had died for a reason, one Cruz was still looking for. Apparently there were other people looking for it, too.
“You headed out?” Forte passed him in the hallway. The owner of Hope’s Crossing Kennels must’ve been breaking for lunch after a morning of teaching basic obedience classes.
“Yeah. We’ve had a security issue. No physical incursion, just a minor blip on the network. Secured now but I want to follow a hunch.” Cruz didn’t linger.
Forte called after him, “Let us know if you need us.”
“Will do.”
He and Forte had served together overseas. They’d gone out with less information in the past. Likely Forte would want answers later but it was good to be with people who wouldn’t hold him up with questions when he was on the move.
Cruz crossed the front parking lot and headed for the private drive where his car was parked alongside the other trainers’ vehicles. On his way, he glanced at the front drive and what could be seen of the trees lining the perimeter of the extensive property. His security wasn’t just computer system based. He’d designed it all, from the access to any of the buildings to the kennels to the perimeter of the grounds they were built on. It’d been designed to maintain privacy in a civilian area but easily upgradeable if there was need, and they’d never had multiple nibbles until today.
There was only one new person, unexpected and unannounced, who’d shown up recently and she’d been there this very morning.
He entered the address to her hotel on his smartphone and set the GPS to direct him there.
Her attitude had been one thing, but her threat about calling her backers in the Pentagon? Maybe she was more than a simple civilian dog trainer. And maybe her interest in Atlas had grown from more than just the news coverage about his situation.
A man developed hyperawareness to survive overseas and there was a fuzzy line between hyperawareness and paranoia. Miss Jones arriving the way she had and hinting at high-ranking backing hadn’t just gotten under his skin. Something was off.