“Maybe.” Rojas scowled. “But he’s too rough. Nipped at her hair and ears, shoved her around a little. She can hold her own most times but he’s got to learn better manners across the board.”
“Ah.” Cruz paused. “Maybe I’ll start an assessment on one of the other two.”
“Sure. Check them out. I’m figuring they’d be solid for police work but one of them might have the knack for multi-purpose.” Rojas led the GSD away. The big dog kept craning his neck to keep Cruz in his line of sight for as long as possible. Definitely not looking to Rojas as a handler yet.
Atlas had begun to look to Cruz. Definitely looked to Lyn. It’d been an important step in his retraining. A dog needed to look at his handler to receive a command. But more than the literal meaning, a dog well-bonded to his or her handler was aware of the human on multiple levels. It was the establishment of a strong rapport that made a team effective.
If he wanted to poke at a sore spot some more, he could admit it’d been Atlas’s willingness to acknowledge Lyn—trust her—that’d made Cruz relax. In Cruz’s experience, dogs had better judgment than humans when it came to character.
Made it doubly shitty the way she’d betrayed them both. Now she was riding along with Atlas back to a military base to continue preaching her rehabilitation philosophy to someone who might not give her two seconds’ notice. It’d serve her right, but it wouldn’t be in Atlas’s best interest.
He needed to stop thinking about Lyn. He still had to track down the people responsible for Calhoun’s death and see to it they paid for what they’d done in the way it’d hurt them most.
The real question he should be asking was whether Lyn’s father was involved. Seemed likely. Maybe that was the lead Cruz needed to follow. He headed for his office.
“Fooey!” Not a quiet correction this time. Rojas was yards away and straining to hold an eighty-five-pound GSD on a leash.
Growling low and throwing all of his weight against Rojas, something had set the dog off. Cruz followed the dog’s line of sight to the front gate and saw a sleek Belgian Malinois running at top speed up the driveway.
What the…?
“Atlas! Hier!” Cruz called, reaching for a leash—any leash—off the wall.
Atlas didn’t need to change course. He was already headed directly for Cruz. Then a lean figure cleared the tree line in obvious pursuit, weapon up and aimed at Atlas.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cruz yanked out his smartphone and activated voice recognition.
“Incoming. Single gunman. Opening fire on Atlas.”
The text went to Forte and Rojas as a pre-set group.
Something was wrong. Very wrong. If Atlas was here, where the hell was Lyn? And what could happen to make Atlas leave her? Cruz could imagine several scenarios, none of them good.
Cruz bent to retrieve his gun from the hidden holster at his ankle. Staying close to the main house for cover, he moved to meet up with Atlas.
The intruder opened fire on Atlas as the dog approached, but the man had taken the shot on the move. Dumbass. It went wide, kicking up dirt to one side of the dog’s path. Not a surprise.
Thank God the only people at the kennels currently were Cruz, Forte, and Rojas. Gunfire wasn’t new to them. But shit, Rojas and Forte would be irritated as hell if any of them caught a bullet. Cruz was already pissed. Worse, any of the dogs on the property were at risk.
Gunshot or no, Atlas wasn’t deterred or distracted. True to his training, he headed straight for his objective: Cruz.
Another shot fired. Cruz cursed and took aim. He didn’t want to put a bullet in a person if he didn’t have to, even if he was on Hope’s Crossing Kennels property, but the asshole was shooting at his dog.
Suddenly he heard the sound of other dogs barking on approach and he grinned. Atlas reached him as three German shepherds streaked past them toward the intruder. Rojas must have set them loose. Perfect distraction and with three of them, the gunman wasn’t likely to have time to single out a target and hit any one of them.
Handy to have rescued Schutzhund-trained guard dogs on hand. Socialization was not a primary concern at the moment. They had the experience and training to do exactly what was needed—intimidate the hell out of the intruder and potentially neutralize the threat.
The man stopped in his tracks and even from this distance, Cruz could see him go pale at the sight. Hell, Cruz wouldn’t be thrilled in the face of the oncoming canines either. He’d be looking for a tree or wall to climb. Fences weren’t a safe bet because most German shepherds and Belgian Malinois could climb those even without specialized training.