Max had smiled at him as Halo said that. But he got it. Max had fallen in love with Mary, too.

  Only problem was that Halo had no idea how to find her again.

  Halo was hoping that as he sat with his team—spooning up the rich cream of mushroom soup and chomping on his sausage sandwich—that someone along the way knew who she was and would post her name and a social media link.

  But so far, none of the social media posts that Nutsbe had been playing through this hotwash gave them any more information about her identity.

  “I’m sure it felt like you were on the side of that building forever,” Nutsbe said. “But you were up and down pretty fast,” Nutsbe pressed a button on his computer, bringing up a timeline. “I have information about the delay in the rescue vehicles getting in.” Nutsbe used a laser pointer to underline the arrival times of the various rescue teams. “The ambulance was there pretty fast. It was the firetruck with the ladders that was problematic. I called to find out. The fire house is blocks away and should have been there with a three-to-five-minute response time. Unfortunately, the crew was already in the field dealing with an industrial spill. Dispatch brought in a crew from further away. It’s important to remember that while this is the capital of Estonia and a third of its citizens live here, it’s still a relatively small city. About the size of Richmond, Virginia.” He named the capital city of the state just south of Washington, D.C.

  “Nutsbe, I’d like you to map out various issues that might come into play,” Titus said. “We know from your arrival this morning that there’s ongoing street repair.”

  “Wilco,” Nutsbe said. “Now, I’ve culled through social media posts, and I have some bystander videos of the incident.”

  Reel by reel, they assessed technique, opportunities that were used to their best advantage, mistakes, and near misses. Every time Mary was in the frame, Halo was impressed by her sheer determination. And a sense that she was both winging it and that she had real training under her belt.

  Pole dancing, though. It confounded him. There had to be a story there, and it had to extend beyond his personal framing of that sport. Past-framing—he’d evolved.

  “Ready for the next one?” Nutsbe asked as he queued up another bystander video that had been posted on social media. Different angles meant different opportunities to assess. “I’m calling this one All Hail Queen Mary.”

  Here, someone had focused on the first moments when the team decided to scale from window to window.

  Mary sprinted onto the scene, plopped onto the pavement, wrestled out of her pants and shoes, and was inch worming up the pole.

  Halo wondered why she’d taken her clothes off.

  As she climbed, Max stretched as far out as he could without breaking his sit-stay and dragged her clothes back piece by piece. Then, he’d laid across them, protecting Mary’s things.

  Halo hadn’t taught Max that trick.

  “And this one I’m calling, Hey, You Forgot Something.” Nutsbe moved to the next video. “Before I play this, I’m going to say that I was focused on the team getting off the wall. But at this point, Mary was part of the team. She is clearly shaken, maybe in shock. I should have had my eyes on her. I should have tried to corral her—something. She shouldn’t have been left to wander half-naked and possibly injured down the street like that. I’ll work on protocols for future events and run them by the team. All I can say is that I’m very grateful that Max did what he did.” Nutsbe tapped the play button, and there was Titus pulling Mary from the last windowsill into his arms. He carried her over the broken shards of glass and set her down on the road in front of a paramedic.

  “Hold there,” Titus said, and Nutsbe hit stop. “I agree with your assessment, Nutsbe. She was a team member at this point, and it was up to us to make sure that the whole team was safe. I will say that there might have been a language barrier that the rescue worker couldn’t understand her. She might have declined aid, as she has the right to do. But shock is shock. Someone should have been supporting Mary at this point. Go ahead and press play again.”

  Mary was waving off help, turning, and staggering down the street. People reached out to her, spoke to her, and she brushed them off as she walked in the cool rainwater that filled the gutters.

  The video moved away from Mary and toward Halo and the others as they were still getting off the wall. The lens panned to the right, where Max was gathering Mary’s things into his mouth, dropping them, processing them, then wrapping the clothing items together, biting into the bundle, and trotting off after Mary. Granted, he’d dragged the pants under him, and a sock was left behind, but he was still able to get his snoot to the ground and trail along after her.

  Halo hadn’t taught Max to do that series of tricks, either.

  As soon as Halo put his feet on the ground, he’d looked over to check on Max only to find his dog was gone. Even though Max had been put in a down-stay, he was highly intelligent. Halo figured that Max had moved to a place that was close but safe. He needed to find Max, then he needed to find the warrior goddess and assure himself that she hadn’t been injured while performing the wildest lifesaving mission he’d ever experienced.

  When Halo sent out a “Here to me” whistle, a woman leaned around a shop door frame, pointing down the road. “Dog go that way with woman’s clothes.”

  It was at that moment that Halo placed the woman. Max and she had already bonded. She was the woman at the airport who had crouched down, looking at Max. And Max had wanted to be with her, tugging at his lead. That was the first time Halo had seen that happen.

  In the airport, Max’s nose had been chuffing the air as he tried to get over to her.

  Yea, Halo was sure that Max had recognized her scent.

  Pulling up the tracking app, Halo saw that the red dot representing Max was three blocks away and wasn’t moving. Halo’s heart had gripped, wondering if a car had hit Max.

  He raced up the street until he saw the two of them together. Her in her panties and sports bra, feet in the cool gutter water, draping over Max, her head on his neck.

  As Halo approached, without moving his body, Max turned to Halo, and Halo clearly read in his dog’s eyes that he had decided that Mary was his to guard.

  Yours and mine both, mate.

  Bloody hell, that feeling of her getting in the taxi without him, Max wanting to jump in beside her. He knew her name as Mary. He knew she was American. Nothing else.

  Calling out, “Can I have your number,” or “Where are you staying?” or any of the other things that sprang to mind made him sound like a creep. Like someone who wanted to take advantage of the situation. All he wanted for her at that moment was that she get safely back to her hotel where she could rest.

  When the taxi drove away, Max was pissed.

  And Halo stood there feeling like his soul had been snatched away.

  “Gentlemen,” Titus said. “The agenda for the rest of the day. I’d like you to spend some time individually walking around Old City, Tallinn, getting a feel for the area and the people. This evening, I’ve made reservations for the team downstairs in the restaurant. There is an open mic tonight, so if anyone wants to sign up, go ahead and do that on your way out.” He turned to Nutsbe. “I’d like you to eat early so you’re ready for your meeting with Honey. Max’s crate has arrived, and the staff set it up in Halo’s room. I’d like Max to stay crated this evening while you supervise him, Nutsbe.” He turned to catch Halo’s gaze. “I’d like you downstairs with us, get some grub, and get to know the Panther Force team.”

  It was wisely against Iniquus' policy to leave one of the Iniquus-affiliated K9s unsupervised. And since Nutsbe had brought Max all the way over from the states, Halo was cool with that. “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  That evening, right on time, Nutsbe arrived at Halo’s room to find sleeping Max lying on his back, legs sprawled wide, snoring.

  “Enjoy yourself. I’ll text if I have anything come up,” Nutsbe said as Halo patted over his pockets to make sure he had everything and headed out the door.

  Dinner with an open mic might be distracting. And Halo desperately wanted a distraction.

  He was still hoping that Nutsbe would come up with a name and contact information so he could reach out to Mary.

  Until then, yeah, distraction was the best he could do.

  He walked down the hall and decided to take the stairs to pound away some of this odd sensation that had bubbled through his system ever since Mary kissed him goodbye.

  He was thinking about Max’s desperation to get in the taxi with Mary and his last determined lunge to lick her cheek.

  As they’d walked around Tallinn earlier, Halo had been going over the how and why of Max’s connection to Mary that had started in the airport.

  Dogs were alert to even the smallest changes in a person’s posture or environment. They knew what a human would do even before the human had recognized that a decision had been made. That’s why a dog would run over and sit by their lead, waiting for a walk, before their human realized that they would go out.

  That scenario was a very domestic application of a dog’s keen sense. In his job, that ability to see micromovements was about minute-to-minute survival.

  The dogs Halo handled were taught to focus on a weapon.

  A weapon in the hand of a bad guy might be alright; there might still be time to talk the guy down, and everyone could leave whole and healthy. This was particularly important when they were on foreign lands negotiating through difficult situations.

  But if a finger were to slide into the guard and rest on a trigger, then all bets were off.

  From helmet cameras that the team used to analyze the various situations they’d found themselves in, they watched time and time again as the dogs launched into the air as the bad guy’s finger still laid along the guard. As their mouths opened wide to wrap the wrist, they’d be chomping just as the finger moved into a lethal position on the trigger.

  Their jaws locked down on the tendon, making it impossible for the finger to pull back and fire their weapon. The excruciating pain of having the arm bones crushed between the pressure of those jaws preempted any thoughts outside of survival.

  Through these tapes, Halo learned to always trust his dog.

  Halo also learned that as a K9 handler, he couldn’t act like his teammates, who often walked around seemingly armor-plated when it came to emotions. Even keel, unperturbed, that’s how operators managed. They bypassed emotions like anger, anxiety, and sadness. But, Halo observed that if his brothers were unwilling to face negative emotions, eventually, they lost their emotional range on the other side of the spectrum. If his brothers stood at the fulcrum, not letting things tip the scale where feelings might outweigh training and calculation—which could prove lethal in the field—it also prevented them from the other end of the spectrum where joy lived.

  A human’s closed-off emotions, though, shut a dog down. It was as if they didn’t trust that person and wouldn’t bond.

  In Halo’s early days learning to work with military K9s, he and a handful of others were sent to special classes on emotional intelligence. They attended therapy as part of a research initiative to find out if being a full-spectrum human with healthy mental health habits made for a better dog handler.

  The scientists never presented the findings to Halo, and he didn’t much care about the researchers’ conclusions. Halo’s gut told him that the research hypothesis had been tight.

  When Halo expressed emotions, talking to his dogs like they were the intimate partners that they were, he felt certain that his authenticity and candor built trust between them as working partners.

  To gain a dog’s trust was the ultimate reward. It was something that Halo was glad to work towards. And he felt like that translated into better relationships outside of the job as well. Friends, family, yeah, that was all going to plan.

  But now that he was turning forty, Halo was getting a new perspective. He could see over the hill down into the length of fertile soil that stretched out to the horizon. And for the last little bit, he’d come to realize that he no longer wanted to walk that trail alone.

  He just didn’t.

  Pulling all those thoughts together with one big, red, shiny bow, Halo came to this conclusion: When they were at the airport, and Max saw Mary, he bloody well knew something about her that Halo had not yet perceived.

  And in that airport, Halo made a terrible mistake.

  He should have trusted his dog.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mary had dragged her shirt over her head in the cab on her way to her hotel. By the time they pulled up, she was lacing up her second shoe.

  Pulling her credit card from the sleave on the back of her phone, she extended it over the seat. The man shook his hands in the air. “You need to go in and take care of yourself.”

  Kind. “Thank you so much.”

  Deidre was still sitting on the bench outside under the tree, scrolling her phone. She turned to Mary. “What in the actual heck?”

  Waggling an exhausted hand in the air, Mary turned toward the automatic doors.

  The front desk staff followed her progress with wide, unblinking eyes.

  Mary approached the guy who had given her the directions earlier. “I was on the way to the pharmacy.” She turned to look toward the door. “There was a fire.”

  “Do you need a doctor?” he asked.

  “I could really use a room. I know it’s early, but a shower and a nap would be nice right now.”

  “Of course!” He unlocked the closet and wheeled their bags out. Deidre was kind enough to shut the hell up as they went up the elevator, down the hall, and into their room.

  “Shower,” Deidre said as she pointed to the bathroom.

  Standing under the water, letting it sluice over her back, Mary lifted her hair and sniffed it. It stank of chemicals and ash.

  As she closed her eyes and just appreciated the feel of clean water, Mary pictured Halo looking at her through the back window of the cab as she drove away.

  He hadn’t moved other than to put his hands on his hips and furrow his brow as if this whole scene was beyond him. Shards of fractured glass that were supposed to fit together. Mary couldn’t fathom what might be going on in his head, standing there like an action hero on a movie screen.

  Shit, he’s a hero on a movie screen.

  She laid her forehead on the tile.

  Tallinn, Mary had read in the book she’d snatched up in the Geneva airport, was known for the number of movies that took advantage of the gorgeous settings.

  That must be why that group of massive, handsome men and their dog were in the street with matching uniform-like outfits, speaking English.

  Mary felt herself blanche in horror.

  She had defined the group as special operators, men who had trained to do crazy-dangerous acts of great athleticism. Yeah, they had to be athletes, or they wouldn’t have bodies like that.

  Maybe they were trained stunt men?

  She had put her life in what she’d convinced herself was their capable hands.

  That was a lie.

  Retrospective fear was an icy wash. And her whole body jolted.

  When the sensation passed, Mary asked herself, did it matter?

  She was alive, whole, mostly unscathed. The family was down.

  Still, Mary was shaking her head at the idea of the Halo that she’d conjured.

  She unwrapped the mistake, reformed her thoughts, and tried to get herself realigned.

  The door opened, and Deidre came in. “Okay, you’ve been in here long enough. You should be ready to talk by now. Are you hurt?”

  “Nope.” Mary reached for the soap.

  “I was looking this up on social media and almost vomited when I saw what you did. That was terrifying!” Deidre said.

  “Videos? Shit. I was in my underpants.”

  “Full coverage ones, not string thongs.” Deidre pointed out. “So that was good. And you didn’t have your period, so no maxi pads were strapped to your crotch.”

  “Small favors. Can you imagine?”

  “Imagine? I’m watching the video and can’t wrap my brain around it. You risked your life. You are a hero. I know you’re in there playing this over in your head. You can’t keep today on a loop in your mind. You’ll make yourself crazy.”

  “I thought it was my boys,” Mary whispered.

  “What?”

  “My brain,” Mary poured shampoo onto her head, “did a wackadoodle thing. When I looked up at the burning building, the two boys were side by side. I thought they were my sons.”

  “You’re a mama bear.”

  Mary breathed through the anxiety attack that bloomed across her chest.

  “Pole dancing for the win?” Deidre asked.

  “Who’d a thunk it?” The foam sliding down her body was like a black lava flow.

  “Next question. Who was that guy up there with you?”

  “His name is Halo. It’s got to be a last name or a call sign or something. No mother in her right mind would name her kid Halo.”

  “I don’t know, I had a patient once whose name was Truest.”

  “That’s not that bad,” Mary said.

  “Her last name was Ho. Now, granted, the parents were new to America and translating from their own language.”

  “Still.” Mary turned to rinse before moving on to the repeat.

  “Hey, I’m handing you in my makeup removers. They’ll work better on that greasy soot.” Deidre’s hand shot past the curtain with the packet of wipes. “Halo and Mary,” Deidre tried on. “If you two were a couple, you can have one of those celebrity names. You know how they mash things together like Brangelina. People could call you Hail Mary.”

  “Sounds like you’re jinxing us. Nope. There is no us – I have no idea who the guy is. Some actor, probably.”

  “Actor? He didn’t act like an actor,” Deidre said. “Listen, you just pulled two kids and a mom off the fifth floor of a burning building. And I will remind you that you were sent here specifically to this single spot. That’s career, love life, and purpose. One spot on one single day. This is written in the stars, Mary. There’s no jinx about this at all.”