LITMIR.BIZ

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The door clicked shut behind her. Her feet moved silently down the hallway, her fingers aching for her service weapon. But this was Canada and so, because she was off duty, her gun was in her car, safely unloaded and locked away.

      She paused at the top of the stairs and looked down at the shards of red and gold glass spread across the floor below. She pulled out her phone, turned it on and made sure the ringer was on silent. It buzzed with a Missed Call notification. She glanced at it. Apparently she’d missed a call almost an hour ago. It was from a blocked number, but she was so sure she knew who it was from, his name might as well have filled the screen. Trent.

      Detective Trent Henry of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was one of the nation’s finest undercover detectives. Strong and rugged, with the kind of heart-melting blue eyes that hinted at a familiarity with danger, they’d worked together three times so far. They always clicked so well, she’d expected they’d stay in touch. But each time he’d dropped out of her life without even saying goodbye.

      Then, suddenly, he’d called her a handful of times in the past two weeks, with the same curt and blunt demand. “Call me. We should get coffee.” No, thanks. She didn’t take orders from men like Trent, no matter how rugged their jawlines or how stellar their reputations. Not that she didn’t wish Trent was with her now. When she’d met him, he’d been undercover with the province’s most notorious gang, the Wolfspiders. Nobody knew more about Canada’s drug and gang operations than Trent Henry.

      She reached the bottom of the stairs. The hallway was empty. She crept over to the coffee counter and crouched down. A pair of huge and frightened brown eyes looked up at her. The girl was wearing a black shirt and an apron that advertised Nanny’s Diner and Coffee. Her face was vaguely familiar in a way Chloe couldn’t immediately place. Her name tag read Lucy.

      Chloe raised her badge. “I’m Detective Chloe Brant and it’s going to be okay. Where are the elves?”

      “The ice rink.” Lucy’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “They asked the security guard where it was. The guard escaped. But I stayed hidden.”

      “Probably smart,” Chloe said. “How about the players and the coach?”

      “They’re hiding outside the rink, including my brother.” Lucy held up her phone. It showed a string of messages from someone named Brandon. The contact picture was a slender young man with a nervous smile. “But the elves have their coach. They’re going to kill him.”

      “Not if I can help it,” Chloe said. If the elves were hunting hockey players, she hoped Johnny had done what he was told and stayed in the exercise room. She could hear footsteps in the distance now. Sounded like one of the elves was on his way back. “I need you to run out of here as fast as you can and don’t look back.”

      Lucy hesitated.

      “Hey!” A voice filled the air to her right. Chloe turned. It was the hefty elf. A knife flashed in his hand.

      “Run!” Chloe sprang to her feet. “Don’t stop until you’re safe!”

      The elf charged. Lucy ran. Chloe threw herself between them. She dodged as the knife slashed through the air inches from her stomach. She grabbed his wrist to wrench the knife from his grasp, but his wet boots slipped on the tiled floor. He fell backward. Chloe landed on top of him. The knife flashed in front of her eyes. She leveled a blow to his jaw, snapping his head back against the floor. As she twisted the knife from his hand, she noticed his tattooed wrist read GGB. It was a gang sign for the Gulo Gulo Boys.

      The Gulo wrenched himself from her grasp, leaped up and ran after Lucy.

      Chloe sprinted after him, ready to tackle him if that’s what it took to help the young woman escape.

      She heard a clatter and watched as his cell phone bounced across the floor behind him. Gotcha! She scooped up the phone, spun around and ran for the stairs. A roar of anger left his throat as he realized what she’d done. She almost smiled. A gang member was nothing without his phone. She sprinted up the stairs to the second floor, hearing his footsteps pound after her.

      “Give me back my phone!” he bellowed, his voice echoing through the stairwell. “Or I’ll kill you!”

      She lead him in the opposite direction of the exercise room, dodged behind a pillar and then turned sharply to head down a side hall toward the hockey rink. Had he seen where she’d gone? She didn’t know if he had another weapon on him and didn’t much want to find out. She ducked behind a Christmas tree and gasped in a breath, just long enough to look over the railing. The round foyer in front of the hockey rink lay beneath her, complete with a wooden platform stage and a giant mountain of stuffed animals towering almost all the way up to the second floor.

      Four figures lay flat on their stomachs under the stage, their shadowy outlines barely visible through the slats below. But, even at a distance, she could recognize the Trillium College hockey jerseys. The two Gulos she’d seen earlier stood between them and freedom. One was swinging his bat at anything he could break. The other stood stock-still, his back to her and a gun in his hand.

      Then he shifted and her gaze fell to the man kneeling on the ground in front of him.

      It was the coach. The sweet-looking, bearded man was kneeling, his head bowed and hands outstretched, as he placed his life between the hidden students and the gang members. Something about his courage made it impossible for Chloe to look away. She could hear the other Gulo coming down the hallway toward her now. She had to run. She had to fight.

      The gang member pressed the barrel of his gun between the coach’s eyes, execution style. The coach’s chin rose. Then his gaze turned toward her. Keen, piercing blue eyes met hers. Her heart leaped into her throat, stealing a breath from her parted lips.

      It was Detective Trent Henry.

      * * *

      Trent’s heart sank as his eyes latched onto Chloe’s form crouched at the railing above. The feeling of dread in his gut was matched only by the frustration burning at the back of his throat. What was she doing here? First she ignored his calls and then she stumbled into his investigation? He’d called her to get some advice on his undercover assignment over a quick cup of coffee. Getting threatened by weapon-wielding Gulos had never been part of the plan.

      Help me, God. This whole drug investigation has been a mess from the start and now it’s falling apart around my ears. Help me figure out how to get everyone out of here alive.

      If Chloe got killed, or even hurt, he’d never forgive himself. The gun currently pointed between his eyes didn’t help matters much. He’d taken out quite a few Gulo operations over the years and the memories were especially vicious. He shuddered to think what it meant that they were staging something so blatant.

      Seconds earlier he’d been praying for a diversion. Something simple and straightforward that would enable him to take out two gang members at once in a way that didn’t blow either his cover or risk the lives of his hockey players. Now, here the strongest, toughest and most infuriating cop he’d ever known had somehow materialized on the floor above him, making his job that much harder.

      Her eyes were now locked on his face. She’d recognized him. He watched as shouts and footsteps suddenly sounded from above, giving Chloe barely moments to leap to her feet before a third Gulo pelted down the hall toward her. Chloe threw her shoulder into the Christmas tree and tossed it at the gang member like a football tackle. The Gulo grunted and fell under the force of pine needles and branches. Trent nearly whistled.

      It was a gutsy move and impressive—not that he didn’t wish she’d run instead. But he could tell she’d also seen his players in their hiding place. Had he been right to tell them to hide instead of fight? Hard to know. The four young men weren’t the best athletes or experienced fighters. Hodge had gotten a text from his girlfriend, Poppy, saying there were heavily armed criminals swarming the building.

      When Trent had heard the chaos and destruction moving through the halls toward them, he’d ordered his players to hide and not a single one had argued. Instead they’d all dived for the narrow crawl

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