THE HIDDEN PARK SNARE

For several seconds, the receiver gave me nothing except a thin wash of static.

Then a composed male voice slid through the crackle.

“You made a mistake bringing Titan to this cabin, Daniel. Now you both die when it burns.”

The connection cut off.

A flat electronic tone murmured in my ear while I stood frozen, clutching the stained rotary handset.

Burn the cabin. Burn us inside it.

That was no empty warning, and Titan knew it before I fully moved. He sprang from the rug, muzzle lifted, muscles rigid beneath his coat.

A strained whine broke from him as his paws scraped nervously over the old boards.

Then the odor reached me.

Not rot, marsh water, or the sour mildew embedded in the cabin walls. This smell was harsh, oily, and unmistakable.

Gasoline.

“Titan, with me!” I shouted, letting the receiver drop.

I ignored the front entrance. Anyone setting a trap with fuel would make that porch the first place to ignite, a narrow funnel built to kill us.

My Glock 19 was in my hand as I drove toward the lone rear window.

Orange glare suddenly flickered behind the heavy curtains at the front of the room.

A muffled blast thudded against the cabin from outside.

The front wall blew into fire. Heat slammed across my back so violently it felt like being hit, and flame raced up the dry pine boards toward the ceiling.

I seized a wooden chair from the corner and smashed it through the rear glass.

The pane burst apart. Splinters and shattered glass sprayed into the wet darkness beyond the frame.

“Out!” I barked, forcing Titan toward the opening.

My seventy-eight-pound partner launched through without hesitation, clearing the jagged sill in one powerful jump.

Only then did the smoke detector begin screaming. The floor under my boots had already turned blistering hot.

I gripped the sill, felt glass cut through my uniform sleeves, and threw myself out as the roof groaned above me.

The cabin was starting to fold in on itself.

I struck the muddy ground on my shoulder and rolled through sawgrass, smothering sparks before they could catch on my clothes.

“Stay low,” I breathed, catching Titan by the harness and pushing him into the muck.

The burning cabin lit the swamp like a signal flare. Fire threw warped shadows over cypress trunks and Spanish moss, and every inch of mud around us seemed exposed.

A muted snap cut through the roar.

The suppressed round passed close enough for me to feel it. Bark exploded from a cypress trunk barely two feet over my head.

“Move!” I yelled.

Titan and I retreated on hands, knees, and elbows, slipping into the darker edge of the trees. He crawled beside me with disciplined silence as we slid down a muddy bank into swamp water.

We tucked behind the enormous tangled roots of a banyan. Cold water filled my boots while my pulse battered my ribs.

I wiped sweat and black mud from my eyes, then edged a look around the roots.

Two men advanced on the blaze about fifty yards away, their outlines black against the fire. Both wore tactical gear and moved with the measured confidence of trained operators.

One swept the flames with a suppressed rifle. The other carried a metal fuel canister.

Not local muscle. These were hired professionals.

Titan gave a low growl beneath my hand, but his attention was nowhere near the two men by the cabin.

His head locked toward the mangroves to our right.

I raised my pistol into that wall of darkness. “Who’s there?” I whispered.

“Lower your voice, Danny,” a rough voice answered from the shadows.

A tall man stepped past hanging moss. Marcus Sullivan, my retired K9 mentor and Titan’s old trainer, stood soaked in swamp water, mud streaking his face, a pump-action twelve-gauge braced in his hands.

Relief hit me hard and vanished just as fast. “They tracked us, Marc. My SUV had to be bugged.”

“I know.” His gaze never left the figures near the fire. “I heard the explosion from the main house. They got around my perimeter sensors. These men are good.”

“They’re after Titan,” I said, tightening my hold on my partner’s collar. “They need him gone before Vance’s trial tomorrow.”

“Nobody takes anything from this land except in a body bag.” Marcus worked the shotgun action, its hard metallic clack obscenely loud beneath the fire’s roar.

He angled the barrel toward the rifleman. “I’ll handle the shooter. You take the one with the fuel.”

“We need one breathing,” I said. “I need answers about the mole inside the department.”

Marcus Sullivan kept his eyes on the advancing arsonist. “Then put a round in the arsonist’s legs while I take the rifleman.”