CROSS HER HEART

by Leigh, Melinda

  “And there he is.” She slid lower in her seat, waiting for Ronnie to step out of the house.

  “We should wait for backup.”

  “No. I’m not letting him go.”

  Dana gave her The Look.

  “Don’t. You saw what he did. I want him off the street where he can’t hurt anyone else.” Bree reached for the door handle as Ronnie came out of the house and closed the door behind him. “I’ll do the running. You head him off in the car.”

  “I don’t like you going off on your own.” Dana shifted into drive.

  “You will be right behind me. You just had bronchitis. You won’t be able to keep up.”

  They both knew that Dana could never keep up with Bree anyway.

  Dana grumbled in agreement. “When you get a newbie to train, make them do all the running.”

  Bree didn’t want to think about taking on a new partner. Trust didn’t come easily to her.

  Dana sobered. “Be careful, Bree. Ronnie is a dangerous little shitbag.”

  “Yep.” Bree slipped out of the car. Dana drove away to circle the block. Bree peered around the hedge. Ronnie was heading up the alley. As if he knew she was behind him, he broke into a hard run.

  Shit!

  Bree sprinted after him, but he reached the end of the alley, turned right, and disappeared behind a wooden fence. Fearing an ambush, Bree stopped at the corner and put her back to the fence. Drawing her weapon, she rounded the corner gun-first. Her heart hammered against her breastbone. Despite the cold, sweat ran down the center of her back, soaking her shirt. But Ronnie wasn’t in sight.

  Emerging on the next street, she caught her breath and scanned the surrounding brick rowhomes for her suspect. Where is that little bastard?

  “Bree!” Just ahead, Dana had angled the Crown Vic across the intersection. She pointed out the open vehicle window to the alley on the next block. “That way!”

  Following her partner’s direction, Bree pivoted on a patch of ice and ran. Behind her, she heard the peel of tires as Dana turned the car. She’d try to cut off Ronnie’s escape on the next block, and she’d call for more backup. No doubt there were additional units in the area.

  Bree slogged through a snow bank and ran past a dumpster just in time to see her suspect climbing over a six-foot chain-link fence.

  She bolted forward. “Stop! Police!”

  As she expected, Ronnie ignored her and kept running. Bree didn’t bother to yell at him again. She’d save her breath for the chase.

  In her peripheral vision, she caught the swirl of red-and-blue lights as a black-and-white unit passed the intersection. Her black athletic shoes skidded on the salt-dusted blacktop. She jumped onto the fence, and it rattled under the impact. Hooking her hands at the top, she hoisted herself over and dropped to the asphalt on the other side.

  Spying Ronnie just twenty feet ahead of her, near where the alley dumped onto the main street, Bree stayed on him. She ran three days a week. The initial sprint had been painful for her cold lungs and muscles, but now she was warming up. Her stride lengthened, and she gained on Ronnie.

  Dana should be at the other end of the alley to block his escape. But Ronnie looked over his shoulder, saw Bree right on his tail, and made a hard right, jumping onto a square bin next to a rickety wooden fence, poising to leap over it.

  Bree was barely five feet behind him. She lunged forward and reached for the back of his jacket.

  Almost.

  Ronnie’s hands hit the top of the fence. She grabbed his hood just as he gathered his muscles to vault over the top. A heavy body hit the wood on the other side. The deep bark of a large dog echoed. Ronnie couldn’t stop his momentum in time, but Bree’s grip on his hood clotheslined him. Grabbing at the fabric at his throat, he fell to his knees and hit the fence face-first. Bree slammed into the fence next to him. Her cheek smacked the top board. The giant head of a white pit bull appeared as the dog leaped a second time. Its powerful jaws snapped inches from her eye. She felt the dog’s breath on the side of her face, and dog spit splattered her cheek before the big beast hit the ground again.

  A memory intruded, teeth sinking into her flesh, the phantom pain bright and sharp as if thirty years had not passed. Terror jolted her heart, and she flung her body backward off the fence. She slipped off the bin and landed on her ass in six inches of snow. Ronnie fell on top of her in a pile of sprawled limbs. Something jammed hard into Bree’s gut, knocking the wind from her. But she barely registered the ache in her ribs.

  Where’s the dog?

  The pit bull hit the fence again. The weak boards rattled, creaked, and shifted as the dog threatened to break through. Bree heard low growling and heavy breathing. Dog tags jingled as the animal raced back and forth along its side of the fence. Approaching footsteps pounded on the pavement. Backup was here. But Bree’s adrenal system didn’t believe the danger had passed. Her pulse pounded through her veins. She fought to catch her breath and stem the panic scrambling through her chest, gathering momentum like an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the PA Turnpike.

  The fence will hold.

  But Bree couldn’t breathe. She tried to roll to her side, but Ronnie’s heavier body pinned her to the ground. A pair of big, black cop shoes appeared next to her face, and the weight was lifted off her. Still her lungs were locked up, and she gasped for air.

  “I got him, Detective Taggert,” a voice said. “You can let go now.”

  Bree inhaled, her lungs inflating, her eyes focusing. The shoes belonged to a beefy uniformed cop. A second patrol officer appeared next to the first. The dog huffed, but it was safely behind the fence.

  “Bree!” Dana’s voice jolted her. “Let. Go.”

  Bree blinked down at her hand. Her knuckles were scraped and raw from the impact with the fence, but her fingers were still clenched tightly in Ronnie’s hood. The fabric pressed against his windpipe, and his head was craned backward at an unnatural angle. She opened her fist and released him.

  “Shit, Taggert,” Cop Number Two said. “You ran him down.”

  The two uniforms flipped Ronnie onto his face, handcuffed him, and hauled him away. Another black-and-white parked behind the first.

  Dana extended a hand. “You OK?”

  Nodding, Bree let her partner pull her to her feet. Her knees trembled, but she sucked it up and forced them to straighten. The other cops would blame her breathlessness on the chase. She hoped.

  Dana’s face was serious as she raked her eyes over Bree. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  Bree glanced around, aware that the other cops were watching her. Their scrutiny felt hot on her face. She rubbed her solar plexus. “Got the wind knocked out of me. I’ll be fine in a couple of minutes.”

  “OK.” Dana steered her out of the alley to where she’d parked the car and opened the passenger door for her. “Sit down and catch your breath.”

  Bree sat sideways, her feet in the street, and sipped from a water bottle she’d left in the car. Then she wiped her clammy palms on her thighs. Now that the incident was over, impending bruises were making themselves known. Her tailbone throbbed with every beat of her heart. But it wasn’t the aches and pains that rattled her, and it wouldn’t be the killer she’d chased that gave her nightmares.

  It was the dog and the memories its snapping teeth evoked.

  She shuddered, then took three deep breaths and did what she did best. She compartmentalized. She shoved that horror show back into the deep, dark hole where it needed to stay. She’d just gotten her heart rate and breathing under control when the phone on her belt vibrated. Bree looked at the screen. She’d missed a call while she was chasing Ronnie. She read the voice mail notification, and her heart did a double tap.

  Erin?

  “What’s wrong?” Dana narrowed blue eyes at Bree.

  Bree stared at her phone. “My sister called.”

  “When was the last time you talked to her?”

  “A couple of weeks ago. You know my family is . . .�
� Bree searched for the word. “Complicated.”

  “Uh-huh.” Dana was more than a coworker. She was Bree’s closest friend.

  “We talk on the phone, but I haven’t seen her since she brought the kids to Philly last summer.” The last time Bree had visited Grey’s Hollow had been for Erin’s wedding four years before.

  “I remember.” Dana was a history geek. When Erin and the kids came to town, she’d played tour guide, walking them through the Constitution Center, Independence Hall, and other sites. “Did she leave a voice mail?”

  “Yes.” Bree’s finger hesitated over the “Play” button. She should wait until she got home to listen to her sister’s message. Unexpected news from Grey’s Hollow was never good. Bree’s heart began to thud again, fresh sweat gathered on her palms, and all her careful compartmentalizing went to hell. “Could you give me a minute, Dana?”

  “Sure. No problem.” She turned and walked back to the cluster of cops at the alley entrance.

  Planting her feet firmly on the pavement, Bree stabbed the “Play” button. Her sister’s voice was breathless and hurried.

  “Bree? I’m in trouble. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to give you the details in a message, but I need your help. Please call me back as soon as you get this.”

  Worried, Bree pressed the “Call Back” button. Her sister’s line rang three times and connected to voice mail. Bree left a message. “It’s Bree. Sorry I missed you. Call me back.”

  She lowered the phone and stared at it. She’d missed her sister’s call by only a few minutes. Where could Erin be? Bree played the message again. Her sister’s rushed words knotted in her belly.

  Frowning, Dana walked over. “Everything OK?”

  “She’s not answering her phone.” Bree called her brother, Adam, but the call went immediately to voice mail. She left him a message. Next, she dialed the salon where her sister worked, but the receptionist said Erin was off tonight.

  “Try her later,” Dana suggested. “She could be in the shower.”

  Bree drank some water and called Erin again. Still no answer. She replayed the message, tilting the phone so Dana could hear.

  Dana’s blonde eyebrows lowered. “Your sister doesn’t seem like the type who gets in trouble.”

  “She isn’t. Erin’s a head down, go to work, raise her kids kind of person. She doesn’t have time for trouble.” Bree rubbed the edge of her phone with her thumb. “But just her calling me for help means it’s something major. We’re not as close as I’d like.”

  “Not your fault or hers that you weren’t raised together.”

  Erin and Adam had been reared by their grandmother in Grey’s Hollow. Bree had been farmed out to a cousin in Philadelphia.

  “My childhood isn’t my fault.” Bree tapped her phone screen and stared at the lack of notifications. “But the decisions I’ve made since reaching adulthood are one hundred percent my responsibility.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  As children, Bree and her siblings had survived a nightmare together. Despite the three hundred miles between them, they would always have a special connection. They were particularly tuned in to trouble, and Bree could sense from Erin’s voice that something was wrong. Really wrong. Erin’s tone wasn’t I’m late with the mortgage payment. She had sounded scared.

  There was only one thing Bree could do.

  She finished her water and stood. “I’m going home.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  With a flicker of apprehension, Matthew Flynn rang his friend’s doorbell a second time. Once again, chimes sounded inside the small ranch-style home. But no footsteps approached the door.

  Justin should be home. He should be expecting Matt to pick him up for his Narcotics Anonymous meeting, as he had every Tuesday night for months.

  At Matt’s side, his German shepherd, Brody, whined. Matt glanced down at the dog. Brody’s ears were up and his posture stiff.

  “What is it, boy?”

  Brody whined again and pawed at the concrete stoop. A former sheriff’s department K-9, Brody had sharp instincts honed by years of training and practice. The dog barked once. Normally, he was happy and excited to see Justin. His tail should be wagging. His posture should be relaxed.

  Something was wrong.

  Matt might not understand the signals, but he trusted his dog. Brody’s senses of smell and hearing were far superior to any human’s. And he always seemed to have a sixth sense as well. When they’d been a working K-9 team with the sheriff’s department, Brody had saved Matt’s ass more times than he could count. Matt had learned the hard way that he could trust the dog more than he could most people.

  He swallowed a lump of pure bitterness. Three years ago, a shooting had ended both their careers. Matt wished the way his future had been ripped out from under him could be described as simply as it had been summed up in the press release. The reality had been anything but. He knew he had to let go of his anger. The sheriff had sent Matt and Brody through the wrong door of a warehouse, and they’d been caught in friendly fire when deputies exchanged shots with a drug dealer. Whether the former sheriff’s actions had been deliberate or accidental didn’t matter anymore. The man was dead. But letting go of his resentment was proving harder than Matt anticipated.

  He opened the storm door and tried the wooden door, but it was locked. Backing away from the door, he scanned the front of the house. Justin’s Ford Escape sat in the driveway. A FOR SALE sign was displayed in the windshield. Justin would not be driving for a long time. Four months before, he’d been arrested for driving while ability impaired by drugs. As a second DWAI offense, the charge was a class E felony in New York State. Justin’s wife had asked him to move out. Since then, Justin said he was committed to staying sober and earning back her trust, but there were days when all he talked about were his failures. He battled depression along with his addiction.

  Concerned, Matt backed away from the door, his breath fogging in the freezing January night. The exterior and interior lights were on. Justin was on a tight budget. If he wasn’t home, the house would be dark.

  Matt pulled out his phone. Twenty minutes ago, he’d sent Justin a text, letting him know he was on the way. Matt had been running a few minutes late and hadn’t waited for an answer before leaving his house, but now the lack of one felt wrong. Justin usually sent back a thumbs-up. Matt sent a new message. I’M OUTSIDE.

  A minute ticked away with no response.

  There was only one thing to do. Matt had to go in.

  He’d known Justin since they were kids. His friend had been on a downward spiral, set off by a car accident, chronic back pain, and a subsequent addiction to OxyContin. Justin had fallen apart, but he seemed determined to get his life together. Matt would do everything he could to help, including driving him to NA meetings and breaking into his house if there was even a slight chance that his friend could be in trouble.

  Possible scenarios ran through Matt’s head. Addiction relapse and suicide were among them.

  “Come on,” he said to the dog as he turned away from the house, but Brody didn’t immediately follow. The dog focused on the door and whined again. The sound he made was plaintive, high-pitched, and barely audible. “We’ll try another door.”

  Obedient but clearly reluctant, Brody followed him around the side of the house. Their footsteps crunched in the ice-crusted snow. The patio door was a glass slider, and it was open. Matt stuck his head inside. The den and kitchen were at the back of the house. The kitchen was empty but brightly lit. Two open cans of Coke sat on the counter next to a pizza box. In the den, a couch and coffee table faced the TV. Light flickered from the TV mounted on the wall. A local news station played on the screen.

  Where is Justin?

  Worry snowballed in Matt’s gut. As if channeling his master’s anxiety, Brody dug into the snow that had drifted against the base of the slider.

  “Yeah, no worries, buddy. We’re going in.” Matt pulled a leash from his pocket an
d snapped it onto the dog’s collar. Then he stepped into the kitchen. A few clumps of snow fell from his boots. He wiped his feet on the mat and led Brody inside, leaving the door open behind them.

  The shepherd panted and paced at the end of his leash. Matt brought him to heel with a single German command. “Fuss.”

  “Justin?” he called. Nothing moved. The tiny house felt eerily still. Brody pulled toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Matt held him back as he strained at the end of his leash.

  The dog whined again. Matt flipped a light switch in the hall. The laundry room and bathroom were empty. Matt peered into the spare bedroom, which contained only a stack of boxes Justin refused to unpack, claiming the move was temporary.

  Brody pulled harder.

  “Fuss.” Matt repeated the command.

  Brody obeyed but his body posture remained tense. He was acting as if he were back on active duty in a high-stress situation.

  The master bedroom lay ahead. Matt debated taking the dog back to his vehicle, but he wasn’t armed. On the remote chance there was an intruder in the house, Brody would know, and the dog would have his back. Matt listened for a few seconds, but the only sounds were the low voices of the news anchors on the TV in the den. Brody wasn’t acting as if there was a threat, but the dog was agitated, whining and shifting his weight from side to side in lieu of pacing. His head bobbed and weaved like a professional boxer.

  “Justin?” Matt called out, hesitant to invade the privacy of his friend’s bedroom. But Justin’s depression made him walk down the hall. The room was lit only by a small bedside lamp, but it was bright enough that he could see what lay in the middle of the room.