CROSS HER HEART

by Leigh, Melinda

  “We have four suspects and a plan to investigate three of them.”

  Matt’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen. “It’s my CI.”

  He answered, “Yeah.”

  “Midnight tonight. The usual place. Bring my money.” Kevin ended the call without waiting for a response.

  Matt set his phone on the desk. “And that rounds out our list. Looks like I’m meeting Nico.”

  Bree stopped pacing. “No. We’re meeting Nico.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Bree dialed the number on the business card Craig had given her. With one eye on Matt, she leaned back in the chair and flicked the card as the line rang. Craig’s title was listed as Pastor, Grace Community Church.

  When Craig answered, he was breathless. “Yes.”

  “I want to meet.”

  “Why?” He sounded suspicious.

  “To discuss the situation.”

  Three heartbeats of silence passed. “Praise the Lord. I knew He would intervene and influence your decision.” Despite his religious words, his tone was smug. He was gloating. He thought he had her backed into a corner.

  Bree gritted her teeth and kept her voice level. “I just want what is best for the kids.”

  “My children are my priority as well.”

  “Are you free tomorrow morning?”

  “I have a youth group commitment in the afternoon. It would have to be early.”

  “No problem,” Bree said. “I can come there. I have the church’s address.”

  “No.” His answer came just a beat too quickly. He didn’t want her near his church. Telling. “I’ll meet you halfway.” He gave her the location of a restaurant in Saratoga Springs. “Ten thirty.”

  The line went dead.

  Bree stabbed the “End” button on her phone anyway. “He’s such an ass.”

  “But he agreed to meet you?” Matt asked.

  “Yes.” She shoved her phone into her jeans pocket and summarized the call.

  Dana knocked on the french door, then opened it. “Dinner’s ready.”

  Bree took their notes off the desk, folded the papers, and stuck them in her purse before locking the rest of the papers in the bottom drawer. Then they went back to the kitchen and made small talk while they ate Dana’s lasagna.

  “Is Mommy in heaven?” Kayla asked.

  “Yes,” Bree said. If there was a heaven, Erin was definitely in it.

  “But you said we’re gonna have a funeral.” Kayla’s brow creased.

  Bree searched for a simple explanation.

  Luke jumped in. “Mom’s body is still here on earth, but her soul went to heaven.”

  Kayla turned to her brother. “What’s a soul?”

  “The part of Mom that made her Mom.” Luke’s answer seemed to satisfy Kayla.

  “Do you want to have a funeral for your mom?” Bree asked.

  “We should, right?” Luke tilted his head. “I mean, lots of people loved Mom. Everybody should get to say goodbye to her.”

  Bree nodded. “Do you want to say goodbye?”

  Both kids nodded.

  Luke stared down at his hands. “Can I see her?”

  “Yes,” Bree said. “If you want, but you don’t have to. Don’t feel pressured either way. You do what you think you need.”

  He lifted his gaze. “I want to, but not in front of everyone.”

  “You want a private viewing and a public service?”

  “I think so.” His eyes went moist and he swiped a finger under one.

  “Kayla, what do you want?” Bree asked.

  “What Luke says.” Kayla’s voice was small and thin.

  Bree didn’t push. She could start making plans, and honestly, her sister’s funeral was the last thing she wanted to think about. Even though she’d seen Erin, she was still partially in denial. When the funeral was over, she’d have to accept the fact that her sister was gone forever.

  Brody set his giant head on Luke’s leg and whined, giving the boy a pleading look and breaking the tension in the room.

  “I’d better feed him.” Matt went to the SUV for his kibble. When he’d set a bowl in front of the dog, Brody gave a disappointed sigh and half-heartedly ate a few nuggets.

  “Poor Brody.” Kayla cleared the table. “He wants lasagna.”

  Kayla slipped the dog a noodle, and Matt pretended not to see.

  “Is it all right if I leave Brody here overnight?” Matt asked.

  “Happy to have him,” Dana said.

  “I could dog-sit!” Kayla threw her arms around the dog’s neck. “He could sleep with me and everything.”

  Bree made coffee and played a game with the kids before bedtime. By nine o’clock, Luke went to his room to read, and Bree tucked Kayla in. Brody walked into the room and jumped onto the bed. Bree moved a few steps away, but Kayla shared her pillow, throwing one arm over the dog’s neck.

  Matt poked his head in the doorway. “Is that all right?”

  “You tell me.” Bree swallowed her anxiety.

  It’s OK. Daddy’s dogs were never like Brody.

  Matt seemed to read her mind. “She’s safer with Brody than without him.”

  “OK then.” Bree turned out the light.

  “Aren’t you going to kiss me good night?” Kayla asked.

  “Sure.” Bree returned to the bedside. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. It took her a few seconds to muster the courage to lean closer to the dog. Her face was inches from Brody’s. She kissed Kayla and straightened, quickly moving backward a few steps.

  “Good night, Kayla. Love you,” Bree said.

  “Love you back, Aunt Bree.”

  Bree’s knees shook as she left the room.

  “I’d call that progress.” Matt led the way downstairs.

  Bree called it indigestion. She stopped in the kitchen for an antacid. “You’re sure she’s safe with him?”

  “Absolutely. He’d give his life to protect her.”

  “I’m trusting you.” She met his gaze.

  “I know.”

  Bree filled Dana in on their plans, grabbed her purse, and checked her weapons. “The dog is in bed with Kayla.”

  “OK. I’ll check on them in a bit. You be careful.” Dana looked worried.

  “We will,” Matt assured her.

  At the front door, Bree put on her coat and added a knit cap, gloves, and a scarf. She fetched her boots and body armor from her trunk. She put on the boots and carried the Kevlar vest to Matt’s SUV.

  Trey White lived on Pine Road, four blocks from Justin’s house. Matt slowed the vehicle as they passed the address.

  The house was a big brick Colonial. Behind the house, Bree spotted a detached garage with a second-story addition. A light above the upstairs door illuminated a set of wooden steps. “Looks like the entrance to Trey’s apartment is on this side.” Tall evergreen hedges lined the sides of the property. “Plenty of shadows between the street and the garage, but we’ll be exposed on the stairs.” In the main house, an upstairs window glowed with light.

  “We’ll have to wait until the homeowner goes to sleep.” Matt drove past and pulled to the curb in front of an empty lot at the other end of the street. They could still see the house.

  Bree tugged gloves onto her cold hands. Ten minutes later, the second-story window went dark. She checked her watch. “We’ll give the homeowner thirty minutes to fall asleep?”

  “OK,” Matt said. “Shouldn’t take us long to search the place. It’s small.” Matt opened his glove compartment and pulled out a mini tool kit.

  “How good are you at picking locks?” she asked, thinking of their exposure at the top of the steps. “We’ll have to get in fast.”

  He flexed his gloved hand. “It’s not one of my better skills. Takes dexterity.”

  Bree took the tool kit from him and set it on her thigh. “When I was in high school, my cousin used to lock the door at midnight. She thought that would teach me to be home on time. Instead, I just learned to
pick the locks.”

  Matt grinned. “I’m relieved.”

  “At what?”

  “That you’re not perfect.” He turned off the engine.

  “Perfect? I’m terrified of your well-behaved dog.” The mental image of the big dog’s head so close to Kayla brought back a memory she’d long suppressed. Her shoulder ached, and humiliation flooded her. If she hadn’t been shocked and vulnerable after her sister’s death, would she have shared so much personal information with him?

  She glanced at him. He was easy to talk to, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. How could being overly comfortable with someone make her uneasy?

  Matt was studying her. “You seem to be doing better, though.”

  “I’m trying. I hate being afraid of dogs. Every time I have to work with a K-9 team, trying to act normal is a nightmare.” Controlling her anxiety around canines consumed mental and emotional energy that took away from her investigation. It was exhausting, distracting, and irrational.

  “No one knows?” He sounded surprised.

  “Just Dana. She runs interference when she can.” Bree rubbed her gloved hands together. With the engine off, the vehicle was cooling quickly. “It’s not the kind of thing you want circulating around the department. Can you imagine the flak I’d take?”

  Normally, Bree could handle the metaphorical ball-busting that came with the job. But when it came to this one thing, this particular terror, she was too sensitive. Then there were the few throwback macho types who didn’t believe women belonged in law enforcement and who would latch on to any reason to discredit or disarm her.

  “Cops can be brutal.”

  “I guess you’d know all about that.”

  “Yeah.”

  Bree studied the dark street through the windshield. “I was five. My father had at least a dozen dogs. I don’t know what breed they were, but they were not pets. He called them hunting dogs, but that was bullshit. Looking back on my memories, I suspect he had fighting dogs. They were tied up at the rear of our property, and I was told not to go near them.”

  The last thirty years evaporated, and she could hear the barking and panting as if she were back at the farm. “It was cold that day too, icy like the past couple of weeks have been.” Her hands trembled and she stuffed them into her pockets.

  As the memory played out, she smelled the dog runs and felt the chill of her soaking-wet knit mittens. “It had snowed the night before, just an inch or two, but I was determined to build a snowman. I was gathering snow from all over the yard and not paying attention to where I was. I ventured too close to the dogs’ area. One of them broke its chain and charged me. I knew better than to run. A running, crying child can trigger the prey instinct in certain dogs, like this one. But I couldn’t stop myself. I was terrified.” She breathed. “It caught me.” She made a snapping motion with her right hand around her left shoulder. “And gave me a good neck-breaking shake.”

  Like Brody had done with the hedgehog toy.

  Bree could feel Matt’s gaze riveted on her profile. But he didn’t say a word, and he didn’t move. Inside the SUV was as utterly still as the dark street in front of her. Her gaze turned further inward, another jolt of phantom pain searing her shoulder.

  She continued. “I don’t blame the dog. I’m sure my father was as abusive to his animals as he was to his family. He would have wanted the most aggressive dogs in the county. He would have considered it a point of pride. I remember once he told me it was best not to feed them much. Hungry dogs responded better to training. His were always on edge. If they caught a squirrel or rabbit, they ripped it to shreds in seconds. He liked that he was the only one who could handle them. It played to his ego.”

  A shudder rippled through her. Despite the decades that had passed, she could feel the tearing of her flesh, the cold air on her exposed skin, and the warm blood running down her torso and arm.

  “I thought it was going to rip my arm off, but the dog dragged me back to its kennel. I kicked and fought. It lost its hold for a few seconds and dropped me. I tried to crawl away.” Bree’s lungs tightened, and her next breath wheezed. “But it got me by the ankle. I must have been screaming bloody murder the whole time, because suddenly the dog released me.” She stopped. Under her coat, sweat soaked her sweater. Her heart banged against her ribs. “The attack probably lasted only a minute or so.” But it had felt like an eternity.

  She paused, breathing, remembering. “My mother took me to the ER. I was there all night. After I came home, my father took me back to the kennels. He said I needed to learn a lesson about responsibility, that actions and disobedience had consequences.” Bree’s stomach turned as the mental video played. Her very detailed story ended abruptly with one last image. Her father raised the shotgun and commanded her to watch. The shot boomed through the woods, and the big beast dropped to the icy ground, half of its head blown off, blood and bone and brain matter spattering the snow. Bree’s stomach heaved. Thirty years later, her body vividly remembered vomiting. “He shot the dog in front of me and told me it was my fault.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  Bree turned away, her face heating again. Dana didn’t even know the whole story, only a three-sentence summary. She glanced at him. A short, false note of laughter bubbled out of her. “That was probably TMI.”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  “It’s not like me to overshare.”

  “I told you about my shooting.”

  She lifted one eyebrow. “Then we’re even.”

  “You didn’t owe me anything.”

  Then why had she told him?

  “I’m sorry if I’ve been pushy about the dog.” Matt frowned. “You told me you were afraid, but I had no idea how traumatic your experience was.”

  “I don’t expect to be coddled. K-9s are useful tools, and Brody has been very helpful. My fears are mine to handle.”

  “We both know it’s not that easy. Plus, shepherds are big, scary-looking dogs.” Matt’s brows knitted. “What you need is a gateway dog.”

  “A gateway dog?”

  “Yeah. Spending time around a calm and less threatening dog might help desensitize you to them.”

  The idea of spending time with any dog did not appeal, and she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Bree checked the time and pointed to the house. “I haven’t seen any movement in a half hour.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do this.” Matt turned off the dome light, and they slipped out of the SUV.

  Bree started down the street, glad to be moving rather than thinking.

  “We’re just a normal couple out for a walk.” Matt took her hand.

  Bree stared down at their joined gloves. The contact was . . . distracting. She tried to pull her hand away, but he held on. When she looked at him, the corner of his mouth was turned up and his eyes were laughing.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to sprain an eyeball hanging around with you.”

  They neared the brick house, and he tugged her behind the hedge. They crept in its shadow past the house until they were parallel to the detached garage. Bree pulled her hand from Matt’s and signaled for him to stay put. She jogged up the wooden staircase. Taking two slim tools from the kit, she inserted them into the doorknob. She felt for the pins and popped the lock. She opened the door. Matt came up the stairs and slipped inside behind her. He closed the door.

  Blinds covered the windows, blocking out the moonlight and leaving the apartment pitch-black. Bree used the flashlight app on her phone to illuminate the room. The apartment was a studio with a kitchenette occupying one corner and a small bath tucked into the other. A bed and a sitting area took up the rest of the space.

  Matt headed for the kitchen area. He opened a drawer and shone a penlight into it. Bree went into the tiny bath. A pedestal sink, a toilet, and a shower the size of a phone booth were crammed into the space. She opened the medicine cabinet. The bottom shelf held a few hygiene and grooming products. Prescription bottles were lined
up across the top shelf. She photographed the labels with her cell phone.

  She exited the bathroom. Matt was standing next to the bed, shining his light into the top drawer of the nightstand.

  “Find anything?” she asked in a low voice.

  “A pricey 35mm camera with a telephoto lens.”

  “Being a voyeur is expensive.”

  Matt snapped a picture. “And porn. Lots of porn.”

  She moved to the living area. A ratty leather couch faced an entertainment center. The TV was a forty-inch flat-screen. A game console and controller sat next to it. “He spent all his money on the TV and gaming system.”

  She opened the top drawer under the TV. It was full of video games and DVDs. She put her phone inside the drawer to contain the light. Turning her head, she read a title, Game of Boners. She snorted. Points for creativity. “Porn here too.”

  She took a picture and moved on to the bottom drawer. There was only one item inside, a photo album, snapshot size. She opened it and gasped. Her sister’s face stared back at her.

  “What is it?” Matt asked over her shoulder. “Oh.”

  Bree turned the pages. In one, her sister was getting out of her truck in the salon parking lot. The next showed her sister leaving the salon. Bree recorded each picture with her cell phone camera. “They’re all like this.”

  “She didn’t know she was being photographed.”

  “No.” The hairs on Bree’s arms rose. “He was watching her.”

  “Stalking her,” Matt corrected. “For how long?”

  “Months, at minimum.” Bree pointed to an image of Erin in a skirt and short-sleeved shirt. “Erin isn’t wearing a jacket. This must be summer.”

  “Some of these pictures were taken from the dollar store with a telephoto lens.”

  “Not this one.” Bree stopped on a photo of Erin walking up Justin’s driveway. She tucked her phone back into her pocket. “I’d say we’ve established solid motivation.”

  Matt gestured to the picture of Erin in front of Justin’s house. “There’s snow on the ground. This photo is recent. We have more than motivation. This is the crime scene. We have proof Trey was at Justin’s house in the last week. He was fixated on Erin, and he knew about her continuing relationship with Justin. He was jealous.”