by Laura Greene
Ben nods his head, “Yes, just a small supply. Most of them are...”
Door opens. It is Olsen Hunt, Ben’s roommate, who is standing at the door.
“Agent James.” Olsen, like a bullet shot at a racetrack, takes off running.
“Charlie, stay here with Ben,” Tina says as she dashes out of the dorm room with one goal – to catch Olsen. “Stop! Olsen!” The curfew for quiet time is out the window. Olsen runs past the evening’s hall monitor who is adjusting his clipboard to ready himself for his rounds. He is running in the direction Agent James and Charlie just came from. He’s headed for the front door, Tina thinks while she paces herself and readies her breath for a long chase – she has to get to Olsen before the night shields him and the forest swallows him out of sight.
Olsen is bent on making it out of those doors, so he doesn’t even turn around to check where Agent James is or he would know that she is gaining ground on him with each stride. His breathing is so heavy that he misses the swift taps of her feet now clopping the ground louder and closer.
“I’m gaining ground on you Olsen. You may as well stop.” Tina is tired and looking for a way to outsmart Olsen, but she can’t let her opponent know her plan. She watches what she was dreading – Olsen catches his second wind and with a confident thrust forward of his chest he picks up speed in the final lap to the front door, “No, Olsen! Stop!” Tina slows down in defeat.
Olsen turns around for a final look at Agent James and smiles before disappearing through the heavy front doors.
Thud.
“I’ve got him!” comes a voice from right outside the doors. “I’ve gotta give it to you kid. You were going a hundred miles per hour!”
It is the familiar, husky voice of Chaplain Nick Collins that meets Agent James at the door. His knee is planted in Olsen’s back, pinning him to the ground. “I’m so glad you made it in time. How did you stop him?” Tina asks.
“Oh, nothing the good Word and a heavy cabinet can’t solve. I’ve never seen anyone fly in the air like that before,” Nick says with a chuckle while waving his Bible in the air. Tina is more amused by how excited he is. “I don’t think he’ll be giving you any more lip tonight,” Nick laughs, throwing his head back.
All Olsen is able to do is lean his head in as Agent James reads him his Miranda rights. “It’s not over, Agent James.”
“Oh really? From up here, it looks to me like it is.” She cuffs him and hurls him to his feet.
He wriggles around while Agent James escorts him to her car. “I’m really serious. I know you saw the drugs and they’re mine. I admit it, but I’m not responsible for Anna committing suicide. I wouldn’t do that to her.”
“If you’re not guilty then why did you run?” Tina is not in the mood for lies. The evidence is clearly showing he is guilty; if not for something to do with Anna’s death, then for withholding evidence and illegal drug dealing.
The chase down the hallway was apparently loud enough that it drew an audience who are now looking outside through the door and nearby classroom windows.
Olsen dips his head into the car and sits back. “I panicked. If you really want to know why she did it, then you need to look at the leaders of this school.”
“Principal Roberts?” Tina may not be able to trust Olsen, but her gut is telling her to listen.
“She’s just one of them,” Olsen whispers as Principal Roberts walks to the car.
“Agent James, a word please?”
BURIED IN THE DARK
Chapter 1
Someone is in my home, Tina thinks. Moments ago she arrived at her home and decided to park inside her garage. Normally, she would have parked in the driveway, but now that her ex-fiancé Dale has moved back to Boston, she doesn’t feel as comfortable parking outside alone at night and walking into an empty house. The garage had provided that sense of ease and safety for her, until now.
What would have seemed like a simple oversight to an untrained eye is exactly what alerts Detective Tina of the invasion. The door is unlocked and slightly cracked open. She is certain she left it closed – a habit that she swears to. Someone has definitely broken in. It would have been more palatable for her if the intruders had left the door agape. At least she would now have a clear view inside her laundry room and know that they’re not behind her door. No word of her uneasiness is uttered, but one glance at her arms unveils the cold shiver electrocuting her spine right now. She, herself, remains sitting in her car to assess the scene at a safe distance.
When she drove in, she didn’t notice any lights on in the house. How did they get in? It’s making her nervous to think that she only moved into town a few days ago and someone has already broken into her home. When she and Dale researched the area, it was supposed to be one of the safest neighborhoods in Newport.
The feeling of uneasiness leads her to make one phone call.
“Agent James! It’s 2AM. I thought you would be asleep by now,” a man with a surprisingly alert voice answers.
In a distinctly low tone, Tina responds, “Officer Barnes, I need you to listen carefully. I just arrived at home and I think there’s a Code 510 in progress. The suspects may still be in the home. The address is 150 N. Sharon Ave.”
“I’m sending units there now. And Agent James, you’ve had a long night. Please be careful.”
“I will.”
They hang up. She readies her gun. Tina is not going to be a sitting duck waiting to be hunted. She is going to find out who’s done this, and if they are still in the home, she will find them. Careful to make as little noise as possible, she steps out of the car; heavily pungent in the air are the fumes of the exhaust still lingering in the garage. She inches past a lawn mower and an extra table that is yet to find its place in her home. Purposefully, she is selecting every step closer to her intruders.
When she enters the unsecured door into her home, the first thing she notices is that the house is pitch black. With a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other, she tip-toes into the kitchen and swerves around the wall. Backup has not arrived yet, so Tina uses the flashlight and her agility to quickly expose the darkness in her home.
The kitchen is clear. Nothing is out of place except for the unopened boxes.
What could they be looking for? Tina thinks. Her only source of visibility is the flashlight in her hand, but she’s fine with that. She needs to catch them in the act.
After the kitchen is the living room. Her eyes dart around the room where the flashlight is pointing. It is also clear. She swings around another wall and now points her gun down the hallway to two bedrooms and a guest bathroom. It’s silent. Maybe they’re gone. All Tina can hear are her own short, controlled breaths. As she peeks around the open bathroom door, with her gun still pointed in front of her, she feels a gloved hand swaddle her face from behind. A leg appears from somewhere and knocks the gun and flashlight out of her hands. Tina hears the two items land on her wood floors, but she can’t tell where they fell in the dark. She tries to scream out, but a mere muffled noise escapes. Next, she pushes her foot off the bathroom wall and hears a grunt behind her. It’s a man. He stumbles back into a room, momentarily loosening the grip of his hand around her mouth, and steadies himself again. Then he tightens his grip and wraps a hand around her just under her chest. Tina feels her breath being pushed out of her. He is bigger and stronger than her, but she is smarter. She instinctively switches to taking shorter breaths.
They, if there is more than one, were hiding in her bedroom. Tina angrily lunges her elbow back into the side of her perpetrator and he gasps forward.
He loses his hold on her. She takes advantage of the opportunity and stomps her heel into his foot. Then she strikes a second blow with her fisted hand towards his face but misses it as she turns her body around to face him. He has a mask on.
“Who are you?” she says while her eyes focus on trying to penetrate through the mask. Before she can unmask her attacker, he grabs her waist, picks her up, pushes her to t
he ground and she hits her head against the bathroom counter. She’s winded.
The gun. The man does not run to the gun. Instead, he runs to the living room. Agent James quickly chases after him. Her head is throbbing, but she can’t let him get away. He throws her grandma’s favorite shaded lamp down in front of Tina and she skips over it, almost losing her balance, but the flowery couch catches her. “Stop! FBI!”
The prowler ignores her warning. He races to the door, unlocks it and escapes through it. Tina is back on her feet, chasing him. She doesn’t have her gun. It appears her attacker doesn’t have one either, but he’s fast. He runs down her driveway towards a car that has pulled up in front of her home. It wasn’t there when she arrived.
“Go! Go!” her assailant shouts as he dives into the passenger seat and they leave.
Tina pants in her driveway as she watches the car speed off into the distance. She was right. There were at least two people. Sadly, she wasn’t able to get a positive ID of either one.
But she remembers that just before the man jumped into the car, Tina saw that he dropped a folded piece of paper on the ground. There it is in front of her. She picks it up, hoping it will shed light on who is after her.
You’re not welcome here.
That’s it. That’s all the paper says. Tina has no idea who just invaded her home, attacked her or what they were after. She turns to go look inside her home; maybe they came in search of something.
Just then, the cavalry arrives after the action has ended. Two units were dispatched and Officer Barnes, who is the chief of the Newport Police Department, parks behind them in his black SUV.
The first time Tina saw the SUV was earlier tonight when she busted Olsen for drugs at the school. That seems like a century ago now.
“It looks like you were targeted,” Officer Barnes, a stout man in his sixties with a receding hairline, says while assessing the scene. “Are you sure nothing was taken?” Tina and he met under the most precarious circumstances at Hartford Boarding School and now, here they are again. The night isn’t even over and they are quickly becoming a misfit modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.
“Nothing. I think they came to deliver this message and I just caught them in the act,” Tina answers, waving the note in the air. The two of them are sitting down on her porch while Barnes’ team continues sweeping her home for fingerprints or anything that might be out of place. They kindly replace Tina’s grandmother’s lamp in its place, and hand her back her flashlight and firearm after gathering prints.
The NPD officers tried to offer her a blanket when they arrived but Tina refused, determined to help them find out what happened. Still, they have come up with nothing.
“But how did they get in?” Barnes must be just as tired as Tina, yet he is being cautious and leaving no stone unturned. Tina appreciates it. She is just as meticulous as he is.
She shrugs her shoulders. “My guess is they somehow figured out a way to trip the code on my garage door and got inside. Either that or they knew my code. But I just changed it two days ago and there are only two people who know it.” Tripping the code is the only reasonable answer Tina is able to come up with. The front door was locked from the inside with a deadbolt and all the windows were locked with no sign of forced entry. “If they were just a week later, I would have had Ring set up and been alerted on my phone when they arrived.”
Barnes leans back, resting his hands on the floor behind him; his face appears more contemplative and he says, “Yeah, I don’t blame you for getting all that new security equipment. Me, I’m still old school. I lean on my shotgun to do the job.” He taps the side of his hip as he says this, indicating he keeps it close to him when he’s at home.
Tina is not surprised. Barnes did tell her earlier at the station that he was from the deep south where the police only show up to clean the mess up. The townsfolk take care of their problems there.
Not at Hartford though. The school principal brought her in on a special mission to find out why so many girls have been committing suicide. She has watched CCTV footage, read Anna’s diary, and conducted interviews with students and other persons of interest. All it has led to so far is the arrest of a school drug dealer. Tina is now waiting anxiously on Anna’s toxicology report to see if her investigation is yielding fruit.
She ponders, what did Olsen mean when he said the school leaders were to blame? I need to find out; but not before she finds out who is targeting her. For now she will have to be content with Barnes placing two officers outside her home as a precaution.
The officers finish their investigation. All but her two protectors pack their equipment, ready to leave, and Barnes gets up to join them, “Alright, we’ll put out a BOLO. Maybe something will come up. Just don’t go making any more enemies out there, ya hear? Or you gon’ have the whole dang force thinkin’ we FBI partners.” Barnes laughs at the thought then says, “I always did wonder what it would be like working for the Bureau.”
Tina also laughs; it feels good to laugh, she thinks, grateful to let out a little steam tonight. “The way we keep meeting, you may not have to wonder much longer.” She sees them off and goes inside.
It’s now 4AM. Tina was hoping for a little shuteye before she attended the memorial service for Anna Grayson at the school. All she’ll get tonight, however, is a short, one-hour nap.
She plops herself on the sofa. Even with the lights on her home no longer feels like a home, but a crime scene.
Chapter 2
“I can’t sleep,” Tina says into her cellphone. She has moved from the sofa and is now lying on the couch next to it. Adjusting herself and sitting upright, she has given up on sleep.
A familiar male voice responds, “Long night?” It is Dale, Tina’s ex-fiancé, who is on the other side of the line. Along with his question comes a hustle and bustle of rushed noises. He is evidently getting ready for work. But one thing remains the same; Dale makes time for Tina even if it is to a fault.
“You could say that.” Tina sounds deflated. She needs sleep, she needs answers, she needs leads and right now she doesn’t feel like she has much of anything. The only person she knows she can talk to so she can feel better at this time is Dale. Sure, they’re no longer together, but what is it to Tina? He’s still her best friend and they promised to be there for each other. What could have been a nasty break-up ended up proving to be quite amicable because they are such good friends. If she’s honest, their relationship was more plutonic than intimate. Honesty, that is something Tina wishes the people of this town shared more of. Instead, they hide in secrecy. “I don’t want to bore you, I just wanted to talk. Anyway, have you started work yet?” Tina is not sure where to begin.
“No, I took personal time yesterday to tie up some loose ends, but I’m preparing to go in today.” Dale is back at his old accounting job in Boston. Usually Dale is an open book to Tina, but today he is more closed off. Before she can inquire further, Dale makes a request of her, “So, tell me what happened yesterday.”
“Well,” Tina says, her eyes shifting up in thought, “it was cray cray.”
“Cray cray? Do you mean crazy?” It annoys Dale when she uses colloquialisms that he is unfamiliar with. He is like an old soul in a young body.
Tina finds it amusing. She responds with a smile, “Yes, like crazy.”
Dale is not amused, but he humors her, “Ha, ha. So? What happened?” For years they’ve played this cat and mouse game where he asks her what’s on her mind and she resists a little, then he prods further until she is comfortable to share. Tina struggles to be open in her relationships. Her ability to turn on and turn off her emotions is what she thinks has made her a good detective. Growing up with mostly absent parents is what Tina decides to put it down to. She doesn’t want to blame her parents, but she sees that her circumstances shaped her to internalize her emotions more than be expressive. Dale does not let go so easily. This is his way of helping Tina sort through her emotions.
Tina bites. She thinks back to
earlier in the night.
7 hours earlier
Janitor Charlie showed Tina the CCTV footage of the night Anna died, and Tina knew she would need backup. In a matter of seconds she was on the phone to her director, Tim. Being that he was in Boston, he called in a friend from the local NPD to assist her. Officer Barnes was on his way, but he was not the only one she called. Fearing the ample time lost waiting for the cavalry to arrive, Tina turned to her friend Nick, the school chaplain, to help save the day. What took place next was a whirlwind of events that culminated in the home invasion tonight.
“Agent James, a word please?” Principal Amy Roberts says. Moments ago, following a hurricane of events, Detective Tina James arrested Olsen Hunt and put him in the back of her car. Now, Amy has just stepped up to her, no doubt displeased that she wasn’t aware an arrest was taking place in her school, let alone in the front parking lot with many students and faculty watching.
