TWO
Virginia didn’t know what to do.
That was going to be a problem, because standing in the middle of some guy’s yard, waiting while he searched her house for a dead man? That was nuts.
Yet that was exactly what Virginia was doing.
She’d called the police.
She knew they were on the way.
She could have gone inside the garage apartment like Officer Forrester had suggested, but she was frozen with fear, so afraid that she’d move the wrong way, head the wrong direction, make the wrong choice, that she wasn’t doing anything at all.
“Snap out of it,” she muttered, and the words seemed to break terror’s hold.
She could breathe again, think again.
And what she was thinking was that she needed to meet the police and explain what she’d seen. Crazy as it might sound to them, Kevin had been in that house. Or someone who’d looked an awful lot like him, because there was no way the man could have actually been her husband. She’d seen Kevin’s gravesite. She’d read the inscription that his grandmother had had carved on the marble stone: Beloved son. Beloved husband. Virginia had wanted to scratch those words out, just leave his birth and death dates.
Of course, she hadn’t.
She’d always played by the rules, done what she was supposed to, tried to be the best that she could be. That included being a survivor. So, she’d done what the therapist had suggested—gone to the gravesite, read the police report, the coroner’s report, the reports from the doctor who’d pronounced Kevin dead. She’d tried to heal, because that was what everyone had expected, and it was what she wanted to do.
Eight years later, she didn’t know if she could heal from what she’d been through. The wounds had scarred over, but they weren’t gone. They still throbbed and pulsed and ached every time something reminded her of Kevin.
Kevin, who apparently had a doppelgänger, one who knew who Virginia was and knew that Kevin had called her Ginny.
She shuddered.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. Officer Forrester’s K-9 partner?
Maybe, and maybe they’d found the guy who’d been in the house. She knew enough about the Capitol K-9 Unit to know that every member was handpicked to do the job. They were all well trained, driven, hardworking. She’d seen that firsthand when one of the foster children she and Cassie were caring for had been in danger. The Capitol K-9 team had stepped in, protecting Cassie, Virginia and the kids.
Virginia had been more than happy to let them do it; but, then, she’d spent most of the past few years letting other people call the shots. It was so much easier to do that than to risk making a mistake, doing something that would get her into the kind of trouble she’d found herself in with Kevin.
She needed to change that. She knew it. She’d known it for a long time. Accepting the inheritance from Laurel was part of that. Taking control of her life, being less afraid and more courageous—that was the other part.
Sirens were screaming, and she knew the police were close. She could keep standing where she was or she could head back to the house and wait for them to arrive. A few weeks ago, she would have stayed put, but she had plans. Big ones. She wanted to open her own foster home, take the money she’d inherited and put it to good use. She really felt as if that was what God wanted her to do, but there was no way she could until she started taking control again, started regaining what she’d lost eight years ago.
She took a deep breath, ignoring the sick feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach as she headed back across the yard.
She bypassed the house, keeping a good distance between herself and the building. She didn’t think the Kevin look-alike was still there. She’d heard Officer Forrester’s dog howling, and she knew enough about K-9 work to know that meant he was on a scent.
She hated the house, though, and now she had new bad memories to add to the old ones.
A police cruiser was pulling into the driveway as she ran into the front yard. She waited, her heart pounding painfully as the officer climbed out. Midfifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a handlebar mustache that seemed out of place in Washington, DC, he had the rugged kind of hardness she’d noticed in the faces of a lot of veteran police officers.
“Ma’am?” he said. “Did you call about an intruder?”
“Yes.” She moved toward him, her legs just a little shaky. She needed to get herself under control. The last thing she wanted was a full-blown panic attack. “He was in the house when I arrived.”
“Is he still there?”
“I don’t think so.”
He nodded, called something in on his radio and turned toward the house, eyeing the closed front door and the empty porch. “I’ll check things out.”
“There was another officer here. He—”
“Yeah. We’ve got someone meeting him over at the bus depot. Wait here.” He hurried into the house, and she was left standing in the yard.
She thought about calling Cassie and asking her to come. She didn’t want to face things alone, but Cassie had enough on her plate. She didn’t need to come running to the rescue every time Virginia had a little trouble.
Or a lot of it.
A second police cruiser pulled up behind the first. The passenger door opened, and Officer Forrester got out. He offered a quick wave before opening the back door and letting his dog out.
They made a striking team—both of them muscular and fit and a little ferocious looking. She’d met Officer Forrester at Cassie and Gavin’s wedding. She hadn’t paid all that much attention to him. She’d been trying to corral the kids, keep them from eating the cake or destroying flower arrangements. She’d heard a few of Cassie’s other bridesmaids oohing and ahhing over the K-9 team members, but Virginia had no desire to ooh and ahh. She was way past the point of noticing men, and there was no way she planned to ever be involved in a relationship again.
“You doing okay?” Officer Forrester asked as he approached.
She nodded, because her throat still felt tight with fear, and she was afraid her voice would be shaky.
“I followed your guy to the bus depot. Samson lost the trail there. I think the perp might have gotten in a car, but it’s possible he made it onto a bus. We’ll check the security cameras in the area. See if we can figure out who he is and where he went.”
“Good,” she managed to say, her voice stronger than she expected it to be.
“You want to sit in your car while you wait?” he suggested, his gaze focused and intent, his eyes a bright crisp blue that reminded her of the summer sky.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you are, but you look pale, and Gavin asked me to keep an eye on you until he and Cassie get here.”
“You called Gavin?”
“He’s my supervisor,” he responded as if that explained everything.
“Well, call him again,” she said, because she didn’t want her boss to come all the way from All Our Kids to help her. Not when there were two—she glanced at a tall blonde female officer getting out of the second cruiser—three police officers nearby. “Tell him that I’m fine and I don’t need Cassie to come.”
“How about you do that, Virginia?” he suggested. “I’m going in the house.”
He was gone before she could respond, striding across the yard, Samson beside him.
She would have followed, but the female officer approached and began asking dozens of questions. Virginia answered the best she could, but her mind was on the house, the man she’d seen, the name he’d called her—Ginny. As if he’d said it a thousand times before.
No one called her Ginny. Not since Kevin had died.
No one in her new life, none of the new friends she’d made, the people she worked with, the kids she took care of knew that she’d eve
r gone by Ginny. For eight years, she’d been Virginia.
Whoever the guy in the house had been, he’d known her before. Or he’d known Kevin. She didn’t like either thought. She didn’t want to revisit the past. She didn’t want to relive the weeks and months and years before she’d nearly died.
What she wanted to do was go back to her safe life working at All Our Kids. She wanted to forget about her inheritance, her past, all the nightmares that plagued her.
The front door of the house opened, and Officer Forrester appeared, the responding officer right behind him. They looked grim and unhappy, and she braced herself for bad news as she followed the female officer across the yard and up the porch stairs.
* * *
Virginia looked terrified.
John couldn’t say he blamed her. Finding someone in a supposedly empty house would scare the bravest person. From what Gavin had told him, Virginia wasn’t exactly that. As a matter of fact, Gavin had said Virginia tended to panic very quickly. Which was why he and Cassie were on their way to the house.
He wasn’t going to call and tell them not to come, but Virginia seemed to be holding it together pretty well. No tears, no screams, no sobs. Just wide blue eyes, pale skin and soft hair falling across her cheeks.
“Did you find anything?” she asked, directing her question to the other officer.
Leonard Morris was a DC police officer. Well liked and respected, he knew just about every law enforcement officer in the district. “Nothing to write home about, ma’am,” Officer Morris responded. “I’m going to dust for prints, but I thought you could come in, see if there’s anything missing.”
She hesitated for a heartbeat too long, her gaze jumping to the still-open front door, her skin going a shade paler. “I... Is that really necessary?”
Morris frowned. “If there’s something missing, only you’ll know it. So, yeah, I guess it is.”
“I... Don’t you want to dust for prints and look for evidence before I go in and contaminate the scene?”
“I think,” John said, cutting in, taking her arm and urging her to the door, “it’s been contaminated. You were already in there, remember?”
“I’m scared,” she responded. “Not senile.”
“Anyone would be scared in these circumstances.”
“Maybe I didn’t state my position strongly enough,” she muttered as they stepped into the house. “I’m terrified, completely frozen with fear and unable to deal with this. Plus, up until today, I hadn’t stepped foot in the house in eight years. I have no idea what Laurel had.”
“You know what she had before. Maybe that will help. And you seem to be dealing just fine,” he said, because she was. He’d seen people panic. He’d seen them so frozen with fear they couldn’t act. Virginia didn’t seem as if she was any of those things.
“For now. Let’s see what happens if Kevin jumps out of a closet,” she responded with a shaky laugh.
“Kevin?” Officer Morris asked.
Virginia frowned. “My husband. He died eight years ago.”
“I guess he’s not going to be jumping out of any closets, then,” the female officer said, her gaze focused on the opulent staircase, the oil paintings that lined the wall leading upstairs. They screamed money. The whole place did.
“No. I guess he wouldn’t, Officer...?”
“Glenda Winters. You want to tell me why you’re worried about your dead husband jumping out of closets?” she asked.
John had worked with her before. She was a good police officer with a knack for getting the perp, but she was straightforward and matter-of-fact to a fault, her sharp interview tactics often getting her in trouble with her supervisor.
“I’m not,” Virginia replied, walking into a huge living room, her gaze drifting across furniture, paintings and a grand piano that sat in an alcove jutting off from the main room. “It’s just that the man who was in the house looked a lot like Kevin.”
“They say everyone has a twin,” Officer Morris commented.
“He called me Ginny. Just like Kevin used to,” Virginia said, and for the first time since she’d come screaming through the bushes, John could actually see her shutting down and freezing up.
“Did Kevin have a brother?” he asked, and she shook her head, her eyes a little glassy, her skin pale as paper.
“No.”
“How about cousins? Uncles? Extended family?” Officer Winters asked. “Because I have a cousin who looks so much like me, people think we’re twins.”
“If he does, I never met any of them.”
“This was Laurel Johnson’s place, right?” Officer Morris walked through the living room and into a dining area that could have seated twenty people comfortably.
“Yes. I’m her granddaughter-in-law.”
Morris nodded. “She left you the property. Interesting, huh?”
Something seemed to pass between them, some unspoken words that John really wanted to hear, because there was an undercurrent in the house, a strange vibe that Virginia had brought inside with her. He wanted to know what it was, why it was there, what it had to do with the guy she’d seen in the house.
“I guess it is.” Virginia took one last look around the living room. “As far as I can tell, nothing is missing,” she said, then hurried into the dining room, the kitchen, up the back stairs and onto the second floor. With every step she seemed to sink deeper into herself, her eyes hollow and haunted, her expression blank.
Officer Morris whispered something in her ear, and she shook her head.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, opening the first door and stepping into a nearly empty room. A cradle sat in the center of it, a few blankets piled inside. Pink. Blue. Yellow. There was a dresser, too. White and intricately carved, the legs swirling lion claws. No mementos, though. Not a picture, stuffed animal or toy.
“Everything looks okay in here,” Virginia said, and tried to back out of the room.
Only John was standing behind her, and she backed into him.
He grabbed her shoulders, trying to keep her from toppling over. He felt narrow bones and taut muscles before she jerked away, skirted past him.
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” he said, but she was already running to the next door to drag it open and dart inside.
THREE
Laurel had kept the nursery just the way it had been the day Kevin died. Being in it brought back memories Virginia had shoved so far back in her mind, she hadn’t even known they were there—all the dreams about children and a family and creating something wonderful together, all the long conversations late at night when she and Kevin had shared their visions of the future. Only every word Kevin uttered had been designed to manipulate her, to make her believe that she could have all the things she longed for, so that he could have what he’d wanted—complete control. She’d believed him because she’d wanted to. She’d been a fool, and it had nearly cost her her life.
She wanted out of the house so desperately, she would have run downstairs and out the door if three police officers and a dog weren’t watching her every move.
The dog, she thought, was preferable to the people. He, at least, looked sweet, his dark eyes following her as she moved through Laurel’s room.
This was the same, too. Same flowered wallpaper that Virginia had helped her hang, same curtains that they’d picked out together in some posh bohemian shop in the heart of DC. Same antique headboard, same oversize rolltop desk that had been handed down from one generation to the other since before the revolutionary war.
It had always been closed before, the dark mahogany cover pulled down over the writing area and the dozens of tiny drawers and secret hiding places that Laurel had once shown her.
It was open now, and Virginia walked to it, ignoring the officers who walked
into the room behind her. At least one of them knew her story. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She’d refused to speak with reporters after the attack. It had taken a while, but eventually they’d lost interest and the story she’d lived through, the horrible nightmare that so many people had wanted the details of, had faded from the spotlight.
Eight years later, there were very few people who remembered. Those who did, didn’t associate Virginia’s face with the Johnson family tragedy. She’d never been in the limelight anyway. Kevin had preferred to stand there himself.
The older officer knew. He’d whispered a couple words that he’d probably thought would be comforting—It’s okay. He can’t hurt you anymore.
Only the words hadn’t been comforting.
They’d just made her want to cry, because she was that woman. The one who’d met and married a monster. The one who’d almost been killed by the person who was supposed to love her more than he loved anyone else.
She yanked open one of the desk drawers, staring blindly at its contents.
Something nudged her leg, and she looked down; the huge German shepherd sat beside her, his tail thumping, his mouth in a facsimile of a smile.
She couldn’t help herself. She smiled in return. “Are you in a hurry, Samson?” she asked, and the dog cocked his head to the side, nudging her leg again.
Not a “hurry up” nudge, she didn’t think. More of an “I’m here” nudge. Whatever it was, it made her feel a little more grounded, a little less in the past and a little more in the moment.
She rifled through the drawer. Laurel kept her spare keys there. House. Car. Attic. She took that one, because she was going to have to check up there. The entire space had been insulated and made into a walk-in storage area filled with centuries’ worth of family heirlooms.
She opened another drawer. This one had stamps, envelopes, beautiful handmade pens.
Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas Page 2
