Dylan scowled. “That’s not news that fills me with warm fuzzy feelings.”
“I wasn’t too thrilled, either.”
“You’d be even less thrilled if you were lying in a hospital bed.”
“True, but I don’t think the guy was aiming for me. I think he was just trying to get me to back off.”
“So, he’s playing games?”
That was the feeling John had, so he nodded. “That’s the impression that I’m getting.”
He’d dealt with plenty of criminals. He’d had a few occasions when he’d been certain he was looking evil in the face. He was trained to understand the way felons would respond in a variety of situations, and he had a reputation for being good at staying a step ahead of the bad guys.
Sometimes, though, crimes weren’t about what could be gained. They weren’t about revenge or jealousy or passion. Sometimes they were a fantasy being played out, a game whose rules only the perpetrator knew.
He thought this was one of those times.
If he was right, the perp’s next move couldn’t be predicted. How he’d act or react couldn’t be ascertained.
The best thing they could do was find him quickly and get him off the street; because until he was locked away, Virginia wouldn’t be safe.
* * *
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Virginia mentally counted houses with Christmas lights while she waited for Officer Morris to finish typing whatever it was he was typing into his tablet.
Six. Seven. Eight.
She hadn’t learned much about what had happened at Laurel’s place, but she could say for sure that John had a good view of the neighborhood from his kitchen window—houses, streets, the city beyond, all of it covered with a layer of ice that sparkled with reflected light.
It would be a mess for the commute in the morning, but right then, it was lovely. So were the Christmas lights hung from eaves and wound around columns and pillars. Several trees were decorated for the holiday. Most of them with soft blue or white lights. Very elegant and lovely, but that was the type of community they were in.
Nine. Ten. Eleven.
Officer Morris continued to type, and Virginia continued to count, because it was easier to do that than think about the gunshot she’d heard. No one had been injured. That’s what Officer Morris had told her, but she hadn’t heard from John, and she was worried.
Because worrying was something she excelled at. Apparently so was counting.
Dealing with emergencies? Not so much.
She almost hadn’t opened the door when Officer Morris knocked. She’d been too afraid of who might be on the other side.
“Okay,” Officer Morris said. “The report is filled out. We’re good to go. How about we walk you back to your place, take a look around? Aside from a cut screen and busted window lock, I didn’t see anything that looked out of place, but it would be best for you to take a look before I leave.”
Her place.
Right.
She kept thinking of it as Laurel’s or Kevin’s or the Johnsons’, but it belonged to her, and she had to go home to it. At least for the next few days.
“I should probably wait for John to return.”
“He’ll meet us at the house. I need to speak with him.” There was no question in Officer Morris’s voice. He had a plan, and he expected that everyone was going to follow it.
She didn’t mind that. She didn’t mind him. He seemed like a good guy, a nice cop. The fact that he knew what had happened to her...that was a little awkward, but he wasn’t treating her with kid gloves, and she appreciated that.
She still didn’t want to go back to the house.
Not after he’d been in it again. The guy who looked like Kevin. She hadn’t seen him, but she was certain that was who it had been. Two different intruders in less than twenty-four hours seemed like too much of a stretch.
Yeah. It had been him. He’d broken the lock, cut the screen, entered the house. All while she’d been sleeping.
She shuddered, pulling the blanket John had given her closer.
Officer Morris’s expression softened, and he touched her shoulder. “It’s going to be fine, Virginia. He’s gone. I promise you that.”
She wasn’t sure who he was talking about. The guy who looked like Kevin? Kevin?
Either way, he meant well, the words soothing and kind.
“Right. I know.” She plastered a smile on her face. One that felt brittle and hard.
“I’ve been doing a little research,” he said. Maybe he was hoping to distract her from the panic that was building. “Laurel Johnson was involved in a lot of charitable organizations.”
“Yes,” she responded, her mouth so dry it was all she could manage.
“One of them was the state prison ministry. She used to go there twice a week.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I doubt anyone did. She spent some time with one of the prisoners, helped him get his college degree. Name was Luke Miller. Ever heard of him?”
“No.”
“He was released two months ago.”
She wasn’t sure what he was saying, what he was trying to get at. She was still thinking about going back to the house, walking into the place that had brought every nightmare she’d ever lived through.
“You look a little shaky. How about some water before we head over?” he suggested.
She nodded, mute with fear.
He walked into the kitchen, found a cup and filled it. “It really is going to be okay,” he said, holding out the cup.
She took a step forward, felt the earth shake, the entire world rumble. For a moment, she thought she’d lost it, that it had finally happened, panic making her completely lose touch with reality. She was on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, smoke billowing all around her.
Officer Morris shouted something, and she rolled to her side, saw him lying under the partially caved-in wall, ice falling on his dark hair.
“Get out of here!” he shouted.
She struggled to her knees, her feet, grabbed the wood that was pinning him.
“Go!” he said again, and she shook her head, tugged harder, praying that somehow her strength would be enough to free him.
SIX
Smoke billowed up into the sky, flames licking the side of the garage as John raced toward his apartment. He’d expected trouble, but he hadn’t expected this. He should have. He should have been prepared for anything.
Too late now.
The building was in flames, the interior exposed on the lower and upper levels.
A bomb?
That was what it looked like.
If there were more, they’d all be killed, but he wasn’t going to wait for the fire department to show, couldn’t wait for the bomb squad to be called in. Virginia and Officer Morris had been in the apartment. If they still were, they were in trouble.
“Hold!” he commanded, and Samson stopped short, his soft whimpers following John as he raced up the stairs that had been left untouched by the explosion.
The front door was closed. No time for a key, he kicked it in, smoke billowing out as it opened.
“Be careful!” Dylan shouted as he raced up the stairs behind him. “This place could crumble any minute.”
That was John’s fear. Getting in and out as quickly as possible was his plan.
Only God knew if that would happen, and John had to trust that His plan was best, that He’d see him through this like He had so many other things.
He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose, then headed into what had once been his living room. Part of the ceiling and wall had caved in, icy rain the only thing keeping the fire from taking over. Smoke billowed up through the floor and in through t
he collapsed wall. In seconds, the place would be pitch-black.
He scanned the room.
Virginia stood in the kitchen, tugging at lumber that had fallen, her frantic cries for help barely carrying above the roaring of the fire below.
He moved toward her and saw Officer Morris as he reached her side. His legs pinned by a heavy beam, his eyes open and filled with fury, he gestured toward Virginia.
“Get her out of here!” Morris shouted.
“I think we can free you,” he responded, refusing to give in to panic, to let himself imagine the floor giving way.
Dylan moved in beside him. “On three,” he said. “One. Two.”
“Three.” And the beam was up, Morris rolling out from beneath it.
Morris managed to get to his feet, but stumbled to his knees.
“My legs are busted,” he growled, pushing to his feet again. Black smoke made it nearly impossible to see the extent of the damage, but there was no pain in his voice. No concern.
He was in shock.
Had to be.
They’d deal with it when they got out.
“When I catch the guy who did this,” Morris muttered, “I’m going to make sure he goes away for the rest of his life.”
An idle threat if they didn’t get out.
“I’ll get him,” Dylan said, nothing but a shadow in the darkness. “You get Virginia.”
No more words after that. No air for it. Just a sense of where the door should be, the direction they had to go to survive.
John grabbed Virginia’s hand, leading the way through the thickening smoke.
He felt dizzy...knew how close they all were to losing consciousness. If he was heading in the wrong direction, if he’d gotten disoriented, they’d die.
He felt the front door before he saw it, the cold air billowing in and carrying bits of freezing rain with it.
He gave Virginia a gentle shove out the door.
“Get down the stairs,” he rasped. “Stay close to Samson.”
Then he turned, heading back into the darkness.
Dylan was there somewhere, struggling to carry Morris out.
John could hear Virginia calling his name, but he didn’t turn back.
All of them or none of them.
That was the way it was going to be.
* * *
She couldn’t leave them.
Wouldn’t.
Virginia stood in the threshold of the door, smoke choking off her words as she shouted for the three men. She had no light to flash into the darkness, but she could scream until she had no voice left.
Behind her, sirens screeched and a dog howled.
Samson?
She didn’t have time to comfort him. The building seemed to shake on its foundation, the fire eating away at the support beams.
“Over here!” she screamed. “This way!”
She thought she heard a voice, thought she saw something dark moving through the smoke.
Please, God, she pleaded silently as she shouted again.
Then they were there, just in front of her.
She reached in, dragging someone out by his shirt.
A Capitol K-9 officer. Morris plastered to his side, barely moving. Dylan? She thought that was the officer’s name, but she didn’t have time to ask, didn’t have time to care.
“Down the stairs!” he shouted.
“John—”
“Here.” John appeared in the doorway. “Now go! This place is going down.”
She ran, stumbled down the last few steps and fell to her knees on wet grass.
And then John had her by the arm, dragging her up again.
“Keep going!” he shouted.
She didn’t have time to wonder why; they were racing across the grass, the other K-9 officer right beside them, Morris in a fireman’s hold over his shoulder.
Behind them, something popped. She heard a whoosh, felt a hot wind blow against her back. She stumbled, but John’s arm was around her, and she kept going.
Just ahead, a fire crew raced toward them, shouting words Virginia couldn’t hear.
Someone pulled her from John, slapped an oxygen mask over her face. She wanted to say that she was fine, that they needed to take care of the men, but darkness was closing in. Not the night, the smoke, the icy storm—just the blackness. She felt it coming for her, and then she felt nothing at all.
* * *
If there was one thing John hated, it was hospitals.
He’d watched his father breathe his last in one, said goodbye to his grandfather in one, been called to one after his brother was fatally shot.
Yeah. Hospitals weren’t his thing.
He strode to a sink in the tiny triage room they’d rolled him into, and scrubbed soot from his face and hands. The doctor had already been in once, listened to his lungs, ordered an X-ray. Everything had checked out. Now, he was waiting for aftercare instructions.
Whatever they were.
He opened the door, nearly walking into his coworker Chase Zachary.
“You breaking out of this joint?” Chase asked, his coat opened to reveal his uniform and firearm. He didn’t have his K-9 partner with him, though.
“Yes.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“It’s a better idea than sitting here for another hour. Besides, I need to check on Samson. A DC officer transported him to headquarters.”
“Tico is there, too. Vet took a look at both. They’re good as gold and eating plenty of good food.”
“Have you spoken with Dylan?”
“Just left him. He’s fine. Gavin is with him.”
“He’s not with Virginia?” That worried him, and he was ready to run down the hall, find her and make sure she was okay.
“The little mousy assistant housemother?”
“She’s not mousy.”
“No.” Chase grinned. “I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Heard they dug a bullet out of her house. I also heard your house is gone.”
“It is.” Which was something he hadn’t thought too much about. He’d called the Hendersons from the ambulance. They were in Florida for the winter and hadn’t seemed overly concerned about their destroyed garage. They hadn’t stored anything there, and they had enough insurance and money to cover the loss. They had been concerned about him, though, and had promised to contact their insurance adjuster immediately.
He had renter’s insurance and not enough stuff to be all that sorry for the loss of it.
“If you need a place to stay, Erin and I would be happy to have you,” Chase offered.
“My landlords said I could stay in their house until the garage is rebuilt. They have an in-law suite in the basement that they’re willing to rent me. I’m thinking I may stay at Virginia’s for a while, though.” He hadn’t spoken with her about it, but she needed protection. He had a couple of friends in private security who owed him. He could call one in to help him out.
“You’re worried about the guy returning?”
“He blew up a garage, Chase. He’s capable of anything.”
“You don’t know it was him.”
“I suspect it.”
“Until you prove it—”
“I’m going to proceed with extreme caution. That means making sure he doesn’t get another chance to hurt Virginia.”
“Morris got the brunt of this one,” Chase said grimly. “A broken tibia in his leg. Two broken bones in his foot. He’ll be off work for a while.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“He’s not happy. He wants this guy off the street. He has a name. Some guy the Johnson woman used to visit in prison.”
“Virginia?”
“No. The lady who used to own the home. Laurel? Morris said she spent a lot of time doing prison ministry. Interestingly enough, none of her friends knew about it. She didn’t participate with her church group’s prison ministry. She went with another church.”
“Who was she visiting?”
“Guy named Luke Miller. He was put away when he was eighteen. Spent fourteen years in prison on grand theft charges. Got out two months ago.”
“Any connection between him and Laurel?”
“Aside from the fact that Laurel helped him get his education? I don’t know. Morris was digging for information, but he was coming up empty. I got the feeling he’s going to keep digging even though he’ll be out on medical leave for a while.”
“What room is he in?”
“349.”
“How about Virginia?” he asked.
“She left half an hour ago. The DC police escorted her to the house. They want to walk her through. Make sure nothing is missing.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. When they finished, would they leave her there alone? He wanted to visit with Morris, see how he was doing, pick his brain a little if he was up to it, but his first priority was making sure that Virginia was safe.
“They did that before. Nothing was gone. This guy has another agenda.”
“What?”
“When I figure that out, I’ll let you know.” He walked into the hall, took a couple of steps, then realized he had no transportation.
He turned; Chase leaned against the doorjamb, waiting.
“Need a ride?” he asked with a smirk.
“I need answers more, but I’ll take the ride if you’re offering.”
“You know I am,” Chase responded. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
SEVEN
Laurel’s bedroom had been torn apart. Every piece of clothing pulled from every drawer, every pair of shoes tossed from the closet, the place looked as if a tornado had torn through it.
“Looks like he did a pretty good job in here,” one of the officers who had escorted Virginia home said.
“I guess so,” she said, because she thought that was what he expected, but she didn’t feel like replying. She felt like going back to All Our Kids, taking a shower, climbing into bed and forgetting everything for a while.
Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas Page 5
