Her throat hurt, her eyes stung, her body ached. Soot covered her clothes, layered her hair. She’d washed her face at the hospital, but she still thought she could taste soot on her lips.
The fire had almost killed four people.
The guy who’d been breaking into the house, the one who’d crept around while she’d slept, he’d commit murder if he had a chance.
The police had assured her they weren’t going to give him that.
She didn’t know how they were going to stop him.
He’d already been in the house three times.
It didn’t seem as if the threat of being discovered was keeping him away. Instead of backing off, he’d escalated things. A bomb was what the police were saying. The FBI had been called in and a team was combing through the rubble left when the garage collapsed.
If she looked out the bedroom window, she knew she’d see spotlights gleaming through the darkness, all of them trained on what was left of John’s home.
She didn’t look.
She didn’t want to relive the moment when the house had shaken, the wall had collapsed. If John and the other officer hadn’t arrived, she and Officer Morris wouldn’t have made it out.
“We’re going to have an evidence team go through the room, so don’t touch anything,” a female officer said, snapping pictures of the mess. “The other rooms weren’t touched. I don’t think he had time to do more than this. Why don’t you go downstairs? Make yourself a cup of tea? Relax while we process everything?”
Because I almost died, she wanted to say. Because I can’t relax until I know that the men who saved me are okay.
She retreated anyway, walking through the hall and past the room she’d spent two years sleeping in. There were no photos of Kevin displayed in the house. She’d noticed that right away. None of the wedding photos that had once hung from the walls. None of the family photos that Laurel had insisted they have taken every year. It was as if Laurel had tried to erase her grandson from the property. His clothes were still in the bedroom, but other than that, every trace of him was gone.
Funny how time could change memories. Now the things that Virginia had once loved about Kevin had become nothing more than red flags that she’d missed. The lavish gifts, the sweet words, the soft kisses, all of those had been part of the game Kevin had been playing. How far could he go? How much could he push? How deeply could he make Virginia love him?
How much could he hurt her before she ran away?
She guessed they had both figured that out.
She shuddered, the sound of voices drifting up the stairs as she approached the landing. She didn’t want to face the people there. Police officers, FBI, fire marshals, members of the Capitol K-9 team, all of them were milling in and out of the house, trying to find answers she didn’t think would be found.
She turned around, headed for the back of the house and the door that led up into the attic. It had been locked since she’d arrived, and she hadn’t bothered to get the key from Laurel’s room. She knew there was another in the vase that sat on a shelf in one of the wall niches that had been added to the house years ago. Before Laurel’s time. That’s what her grandmother-in-law had told Virginia when she’d given her a tour of the property. Virginia had been blown away by the opulence and grandeur. Everywhere she’d turned there’d been treasures to see. She liked to believe that she hadn’t been swayed by all that marrying Kevin offered. She’d loved him deeply at that point, and she’d have been willing to live in a hovel if it had meant being his wife.
She swallowed down bitterness, the acrid scent of smoke swirling around her as she grabbed the vase, dumping the key into her palm. A folded photograph fell out with it.
She carried it with her as she unlocked the attic door and walked up the steps. She turned on a light in the cavernous room. It was quiet there, nothing but the sound of icy rain filling the silence.
Leather trunks still lined the walls, dozens of boxes interspersed between them. She knew one had Christmas decorations and that another had all Kevin’s baby clothes and toys. Several pieces of furniture sat in the center of the finished space—a leather chair that had belonged to Kevin’s grandfather, a rocking chair that Laurel had rocked her only son in, the crib that they’d talked about carrying down to the nursery when Virginia and Kevin had children. Every item had a story, but none of the stories had happy endings.
Kevin’s mother had given birth to him and then run off with another man. His father had died of a drug overdose a year later, leaving Laurel and her husband to raise their grandson. Now Kevin was gone. Laurel and her husband were gone. Nothing remained of their lives but boxes of things and a house filled with stuff that had never made any of them happy.
Virginia sat in the rocking chair, the key still clutched in one hand, the picture in the other. It hadn’t been in the vase before she’d been shot. She knew that for sure. She’d gone into the attic many times during her marriage, creeping up the stairs in the middle of the night to sit in the darkness and pray that her marriage would be healed, that Kevin would be changed.
But God didn’t force people to do the right thing, and Kevin’s faith had been a facade, lip service to what he’d been raised to believe. There’d been no depth to it, no desire to grow closer to God or to anyone else. Kevin had loved himself. Above all and above everything, getting what he wanted was his primary motivation.
Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry.
It was too late for that, too late to change one thing that had happened.
Footsteps sounded on the attic stairs, but she didn’t get up. She didn’t have the energy or the motivation to go back downstairs, look through all the rooms that should have been filled with family and love but were filled only with treasures that couldn’t fill the holes in her heart.
“Virginia?” John said quietly, stepping into the room, his clothes still covered with soot and ash.
“I’m here,” she said, the words hot and dry and hard to speak. There was too much in her throat—too many emotions, too much loss.
“Listening to the sound of the rain on the roof?” he asked, taking a seat in the leather chair beside her. “Or escaping the chaos that is going on downstairs?”
“Neither,” she responded. “Both.”
He laughed softly, the sound mixing with the rain and the whistle of wind beneath the eaves. “They’ll be gone soon.”
“I wish I could be.”
“You can be. Nothing is holding you here.”
“You’re wrong.” She met his eyes and saw something in his gaze that made her pulse jump. Kindness, compassion, concern, those were things she hadn’t ever had from Kevin. Maybe she was greedy for them. Maybe she was searching for something that had been missing from every relationship she’d ever been in. Her parents had been drug addicts, her grandparents had been bitter about having to raise their daughter’s child. She’d been shuffled from one home to another for years, each family member a little less caring than the last.
She’d found her way, though. She’d gotten her degree, found a job she’d loved.
Fallen for a guy who could never love her.
She turned away from John, her heart beating frantically.
“You can do whatever you want to do, Virginia,” John said, taking the key from her hand, smoothing out the crescents she’d dug into her palm.
She hadn’t felt the pain, but she felt the warm roughness of his fingers. Felt it all the way to her toes.
She tugged away, wiping her palm on her sooty jeans. Even then, she could feel the warmth of his touch.
“What I want is to live my life the same way everyone else does. Without all the baggage and all the memories. I’ve been trying to do that for years, but it hasn’t happened,” she muttered, her heart beating a little too fast, her cheeks just a little too warm. “So
I’d say you’re wrong. I can’t do whatever I want. No one really can.”
“I guess,” he said, slipping the photo from her hand. “That depends on whether or not the person is brave enough to go after what he wants.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that it’s easier to hide from ourselves than it is to hide from anyone else.”
“I’m not in the mood for riddles,” she murmured.
“No riddle. Just truth. Until you stop feeling guilty about what happened, you’re not going to be able to move on.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” she protested, but he was right. She did. If she’d just been smart, strong enough, confident enough none of this ever would have happened. She’d have walked away from Kevin the first time he’d criticized and demeaned her, she’d have left him before the first shove, the first slap, the first threat.
“Like I said, it’s a lot easier to hide from ourselves than it is to hide from others.” He unfolded the photo and smoothed it out. “What’s this?”
“I don’t know,” she responded, eager to change the subject. Happy to do it. She didn’t like that he saw her so clearly, didn’t like that she could look in his eyes and see so many things that she’d spent her entire life longing for.
“Looks like a school picture. Kevin’s maybe?” He handed it to her, and she studied the class photo. “Fifth grade” was scrolled across the bottom, “Mr. Morrow” and the school year written beneath it. A list of children’s names was to the side. Left to right. Front to back.
Not Kevin’s fifth-grade photo. Laurel had kept those in a photo album in her closet. Neatly dated, little stick-on arrows pointing to her grandson. Kevin had always been the only kid wearing a tie on picture day. He’d told her once that he’d hated that, told her that he’d hated being raised by people who were too old to understand times changed, cultures changed.
He hadn’t had much respect for his grandparents.
He hadn’t had much respect for anyone.
“This isn’t Kevin’s. He would have been in third grade the year it was taken.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. We were the same age, graduated high school the same year. Besides, all the students are listed. His name isn’t there.”
“You said Laurel didn’t have any other grandchildren?”
“Kevin’s dad was her only child. He died when he was twenty. A year after Kevin was born.”
“He was a young father.”
“He and Kevin’s mother were pretty heavy into the drug scene. He overdosed. She went to jail, came out clean and went back on the streets a few years later. Lauren said she overdosed when Kevin was ten. He never knew his mother, so I guess it didn’t impact him much.”
“Where’d you find this?” he asked, taking the photo from her hand again, turning it over as if there might be something on the back that would reveal its secrets.
“In the vase where Laurel kept the spare attic key.”
“That’s an odd place for a picture.”
“It wasn’t there when I lived here. She put it there after...”
“It meant something to her, then. Otherwise, she’d have thrown it away. Did you come up here often?”
“A few times a week.”
“And you used the key in the vase?”
“Yes.”
“Did Laurel know that?”
“She’s the one who showed me where it was.”
“Then maybe she was trying to show you something else with this. Tell you what—” He stood, offering his hand. “Let’s go get Samson. He’s at K-9 headquarters. We can use the computers there. See what we can dig up about these kids.”
She could have refused, but she was tired of sitting in the old house, listening to her own thoughts. She was tired of feeling trapped by her fears and by the man who seemed determined to make her relive her nightmares.
She took John’s hand, allowing herself to be pulled up.
He didn’t release his hold as they descended the stairs, and she didn’t pull away. She didn’t ask herself what that meant. She didn’t want to know. She just wanted to find the guy who was terrorizing her, sell Laurel’s house and move on with her life.
EIGHT
“No,” Virginia said as John pulled into the parking lot at Capitol K-9 headquarters.
He’d outlined his plan for keeping her safe.
She hadn’t liked it.
He didn’t think many people would like the idea of having strangers living with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
“The perp isn’t playing with a full deck, and he’s not playing by any rules any of us can follow.”
“I know,” she responded, her voice tight, her entire body tight. Muscles taut, expression guarded, she looked ready for a fight.
He didn’t plan to give her one. That wasn’t the way he operated. Years of helping his mother raise his siblings after their dad passed away had taught him everything he needed to know about winning arguments. Teenagers were tough. Compared to his three younger siblings, Virginia was going to be a piece of cake. She was older, smarter, wiser. And she knew her own mortality, wanted to live, wanted to move on, live life without all the baggage weighing her down.
He’d heard the longing in her voice when they were sitting in the attic. He’d wanted to promise her that everything would be okay, that she’d have what she so desperately wanted.
“If you know, then why are you refusing to let me help you?” he asked.
“Because helping me isn’t your responsibility. The DC police are in charge of the case.”
“That doesn’t relieve me of my obligation to care for my neighbors and my friends,” he responded, getting out of the SUV and rounding the vehicle. The storm had passed, but the sky was still gray with thick cloud cover, the blacktop glistening with ice.
Virginia was already out of the vehicle by the time he reached her door. She’d changed before they’d left the house, and the jeans and T-shirt she wore were free of soot, her coat clean. He could still smell smoke in her hair. Or maybe he was smelling it on his clothes and skin. He hadn’t bothered trying to find clothes to change into. Everything he owned was in the apartment. He’d be surprised if any of it could be salvaged.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s obligation,” Virginia said as he cupped her elbow and led her to the building.
“Obligation isn’t a bad thing.”
“It is if you’re on the receiving end of it.”
“There are a lot worse things to be on the receiving end of—guns, knives. Bombs. Just to name a few.” He opened the door and ushered her into headquarters. Someone had put a tree up in the foyer, its boughs covered with ornaments.
“I get that. I just...don’t want to owe anyone.”
“That’s a foolish reason to die, Virginia,” he said, the words blunt and a little harsh. He meant them to sound that way, meant for her to understand just how important it was that she have twenty-four-hour protection.
She didn’t say anything. Not as they took the elevator up to the third floor. Not as he led the way to his office. Not as she settled into a chair across from his desk.
“I’m going to get Samson. Wait here.”
He made it to the door, stepping into the hall when she finally spoke.
“All right,” she said quietly. “You and your friend can stay at the house. I’m going to pay you, though. Whatever the going rate is for private security.”
That wasn’t going to happen.
He didn’t tell her that.
Just nodded and walked into the hall.
It didn’t take long to retrieve Samson from the kennel. Headquarters was quiet this time of night, most team members either out on guard duty or running patrol. S
amson barked happily as John opened the kennel, attached his leash and headed back to the office.
Virginia was standing at the window when he entered the room. She’d pulled her hair into some kind of twist, and he could see her nape, the soft tendrils of hair there and a thick white scar that curved from just behind her ear down into her shirt.
He knew he shouldn’t, told himself not to, but he touched the scar, his finger tracing the jagged curves. “Did he do this to you?” he asked, and she turned, meeting his eyes.
“No.” She smiled but there was no pleasure in it. “I did it to myself. I was six and determined to find my mother. I tried to climb from a second-story window into an old oak tree. It didn’t work out.”
“Where was your mom?”
“On the streets somewhere. She was clean for most of the first six years of my life. Then...” She shrugged. “She gave in to the cravings, and the drugs became way more important than I was.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she smiled again.
“I spent a lot of time being sorry, too, then I almost died and I realized that I hadn’t done anything to make her leave and that I never could have been enough to make her stay. Once I understood that, it didn’t hurt so much.”
“You’ve had a rocky road, haven’t you?” he asked, touching her cheek, letting his palm rest against her cool skin.
“Not as rocky as some people. How about you?” she asked as she bent to scratch Samson’s head.
“My road has been pretty smooth,” he responded. His father’s death had been difficult, but his family had had support and love from friends, family and the community. Losing his brother had been devastating, but he’d had other siblings to think about, his mother to focus on. And he’d had his faith. It told him that goodbye wasn’t forever, that he’d see his father, brother and grandfather again. That didn’t make the loss easy, but it did make it bearable.
“Did you grow up in the suburbs with a mother and father and a couple of siblings? Did you eat meals together every night and go to church every Sunday?”
Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas Page 6
