“Something like that. Until my father died. Then things got a little more difficult.”
“I’m sorry, John. Was he ill?”
“He was a police officer. Killed in the line of duty. We lost my grandfather and brother the same way.”
“Your road wasn’t nearly as smooth as you made it out to be.” She touched his wrist, and he captured her hand and tugged her a step closer, because there was something about her that made him want to look a little longer, see a little more of who she was.
“Every road has a few bumps,” he said, because it was true, and he didn’t waste much time feeling bad because he’d hit a few. “Now, how about we take another look at the picture?”
* * *
The picture. Right.
Virginia had been so busy looking into John’s eyes, she’d forgotten that they had a reason for being in his office. One that didn’t include long conversations about their pasts, about their families, about the things they’d been through.
He sat behind the desk, and she took the seat across from him, pulling the photo out of her coat pocket and flattening it against the desk. “There must be someone Laurel knew here. She didn’t keep things just to keep them.”
“You’re sure about that?” he asked. “Because from the look of the house, I’d say she liked to collect lots of things.”
“She did, but everything she collected had value or meaning. She never kept something just to keep it.” As a matter of fact, Laurel had had a story for every item in the house. Some of the stories had been passed down to her, some she’d lived. She might have joined the Johnson family through marriage, but she’d embraced the history of it with a zeal that Virginia was never able to match. “If she kept this, she did it because it was important to her.”
“Important how?” he asked, and she studied the photo, scanning the names, the teacher, the first row of kids, the second row.
“I don’t...” Her voice trailed off as she got to the end of the third row. A boy stood unsmiling just a little apart from the group. He had dark hair. Kevin had been blond when he was in grade school. It was the face that made her pause. The high cheekbones, the cleft chin, the eyes. He looked so much like Kevin had at that age, they could have been brothers.
“What’s wrong?” John leaned forward, his hand brushing Virginia’s as he turned the photo so that he could see it more clearly.
“This,” she responded, jabbing at the boy. “Could be Kevin. Except for the dark hair.”
“What’s his name?”
She ran her finger along the list of kids until she landed on the correct one. “Luke Miller.”
The name tripped off her tongue, and her pulse jumped. “That’s the name of the guy—”
“Laurel visited in prison,” he finished, lifting the photo, eyeing the boy who’d turned into a man who’d spent more than a third of his life in jail.
“She also helped him get his college education,” she said quietly.
“I wonder what else she did for him?” John murmured, turning on his computer, typing something in. He printed a page, then passed it over to her. “Look familiar?” he asked.
Her blood ran cold as she looked into the face of the man she’d seen on the stairs. Light brown hair. Hazel eyes. Prison orange.
A mug shot?
“This is the guy I saw,” she confirmed, and John typed something else.
“According to our records, he’s living in Suitland, Maryland, in a halfway house for recovering addicts. Last time he checked in with his parole officer was last week.”
“Suitland isn’t far,” she said, and he shook his head.
“Twenty-minute drive without traffic. He could be leaving and returning without garnering too much attention. Or he could have walked out and not returned.”
“Walked out and gone to Laurel’s house, you mean? Squatted there because he knew she wasn’t returning?”
“It’s a good possibility.” He took out his cell phone and texted someone. “I’m contacting Margaret Meyer. She runs Capitol K-9. If anyone can get several law enforcement entities working together, she can. Hopefully we can have this guy back behind bars in a few hours.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” she replied, walking back to the window that looked out over the parking lot.
They were in the middle of DC, and the lights from dozens of buildings glowed through the darkness. Wreaths hung from the streetlights. Red Christmas bows decorated a fence that surrounded the parking area. The holidays were approaching, and the world was preparing. All Virginia wanted to do was hide.
“It’s going to be okay, Virginia,” John said, his arm sliding around her waist. He didn’t offer a million words to try to reassure her. He didn’t tell her all the reasons why her fears were unfounded. He just stood beside her, the soft silence of the building, the warmth of his arm on her waist oddly reassuring.
“I’m not hanging my hat on that,” she said quietly, and he chuckled.
“Ever the optimist, huh?”
“I prefer to be realistic.”
“Realistic and hopeful. That’s the best combination.”
Hopeful? It had been a long time since she’d felt that, years since hope had bubbled up and spilled out into her life. She wasn’t sure she remembered what it felt like. Sunrise, maybe? The first day of a new year? Christmas morning with presents under the tree? Life stretched out before her, a hundred possibilities there for the choosing?
Only she’d chosen Kevin. Her biggest and most lasting mistake. Her chest itched where the bullet had entered, the old wound healed over now, but still there. Every time she looked in the mirror, she was reminded of just how lousy her decision-making ability could be, and each time she was reminded, she vowed not to make the same mistake again.
“I’m not sure I remember what hope feels like,” she admitted, the words spilling out. “I only remember what it’s like to have it crushed.”
“Disappointments are inevitable,” he said, turning her so that they were facing each other, his gaze solemn, his hands soft as they cupped her shoulders. “Being destroyed by them is not.”
“I haven’t been destroyed,” she responded, because she’d gone on, she’d made a good life for herself.
He studied her for a moment, his blue eyes as sharp and crisp as a fall morning.
“No. I guess you haven’t. Just make sure you haven’t been diminished by it, either. Come on. My friend is going to meet us at the house. He can run guard duty while you and I dig around, see if we can figure out what the connection is between Laurel and Luke.”
“They must be related,” she said as they walked into the corridor, Samson trotting beside them. “Laurel believed in family above almost anything else. If Luke was part of the family, she’d have done anything to help him.”
“If that’s true, there will be evidence of it. We just have to find it.”
She would rather go back to All Our Kids. She’d rather forget all about the house, the Kevin look-alike, the secrets that Laurel had obviously been keeping.
She’d rather, but she doubted that would keep her safe, so she allowed herself to be led through the building and back out into the wintry night.
NINE
Five days cooped up in the house with two men was starting to get to Virginia. Much as she wanted to enjoy her extra time off, she couldn’t. The walls were closing in around her, the itemized lists of antiques and collectibles growing longer every day, because that’s what she spent most of her time doing—going through every drawer, every closet, every cupboard and shelf, writing down Laurel’s treasures.
She still hadn’t found anything that would link Luke Miller to the Johnson family. The police hadn’t been able to find a connection, either. Luke had grown up a few miles from the Johnson’s posh neighbor
hood. His mother had been in and out of his life, and he’d been raised by his maternal grandmother in a community of low-income apartments. He’d been smart enough and driven enough to earn a scholarship to the prestigious school that Kevin had attended.
Maybe that’s how Laurel had met him?
She wasn’t sure and didn’t have the freedom to leave the house and go searching for answers.
She was trapped like a rat.
For her own safety. That’s what Gavin had said when he’d told her that she needed to stay put until Luke was apprehended. She’d planned to return to work at the beginning of the week. Instead, she was living in the one place she’d vowed to never return to.
“Irony,” she said, and Samson lifted his head, cocking it to the side. John and another Capitol K-9 officer were having a meeting of the minds in the kitchen. Dylan seemed like a nice guy. That didn’t mean she wanted to spend the better part of five days hanging around him.
Unfortunately, there hadn’t been any leads. Luke had walked out of the halfway house and dropped off the grid.
Virginia hoped that he’d drop back on soon, because she wanted to get back to her life. She had Christmas cookies to bake with the kids, a house to decorate, a tree to put up. All the little traditions that she and Cassie had put into place when they’d begun working together needed to be revisited for the sake of the children who’d been with them long-term. Some of those kids had never had traditions, had never experienced constancy. They craved routine and familiarity like other kids craved ice cream or sweets.
Right now, they were missing Virginia desperately.
She heard it in their voices every time she called All Our Kids to check in—worry tinged with betrayal. She’d always been there for them. Now she wasn’t.
That hurt them and it hurt her.
The sun had set hours ago, and she’d called just before the youngest of the foster kids’ bedtime. She’d said goodnight to each child, heard various renditions of the same theme: When are you coming home? Why do you have to be away for so long?
How could she explain without worrying kids who already worried too much?
She’d made it simple. Just told them that cleaning out the house was taking a long time. Eventually that excuse wasn’t going to work. Eventually, she needed to return.
Eventually meaning sooner rather than later.
Too bad she didn’t have any control over things.
She scowled, yanking open the bottom drawer of the dresser that sat against the wall in the blue room. Laurel had always called it that, and Virginia had never figured out why. It was the brightest room in the house. Not a speck of blue in any of the decorations. No dark wood furniture or paneling. The wallpaper soft yellow with tiny white roses sprinkled across it. White wainscoting covered the lower portion of the walls. Even the furniture was white—the canopy bed sitting in the middle of the wood floor.
“It’s a little too much, if you ask me,” she said, and Samson huffed, setting his head back down on his paws. He’d prefer to be with John, but he’d been commanded to stay with her. Something John did every time he had a meeting to attend or business that needed doing.
John...
He was turning into a problem.
No matter how much she tried not to like him, no matter how many times she told herself that he was just a guy helping her out, a guy who would disappear from her life as soon as Luke had been apprehended, she couldn’t stop her pulse from leaping every time he entered the room, couldn’t stop the warmth that settled in her heart every time she looked in his eyes.
He was...special.
Not in the phony, fake way Kevin had been. John was exactly what he seemed to be—strong, determined, caring.
He’d brought a box of Christmas decorations the previous day, telling her that it was time to make the place a little more festive. What he’d really been trying to do was get her mind off Luke, Kevin, Laurel—a dozen things she could do nothing about.
She’d wanted to ask him to take the decorations away, but she’d looked into his blue eyes, seen the compassion and concern there, and she’d found herself hanging a garland from the banister and bows from fireplace mantels.
“He’s going to be a problem,” she said as she lifted a stack of tablecloths from the drawer.
“Who?” John said, his voice so unexpected, she jumped.
“You,” she responded honestly, jotting a note on her tablet—Five lace tablecloths. Old. Handmade?
“Should I be flattered or chastised?” he asked, settling onto the floor beside her, a soft smile easing the hard lines of his face.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“Whether you like being a problem.”
“That depends,” he replied, taking the tablet from her hand and setting it on the dresser.
“On?”
“What kind of problem we’re talking about.” He stood and pulled her to her feet, his dark jeans and dark T-shirt brand-new. He hadn’t shopped for them, had barely left the house the past few days. Coworkers had delivered the things he’d needed, bringing by several items that had been salvaged from the fire.
Mostly, John’s belongings had been destroyed.
He’d never once complained. Just gone through the process of replacing them. Not an easy task when he spent every moment of his days babysitting Virginia.
She frowned, closing the drawer and walking to the lone painting that hung on the wall. It was the only decoration. Unlike every other room in the house, the blue room was devoid of knickknacks and collectibles. Aside from the one painting, nothing hung from the wall. Everything was simple and elegant, understated and pretty.
“You’re the kind of problem—” she began as she lifted the painting from its hook. Beneath it was one of three wall safes that had been installed decades ago. She’d already been through the other two “—that could break a girl’s heart if she let it.”
There. She’d said it. What she’d been thinking for days. If she let herself, she could fall for John. If that happened, she’d end up hurt. It was inevitable, right? Because she had no ability to choose things that were good for her, men who would treat her well.
Hadn’t she proven that?
“To break someone’s heart,” he said as she turned the combination lock. “I’d have to do something to hurt her.”
“To break someone’s heart,” she responded as she opened the safe, “you’d simply have to walk away.”
“Are we talking about you, Virginia?” He turned her so that they were face-to-face, and she couldn’t help looking straight into his eyes. “Because once I commit to someone, I don’t walk away.”
“We’re not committed. Not even close,” she pointed out.
“But we could be. If we let ourselves head in that direction.”
“I’ve made too many mistakes, and I—”
“Don’t trust yourself enough to know you’ve learned from them?” he asked, his voice a little rough, his finger gentle as he traced a line along her jaw and down to the pulse point in her neck. His finger rested there, and she knew he could feel how quickly her heart was beating.
“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just afraid of being hurt. I’m afraid of finding out that something I’ve pinned my hopes on is just a facade, a trick of the light and of my mind.” She turned back to the safe, reaching blindly for a pile of papers, her eyes burning with tears that shouldn’t have been there.
She’d cried herself out years ago, but a tear slipped down her cheek anyway, dropped onto the papers she was holding.
“Don’t cry,” John said softly, pulling her into his arms, his hands smoothing her hair, resting on her back. She should have stepped away. She knew she should have, but she burrowed in closer, let her head rest against his chest, let her arms slide around his waist.
This was where she wanted to be. Right here. With this man. It didn’t matter that they were in a house she’d spent years hating. It didn’t matter that she’d lived a dozen nightmares in the room down the hall, in the kitchen below, in the hallway and on the porch. It didn’t matter, because John filled the dark places, made her feel strong when she’d only ever felt weak.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I promise.”
“Promises are a dime a dozen,” she replied, and he chuckled.
“We really do need to work on your optimism.” He stepped back, wiped the moisture from her cheeks. “Anything interesting in that safe?”
“Just papers.” She glanced down at what she was holding—a birth certificate. The name scrawled across it made her pulse jump.
“It’s his,” she said, holding it out to John. “Luke Miller.”
* * *
This was it.
Exactly what they needed to prove the connection between Luke and Laurel. Birth certificates didn’t lie, and this one listed Ryan Johnson as Luke’s father. His mother was a woman whose name John had never heard mentioned—Alice Randal. Both were dead. Not Kevin’s mother.
“Ryan was your father-in-law?” he asked, and Virginia nodded.
“He must have had another son a few years before Kevin was born.”
“Laurel never mentioned it.” She frowned, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. “Neither did Kevin.”
“They knew. Or Laurel did. Looks like she was paying good money for the woman to keep quiet.” John set the birth certificate on the dresser and took the stack of papers from Virginia’s hands. Paternity test results, stacks of cashed checks written out to the woman who’d been listed as Luke’s mother. Another birth certificate for a baby born nearly fifty years ago. A little girl. Her death certificate was right behind it.
“It also looks like Laurel had another child,” he said.
“She never mentioned that, either.” She reached for the death certificate, her hands shaking. “Poor Laurel. So many secrets.”
Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas Page 7
