Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #1

by Terri Reed

  Between the men and the dog, the systematic search of the small town house didn’t last long. Shout after shout of “Clear!” filled Rick with more disappointment. His sense of justice cried to see this man in handcuffs. Julian Hale had to be in here somewhere.

  Rick followed Axle up the stairs to a landing, where he spotted a pull-down attic entrance in the ceiling. He lowered the trapdoor, revealing a wooden staircase. Could Hale be hiding in the attic? Rick trained his gun on the stairs and called out his standard warning one more time. He gave Hale no longer than a heartbeat to comply, then shouted the command to go ahead: “Axle, geh voraus!”

  Rick envied the dog’s unwavering bravery. Without a second of hesitation, Axle shot up the stairs, eager for a new area to search as if he couldn’t remember the stabbing they had both lived through. Rick remembered clearly the streetlights flickering off the slashing blade, the sight of Axle airborne, latching his teeth into the man wielding the knife, the feel of pain so searing Rick hadn’t been able to believe it was his own. It would all be forever embedded in his memory.

  But Axle was right. Those memories had nothing to do with the job at hand. There was a serial killer loose. Getting Julian Hale behind bars before he hurt someone again was the only thing Rick should be thinking about. Axle was relying on his training, and appeared as unwilling to admit defeat as his human coworkers. Taking the dog’s lead, Rick shook away the bad memories clouding his mind and focused.

  He crouched low, taking the stairs much slower than Axle had done. Although he was convinced by this point that Hale probably wasn’t up there, he wasn’t taking any chances. He bent and entered the attic space gun first, his eyes fighting to adjust in the dim light coming from a window in the sloped ceiling. The gray drizzle outside made it even darker, but soon his eyes were able to make out the layout of the room.

  The attic had been remodeled from its original intended storage space. Two overstuffed chairs and a small love seat were arranged into a conversational sitting space in the center of the room, and a small home office area with bookshelves lined the far wall.

  Instead of evoking the cozy feeling it looked as though it should, the room triggered Rick’s internal radar. After seven years of law enforcement, he had encountered enough evil to be able to sense when something just wasn’t right. Axle’s whine confirmed that feeling sending goose bumps popping up along Rick’s arm.

  Inching his way around the room, Rick searched every nook or possible hiding place. His jaw clenched. The room was clear. How had Hale gotten away?

  He joined Axle by the desk. Rick fumbled with the lamp until he found the switch, illuminating the desk and the wall behind it. Dread settled into his stomach as heavy as if he had swallowed cement.

  Two bulletin boards hung on the wall. On the left board there were six photographs stapled in a three-by-two grid. In the second row, Rick recognized the photographs of the three women he already knew Hale had killed. But the upper three photographs were of unfamiliar faces. Were they also victims? Was it possible detectives had missed Hale’s connection to other murders? Somehow he knew all of these women were dead. His breathing slowed as he stared at the six pictures. Thinking about the young lives represented in them made the air around him almost too heavy to breathe.

  His gaze moved to the second board. White three-by-five cards, small photographs and highlighted spreadsheets were stapled across the outside edges of the board, creating a homemade flowchart, but it was the eight-by-ten photograph in the center that concerned him the most.

  Rick studied the girl-next-door beauty smiling back at him from the picture. He noted her heart-shaped face and her long strawberry-blond curls. It was a simple photograph, exactly the type of blue-background portrait that schoolkids brought home each year, or the type that schoolteachers had taken for their staff photo. The innocence of it screamed at him. This picture did not belong in the house of a killer.

  He spoke into his radio. “Attic’s clear, and Sarge?” He swallowed, hating to be the bearer of such bad news, but if anyone could help this woman right now, it was Terrell Watkins. “Sarge, you need to get up here and see this.”

  His eyes traveled back to the photo. She must be Hale’s next victim. Rick groaned. She was out there somewhere in the city, unprotected and unaware that she was standing in the crosshairs of a psychopath.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst part was, Rick knew her.

  *

  A car in the distance backfired, causing Stephanie O’Brien to drop her keys. She scooped them up and stomped the rest of the way past the playground’s graffiti-decorated retaining wall to the front doors of Lincoln Elementary School.

  Stephanie rolled her eyes. It wasn’t like her to be so jumpy, but about halfway through her trek to the school she had begun to feel as if someone were following her. But every time she peered over her shoulder, she didn’t see anyone behind her other than a few bustling people who seemed a lot more concerned with getting out of the freezing rain than with causing her any trouble.

  You traveled alone to Africa and back three times before your twenty-fifth birthday, and now you’re afraid of walking a few blocks to school? She had hoped that common sense would drive away the uneasiness, but it hadn’t. Stephanie pulled her arms in tight to her body and tried to talk herself out of the anxiety creeping up her spine and into her imagination.

  To get to the elementary school where she taught fifth grade, Stephanie walked through familiar neighborhoods full of rundown houses that begged for fresh paint and small apartment buildings with rusted metal swing sets in their play areas. Properties and cars were locked behind six-foot-tall chain-link fences, and overgrown, neglected rhododendron bushes commandeered the sidewalk, forcing Stephanie to step into the street if she wanted to pass. Garbage blown out of Dumpsters lay damp along the edges of the buildings and the fences.

  The area was a bit rough around the edges, but until today, it had never felt dangerous to her. In fact, these neighborhoods bordered the neighborhood where she lived. Stephanie didn’t own a car, so it was routine to trudge back and forth between home and work through this area. It was also common for her to be working in her classroom over the weekend to prepare for the school week ahead. She looked over her shoulder again. This wasn’t different from any other trip to school, so why did it feel so different?

  Tiny droplets from the hood of her raincoat dripped onto her cold nose, reminding her she needed to shake off this silliness and get inside before she drowned. Real Seattleites might be too cool for umbrellas, but at the moment Stephanie would gladly look like a tourist if it meant being dry. It was May for goodness’ sake; shouldn’t it be warmer?

  She glanced over her shoulder one final time before she let herself into the dark building and typed in the security code. The door shut with a bang and a click as it locked behind her. Other than the squeak of her wet tennis shoes on the waxed tile floor, the hallway stretched into silent darkness.

  She flipped on the light in her classroom and locked the door behind her. She threw her keys on her desk and shimmied out of her wet coat. She cranked up her stereo extra loud. The music and the light drove away the eeriness as Stephanie sat down and grabbed the stack of work waiting for her.

  Settling into her chair, Stephanie spread open her lesson plan book and lifted the photo she kept paper-clipped to the inside cover. In the picture she held Moses, the sweet, chubby toddler who had stolen her heart the last time she had visited her younger sister, Emily, in Liberia. Moses’s round black face looked straight into the camera, his smile wide, while the photograph captured Stephanie’s profile as she stared adoringly at the little boy on her hip. Stephanie’s heart lurched with longing as she relived the moment in her mind now.

  After her third trip to visit her sister and brother-in-law in West Africa, Stephanie had physically boarded the plane for home, but she had left her heart behind in the red African dirt. Her life now revolved around figuring out how to get back there as a full-t
ime missionary, but the process wasn’t going well at all. She didn’t have the money to sustain herself without being a burden to Emily and Ty, and with their first baby on the way, they didn’t need to take care of her as well on the meager salary they received from an international missions board.

  Stephanie swiped her finger across the picture of Moses’s face. I miss you, baby boy. I wonder how big you’ve gotten this year. She needed to ask Emily for a more recent picture. She clipped the photo to the book where it belonged, sighed and settled in to do the work in front of her.

  An hour passed before the sound of jingling keys in the hallway jerked her attention away from the stack of essays she was reading. The doorknob to her classroom turned. Was a janitor working today? They didn’t usually work this late on weekends, but who else would have a master key? Maybe Jim Mendoza, the principal?

  Stephanie bit the inside of her cheek. Who was it? Reaching behind her, she fished her cell phone out of the pocket of her wet coat hanging on the back of her desk chair. She glanced at the phone and then tossed it on the stack of papers in front of her. She had forgotten to charge the battery again. Her stomach knotted as she waited for whoever it was behind the door to enter.

  “Who’s there?” she called.

  The door swung open, and a pallid face peeked around it. His washed-out blue eyes widened. “It’s just me.”

  She released all the air she’d been holding as she realized it was the IT guy who had been helping her install all of the new technology she had received from a grant she had won for her classroom. He dropped in unannounced all the time, but this was the first time he had come on a weekend.

  Stephanie lowered the stapler in her hand. She must have grabbed it without realizing it before the door opened. Her cheeks burned. She hoped he hadn’t noticed the threatening way she had held it. What good would a stapler have done her if it truly had been an emergency?

  Her laugh sounded forced and flat in her own ears. “You scared me.”

  The blond man stood on the classroom door’s threshold, his tool bag in hand. He stood perfectly erect, unblinking.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”

  “Did you need anything?”

  He pointed at a stack of shipping boxes she hadn’t noticed sitting near the front whiteboard. “I thought I would get a head start setting those up for you so you can use them on Monday,” he said.

  After she won the grant, boxes like these had slowly trickled into her classroom. It felt like Christmas every time a new one arrived. She eyed a large flat box and hoped that the smart board she was looking forward to using was inside it.

  Stephanie nibbled on her lower lip, not liking being alone with a man she didn’t know well, but she was unsure of what to say or do that wouldn’t come across as rude. “Um, sure, I’ll just get out of your way, then.”

  “Thank you, Stephanie.”

  It was probably nothing more than the overactive imagination she had been combating all day, but something about the way he pronounced her name sent a shiver scampering up her spine. She gathered up her lesson plan book and the stack of essays and moved to the opposite corner from where he stood in the doorway.

  “You’re welcome, Julian. Let me know if you need anything.”

  She walked to the round worktable, but before she sat, movement outside startled her.

  “Rick?” She cocked her head, confused.

  Why was Terrell’s friend Rick Powell out there? She gasped. Rick wasn’t just standing at the window; his gun was pointing directly at her through the glass.

  TWO

  Rick’s spirits had lifted when he rounded the corner of the school building and saw the glow of artificial light coming from the fourth classroom down the wall. He had hoped he would simply have to knock on Stephanie’s classroom window and all of this would be behind them. But once he peeked into her classroom, he knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

  Even through the window’s dirty glass, Rick had recognized Stephanie immediately, but it was the man standing in the doorway behind her, fitting the exact description of Julian Hale, that had caused him to pop back and draw his weapon.

  “Freeze!” Rick shouted through the window. He doubted they could hear him clearly, if at all, but he hoped the raised gun made enough of a statement. The glass wouldn’t stop him if he had to shoot.

  Rick’s gaze locked on Hale, trying to anticipate his next move. What was Hale going to do? Run? Try to take out Stephanie? Hale was caught, and Rick expected to read surprise or even fear displayed in the other man’s body language. Instead, Hale appeared unfazed by the gun and strangely poised.

  Rick needed to get Stephanie out of here and deliver her safely to Terrell Watkins. When they had split up to look for her, Rick had promised Terrell that he would get to her before Hale did. Rick’s gut twisted. He had failed to keep that promise.

  Terrell and his wife, Val, viewed Stephanie O’Brien as a member of their family. The three of them had known one another for years, and Rick had run into Stephanie so often at their house, he had finally asked Terrell if she was living with them. To which Terrell had laughed and answered, “Practically.”

  But Terrell wasn’t laughing now. Back in the attic, Terrell’s broad shoulders had slumped and deep lines of worry had furrowed his forehead as he tried to reach Stephanie on her cell phone.

  “My calls are going straight to voice mail,” Terrell had said, skimming his tightly cropped black hair with his large hand. “That girl never keeps her cell phone charged, and Val hasn’t seen her at all today.”

  Rick had hated seeing Terrell so upset. The team counted on their sergeant’s lighthearted personality to ease the tense situations. His jokes had gotten Rick through a lot of heavy spots, but with the roles reversed, Rick hadn’t known what to say. Finding the photograph of one of your closest friends in the attic of a wanted killer wasn’t a light thing.

  And now here she was right in front of him. How was he going to get her away from Hale?

  Without lowering his gun, Rick reached up and grabbed his mic. “Code 3 assist. I’ve got a visual on the suspect.”

  *

  Stephanie wasn’t sure which of the two men to look to for answers. She turned back and forth between Rick at the window and Julian in the doorway until it dawned on her. Rick’s gun wasn’t aimed at her; his target was Julian, and Stephanie was in the way.

  She dropped to her stomach, scattering the papers she held in her arms, and scooted toward the window on her belly. Was that the right thing to do? She wished she could read Rick’s mind. Right or wrong, she had to put distance between her and the doorway where Julian still stood.

  “Stop moving, Stephanie,” Julian’s icy voice instructed her.

  She froze midcrawl. “Why are the police here, Julian? What have you done?”

  Although he spoke to her, his eyes stayed on the window and Rick’s gun. “I suspect the officer is here not only because of what I’ve already done, but because he knows what I’m planning to do next.”

  From her vantage point on the ground, Stephanie looked up and studied Julian’s face. A slow, small smile spread, then flickered out, leaving the flat, emotionless affect he always wore. She had noticed his oddities before—his formal speech, erect posture and unwavering calm. She had written them off as nothing more than a social awkwardness from a man who spent all of his time working with computers instead of people. Now she found the same mannerisms cold and calculating.

  What are you planning to do?

  Fear amplified the flow of blood behind her ears as it raced adrenaline through her body. Her heartbeat paralleled the ticking of the old clock in the front of the classroom. The minute hand kept bouncing into place, marking how long Stephanie lay on the ground waiting for something to happen.

  Julian didn’t say any more; his eyes remained locked on Rick. She waited for Rick’s gun to shatter the glass, but that didn’t happen, either. She remained moti
onless on her stomach, stuck in the middle of a standoff with no idea what she should do next.

  The distant sound of approaching sirens hit her ears. From the sound of it, a lot of law enforcement was about to descend on this place, yet Julian seemed unperturbed by it all. Maybe she could stall him until they arrived.

  “What are you planning to do, Julian?” she asked him.

  His soulless eyes turned her direction, making her shiver from the coldness she saw in them. “You will have to wait and see, Stephanie. I promise you will know soon enough.” Then he bolted from the doorway and disappeared down the dark hallway.

  Hammering hit the window above her. Stephanie peered through her lifted arm and watched the old window splinter from the force of Rick’s nightstick. Stephanie moved to stand up as Rick raked out the remaining glass, but she fell back down flat again when a large dog flew through the broken window. Stephanie screamed and covered her head.

  Rick climbed in the window. “The dog won’t hurt you,” he reassured her. “Axle, sitz!” he commanded, and the dog froze and sat at attention.

  “Did you see which way Hale ran?” Rick asked her.

  “I don’t know. Right, I think?”

  Rick spoke into his radio. “Suspect is running toward the front of the school. I won’t be able to intercept. Have incoming units set up a perimeter.”

  Rick squatted beside her. “Are you okay, Stephanie?”

  She wanted to yell, Scared to death, how do you think I’m feeling? But the concern in his eyes stopped her. “Fine,” she told him.

  Rick offered Stephanie a hand up, steadying her as she wobbled to her feet. She had been around Rick many times at Val and Terrell’s house, but she had never been this close to him. She blushed. The skip in her heartbeat could not be blamed on fear.

  “Hale may be hiding in the building. We need to get you to a safer location.” Rick let go of her arms and walked to the window. “Can you crawl out with me?”