by Terri Reed
She hated being a burden. She preferred the caretaker role. It had always been important to her to be strong and independent, not needy and self-centered like her broken mother. This whole situation had slipped out of her control. Somehow she needed to take it back, to take care of herself instead of standing here waiting for Val and Terrell to make everything better for her, or for Rick Powell to feel he had some kind of obligation to become her knight in shining armor.
It looked as though the firefighters were gaining the advantage over the fire. Would the house ever be what it once was? She closed her eyes. Thank you, Lord, that everyone got out okay.
She knew this was her fault. She might not have lit the match, but she did not believe this was an accident. How else would her friends suffer if they continued trying to protect her? What would Julian try next time that could hurt them? Stephanie slipped the blanket off her shoulders, folded it and placed it on the hood of Rick’s car. She wasn’t going to let there be a next time.
By the ambulance, Rick nodded at something Terrell said, and then he turned his body with his back toward her blocking Terrell from her view. Rick leaned in closer, absorbed in their conversation. This was her cue to exit. She could slip away now while Val was preoccupied with the kids and paramedics and Terrell was talking to Rick. She had to do this her own way, but Val and Terrell would stop her if they knew what she planned to do.
Stephanie stopped a passing paramedic. He didn’t look too busy, or in too much of a hurry to get somewhere else, but it still embarrassed her to interrupt him from his work. She couldn’t just disappear, though. Taking off with no explanation would send them all looking for her again. “Excuse me,” she asked him, her voice too squeaky. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Do you happen to have a piece of paper and a pen I could borrow?”
“Yeah, sure.” He pulled a small notepad and pen from the breast pocket on his uniform. Ripping off a sheet of paper, he handed both to her. “Just keep the pen.”
The paramedic walked a few paces away, then turned. “Hey, weren’t you inside the house? Has anyone checked you out yet?”
Stephanie hated lying to him, but she hadn’t been near the fire long enough to inhale any smoke. The longer she stood around chatting, the more her window for slipping away undetected was shrinking.
“Yeah. I’m good. Thanks for the pen.” She flashed him what she hoped was a confident “I’m just fine” smile. He nodded and left her to fend for herself.
Using Rick’s patrol car hood as a hard surface, Stephanie wrote a quick message:
T and Val—I know you want to help me, but you have enough to deal with right now. Don’t worry about me.
I promise I’ll be smart. Praying for you guys. I’ll check in soon. Love, Stephanie.
And Rick—Thanks again for all your help. I’m pretty sure you literally saved my life today. I’m grateful.
She anchored the paper with Rick’s windshield wiper. When she turned, she saw Axle standing on the sidewalk watching her. He cocked his head, looking curious.
“Take care of them for me, okay, Axle?” The dog wagged his tail.
She didn’t have a plan yet, not even a clue where she should go first. She did know, however, that she could not stick around and allow Julian Hale to harm little Haddie or Joash or their parents any more than he already had done.
It was cold, and it was wet. She had no coat, no money and no cell phone. She had no idea what came next, but Stephanie put one foot in front of the other, determined to lead Julian Hale away from the people she loved.
FIVE
“Are you sure?” Terrell sat on the back edge of the ambulance. His eyes blinked rapidly as he gaped at Rick. “I mean, I’m thankful for your help, but you’ve worked so hard to get back out in the field. It’s been such a long road to recovery. I would never dream of asking you to put that on hold, especially not on your first day back on duty.”
Rick kicked a pebble away with the toe of his boot. He rammed his hands deep into his pockets and fiddled with a challenge coin he always carried. Was he sure? The decision was made—he was going to protect Stephanie and help Terrell and Val. It wasn’t about what he did or did not want to do. This was about the meaning of friendship.
He swallowed down what he wanted. He wanted to be a member of his team again and to be back at work with Axle. Law enforcement was his calling. It ran in his blood. His grandfather, his dad and his uncle were all retired cops. Rick had not been one of those kids who followed in his family’s footsteps because he thought it was what he was supposed to do. Rick had become a cop because it was what he loved to do. The whole first year of work at SPD, he had marveled at the thought, I’m getting paid to do this? Eventually over the years, he had settled into it being demanding work with a lot of sacrifice involved. His failed relationship was proof of that, but through it all there had been a sense that he was doing what he was meant to do. Being injured for so long and cut off from that world had made him feel lost.
Rick cleared his throat. If he thought about this for too long, he might wimp out and take back his offer. “Getting back to work can wait,” he told Terrell. “It shouldn’t take you that long to get your family squared away. Besides, after all that you and Val did for me and Axle, it’s the least I can do.”
It wasn’t the least he could do. It was a huge sacrifice, and Rick knew that Terrell was fully aware of how much it was costing Rick. Terrell stood up from the ambulance and held out his hand to shake. Pulling their grasped hands across his heart, Terrell reeled Rick in for a manly hug, slapping him on the back twice.
“Thank you,” Terrell said before he set Rick free from his solid embrace. “I should only need a week. If you can keep her safe for me until then, I should be able to take over from there.”
Rick nodded. “Not a problem,” he assured Terrell.
Terrell chuckled. “But now you’ve got to tackle the hard part.”
“What’s that?” Rick asked.
“Convincing Stephanie to let you help her.” Terrell shook his head. “I love that girl like my own sister, but she is stubborn and she won’t enjoy being needy. She has been the rock of her family for a long time, and no one has ever looked out for her. Don’t take it personally if she isn’t too keen on the idea of having a bodyguard.”
Val walked over and joined the men, balancing Haddie on her hip. “Hey.” Her eyebrows pinched together as she made eye contact with Rick. “Have you guys seen Stephanie?” she asked. “I can’t find her.”
“Yeah, she’s waiting by my…” Rick pointed at his car, but she wasn’t there. Axle sat on the sidewalk in front of it, but Stephanie was gone. The hairs on the back of his neck raised.
“Axle, hier,” Rick called Axle to come to him. The dog trotted to his side obediently. Rick patted Axle’s saddle area. Axle had been sitting by the car and Stephanie the whole time. If something malicious had happened to Stephanie, he would have alerted Rick. Where was she?
Rick started toward his car with Terrell, Val and Axle following him, but the paramedic called out to Terrell. “Sir, you really need to keep that mask on, and I think we’re ready to transport your son to the hospital.”
Terrell and Val froze. Their dark complexions paled with worry. Both of their gazes flitted between the ambulance and Rick’s patrol car.
Rick put a hand on Terrell’s shoulder. “Go!” he commanded. “This is part of what I just volunteered to do. You take care of your family. I’ll take care of Stephanie.”
*
It had taken him two hours to find her, and he was not happy. He wanted to chew her out for being so stupid, but finding her on her knees in the front of the church sanctuary dissolved his anger. Well, it dissolved it a little bit. Seeing her alone and praying tugged at his compassion. He was relieved that she was alive and well and not floating upside down near the Ballard docks as Hale’s other victims had been. But he was still plenty angry with her. What had she been thinking, taking off like that with nothing more than
a note to explain? Didn’t her friends deserve better than that?
And why did he care so much? The smart thing would be to leave her right where she was to fend for herself. He had already gone above and beyond what duty dictated. Where had his objectivity gone? Victims had a right to refuse help. But this victim mattered a lot to Val and Terrell, and they mattered too much to Rick to let them down. Like it or not, he was involved for their sake.
Rick crossed his arms and called out down the church aisle, “So are you planning to make me chase you all over this city today, or what?”
Stephanie scrambled up from the front altar and spun to face him. Her body was set to run or fight, and her face was so pale he almost felt guilty for startling her like that. Almost.
He raised his hands and stepped closer so she could see him. “Hey. Calm down. It’s just me.”
Stephanie closed her eyes and relaxed, letting out an audible sigh. Her eyebrows crinkled together. “How’d you find me?”
“The question should be why I had to go looking for you again in the first place. Wasn’t saving you once today enough?”
She squared her shoulders. “Terrell would have insisted that I stay with them.” She crossed her own arms, mirroring Rick’s stance, holding her ground. “They don’t need to babysit me, Rick, and sticking around gave Julian opportunity to hurt them more than he already had. Making everyone mad at me was a small price to pay to keep them all safe.”
He admired her selflessness, but her actions were still foolish. The minute she’d walked away from the crowd, she had allowed herself to be an easy target. He took a step closer to her. “You could have asked me for help. Terrell and I were setting up a plan for your protection.”
“As a favor to Terrell, right?” Her jaw tightened. “I am not your responsibility, Rick. I’ve always taken care of myself. I’m trying to figure out how to keep doing that.”
He had made a promise to Terrell. Now he needed to convince Stephanie to let him fulfill it. “Lone ranger tactics get people killed, Stephanie. Even the toughest cops call for backup.”
As soon as he said it, memories flashed, and in his mind he was instantly back on the sidewalk by the warehouse in the Industrial District on the night that he and Axle had been stabbed. He was once again in the dark, rain falling on his face while he waited for either rescue or death, unable to move, unable to do anything but wait for backup to save him.
Most of all he remembered the blood. Blood on the man’s chest where Rick’s bullets had entered. Axle’s blood. Rick’s blood. And he remembered the sounds. Sirens. Pounding feet of his backup finally arriving, running to help. Shouts of “Officer down. Officer down.”
Rick shook his head to clear it, returning to the present. “I understand not wanting to be in need of help, believe me, I get that better than you know. But can’t you see that taking off on your own and refusing their help has made you more of a burden for Val and Terrell? You should see how worried they are about you right now.”
Her face was turned up toward his, and he noticed how close they had moved to each other as they talked. Even in the dim lighting of the sanctuary, he was near enough to see her eyes change to a different shade of blue as they filled with tears. Her head dropped, and she slid her hands up into her hairline and grabbed at her roots. “Ugh. That was not what I was trying to do.”
He reached out and pulled her hands down to her sides. “I know it wasn’t what you wanted to do, but Stephanie, it took me only two hours to find you in the city. It could have been Hale who found you instead of me. What was your plan?”
She plopped down onto the nearest seat. She rested her head on the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I didn’t have a plan,” she admitted, but added, “Yet. I was going to figure it out, maybe find a women’s shelter or something that would help me. But once I started walking, I didn’t know where to go. I thought about going back to the school to get the stuff I had left there, or going home and making some phone calls. But I was too scared to go to any of the places Julian knew about so I ended up here. Our pastor is meeting with the worship team upstairs, and he said I could hang out here for a while and pray.”
She rolled her head to the side in order to look in his direction. “So how did you find me?”
Rick shrugged, then sat down on the chair next to her. “Not sure. Just knew you would want to feel safe and thought your church might be a place you’d go in search of help.”
“Yeah, I thought someone would be here and that maybe the office would have a flier or a phone number for a shelter or something.” She laughed. “But as silly as it is to say out loud, I also kind of hoped maybe a killer wouldn’t want to come into God’s house, like church was home base or something.”
She sat up and turned toward Rick. She curled one leg under her on the seat and shifted to face him. “I’m really sorry, Rick. About making you hunt me down again. I figured you would be done trying to save me if I didn’t want to be saved.”
“It’s tempting,” he told her, even though his anger had fizzled out. He understood her thinking. “But I owe Terrell more than I will ever be able to pay back in this lifetime, so if being your personal bodyguard for a little bit frees him up and eases his mind, that’s what I’m going to do.”
During the long months of fighting off infection and suffering through rehab, throughout all of the boring hours of being a desk jockey on light duty, all he had cared about was getting back to doing real police work. And now after only one day back at it, he was volunteering to walk away from it again. This girl better be worth it. Apparently she was to Val and Terrell, and they were definitely worth it to him. He couldn’t think of any of his other friends who would be able to call in a favor like this.
Stephanie bumped her shoulder against his. “That is if I let you be my bodyguard.” She was teasing now. Was she giving in?
“Terrell asked for one week to get organized. After that you guys can make whatever other plans you want to make.” Rick waited for an answer. “So, think you can put up with me for a week, or do I have to keep hunting you down all night? It’s been a long day and I wouldn’t mind clocking out and getting something to eat.”
She bit her bottom lip. He could tell it was hard for her to admit she didn’t have any other options. Then she smiled a real smile like the one in the photograph. She held her hands up in surrender. “Okay. You win. What’s the plan?”
SIX
Stephanie inserted the key and unlocked the dead bolt. Her front door was dingy and in need of a clean coat of paint. It routinely stuck, requiring her to slam her shoulder against it to get it loose. The groaning sound the door always made as it slowly swung open sounded to Stephanie as if it were whining in a proper English accent, Really? Again? Is this quite necessary? Typically, she would tell it to stop being lazy and to quit whining, but she doubted Rick Powell had the scope of imagination necessary to understand her having a conversation with her front door.
When she had left the house earlier that afternoon, she hadn’t expected to be bringing home company. Especially not company that made her as nervous as Rick did. What condition had she left everything? Was there anything embarrassing left out that she wouldn’t want him to see? She lived what most would consider a minimalist lifestyle in preparation for Liberia, so it shouldn’t be too messy. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what her little duplex would look like through Rick’s eyes.
Before she stepped over the threshold, Rick pulled her back. She jumped at the sight of his drawn gun. “Let me go ahead of you. I want to clear it first.” He gave Axle a command sending him in the door before them.
He was going to search her whole house? Now she had more than just breakfast dishes left out to worry about. “Um, I was hoping to clear it first myself,” she said. She gave him a crooked smile. “Don’t look too closely, okay?”
Rick’s dimple flashed and he winked. “No promises.”
Stephanie trailed behind him, her heart racing. Ric
k’s vigilance reminded her that nowhere was safe anymore, not even her own home. Although small, old and quirky, it was cheap, and she loved it. It always felt good to be home, but now tainted by her fear, it felt different and foreign.
“All clear.” Rick returned to the kitchen with Axle at his heels and holstered his weapon.
With the threat of a bogeyman jumping out at her gone, Stephanie scanned the house. There were a few dirty dishes on the counter, a basket of laundry to fold on the couch and a mess of papers surrounding her open laptop on her kitchen table. Nothing too embarrassing, but now what was she supposed to do with him?
“Can I get you something? Tea? Coffee?”
“No, thanks. I can entertain myself while you pack.” Rick sat down on the couch and the basket of laundry tipped against him.
Stephanie rushed to rescue it before it spilled into his lap. “I am so sorry.”
Axle lay down at Rick’s feet but cocked his head at her as if he were trying to figure her out. Stephanie had grown up in a house of women. What was she going to do for a whole week with a man and his dog? If she didn’t get over her nervousness around them, it was going to be a long, awkward week.
“Well, make yourselves at home. I’m sorry I don’t have a TV.” She set the laundry basket down behind the couch. “I’ll try not to be too long. What am I packing for exactly?”
Rick’s gear squeaked as he shifted on the couch to look back at her. He looked so uncomfortable sitting in his uniform with its bulky gun belt. “There’s a safe house the US marshals keep near Lake Union. One of our detectives worked out a deal for us to use it for the week. It’s a two-bedroom hotel suite that’s kind of like a mini-apartment. Just pack whatever clothes and personal items you want, and maybe a few books or movies or something to keep from getting too bored.”
A knock on the front door interrupted them. Rick and Axle both sprang up, alert. “You expecting anyone?” Rick asked, drawing his gun again.
