Guardian of Justice

by Carol Steward

  Kira’s face flushed. “No, this isn’t about—”

  Dallas interrupted her. “It’s a small misunderstanding about a statement for an incident report. But it seems that the incident has led to more problems.” He moved the focus back to her condo, and her brothers took over the conversation again. Kira was bombarded with questions about who would have done this to her, why, when….

  “Wait just a minute,” she finally blurted out, clearly overwhelmed by all the attention. “What makes you think someone targeted me? I’ve been gone for two days. Maybe they just—”

  “This wasn’t a crime of opportunity, Kira. They didn’t take anything of value. They were looking for something specific,” Nick interrupted. “This officer came a long way out of his jurisdiction to make sure you’re okay. So if your not calling him back has nothing to do with a bad date, why don’t you start by telling us what didhappen.”

  “Could we talk alone for a minute?” Dallas suggested quietly as he turned to Kira.

  She nodded. Anything to avoid the inevitable.

  He took hold of her arm with gentle authority, leading her to the end of the driveway. He released her immediately when she began to pull away.

  Dallas’s eyes seemed deeper set, and concern etched his face. “I know what you’re going through. You don’t want to think about it any more than necessary, especially not when it means telling your family. Fact remains, they’re not going to let it go now, and I need to get your statement.”

  She tucked her arms into her jacket and noticed her brothers working hard to listen to her conversation with Dallas. She turned her back on her family and whispered, “Let’s take a walk around the block.”

  Though his eyebrows furrowed, Dallas told her brothers, “We’ll be right back.”

  Garrett jumped forward instantly. “You’re not—”

  Kira glared him, letting Dallas stand between them. “Knock it off, Garrett, he’s a cop. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  Dallas touched her arm and they headed down the street. “You don’t really believe they’re going to let you off the hook, do you?”

  “No, but maybe Dad’ll send them back to work. I need more time to decide what I want to tell them.” Kira looked over her shoulder to make sure none of them had followed. “I know I have to tell them something, but I don’t know how much they need to know. Isn’t it confidential or something?”

  “Not if it happened to you. You can tell who you want. You don’t have to, but you can. Kira, you can’t make all of this go away by ignoring it. What happened was not your fault. I’ll make sure they know that.”

  “You keep saying you know what I’m going through,” she said. “You can’t know. You can’t know how it felt to be trapped with a lunatic after me,” she insisted, fighting her inclination to raise her voice. She expected Dallas to interrupt, but he remained silent, probably waiting for her to calm down again. “I could have been the one going into that house alone, without a gun, without a radio to call for backup.” She pointed to herself.

  He didn’t argue.

  “I thought I was fine, but when I got home…” Her voice gave out. She couldn’t explain how difficult this week had been for her.

  “The shadows start talking, don’t they?”

  She was afraid to look at him and let him know he was right. “I can’t tell them what happened, Officer Brooks.”

  “Call me Dallas. You seem to forget that you’re the victim here, not the guilty party.” His voice was calm and quiet. “I blame myself every bit as much as you do for leaving you in harm’s way. And you’re probably going to be even madder at me, because I told your brothers some of what happened in order to get them to understand my concern that your condo looked suspicious. I wanted them to stop acting like this was some lover’s spat. Before you, your dad and the narcotics officer arrived, the detective and the hothead thought I broke your heart. Right about now, I wish it wasjust a personal fight between us.”

  “What?” Had this guy lost his mind, too?

  He took hold of her hand and she spun to a stop in front of him. “I do, because then you wouldn’t be hearing shadows talking. Because then we wouldn’t have so much in common. Because then I wouldn’t be afraid for your safety.” He let go of her hand and stared at her. Kira backed away, stopped by the granite sign of the subdivision. “I know you don’t want anyone to know how afraid you are, Kira. You want to be the same strong woman you were before that night. I’m going to tell you that isn’t going to happen. Especially not in a matter of a week or two.”

  “That’s really comforting.” She looked at him in disbelief as he stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest. He looked every bit as sturdy as the granite rock she leaned against.

  “No, it’s not. Neither is ignoring it. Or denial. I’m not sure yet where you’re at with what happened, but it’s not going to get any better until you face it. I should have followed my sergeant’s advice that night. He told me to go get you and bring you back, but I was being selfish. I wasn’t about to have to admit to anyone that I’m not a tough ex-cop from Phoenix. It’s taken me over three years to get here tonight, to admit that I live with post-traumatic stress disorder. You’re the first and only person besides my supervisor that I’ve ever told. So you’re wrong, I know exactly what you’re going through.”

  She didn’t know what to say. “What happened?”

  “Too much to go into right now, but I want to tell you about it sometime so you can realize I do know what you’re going through. You can hide, but the shadows keep coming back. The sooner you deal with it and let your loved ones help you through it, the sooner you’ll get better.” Dallas pointed behind him. “You have brothers down the block who dropped everything to make sure you’re okay. They want you to be okay, just as much as you do—just as much as I do.”

  Kira started walking again, not wanting to face any of this. Surely if she went far enough, it wouldn’t find her. Unfortunately, Dallas wasn’t going to let it go. “Things like this don’t happen to my brothers. They won’t understand, especially when they find out what a pansy I am.” Kira picked up the pace until she rounded the bend and once again saw her brothers and dad pacing in front of her condo. She slowed down, torn between facing them and listening to Dallas’s soft, firm voice like a shadow behind her, making her face reality.

  “A pansy wouldn’t have kept fighting for survival, searching for a way to save herself. She wouldn’t have jumped right back into her job to protect two victimized children from that man,” Dallas argued. “None of us knows how we’ll handle a situation until we’re thrown into it.”

  She was weary from thinking of this, running over it night and day for a week. “I thought I knew, though. I should have been prepared. I’ve lived on both sides of this incident, and I was still caught off guard.”

  “Every day God opens our eyes to learning something new. No matter how much training we go through, something is going to catch us off guard eventually. I ran away from law enforcement, didn’t believe I’d ever be able to wear a uniform again. I’m a much better officer than I was before my incident. Maybe seeing how a victim’s life is affected will help you and your brothers in some way, too.”

  She couldn’t stop the tears. “I’ve always been a nuisance to them, from day one. They brought me home right before Garrett’s birthday, and instead of getting a puppy, he got a little sister. You can imagine how thrilled he was with that.”

  Dallas laughed, a soft, unassuming chuckle that warmed her through. “I wouldn’t worry about Garrett. It didn’t seem to warp him too much. He seems to have some pretty protective genes in him.”

  Kira groaned, wiping the tears away. “They all do. I’ll never live alone again after this.”

  “For a while, that may be a good thing. Which reminds me, you have a statement to give.” He paused. “How do you want to deal with that? Ignoring it is not an option.”

  She shook her head.

  “Just one warnin
g. I’m not leaving tonight without it. I could make you come to the station with me, write it all out. I take the official copy, and you live with them hounding you forever about what really happened.”

  She winced. That was the coward’s way out, and if she didn’t tell her brothers now, they’d think it was much worse than it really was. “No, I’ll tell them.” She looked down the block at her family. “See, I’m fine.”

  “Good. Let me get my recorder, if you don’t mind. It’ll save you having to write it all out.”

  She nodded.

  “The other thing we’ll need to do is talk to the police here, work with them on who could have broken into your place. We both have a pretty good idea who did it, and I think you need to talk to your supervisor, maybe pair up with someone for a while, at least until we catch Mickey.”

  When Dallas returned, Kira had everyone gathered on the back porch, away from curious neighbors. She took that difficult journey into the shadows, comforted by the occasional question from Dallas that kept her going. Only once did Garrett try to interrupt. Dallas held his hand out, silencing him instantly.

  Dallas asked her a few questions to fill in the gaps in his report. Then Kira faced the questions from the local police about her town house.

  The officer handling the investigation asked for the name of the man who had attacked the car. “Mickey Zelanski,” Dallas responded.

  “Why would he want anything in my house?” Kira still didn’t understand.

  “You’re the only person who can identify him. His girlfriend is in jail, the DEA has taken his supply, and maybe he wants re—” Dallas stopped himself. “Who else would break in, but not take anything of value?”

  “Nick?” Kira turned to the plainclothes brother. “Is that right? You think this is linked?”

  He nodded. “Dallas’s theory makes sense. Maybe Zelanski thinks you have something, records for instance. And yeah, maybe he just wants you out of the way. We can’t ignore that possibility, as ugly as it is.”

  Kent was already on the phone. “Find out where Zelanski is for me, would you? And get hold of that DEA agent who dropped by the other day.”

  “Kent? You know that monster? Please tell me Zelanski isn’t an undercover officer on your narcotics squad.” Fire lit in Kira’s soft brown eyes. “I might have to take him on myself if he is.”

  “No, he’s not one of ours. But let me put it this way. you’re not going anywhere alone until we have him behind bars.”

  Kira’s dad pulled Kira to him and looked Dallas in the eye. “You keep us up-to-date on this case, Brooks. We’ll do whatever we need to do to keep my little girl safe.”

  Dallas nodded at him and smiled. “Will do, sir. I’m moving to the day shift as of tomorrow, but I’ll still be following this case. Kira, I want to talk to you more about the incident.”

  Her father cleared his throat. “I’m going to make sure the house is locked up before we head home, Kira. Dallas, we’ll see you again, I’m sure. Boys, you’d better get back to work.”

  Nick started to protest, but her dad herded them all through the house.

  Kira’s brothers took the hint and said goodbye, too. It was just her and Dallas now. “You were saying?”

  “I want to discuss this, as one PTSD survivor to another, since you’re not interested in dating a cop.”

  “Since I’m not…? Where did you get the impression I’m not interested in dating a cop?”

  He paused a moment, then got a look of panic in his eyes. “You said so, and your brothers also told me.”

  She couldn’t think of what she’d said to give him that impression, but it didn’t surprise her that Nick and Garrett were against Dallas. They had always tried to scare off her dates.

  “That’s fine with me,” Dallas added. “I don’t want to pressure you. I just think that talking with someone who’s been through the stress you have might be helpful. Are you free for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “Yeah, maybe it would.” Maybe it was best to get the romantic notions out of her mind for now.

  Dallas seemed almost relieved by the announcement. Was he afraid of getting involved? Kira’s heart raced at the memories of him comforting her after the incident with Mickey.

  “Let me give you my parents’ address and I’ll see you tomorrow.” She didn’t dare let her guard down, did she? Or was God trying to show her the silver lining to this horrible week?

  Chapter Ten

  TEN

  The only thing pushing Dallas to step inside the high school at six twenty-five the next morning was his motivation to make it to six that evening to see Kira again. He wasn’t worried about her in the same way he had been twenty-four hours ago, but he still couldn’t get his mind off her.

  He tried to convince himself that it was because he felt at least partially to blame for her suffering. His conscience wouldn’t let him rest until he tried to help her through this. Any other reason would be a huge mistake. Relationships and post-traumatic stress disorder mixed about as well as oil and water. Add to that the lousy statistics for police officers’ divorce rates, and getting involved with Miss Matthews was out of the question.

  Definitely out of the question.

  He took a deep breath, muttered a small prayer and found a custodian who directed him to Brad Johnson’s office. Dallas was surprised to find a pair of crutches propped next to the senior ranking officer’s desk.

  “What happened to you?” Dallas asked.

  “An old knee injury flared up after a mishap painting the house last weekend.” Johnson shook his head and stood up. “I’m sure after a couple of weeks of therapy, it’s going to be good as new.”

  “I hope so,” Dallas said. He wished he could be as confident as Johnson. Even if he was better, he wasn’t likely to be in good enough shape to qualify to be on duty in a matter of weeks. “So how about we get busy here. Show me around. Tell me what to watch for….”

  “It’s been a pretty quiet year,” the officer began, and kept talking as he gathered his crutches to give Dallas the tour. Brad introduced Dallas to the principal and staff. Antelope Springs High School was home to almost five hundred students, nowhere near the enrollment they had at the school Dallas had been at in Phoenix. Even so, it wasn’t comforting to think he had less than one-fourth the students to monitor.

  Brad hobbled through the school, pointing out the emergency exits and potential weak areas where they had recurrent security problems. Dallas could understand why they had wanted someone who was familiar with the job requirements. To anyone new, going through the building’s crisis manual in a matter of hours would seem like preparing for Pearl Harbor on a day’s notice.

  “Hey, Johnson,” a tall kid said, stopping them in the hallway. “Is this the new SRO?”

  Brad came to a stop and leaned on his crutches with a sigh. “Yeah. Tucker, this is Officer Brooks. I’ve warned him about you,” he joked.

  Dallas recalled those days, making friends with the students. At one time, he’d loved being their role model, their friend, a person they could come to when they needed an ear. He’d loved keeping them out of trouble.

  “Hey, Brooks.” The youth raised his fist, waiting for Dallas to tap knuckles.

  “That’s OfficerBrooks,” Dallas corrected. Don’t let the kid get to you. Remember Alek was a friend, too.Reluctantly, Dallas ignored the student’s attempt to get connected. He wasn’t here to make friends. “The late bell’s about to ring. Do you have class this period?”

  The kid nodded, a puzzled look on his face. “Yeah, I’m going.” He glanced at Johnson, who simply tilted his head, motioning down the hall. Tucker seemed disappointed as he walked to the classroom two doors away.

  Didn’t Officer Johnson normally push the kids to get to class on time?

  Brad looked at Dallas, a smirk on his face. “He likes to hang out in my office and talk. He’s a good kid, but school’s boring for him.”

  “Yeah, it might be a little more interesting if he tried a
little harder. My office won’t be a hangout.”

  Johnson paused a minute. “Whatever works for you,” he said, then moved on with the tour. An hour later, he said goodbye and headed out, leaving Dallas in one of his dreaded discussions with the shadows.

  As he walked the halls, studying the layout of the school, he couldn’t help but relate to Kira’s emotional state. He hadn’t been inside a school in over three years and he didn’t want to be here now. He wanted to be anywhere but here, where kids’ voices echoed in his head. Some jokesters. Most friendly. One, an angry loner, dead set on revenge—all over a few days suspension. That was the loudest voice, drowning out all the others. One “friend” who had turned on Dallas when the system didn’t give in to his plan.

  Dallas’s breathing quickened. His heartbeat echoed in his ears. His determination to keep to himself grew stronger. He was here to keep the kids safe, not to be liked, or be cool, or help the kids succeed. Nope, he wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

  Each hour, as the end of each period approached, Dallas became a visible fixture in one of the hallways. During class, he kept an eye on one of the entrances. Watching, studying. All except the front doors were supposed to be locked, yet he constantly saw students opening the side entrances to let other students come and go. He made a note to talk to the principal. His list of concerns grew longer each hour. Things are way too lax here.Why had these issues not been addressed earlier? It was past spring break.

  When the final bell rang, Dallas watched students storm the exits. He waited outside, watching traffic, waiting to be needed, thankful when he wasn’t.

  Before he left for the day, he stopped by the main office. “Is the principal in?”

  “He’s in meetings for the rest of the afternoon, Officer Brooks.” The receptionist looked barely old enough to be out of high school herself. “By the way, I’m Candy Carson.” She leaned against the tall counter across from Dallas and twirled her hair around her finger. “Would you like to schedule a meeting with him?”

  Dallas placed his hands on the edge of the counter and pushed away from the girl as she inched closer. “If that’s the best way to block out an hour or two of his schedule, then yes, Miss Carson.”