Standing Fast

by Maggie K. Black

  “Maisy!” Linc said. “What happened?”

  “Someone was spying on us over the back fence. Chase went after them. Where’s Allie?”

  “In the house with Zoe and Freddy,” Linc said. “Description of the suspect?”

  “Slender. Black hoodie. Black hat. Bandanna over the lower half of their face. Taller than me, but shorter than Chase. Like I said, Chase and Queenie ran after them.”

  “And you saw this person yourself?” Ava pressed. “Firsthand?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The airmen exchanged a quick and pointed look. Then they gathered their dogs, with a series of whistles and calls, like a quickly mobilized team. Linc called to Felicity to brief Zoe. Westley scooped Queenie’s leash up from the porch, held it under Dakota’s nose and told her to track. The German shepherd barked, ran down to the end of the yard, then back through the gate, with the other dogs and trainers steps behind. Maisy stood there a moment and watched the empty space where they’d been. Then she turned back to the porch where Felicity still stood. Maisy walked toward her.

  “You’re sure Allie’s in the house?” Maisy asked. “I promised Chase I’d make sure she was okay.”

  “They’re in the kitchen washing their hands,” Felicity said. There was an odd look on her face. It was like there was a wild coyote standing behind Maisy and she didn’t know how to warn her without spooking it. “They’re decorating cupcakes. Freddy’s really happy to have a friend over and I think Zoe’s happy to be able to reach out and be there for Allie. She, better than anyone, knows what it’s like to live under a veil of suspicion.”

  Her tone implied that she wasn’t so sure the rest of their friends had been as happy to have Chase around.

  Maisy looked in the window. Zoe was standing at the kitchen table now. Maisy watched as Zoe helped each child in turn climb up onto a chair and then spread brightly colored candies, tubes of icing and sprinkles in front of them. Maisy reached for the back door, but before her fingers could brush the handle Felicity pointed to a chair. “Sit. Please. We need to talk.”

  Felicity sat down. Maisy turned her eyes away from the happy domestic scene inside the kitchen and sat beside her.

  “About what?” Maisy asked. She could hear barking and yelling in the distance, and prayed they’d catch the prowler.

  “About the handsome man you’ve been making eyes at tonight,” Felicity said.

  Maisy felt heat rise to her face.

  “Allie is one of my students,” she said. “She’s like this bright little light in my day and I care about what happens to her.”

  “And her father, Chase?” Felicity asked.

  Maisy looked down at the wooden porch slats beneath her feet and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”

  “But you like him,” her friend said gently.

  “I do.” Maisy nodded, miserably. “I think I have for a long time. But it was just an innocent crush, you know? It’s not like I thought anything was ever going to happen between us. I just enjoyed seeing him for that few moments a day, when he dropped Allie off or picked her up. I liked that little bit of a lift, a happy little jolt, it gave to my day. It sounds foolish.”

  “Not foolish. Human,” Felicity said softly. “It took me a while to warm up to Westley because I wasn’t sure he liked me. I had no idea at the time he was fighting feelings for me. But he was my commanding officer, so he couldn’t act on those feelings. Once he became my protector and I finally let my guard down...my heart took over.”

  Maisy watched as she spun her new wedding band around on her finger.

  “All I’m saying is I care about you, you’re my friend and I want you to be careful,” Felicity added. “Everyone on base is under a lot of stress and it’s making everything seem more important and urgent. Just look at Westley and me, or Zoe and Linc. You’ve never served in the military or been deployed, but there are moments in this career where it’s like everything’s sped up and we’ve all stepped on a moving sidewalk without realizing it. It’s scary, and exciting, but it also leads to people making bad decisions.”

  “I’m not making any decisions,” Maisy said. “All I did was agree to watch Allie for a bit this morning and have a conversation with Chase about the case.”

  “I know,” Felicity said. If possible, her voice was even more gentle than it had been before. “And I’m not saying you did anything wrong. But I’ve seen the way you look at him and Chase isn’t just the father of one of your students. He’s been accused of killing your father.”

  “And you think I don’t know that?” Maisy’s eyes rose to meet Felicity’s. Then her head shook. “I’m sorry. I just can’t bring myself to think he’s guilty.”

  Felicity nodded, like she was hearing something much deeper than what Maisy was saying. “And maybe he’s not. I’m keeping an open mind about him and I don’t know what Westley thinks. But whatever this thing is that’s drawing you to him, I think it’s a lot deeper than you want to admit. Just promise me you’re going to keep yourself safe.”

  Maisy pressed her lips together and nodded. She didn’t know what to say. Felicity had gotten her dead to rights. She liked Chase, in a very simple, real and honest way. There was just something about him and little Allie that got to her, no matter how much she knew that the smartest and safest thing for her to do was steer clear.

  * * *

  Chase stopped in his tracks and looked around in all directions. The night was still around him. The base’s perimeter fence spread out ahead of him. The figure he’d been chasing was gone. He felt Queenie by his side. “I don’t know what happened, Pup. They were here just a minute ago.”

  Help me, Lord, what do I do now?

  The night had set in deeper and darker while he’d been talking with Maisy. Now, black Texas skies spread dark above his head, filled with the kind of huge bright stars he’d grown up believing a man couldn’t find anywhere else.

  He looked down, his eyes adjusting to the dim light, and saw the dog’s attentive face turned to toward his, ready to search if only he said the word.

  But track what? She wasn’t trained to track people, only electronic devices. Would that work? He was pretty sure the figure had been carrying a cell phone, judging by the phone alert sound he’d heard. Normally, he’d never think to give Queenie the command to go search out in the world without knowing exactly what she was looking for.

  But desperate times...

  He turned to her and instantly felt his small partner snap to attention. “Queenie, go search!”

  Instantly, her nose went to the ground. He watched for a second as she sniffed, back and forth, methodically. Then she howled and disappeared from view. Okay, so where had his dog gone? He’d trained her not to run away and to stay within his line of sight. He kicked himself for having not gone back for his leash before running after the hooded figure, but it hadn’t felt like there was time. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and scanned the fence. Then he saw it, a gap barely more than a few inches under the fence, leading out into the thick woods behind the base. He bent down and shone his light through the chain-link. Sure enough, there was Queenie, sitting on the other side, with her head cocked as if she was wondering what was taking him so long.

  All right, then. He ducked low and realized the only way he was getting through the fence was on his stomach in a combat crawl. He crawled through and came out in the thick ravine surrounding the base. Queenie ran up to him and then away again a few steps with another little howl.

  “I’m coming!” he said. Queenie tilted her head to the side. “Go search!”

  She took off running, her little body moving easily through the deep scrub and underbrush. He ran after her. For a moment, nothing filled his ears but the rustling sound of Queenie crashing through the trees, his own footsteps pelting after her and the panting of their breaths.

  Then he heard vo
ices yelling behind him, the sound of dogs barking, and realized he was being pursued. Someone was chasing after him. Just like that, he’d gone from the hunter to the hunted, running like a fugitive in the night. Too late, he remembered Captain Justin Blackwood’s warning not to leave the base without informing his office. He stopped and turned around. His hands raised instinctively. Light flashed in his face, blinding his view, just in time to see the German shepherd barreling toward him. Its teeth were bared. Its powerful lungs barked and a chorus of dogs joined in behind it.

  “Dakota, heel!” Westley’s authoritative voice sounded in the darkness. Instantly, the dog stopped, turned and trotted back to his partner. Chase raised his hand to his eyes and shielded his face from the light as slowly the group came into view.

  Westley, Linc, Isaac, Ava and their canines were striding through the woods toward him, with a purpose and strength that reminded him of the Air Force K-9 poster that had hung over his too-short bed as a child.

  “Airman Chase McLear?” Westley called.

  “Sergeant!” Instinctively, Chase felt himself salute. The lights dropped from his face. The cops exchanged a look. “There was a figure in a hoodie and bandanna spying on the house. Queenie and I ran after them and chased them into the woods.”

  Despite the fact that he and these cops had been standing around casually in a backyard less than an hour ago, he was now standing up at full attention. He was a suspect—he could see it in Westley’s eyes—and he would never have their trust until his name was cleared.

  If it was cleared.

  Linc crossed his arms. “Outside the base perimeter?”

  “We were following the suspect and they slid under the fence.”

  “You saw them go through a hole in the perimeter fence?” Ava asked, probing deeper.

  Chase planted his heels beneath him and reminded himself their questions weren’t personal. They’d been searching for Boyd Sullivan for months. The existence of a hole in the perimeter big enough that he could squeeze through no doubt rattled them.

  “Queenie found the hole in the fence, actually,” he admitted. “I didn’t see it. When I lost sight of the suspect, I remembered I’d heard what I thought was a cell phone message alert. So I told Queenie to track the cell phone.”

  He felt the familiar press of warmth against his calf. He looked down. Queenie was back by his side. Had she given up because he was no longer following? Had she lost the scent? Or had she returned because he was in trouble? She was such a good dog. His heart ached to know her K-9 training was on hold because of him.

  A pause spread through the group, as if each of them was weighing internally what to say.

  Then Westley turned to the others. “My suggestion would be that Linc gets back to the house, checks in on his family and the others and calls it in if they haven’t already. Make sure Security Forces know about the hole in the fence. Ava, can you and Roscoe search the woods and see if you can come up with any trail of the person that Chase saw?”

  “Absolutely.” She nodded.

  “I’ll go with her,” Isaac said quickly. “No one should be roaming around out here alone in the dark.”

  Ava smiled, grateful.

  “Agreed.” Westley said. “I’ll stay out here and talk with Chase for a bit.”

  Linc and Star disappeared through the night in one direction, while Ava and Roscoe, and Isaac and Tango disappeared in the other. Westley nodded to Queenie. “I take it she lost the scent?”

  Chase nodded. “I’m guessing so.”

  “You left this behind at the party.” Westley reached out and handed Chase Queenie’s leash. He guessed that’s what Dakota had used to track him. “It’s ill-advised to have a dog tracking without her leash on in an unknown outdoor setting. It’s different when it’s a contained or known environment, and I know as an electronic-sniffing dog, the vast majority of the searches she’s done have been indoors. But, generally speaking, unless you’ve got an attack dog chasing down a suspect, when you’re in the ravine, we keep leashes on. Now, let’s see if she can still track that cell phone.”

  Westley had been the lead K-9 trainer on base, until recently when Master Sergeant Caleb Streeter had taken over day-to-day operations due to the Red Rose Killer’s threats on Felicity’s life. Chase knew the man had the experience and the skill to direct this search.

  Chase took the leash and clipped it onto Queenie’s harness and told her to search. This time she trotted into the woods, leading Chase at a brisk pace. He followed, feeling Westley and Dakota one step behind him. Queenie reached a pond, dark and gloomy in the night. She whined and sat down. Had the figure tossed their phone in the pond or swum through it to hide their scent? Either way, the scent was gone. Chase leaned down and ran his hand over the dog’s head.

  “It’s okay, girl,” he said, softly. “You did a really great job.”

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of dried sweet potato and gave it to her.

  When he turned back, Westley was watching him with a curious look on his face. “What did you just give her?”

  “Sweet potato,” Chase said. He watched as Queenie chewed her treat, then handed one to Westley. “I did some research about her breed. Beagles aren’t picky eaters but they are prone to weight gain if they eat too much, and I can’t always keep track of everything Allie drops on the floor, so I switched to dried fruit and vegetables as her main treat.”

  Westley rocked back on his heels, looked at Chase for a long moment and then nodded slowly as if answering a question in his own mind. Then he handed the treat to Dakota, who took it eagerly from his hand. They turned and started walking back toward the fence.

  “Isaac got a bit of bad news when he was talking to Frank,” Westley said. “As I’m sure you know, Isaac’s best friend, Jake Burke, died in a plane crash in Afghanistan that almost took Isaac’s life as well. Beacon was Jake’s K-9 partner. The way Isaac tells it, Beacon and Isaac helped keep each other alive until rescue came. But according to Frank, Beacon is responding badly to his new trainer. He’s aggressive. He’s paranoid. If the situation doesn’t change, Beacon might have to retire.”

  He blew out a long breath, and Chase could see just how heavily the situation was weighing on him. They kept walking.

  “I’ve got to tell you,” Westley said, after a long moment, “it can be very hard on a dog to change partners. Sometimes they get aggressive. Sometimes they get confused. Some dogs are flexible and are able to adapt easier than others. But some dogs are simply untrainable when they lose their human partners.”

  They reached the fence and walked along it until they found a checkpoint gate. They showed their identifications and walked through. Chase made a mental note to call Justin Blackwood’s office later and report what had happened, before he was questioned yet again on how his identification had been used to sign into the base when he hadn’t signed out. They walked for a few more minutes until they reached the soft yellow illumination of Canyon’s residential streetlights. Chase could also feel Westley’s eyes on the sweet, gentle, attentive and intelligent dog now trotting by his side. It felt like he was getting an unexpected evaluation in his and Queenie’s training. A huge and unspoken question seemed to move through the night between them, and Chase was thankful when Westley came out and addressed it.

  “How long has it been since you were put on suspension and Queenie stopped formal training with the K-9 team?” Westley asked.

  “Three weeks and four days,” Chase said. He took a deep breath. “Do people on the K-9 team really think I had anything to do with the Red Rose Killer’s escape, the lost and injured dogs and the murders on base?”

  “I couldn’t tell you what people think—”

  “What do you think?”

  Westley stopped and turned toward him. His eyes met Chase’s unflinching and guileless gaze. “I’m doing my best to keep an open mind.”
>
  Chase guessed that was all he could ask for. They turned to start walking again. But there was one more question Chase had inside him, one that he wasn’t sure he had the courage to ask.

  “If this investigation into these false accusations against me continues to drag on, how long do you think I’ll be allowed to stay inside the K-9 training program before they reassign Queenie to a new partner?”

  “I don’t honestly know,” Westley said. “That’s no longer my call. Sergeant Streeter is now in command and running the K-9 training center on a day-to-day basis. I’m checking in regularly as needed, but I wasn’t in on his decision to allow you to continue training Queenie at home when you were suspended. Although the fact that he did makes me think he didn’t expect the investigation into you to last this long.”

  Well, that’s something at least, Chase thought.

  They turned onto Linc and Zoe’s street.

  “I won’t sugarcoat it,” Westley added. “Like I said, it can be very hard on a dog to change trainers, and Queenie has been out of training much longer than I would’ve liked. My guess is that Caleb definitely won’t let the situation go past the end of July and into August.”

  Chase blew out a hard breath. So twelve days, then.

  “But honestly?” Westley stopped outside Linc and Zoe’s front gate. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t let it go on that long. This situation has stretched out much further than it should’ve. I’ll be filling him in on what happened tonight and telling him that in my opinion, if you’re not cleared and reinstated back on active duty by the end of the week, Queenie should be reassigned to a new partner and trainer.”

  SEVEN

  Allie’s small head of blond curls snuggled tightly into Maisy’s side as they curled up beside each other on Zoe’s couch. In front of them, little Freddy lay on his stomach on the brightly colored carpet, watching one of his favorite DVDs of Sunday school songs and bedtime stories flicker on the television screen. He had one arm thrown around his father’s massive rottweiler partner, Star. There was something about seeing the huge dog cuddled up beside the small boy that filled her heart with both a surge of happiness for Zoe and Freddy having found Linc and a longing to one day feel that safe and protected.