by Sharon Dunn
His eye twitched. “Who says I was thinking about anything?”
She caught the defensiveness in his tone. She focused her attention on the view through the windshield. The car clicked past a mall and some big-box stores. Why did it even matter to her that she wanted to know more about him...to see more of the man underneath that thick exterior?
The silence in the car became oppressive. Valerie rolled down the window, letting the spring breeze caress her face. Lexi leaned over her shoulder to take in the outdoor smells.
“Not every family is like your family, you know,” Trevor blurted.
She picked up on just a slight waver in his voice. If she hadn’t had interview and interrogation training, she’d never have noticed it. His comment had come out of left field. She wasn’t sure where this was leading.
“I think the street is just up here a ways.” She took in a breath and glanced over at him. “What do you mean not every family is like mine?”
“You got people that love you and care about you,” Trevor said. “They want your career to turn out right, and they help you with Bethany.”
“Yes, that’s true.” She still wasn’t sure what he was implying.
His gaze shifted more than was necessary. This wasn’t easy for him, whatever he was trying to say. Slowing down as they entered a residential neighborhood, she parked the car outside the house where Murke’s half sister lived. Then she looked over at him, waiting for an explanation.
* * *
Valerie’s gaze was like a heavy weight on him. Sweat trickled down his neck. Now he regretted even breaching the subject of his family. Talking about them was harder than sniper duty in below-zero weather.
She’d run to the hills when she knew what kind of family he’d come from. He’d grown up in a home that half the time didn’t have electricity because his father didn’t pay the bill. His mom had tried to make the house a home. She had tried until...that night.
“So you’re saying your family isn’t like mine.” She leaned closer. Her green eyes intense as the scent of her perfume enveloped him.
He liked the way she tried to make it easier for him. It loosened some of the tension that was like a cord twisting around his chest. When he had watched her at a distance with the children and the puppies, he’d felt a longing to be a part of the tender moment she had created. That was what had started this whole thing. He didn’t want to be the outsider anymore.
“How bad could it be? My family isn’t perfect, either.” Her eyes seemed to probe beneath his skin straight to his heart. “I wish my dad would get off my case about the detective exam.”
She had no idea. He braced his hands on the dashboard and delivered his words in rapid fire intensity. “Your father never murdered your mother.”
Valerie’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as a look of shock and then horror spread across her face.
The comment had come out all wrong. He said it like he was trying to push her away with his words. And maybe that was what he had intended. Her openness and her sweetness enticed and frightened him at the same time. His stomach felt like it was in knots. Why did he push her away when what he wanted more than anything was to draw her close?
He couldn’t look at her. For sure now, she wouldn’t want anything to do with him. He opened the door. He should just do what he was good at—work. They had an interview to conduct. He could hear her footsteps behind him as he strode up the sidewalk and pounded on the door.
He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye when they stood on the porch waiting for someone to come to the door.
A boy of about five wearing a T-shirt that hung down below his knees answered the door. The kid had the telltale signs of having eaten a peanut butter sandwich, a smear of grape jelly at the corners of his mouth.
“Is your mom home?”
The little boy led them through the house to the backyard where a woman was placing plants in a flower bed. Crystal Stern was a plump woman with brassy blond hair held back by a scarf. She looked to be in her late thirties. She assessed Valerie’s uniform and asked, “Is this about Derek?”
“So you’ve been in contact with him?” Trevor said.
The little boy lingered by the door until Crystal commanded, “Taylor go on inside and finish your lunch.”
Taylor made a noise of protest but turned and marched inside.
“My boy doesn’t need to hear any more about his wayward uncle.” Crystal looked up at them, shading her eyes from the sun. “I don’t want anything to do with that man. Any nice thing he does is just a setup to take advantage of me.”
Trevor cleared his throat. “Ma’am, he’s wanted for armed robbery and killing an agent in Arizona. If we can catch him, we can put him away for a long time.”
Crystal picked up another plant and turned it upside down. She dug a hole with her trowel. She was probably mulling over what he had said, debating her options.
Trevor glanced over at Valerie who seemed to understand that it was better to remain silent. Give the woman time to think.
Crystal let out a heavy sigh and placed her hand on her hip. “He was here yesterday. Came by with a new toy for Taylor and a bunch of promises I know he won’t keep.”
“I take it he didn’t stay here last night?”
“No. He wanted to. Said he was going to come into ‘a big score.’” Crystal made quotation marks with her fingers. “He said he could get it in the next few days and that it was easy money no one could touch.”
Valerie shifted her weight. “Those were his exact words—‘easy money no one can touch?’”
“Pretty much. And he wanted his father’s old gun, which I wasn’t about to give him.” Crystal wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
So Murke was looking for a gun. Could the score he talked about be another robbery? “Did he say anything else?”
“He said he could pay me rent once he got this score.” She blew out a puff of air that made her lips vibrate. “Trust me, I heard it all before where Derek is concerned. He’s the king of the broken promises. I’ve waited my whole life for him to act like a real big brother.”
Trevor tried to keep his conversation casual, though he felt a sense of excitement. The trail to Murke was heating up. “Any idea where he might have gone?”
She shook her head. “Derek is a master manipulator. I’m sure he’ll find somebody to take him in. I don’t think he has much money.”
Valerie glanced around the yard. “So do you think this big score he talked about is why he came back into town?”
Crystal exhaled slowly. “Actually, he said something about getting even with an old girlfriend who double-crossed him years ago.”
Valerie shifted her weight. “Do you know the name of this woman?”
Crystal shrugged. “Derek left Sagebrush when he was eighteen. He’s been back a couple of times, but I’m not able to keep track of all the girlfriends he’s had over the years. Quite frankly, I try to associate with him as little as possible.”
She pulled off her garden gloves and assessed her fingernails. “I can tell you one thing. Whoever she is, he’s plenty mad at her. He all but spit venom when he talked about getting back at her.”
“You sure he didn’t say a first or last name?” Valerie asked, stepping toward Crystal.
“The name he called her is not fit to be spoken, if you know what I mean.” Crystal turned and wandered toward a small shed at the back of the yard. “That’s all I got to tell you. You can let yourself out through the side gate.”
As they strolled toward the side of the yard, Trevor could see Taylor with his face pressed against the sliding glass door. Something about the kid reminded him of himself at that age. A lonely boy making peanut butter sandwiches and watching cartoons.
Once inside the patrol car, the uncomfortable silence settled between them like an oppressive fog. Lexi whined in the backseat as though she had picked up on the mood. Trevor clenched his teeth. All he had to do was
apprehend Murke and leave town. Why did he feel this need for Valerie to know the ugliness of his childhood?
Valerie offered him a faint smile. “So what do you suppose the big score is that Derek told Crystal about?”
He had tensed for a moment when she had looked at him, fearing she would want to resume the conversation where they’d left off. He had probably shocked her so badly, she wouldn’t want to know anything more about his private life. “Hard to say. Since his specialty is robbery, it sounds like he’s looking for a gun. It’s interesting that he said it was money no one could touch.”
Valerie nodded. “That caught me, too, like he was talking about money that was obtained illegally in the first place or laundered.”
Valerie rolled through a middle-class neighborhood. She glanced over at Trevor and then focused her attention straight ahead. She pulled the car over to the curb and turned to face him. “I don’t know exactly what happened between your mom and dad, but it wasn’t right to put a kid through that.” She shook her head as tears formed at the corners of her eyes. “That sort of thing is never right. Never.”
Warmth pooled around Trevor’s heart. She wasn’t crying for him. She was crying for the twelve-year-old kid who had come home and found his mother dead. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s over now. It’s the past.”
She held his gaze even as a tear flowed down her cheek. “No one would ever know that about you by meeting you today.”
“I had some help along the way. Good foster homes. A pastor who loved me like a son.” He reached over and brushed the tear off her cheek with his thumb. All the shame of the past fell away with her acceptance of him, of where he had come from.
She placed her hand over his. With her hand warming his, he felt closer to her than he had ever felt with anyone. Her green eyes held such depth of compassion.
The female voice of the dispatcher came through the radio, causing both of them to jump. “K-9 Unit 349, we have a domestic in progress at the end of Wilshire. House number 787.”
Valerie picked up the radio. “Copy. We are about five blocks from that location.”
Dispatch continued to relay information as they drove. A neighbor had phoned in when the squabble had escalated.
Valerie sped up as she merged into traffic. Sensing the excitement, Lexi twirled in circles in the backseat and let out yipping sounds. The car motor revved in time to the pounding of Trevor’s heart.
The moment between them had been broken by the reality of her job, but he would not be the same after this. She had not run when he had revealed the harsh truth of his childhood.
Valerie slowed the car, nearing the address dispatch had given her. She sat up a little straighter as the worry lines on her forehead intensified.
Something was making the red flags go up for her. Trevor leaned forward in the seat. “What is it?”
SEVEN
Valerie came to a stop by the house. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Lexi, who had ceased turning circles in the backseat, let out a single yip.
“Something wrong?” Trevor asked.
The house was one of five homes that occupied a city block. They had just passed two empty lots where houses had been torn down. On the other side of the block was an apartment building still under construction. Construction trailers, heavy equipment and materials surrounded a multi-story building that was mostly framing and scaffolding. This was a neighborhood in the midst of renewal. It looked like these were the last five old houses left.
“I’m not so sure anybody even lives here.” Valerie clicked out of her seat belt and keyed the radio. “Be advised, this may be a false alarm.”
There were still some signs of life in the house next door. A child’s tricycle, some wilting plants in the flower bed and a car that looked like it still ran parked at the curb. The house at the end of the block had a sprinkler turned on. Signs of habitation, but still something didn’t feel right.
“We still have to check it out,” Trevor said.
Valerie nodded. “I’m leaving Lexi in the car. Sometimes adding a dog trained to protect to the mix of a domestic makes things worse. I can deploy her if I need to.”
Trevor got out of the car and continued to survey the scene. Two blocks away, the noise of people driving up and down the street, children playing and dogs barking was muffled by distance.
Valerie approached the house with her hand on her gun. As a patrol officer, she had to assume worst-case scenario even if things looked benign. “Sometimes the most critical moment in a domestic is when things get quiet. The man could be holding a knife or gun to his wife’s throat right now.”
Trevor nodded before walking across the brown lawn to assess the side of the house. He returned to her side and grabbed her elbow. “There. I saw movement by that window.”
She’d seen it, too. A glimpse of a man in a sleeveless white shirt and then he’d disappeared into the darkness of the back of the house. “I’ll circle around the back.” She didn’t give him time to protest. “You take the front.”
Once at the back door, she eased it open. From the front of the house, Trevor knocked and identified himself. “Sir, we know you are in there. Please come to the door.”
She waited a few minutes for the man to respond. Nothing. A musty smell hit her as she stepped into a long hallway. When she passed a child’s bedroom, only a mattress and few broken toys were left on the floor. The place looked abandoned. Yet she had clearly seen someone in here.
The front door creaked open, and Trevor stepped inside.
She moved through the hallway, clearing another room and checking a closet as she moved toward the other side of the house. She heard footsteps, probably Trevor’s, as he cleared the living room and the kitchen. She came to a final closed door at the side of the house. She took in a quick, sharp breath. All the other doors had been open. If the man was hiding anywhere, it had to be in here. The floorboard creaked as she eased forward and reached out for the doorknob.
She feared the worst. A woman tied up or restrained...or dead already. She twisted the knob, gripping her gun with the other hand.
The hall closet slid open and a man caught her from behind. “Drop your gun right now.”
She felt the cold hard steel of a gun barrel pressed into her temple.
* * *
Trevor had cleared the kitchen and living room, and was headed up the stairs when he heard what sounded like a scuffle at the far end of the house. He scrambled down the stairs, leaping over the railing when he was five steps from the bottom.
He checked rooms as he dashed down the hall toward a closed door and an open closet. He kicked open the door, fearing he would find Valerie on the floor in a puddle of blood. The room was empty. As he stepped outside the room, he saw her police-issue Glock dropped on the floor by the closet.
“Valerie.” He took off in a dead run. The back door was flung open. He dashed outside, training his eyes on the construction site. He saw them for only a split second. The man had his arm around Valerie’s neck as they disappeared behind a backhoe.
He ran the short distance to the construction site. He saw no sign of them and heard only the metal beams creaking in the wind. They could be anywhere in this labyrinth of construction materials, equipment and trailers. Clearly, this wasn’t a domestic. Why had the man taken her? An icy chill filled his veins. The syndicate. They’d been set up.
He turned a half circle, scanning the trailers and piles of wood planks as alarm spread through him. If this man was intent on killing Valerie, Trevor had only minutes to find her. He had to be precise in his search.
He ran back around to the car, called for backup and then peered over the seat at Lexi.
“Can you help me find Valerie?”
The dog licked her chops and stepped side to side. He opened the back door of the patrol vehicle and Lexi leaped out. She looked at him as if waiting for a command. He grabbed Valerie’s police hat and allowed Lexi to sniff.
“Find V
alerie, find her.”
He didn’t know what the proper commands were. Would the dog even understand? Did she know how to track?
He pulled on her long canvas leash. “Come on, this way, Lexi.” He pulled her to the back of the house by the open door where the man had exited with Valerie.
The dog kept looking at him as though waiting for clearer direction. This had to work. He couldn’t wait any longer.
He waved the hat beneath her nose one more time. Lexi wagged her bobbed tail and whimpered. She was waiting for him to give her a command. “I need to find her.” Desperation colored his words.
Lexi lifted her head, sniffed the air and then put her nose to the ground. She ran in circles that grew wider and wider and then bounded in the direction of the construction site. The dog had picked up on something.
He raced after her, praying that Lexi was following the scent that would lead them to Valerie before it was too late.
* * *
Overpowered by her assailant, Valerie struggled to find an opportunity for escape. With one arm, he pressed the gun into her side. The other arm locked her neck in place. When she twisted side to side, he applied pressure to her neck, cutting off her breathing.
Images of piles of wood and steel and some kind of large moving equipment with a bucket on it flashed by her as he dragged her deeper into the construction site. She dug her heels in, hoping to slow him down.
If Trevor’s stomping had not scared the assailant, she probably would have been shot on the spot. But why? Who was this man?
Valerie stopped struggling for a moment. If she couldn’t use force to get away, maybe reason would work. “Please, I’m an officer of the law. You’ll go to jail for a long time.”
The man spoke forcefully into her ear, his voice like a pounding drum. “With what I’m getting paid, lady, I can get away and never be found.”
Panic coursed through her. Only the syndicate had that kind of money to hire someone to kill her. He kicked a door and dragged her through some kind of structure. It looked like they were on the ground floor of the apartment building under construction.
