DANGER STRIKES AT CHRISTMASTIME

Protecting Virginia by Shirlee McCoy

When foster care worker Virginia Johnson inherits her abusive late husband’s family home, she’s desperate to sell it before Christmas. But a mysterious intruder doesn’t want her in the house. Terrified, Virginia turns to her neighbor, Capitol K-9 Unit officer John Forrester, and his four-legged partner, to keep her alive to see the New Year.

Guarding Abigail by Lenora Worth

Capitol K-9 Unit officer Dylan Ralsey’s new mission: protect a murdered diplomat’s daughter while she’s in the nation’s capitol. But when an attempt is made on Abigail Wheaton’s life, Dylan and his trusty canine partner must keep her safe from a murderer who wants to ruin everyone’s holiday.

Capitol K-9 Unit: These lawmen solve the toughest cases with the help of their brave canine partners.

Meet the Capitol K-9 Unit officers and

their loyal police dog partners

Officer: John Forrester

Age: 34

K-9 Partner: Samson the German Shepherd

Assignment: Protect his next-door neighbor from the person who keeps breaking into her newly inherited house.

Officer: Dylan Ralsey

Age: 32

K-9 Partner: Tico the Belgian Malinois

Assignment: Keep a diplomat’s daughter safe from the man who killed her father.

Aside from her faith and her family, there’s not much SHIRLEE McCOY enjoys more than a good book! When she’s not teaching or chauffeuring her five kids, she can usually be found plotting her next Love Inspired Suspense story or wandering around the beautiful Inland Northwest in search of inspiration. Shirlee loves to hear from readers. Drop her a line at shirlee@shirleemccoy.com and visit her website at shirleemccoy.com.

LENORA WORTH writes award-winning romance and romantic suspense. Three of her books finaled in the ACFW Carol Awards, and her Love Inspired Suspense novel Body of Evidence became a New York Times bestseller. Her novella in Mistletoe Kisses made her a USA TODAY bestselling author. With sixty books published and millions in print, she goes on adventures with her retired husband, Don, and enjoys reading, baking and shopping…especially shoe shopping.

Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas

Protecting Virginia

Shirlee McCoy

Guarding Abigail

Lenora Worth

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Authors

Title Page

Protecting Virginia

Dedication

Bible Verse

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

Dear Reader

Guarding Abigail

Dedication

Bible Verse

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Protecting Virginia

Shirlee McCoy

To my Monday morning breakfast buddy.

Thanks for always making time for me, Ms. Marge!

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you,

all whose thoughts are fixed on you.

—Isaiah 26:3

ONE

The house looked exactly the way Virginia Johnson remembered it—a hulking Victorian with a wraparound porch and gingerbread trim. The once-lush lawn had died, the wrought iron fence that separated the yard from the sidewalk was leaning inward, but the ancient oak still stood at the right corner of the property, a tire swing hanging listlessly from its branches.

Even with dead grass and darkened windows, the property was impressive, the beautiful details of the house highlighted by bright winter sun. Most people would have been thrilled to inherit a place like this.

Virginia was horrified.

She walked up the driveway, her throat tight with a hundred memories that she’d rather forget, her hand clamped around the key that had come in the mail three weeks ago. It had been in a package with a letter from a lawyer who’d been trying to reach her for two months, a check for more money than she knew what to do with and the deed to the house.

She hadn’t wanted any of it.

She’d torn up the check, tossed the deed and the key in the trash. Would have gone on with her life and pretended her grandmother-in-law, Laurel, hadn’t left her everything the Johnson family owned. Except that kids were nosy, and Virginia’s job as assistant housemother at All Our Kids Foster Home meant that she lived and worked with children all the time.

Most days, she loved her job. The day little Tommy Benson had taken the letter, torn-up check, key and deed out of the trashcan and delivered them to Virginia’s boss, Cassie McCord, Virginia found herself wishing that she worked in a tiny little cubicle in a sales department somewhere. Because Cassie wasn’t one to let things go. She couldn’t understand why Virginia would let a beautiful home rot.

If you don’t want it, why not sell it? she’d asked. You haven’t had any time off in three years. Take a couple of weeks off, contact an auction house. Have them auction what you don’t want to keep, then you can put the house on the market. Imagine what you could do with the money, how many kids you could help.

The last part had been the catalyst that had changed Virginia’s mind. She could do a lot with the money from the estate. She could open another foster home. She could help hundreds of children.

And maybe...just maybe...going back to the place where she’d nearly died, the place where every one of her dreams had turned into a nightmare, would help her conquer the anxiety and fear that seemed to have taken over her life.

If it didn’t kill her first.

She shivered, the late November air cutting through her coat and chilling her to the bone. Her legs felt stiff as she walked up the porch steps. It had been eight years since she’d seen the property, but it hadn’t changed much. The door was still brick red, the porch and railing crisp white. The flowered welcome mat had been replaced by a plain black one. If she lifted it, would she see bloodstains on the porch boards?

She gagged at the thought, her hand shaking as she shoved the key in the lock. The door swung open before she could turn the knob, and she jumped back, startled, afraid.

Of what? her rational self whispered. He’s not here. Won’t ever be here again.

She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, stood there in the foyer the way she had the very first time she’d seen the property. Kevin had been beside her, proud of what he had to offer the woman he’d said he loved.

She gagged again, the scent of blood filling her nose. Only there was no blood. Not on the foyer floor. Not on the cream-colored walls. Someone had washed things down, painted them over, hidden the horror that had happened in a house that should have been filled with love.

“Just get it over with,” she muttered, forcing herself to walk down the long hall and into the kitchen. She’d start her itemized list there.

The house had been in the Johnson family for five generations. It was filled to the brim with things that had been passed down from one family member to the next. The line had ended with Kevin’s death. There were probably cousins of cousins somewhere, and Virginia wished her grandmother-in-law had found one of them to hand the property and the money over to. Instead, Laurel had passed the property on to Virginia. A guilt offering? It didn’t matter. All Virginia wanted to do was get rid of it as quickly as possible.

A floorboard above her head creaked, and she froze, her hand on an old pitcher and bowl set that dated back to the nineteenth century.

“The house settling,” she said aloud, the words echoing hollowly in the quiet room.

She knew the old house well, had lived in it for two long years. It creaked. It groaned. It protested its age loudly. Especially in the winter. She knew it, but she was still terrified, her hand shaking as she set the pitcher down.

The floor creaked again, and every fear that haunted her dreams, every terror that woke her from sound sleep, filled her mind. She inhaled. Exhaled. Told herself that she had nothing to be afraid of.

Another board creaked. It sounded like someone walking through the upstairs hallway, heading toward the servants’ stairs. The stairs that led straight down into the kitchen.

The door to the stairwell was closed, the old crystal doorknob glinting in the overhead light. She cocked her head to the side and listened to what sounded like the landing at the top of the stairs groaning. Her imagination. It had to be.

She opened the door, because she was tired of always being afraid, always jumping at shadows, always panicking. The stairwell was narrow and dark, the air musty. She glanced up, expecting to see the other door, the one that led into the upstairs hallway.

A man stood on the landing. Tall. Gaunt. Hazel eyes and light brown hair.

“Kevin,” she breathed, because he looked so much like her husband had that her heart nearly stopped.

He blinked, smiled a smile that made her skin crawl.

“Ginny,” he murmured, and that was all she needed to hear.

She ran to the back door and fumbled with the bolt, sure she heard his footsteps on the stairs, his feet padding on the tile behind her.

She didn’t look. Couldn’t look.

The bolt slid free, and she yanked the door open, sprinted outside.

“Ginny!” the man called, as she jumped off the porch stairs and raced toward the back edge of the property. “Is this the way you treat a man who gave you everything?”

She screamed, the sound ripping from her throat, screaming again as footsteps pounded behind her.

She made it to the hedge that separated the Johnson property from the one behind it and plunged through winter-dry foliage, branches snagging her hair, ripping at her skin.

Was he behind her? His hand reaching to drag her back?

Impossible! Kevin had died eight years ago!

But someone was there, someone was following.

She shoved through the remainder of the hedge, ran into the open, and he was there. Standing in front of her, his broad form backlit by sunlight, his face hidden in shadows.

She pivoted away, screaming again and again.

He snagged her coat, pulled her backward, and she knew that every nightmare she’d ever had, every horrible memory she’d tried to forget had finally come for her.

* * *

The woman was hysterical. No doubt about that. Terrified, too. The last thing Capitol K-9 police officer John Forrester wanted to do was scare her more, but he couldn’t let her go. She was obviously running from something or someone, and he didn’t want her to run right back into whatever danger she’d fled.

“Calm down,” he said, tugging her back another step. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She whirled around, took a swing at his head, her fist just missing his nose.

Beside him his K-9 partner, Samson, growled.

That seemed to get her attention.

She froze, her eyes wide as her gaze dropped to the German shepherd. Samson had subsided, his dark eyes locked on Virginia, his muscles relaxed. Obviously, he didn’t see the woman as too much of a threat.

“He’s not going to hurt you, either,” John assured the woman.

She didn’t look convinced, but she wasn’t screaming any longer.

“That wasn’t you in the house,” she said as if that made perfect sense.

“What house?” he asked, eyeing the hedge she’d just torn through. The property on the other side of it had been empty for longer than John had been renting the Hendersons’ garage apartment. According to his landlords, the elderly woman who owned the house had moved to an assisted-living facility over a year ago.

“Laurel’s,” the woman said, her hand trembling as she tucked a strand of light brown hair behind her ear. She looked vaguely familiar, her soft blue eyes sparking a memory that he couldn’t quite catch hold of.

“Laurel is your friend?” he prodded, anxious to figure out what was going on and get back to his day off.

“My husband’s grandmother. She left me the house, so I guess it’s actually mine,” she corrected herself.

“And you think someone was in there?”

“Someone was in there. I saw him.”

“Your husband maybe?”

“My husband,” she said, every word brittle and sharp, “is dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t respond, just fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “I need to call the police.”

“I can check things out for you,” he offered, because he was there, and because if someone was in the house, the guy would be gone long before the police arrived.

“I don’t think that would be safe,” she said, worrying her lower lip, her finger hovering over the 9 on her phone. “He could have a weapon or—”

“I’m a police officer,” he interrupted. “I work for Capitol K-9.”

She looked up, her gaze sharp. “Then you know Gavin McCord.”

The comment brought back the memory he’d been searching for. Captain Gavin McCord’s wedding. His bride and her entourage of foster kids, the quiet woman who’d been with them. He hadn’t paid all that much attention to her. She’d been pretty enough, her hair swept into some elaborate style, her dress understated, her shoes sturdy. Nothing showy about her. They might have been introduced. He couldn’t remember. He’d been too busy thinking about getting food from the buffet.

“You’re Cassie’s friend,” he said, pulling Samson’s lead from his pocket and attaching it to the shepherd’s collar.

“Yes. Virginia Johnson. Cassie and I work together at All Our Kids.” She glanced at the hedge again, tucking another stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her nervous energy made him antsy. He didn’t much like sitting idle when he could be doing something, and right at that moment, he and Samson could be searching for whomever she’d seen.

“Tell you what, Virginia,” he said. “Go ahead and call the police while I look around. If there’s someone in the house, we’re giving him way too much time to get away.”

“I hope he does get away,” she muttered.

“You want him coming back?” he asked, and she flinched.

“No, but I don’t want you killed, either, Officer—”

“John Forrester. Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m not waiting out here by myself,” she said, moving in behind him as he made his way to the shrubs.

“Then wait at my place.” He shoved the keys into her hands, pointing her toward the external staircase that led to his second-floor garage apartment.

“But—”

“Find!” he said, commanding Samson to move forward.

The Shepherd took off, lunging through the shrubs and out into a pristine yard, nose to the ground, body relaxed. He was trained in apprehension and protection. He knew how to track a suspect, corner him and disarm him if necessary.

He was also good at sensing danger, at knowing when someone was around who didn’t belong. Right now, he was focused on a scent trail. Probably Virginia’s.

John followed as Samson beelined across the lawn and headed straight toward the large Victorian. The Shepherd bounded up the porch stairs, and stopped at a door. Cracked open, a little wedge of light visible beyond, it looked as if it opened into a kitchen.

“Hold!” he commanded and Samson settled onto his haunches, eyes trained on the door.

John nudged it open, peering into an empty kitchen.

“Find,” he commanded, and Samson trotted into the room.

The house lay silent, the air thick with something that made the hair on the back of John’s neck stand on end. He’d been in enough dangerous situations to know when he was walking into trouble. He could feel it like a cold breeze brushing against his skin.

Samson sensed it, too. His scruff bristled, his body language changing. No longer relaxed, he sniffed the air and moved toward a doorway to their left. Beyond it, a staircase wound its way to the second floor.

Samson charged up, his well-muscled body moving silently. John moved with him. In sync with the Shepherd’s loping gait, muscles tense, every nerve alert, he jogged onto the second-floor landing and into a wide hallway. Seven doors. All closed. Another staircase that led downstairs.

Samson growled, the deep low warning seeming to echo through the hallway.

“Police!” John shouted. “Come on out or I’ll send my dog to find you.”

There was a flurry of movement below. Fabric rustling, footsteps pounding.

Samson barked, yanking at the lead, tugging John into a full-out run.

A door creaked open as they raced downstairs and into a large foyer.

The front door?

Samson veered away from it, pulling John through the foyer into an old-fashioned parlor.

Cold air filled the room, swirling in from an open door that emptied onto a wraparound porch.

“Find!” John commanded, and Samson raced through the open doorway and out into the crisp winter day, his well-muscled body tense with anticipation.

Someone had been in the house. There was no doubt about that. What he was doing there was something John had every intention of finding out.

He ran down porch steps, Samson bounding in front of him. No hesitation. The dog had the scent, and he’d follow it until they found their quarry. Once he did, the guy was going to be very sorry he’d picked that house.

TWO

Virginia didn’t know what to do.

That was going to be a problem, because standing in the middle of some guy’s yard, waiting while he searched her house for a dead man? That was nuts.

Yet that was exactly what Virginia was doing.

She’d called the police.

She knew they were on the way.

She could have gone inside the garage apartment like Officer Forrester had suggested, but she was frozen with fear, so afraid that she’d move the wrong way, head the wrong direction, make the wrong choice, that she wasn’t doing anything at all.

“Snap out of it,” she muttered, and the words seemed to break terror’s hold.

She could breathe again, think again.

And what she was thinking was that she needed to meet the police and explain what she’d seen. Crazy as it might sound to them, Kevin had been in that house. Or someone who’d looked an awful lot like him, because there was no way the man could have actually been her husband. She’d seen Kevin’s gravesite. She’d read the inscription that his grandmother had had carved on the marble stone: Beloved son. Beloved husband. Virginia had wanted to scratch those words out, just leave his birth and death dates.

Of course, she hadn’t.

She’d always played by the rules, done what she was supposed to, tried to be the best that she could be. That included being a survivor. So, she’d done what the therapist had suggested—gone to the gravesite, read the police report, the coroner’s report, the reports from the doctor who’d pronounced Kevin dead. She’d tried to heal, because that was what everyone had expected, and it was what she wanted to do.

Eight years later, she didn’t know if she could heal from what she’d been through. The wounds had scarred over, but they weren’t gone. They still throbbed and pulsed and ached every time something reminded her of Kevin.

Kevin, who apparently had a doppelgänger, one who knew who Virginia was and knew that Kevin had called her Ginny.

She shuddered.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. Officer Forrester’s K-9 partner?

Maybe, and maybe they’d found the guy who’d been in the house. She knew enough about the Capitol K-9 Unit to know that every member was handpicked to do the job. They were all well trained, driven, hardworking. She’d seen that firsthand when one of the foster children she and Cassie were caring for had been in danger. The Capitol K-9 team had stepped in, protecting Cassie, Virginia and the kids.

Virginia had been more than happy to let them do it; but, then, she’d spent most of the past few years letting other people call the shots. It was so much easier to do that than to risk making a mistake, doing something that would get her into the kind of trouble she’d found herself in with Kevin.

She needed to change that. She knew it. She’d known it for a long time. Accepting the inheritance from Laurel was part of that. Taking control of her life, being less afraid and more courageous—that was the other part.

Sirens were screaming, and she knew the police were close. She could keep standing where she was or she could head back to the house and wait for them to arrive. A few weeks ago, she would have stayed put, but she had plans. Big ones. She wanted to open her own foster home, take the money she’d inherited and put it to good use. She really felt as if that was what God wanted her to do, but there was no way she could until she started taking control again, started regaining what she’d lost eight years ago.

She took a deep breath, ignoring the sick feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach as she headed back across the yard.

She bypassed the house, keeping a good distance between herself and the building. She didn’t think the Kevin look-alike was still there. She’d heard Officer Forrester’s dog howling, and she knew enough about K-9 work to know that meant he was on a scent.

She hated the house, though, and now she had new bad memories to add to the old ones.

A police cruiser was pulling into the driveway as she ran into the front yard. She waited, her heart pounding painfully as the officer climbed out. Midfifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a handlebar mustache that seemed out of place in Washington, DC, he had the rugged kind of hardness she’d noticed in the faces of a lot of veteran police officers.

“Ma’am?” he said. “Did you call about an intruder?”

“Yes.” She moved toward him, her legs just a little shaky. She needed to get herself under control. The last thing she wanted was a full-blown panic attack. “He was in the house when I arrived.”

“Is he still there?”

“I don’t think so.”

He nodded, called something in on his radio and turned toward the house, eyeing the closed front door and the empty porch. “I’ll check things out.”

“There was another officer here. He—”

“Yeah. We’ve got someone meeting him over at the bus depot. Wait here.” He hurried into the house, and she was left standing in the yard.

She thought about calling Cassie and asking her to come. She didn’t want to face things alone, but Cassie had enough on her plate. She didn’t need to come running to the rescue every time Virginia had a little trouble.

Or a lot of it.

A second police cruiser pulled up behind the first. The passenger door opened, and Officer Forrester got out. He offered a quick wave before opening the back door and letting his dog out.

They made a striking team—both of them muscular and fit and a little ferocious looking. She’d met Officer Forrester at Cassie and Gavin’s wedding. She hadn’t paid all that much attention to him. She’d been trying to corral the kids, keep them from eating the cake or destroying flower arrangements. She’d heard a few of Cassie’s other bridesmaids oohing and ahhing over the K-9 team members, but Virginia had no desire to ooh and ahh. She was way past the point of noticing men, and there was no way she planned to ever be involved in a relationship again.

“You doing okay?” Officer Forrester asked as he approached.

She nodded, because her throat still felt tight with fear, and she was afraid her voice would be shaky.

“I followed your guy to the bus depot. Samson lost the trail there. I think the perp might have gotten in a car, but it’s possible he made it onto a bus. We’ll check the security cameras in the area. See if we can figure out who he is and where he went.”

“Good,” she managed to say, her voice stronger than she expected it to be.

“You want to sit in your car while you wait?” he suggested, his gaze focused and intent, his eyes a bright crisp blue that reminded her of the summer sky.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are, but you look pale, and Gavin asked me to keep an eye on you until he and Cassie get here.”

“You called Gavin?”

“He’s my supervisor,” he responded as if that explained everything.

“Well, call him again,” she said, because she didn’t want her boss to come all the way from All Our Kids to help her. Not when there were two—she glanced at a tall blonde female officer getting out of the second cruiser—three police officers nearby. “Tell him that I’m fine and I don’t need Cassie to come.”

“How about you do that, Virginia?” he suggested. “I’m going in the house.”

He was gone before she could respond, striding across the yard, Samson beside him.

She would have followed, but the female officer approached and began asking dozens of questions. Virginia answered the best she could, but her mind was on the house, the man she’d seen, the name he’d called her—Ginny. As if he’d said it a thousand times before.

No one called her Ginny. Not since Kevin had died.

No one in her new life, none of the new friends she’d made, the people she worked with, the kids she took care of knew that she’d ever gone by Ginny. For eight years, she’d been Virginia.

Whoever the guy in the house had been, he’d known her before. Or he’d known Kevin. She didn’t like either thought. She didn’t want to revisit the past. She didn’t want to relive the weeks and months and years before she’d nearly died.

What she wanted to do was go back to her safe life working at All Our Kids. She wanted to forget about her inheritance, her past, all the nightmares that plagued her.

The front door of the house opened, and Officer Forrester appeared, the responding officer right behind him. They looked grim and unhappy, and she braced herself for bad news as she followed the female officer across the yard and up the porch stairs.

* * *

Virginia looked terrified.

John couldn’t say he blamed her. Finding someone in a supposedly empty house would scare the bravest person. From what Gavin had told him, Virginia wasn’t exactly that. As a matter of fact, Gavin had said Virginia tended to panic very quickly. Which was why he and Cassie were on their way to the house.

He wasn’t going to call and tell them not to come, but Virginia seemed to be holding it together pretty well. No tears, no screams, no sobs. Just wide blue eyes, pale skin and soft hair falling across her cheeks.

“Did you find anything?” she asked, directing her question to the other officer.

Leonard Morris was a DC police officer. Well liked and respected, he knew just about every law enforcement officer in the district. “Nothing to write home about, ma’am,” Officer Morris responded. “I’m going to dust for prints, but I thought you could come in, see if there’s anything missing.”

She hesitated for a heartbeat too long, her gaze jumping to the still-open front door, her skin going a shade paler. “I... Is that really necessary?”

Morris frowned. “If there’s something missing, only you’ll know it. So, yeah, I guess it is.”

“I... Don’t you want to dust for prints and look for evidence before I go in and contaminate the scene?”

“I think,” John said, cutting in, taking her arm and urging her to the door, “it’s been contaminated. You were already in there, remember?”

“I’m scared,” she responded. “Not senile.”

“Anyone would be scared in these circumstances.”

“Maybe I didn’t state my position strongly enough,” she muttered as they stepped into the house. “I’m terrified, completely frozen with fear and unable to deal with this. Plus, up until today, I hadn’t stepped foot in the house in eight years. I have no idea what Laurel had.”

“You know what she had before. Maybe that will help. And you seem to be dealing just fine,” he said, because she was. He’d seen people panic. He’d seen them so frozen with fear they couldn’t act. Virginia didn’t seem as if she was any of those things.

“For now. Let’s see what happens if Kevin jumps out of a closet,” she responded with a shaky laugh.

“Kevin?” Officer Morris asked.

Virginia frowned. “My husband. He died eight years ago.”

“I guess he’s not going to be jumping out of any closets, then,” the female officer said, her gaze focused on the opulent staircase, the oil paintings that lined the wall leading upstairs. They screamed money. The whole place did.

“No. I guess he wouldn’t, Officer...?”

“Glenda Winters. You want to tell me why you’re worried about your dead husband jumping out of closets?” she asked.

John had worked with her before. She was a good police officer with a knack for getting the perp, but she was straightforward and matter-of-fact to a fault, her sharp interview tactics often getting her in trouble with her supervisor.

“I’m not,” Virginia replied, walking into a huge living room, her gaze drifting across furniture, paintings and a grand piano that sat in an alcove jutting off from the main room. “It’s just that the man who was in the house looked a lot like Kevin.”

“They say everyone has a twin,” Officer Morris commented.

“He called me Ginny. Just like Kevin used to,” Virginia said, and for the first time since she’d come screaming through the bushes, John could actually see her shutting down and freezing up.

“Did Kevin have a brother?” he asked, and she shook her head, her eyes a little glassy, her skin pale as paper.

“No.”

“How about cousins? Uncles? Extended family?” Officer Winters asked. “Because I have a cousin who looks so much like me, people think we’re twins.”

“If he does, I never met any of them.”

“This was Laurel Johnson’s place, right?” Officer Morris walked through the living room and into a dining area that could have seated twenty people comfortably.

“Yes. I’m her granddaughter-in-law.”

Morris nodded. “She left you the property. Interesting, huh?”

Something seemed to pass between them, some unspoken words that John really wanted to hear, because there was an undercurrent in the house, a strange vibe that Virginia had brought inside with her. He wanted to know what it was, why it was there, what it had to do with the guy she’d seen in the house.

“I guess it is.” Virginia took one last look around the living room. “As far as I can tell, nothing is missing,” she said, then hurried into the dining room, the kitchen, up the back stairs and onto the second floor. With every step she seemed to sink deeper into herself, her eyes hollow and haunted, her expression blank.

Officer Morris whispered something in her ear, and she shook her head.

“I’m fine,” she murmured, opening the first door and stepping into a nearly empty room. A cradle sat in the center of it, a few blankets piled inside. Pink. Blue. Yellow. There was a dresser, too. White and intricately carved, the legs swirling lion claws. No mementos, though. Not a picture, stuffed animal or toy.

“Everything looks okay in here,” Virginia said, and tried to back out of the room.

Only John was standing behind her, and she backed into him.

He grabbed her shoulders, trying to keep her from toppling over. He felt narrow bones and taut muscles before she jerked away, skirted past him.

“Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” he said, but she was already running to the next door to drag it open and dart inside.

THREE

Laurel had kept the nursery just the way it had been the day Kevin died. Being in it brought back memories Virginia had shoved so far back in her mind, she hadn’t even known they were there—all the dreams about children and a family and creating something wonderful together, all the long conversations late at night when she and Kevin had shared their visions of the future. Only every word Kevin uttered had been designed to manipulate her, to make her believe that she could have all the things she longed for, so that he could have what he’d wanted—complete control. She’d believed him because she’d wanted to. She’d been a fool, and it had nearly cost her her life.

She wanted out of the house so desperately, she would have run downstairs and out the door if three police officers and a dog weren’t watching her every move.

The dog, she thought, was preferable to the people. He, at least, looked sweet, his dark eyes following her as she moved through Laurel’s room.

This was the same, too. Same flowered wallpaper that Virginia had helped her hang, same curtains that they’d picked out together in some posh bohemian shop in the heart of DC. Same antique headboard, same oversize rolltop desk that had been handed down from one generation to the other since before the revolutionary war.

It had always been closed before, the dark mahogany cover pulled down over the writing area and the dozens of tiny drawers and secret hiding places that Laurel had once shown her.

It was open now, and Virginia walked to it, ignoring the officers who walked into the room behind her. At least one of them knew her story. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She’d refused to speak with reporters after the attack. It had taken a while, but eventually they’d lost interest and the story she’d lived through, the horrible nightmare that so many people had wanted the details of, had faded from the spotlight.

Eight years later, there were very few people who remembered. Those who did, didn’t associate Virginia’s face with the Johnson family tragedy. She’d never been in the limelight anyway. Kevin had preferred to stand there himself.

The older officer knew. He’d whispered a couple words that he’d probably thought would be comforting—It’s okay. He can’t hurt you anymore.

Only the words hadn’t been comforting.

They’d just made her want to cry, because she was that woman. The one who’d met and married a monster. The one who’d almost been killed by the person who was supposed to love her more than he loved anyone else.

She yanked open one of the desk drawers, staring blindly at its contents.

Something nudged her leg, and she looked down; the huge German shepherd sat beside her, his tail thumping, his mouth in a facsimile of a smile.

She couldn’t help herself. She smiled in return. “Are you in a hurry, Samson?” she asked, and the dog cocked his head to the side, nudging her leg again.

Not a “hurry up” nudge, she didn’t think. More of an “I’m here” nudge. Whatever it was, it made her feel a little more grounded, a little less in the past and a little more in the moment.

She rifled through the drawer. Laurel kept her spare keys there. House. Car. Attic. She took that one, because she was going to have to check up there. The entire space had been insulated and made into a walk-in storage area filled with centuries’ worth of family heirlooms.

She opened another drawer. This one had stamps, envelopes, beautiful handmade pens.

It took ten minutes to go through every drawer, to open every secret compartment. She took out a beautiful mother’s ring that Kevin had presented to Laurel years before he met Virginia. Laurel had worn it every day, and as far as Virginia knew, she’d never taken it off. Not when Kevin had been alive.

She set the ring on the desktop and took a strand of pearls from another secret compartment. The jewelry piled up. So did the old coins and the cash—nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of that. Laurel had liked to have cash on hand. Just in case.

“That’s a lot of money, right there,” Officer Forrester said quietly. “I’d think if the guy were here to steal, he’d have left the desk empty.”

“Maybe he didn’t have time to go through it.” She rolled the desktop down, leaving the jewelry and money right where it was. The words felt hollow, her heart beating a hard harsh rhythm. She wanted to believe the guy had been there looking for easy cash but the sick feeling of dread in her stomach was telling her otherwise.

“That’s a possibility,” Officer Winters said, her voice sharp. “It’s also possible he found other valuables and took off with them. You said you hadn’t been here in a while. He could have left with thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen property.”

I don’t really care if he did. I never wanted any of this. I still don’t, she wanted to say, but she didn’t, because there wasn’t a person she knew who wouldn’t have celebrated the windfall Virginia had received. The few friends she’d told had given her dozens of ideas for what she could do with the money, the house, the antiques. Most of the ideas involved quitting her job, going on trips to Europe and Asia, traveling the country, finding Mr. Right.

She hadn’t told anyone but Cassie that she didn’t want the inheritance. Even Cassie didn’t know the entire reason why.

Or maybe she did.

She was her boss, after all. There’d been a background check when Virginia had applied for the job. If the information about Kevin had come up, Cassie had kept it to herself. She’d never questioned Virginia, never brought up the life Virginia had lived before taking the job at All Our Kids.

That was the way Virginia wanted it.

No reminders of the past. No questions about why and how she’d ended up married to a monster. No sympathetic looks and whispered comments. She didn’t want to be that woman, that wife, that abused spouse.

She just wanted to be the person she’d been before she’d fallen for Kevin.

It had taken years to realize that wasn’t possible. By that time, keeping quiet about what she’d been through had become a habit. One she had no intention of breaking.

She walked to an old oil painting that hung between two bay windows and pulled it from the wall, revealing the built-in safe that Laurel had shown her a year after she’d moved into the house, a day after Kevin had shoved her for the first time.

Maybe Laurel had thought seeing all the beautiful jewels that would be hers one day would keep Virginia from going to the police.

It hadn’t.

Love had.

She hadn’t wanted Kevin to be arrested. She hadn’t wanted to ruin his reputation and his career. She’d believed his tearful apology, and she’d believed to the depth of her soul that he would change. She’d been wrong, of course. Sometimes, she thought that she’d always known it. Even then. Even the first time.

She knew the lock combination by heart, and she opened the safe. It was stuffed full of all the wonderful things that Laurel had collected over the years. Her husband had been generous. He’d showered her with expensive gifts.

She pulled out a velvet bag and poured six beautiful sapphire rings into her palm. Seeing them made her want to puke, because they were the first things Laurel had pulled out the day she’d opened the safe and shown Virginia everything she would inherit one day.

She gagged, tossing the rings into the safe and running to the en suite bathroom. She heard someone call her name, but she wasn’t in the mood for listening. She slammed the door, turned the lock, sat on the cold tile floor and dropped her head to her knees.

If she’d had one tear left for all the lies she’d been told and believed, if she’d had one bit of grief for what she’d longed for and lost, she’d have cried.

She didn’t, so she just sat where she was, the soft murmur of voices drifting through the door, while she prayed that she could do what she knew she had to—face the past and move on with her life. It was the only way she’d ever find the sweet spot, the lovely place where she was exactly where God wanted her to be, doing exactly what He wanted her doing.

No more floundering around waiting for other people to call the shots. No more watching as life passed by. She wanted to engage in the process of living again. She wanted to do more than be a housemother to kids. She wanted to mentor them. She wanted to be an example to them. She wanted to be able to tell her story without embarrassment or shame, and she wanted other people to benefit from it.

That was what she thought about late at night when she couldn’t sleep and all she had were her prayers and the still, soft voice that told her she was wasting time being afraid, wasting her life worrying about making the wrong choices.

She needed to change that.

The problem was, she wasn’t sure how.

Someone knocked on the door, and she pushed to her feet, her bones aching, her muscles tight. She felt a thousand years old, but she managed to walk to the door and open it.

Officer Forrester was there, Samson beside him. The other two officers were gone.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—”

“You don’t have to explain.” He took her elbow, leading her back into the room.

“I feel like I do, Officer—”

“John. I’m not on duty.” He smiled, and his face softened, all the hard lines and angles easing into something pleasant and approachable.

“You chased down the guy who was in my house.”

“Tried to, but only because I was in the right place at the right time.”

“Or the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He chuckled. “I guess that depends on how you look at it. I see it as a good thing. But, then, I love what I do, and I’m always happy to step in and help when I can.”

“That’s...unusual.”

“You seem awfully young to be so jaded, Virginia.”

“I’m not young.”

“Sure you are.” He opened Laurel’s closet, whistling softly. “Wow. This lady had some clothes.”

“She did.” She moved in beside him, eyeing the contents of the walk-in closet. Dresses. Shoes. Belts. Handbags. “I guess if the guy didn’t take a bunch of cash and jewelry, he probably didn’t take any of her clothes.”

“Do you think that was what he was here for?” he asked. “Money?”

“That’s what the police think he was here for.”

“I’m not asking about the police. I’m asking about you. Do you think he was here for money or valuables?”

* * *

It was a simple question.

At least in John’s mind it was.

Virginia didn’t seem able to answer it.

She stared at him, her face pale, her eyes deeply shadowed.

“Okay. You’re not going to answer that,” he said. “So, how about you tell me why it’s been so many years since you’ve been in the house?”

She shook her head. “It’s not important.”

“If it weren’t, you’d be willing to tell me about it.”

“Maybe I should have said that it’s important to me but has no bearing on what happened today.”

“You can’t know that.”

“The police seem to think—”

“I think that I already said that I’m not interested in what the police are saying. You know this house, you knew your grandmother-in-law. You knew your husband, and every time you mention that the guy who was here looked like Kevin, I can almost see the wheels turning behind your eyes. You’re thinking something. I’d like to know what it is.”

“I’m thinking that I could have been wrong about what I saw. Maybe the guy didn’t look as much like Kevin as I’d thought.” She closed the closet door and walked to a fireplace that took up most of one wall. There were a few photos on the mantel. He hadn’t looked closely, but he thought they must be of Virginia’s family. She lifted one, smiling a little as she looked at the image of a young man and woman in wedding finery. Probably taken in the fifties, it was a little faded, the framed glass covered with a layer of dust. She swiped dust from the glass, set it back down, and John waited, because he thought there was more she wanted to say.

Finally, she turned to face him again. “My husband wasn’t the easiest man to live with. I have a lot of bad memories. I really don’t like talking about them.”

That explained a lot, but it didn’t explain who had been in her house or why he’d been there.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s got to be tough to live with,” he said.

“Some days, it’s harder than others.” She looked around the room, and he thought she might be fighting tears. She didn’t cry, though, just cleared her throat, and smoothed her hair. “I know you’re trying to help, and I appreciate it, but Officer Morris already knows everything there is to know. If he’s worried that this is connected to...my past. He’ll let me know.”

That should have been enough to send John on his way. After all, this wasn’t his case. Morris and Winters were calling the shots. He was just a witness who happened to be a police officer, but he didn’t want to leave. Not when Virginia still looked so shaken.

“Morris is a great police officer, and he’ll handle things well, but I’m your neighbor. If something happens, I’m the closest thing to help you’ve got. Keep that in mind, okay?”

“I will.” She hesitated, her fingers trailing over another photo. “The thing is, something did happen. I almost died eight years ago. Right outside the front door of this place. Not even the neighbors were able to help. That’s why I haven’t been back. That’s why I don’t like talking about it. That’s why I don’t want to believe the guy I saw today has anything to do with Kevin.”

The words were stated without emotion, but he read a boatload of feelings in her face. Fear, sadness, anxiety. Shame. That was the big one, and he’d seen it one too many times—a woman who’d done nothing wrong, feeling shame for what she’d been through.

“Your husband?” he asked, and she nodded, lifting another photo from the mantel. She was in it, white flowers in her hair, wearing a simple white dress that fell to her feet.

“This is my wedding photo. I guess Laurel cut Kevin out of it. We were married in Maui. A beautiful beach wedding with five hundred guests.”

“Wow.”

“I know. It was excessive. We footed the bill. I would have preferred to use the money to finish my doctorate, but Kevin...” She shook her head. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to you,” he responded.

“It shouldn’t.” She replaced the picture she was still holding. “I should check the other rooms, see if anything has been disturbed.”

She walked into the hall, and he didn’t stop her.

He wanted to take a closer look at the photos on the mantel. The one of Virginia didn’t look as if it had been cut. He opened the back of the frame and carefully lifted the photo out.

It had been folded.

He smoothed it out, eyeing the smiling dark-haired man who stood to Virginia’s right. Not touching her. Which seemed odd. It was a wedding photo, after all. The guy had a shot glass in one hand, a bottle of bourbon in the other. He looked drunk, his eyes heavy-lidded, his grin sloppy.

He replaced the photo and looked at the others. Nothing stood out to him. They were all of the 1950s couple—marriage, new house, baby dressed in blue.

Kevin’s father? If so, there were no other pictures of him. No toddler pictures. No school photos. No wedding picture. That made John curious. There was a story there, and he had a feeling that it was somehow related to the man who’d been in the house.

It wasn’t his case, and it wasn’t any of his business, but he planned to mention it to Morris. See if he knew more about the Johnson family than Virginia did.

Or more than she was willing to reveal.

That was going to have to change. There was no way she could be allowed to keep her secrets. She’d have to open up, say everything she knew, everything she suspected, because John had a bad feeling that the guy who’d been in her house had been after a lot more than a few bucks. He’d been after Virginia, and if she wasn’t careful, he just might get what he wanted.

FOUR

The police thought the intruder had entered through the kitchen. The lock hadn’t been tampered with, but there were a couple of muddy footprints on the back deck and a pair of old size ten boots sitting under the swing.

They weren’t Kevin’s. He’d always worn Italian leather. Dress shoes shined to a high sheen paired with suits he spent a small fortune on. Even if he’d worn boots, Virginia didn’t think they’d have been sitting out on the back deck years after his death.

They belonged to someone. So did the clothes she’d found in the closet in the bedroom she hadn’t wanted to enter. The bedroom she and Kevin had shared. She’d gone in anyway, found faded jeans and threadbare T-shirts hanging in a closet that had once been filled with Kevin’s clothes. Kevin had never worn jeans, had rarely worn T-shirts. No, the clothes had belonged to someone else. Officer Morris had taken them as evidence. Virginia wasn’t sure what kind of evidence he could get from them. Hair? DNA? She hadn’t asked. She’d been too busy trying not to panic.

Now she was alone, the officers gone, the house silent. She paced the living room, cold to the bone. She’d turned the heat on high, turned every light in the house on. She’d made tea and drunk two cups, but she couldn’t get warm.

Someone had been in the house.

Someone who’d looked like Kevin, who’d called her Ginny, who’d mocked her with words that had made her blood run like ice through her veins.

A friend of Kevin’s?

If so, he wasn’t someone she’d ever met.

Whoever he was, he’d been in the house for a while. The clothes, the boots. The police had agreed that the guy had spent some time there.

That meant he’d had plenty of time to take whatever he might have wanted, but the house seemed untouched, hundreds of valuable things left behind.

She rubbed her arms, trying to chase away the chill. It didn’t work. It was the house, the memories. She’d thought about going to a hotel, but she had to do this, and she had to do it alone. Cassie had offered to stay the night, babysit her like she babysat the children at All Our Kids. Virginia had refused her offer.

At the time, the sun had still been up.

Now it had set, the last rays tingeing the sky with gold and pink. If she just looked at that, stared out the window and watched the sky go black, she might be okay.

She would be okay.

Because there was nothing to be afraid of. Gavin had changed the lock on the back and front doors; he’d checked the locks on all the windows. The house was secure. That should have made her feel better. It didn’t.

She grabbed her overnight bag and walked up the stairs, the wood creaking beneath her feet. She knew the sounds the treads made. She knew the groan of the landing, the soft hiss of the furnace. She knew the house with all its quirks, but she still felt exposed and afraid, nervous in a way she hadn’t been in years.

She thought about calling Cassie, just to hear someone else’s voice, but if she did that, Cassie would come running to the rescue.

That wasn’t what Virginia wanted.

What she wanted was peace. The hard-won kind that came from conquering the beasts that had been controlling her for too long.

Outside, the neighborhood quieted as people settled in for an evening at home. That was the kind of place this was—weekend parties and weeknight quiet. Older, well-established families doing what they’d done for generations—living well and nicely.

Only things weren’t always nice there.

She’d learned that the hard way.

She grabbed a blanket from the linen closet. There was no way she was sleeping in any of the bedrooms. She’d sleep on the couch with her cell phone clutched in her hand. Just in case.

She would sleep, though.

She’d promised herself that.

She wouldn’t spend the night pacing and jumping at shadows.

Only it had been years since she’d lived alone, years since she’d not had noise to fill the silences. The sounds of children whispering and giggling, the soft pad of feet on the floor, those were part of her life. Without them all she could hear were her own thoughts.

She settled onto the couch, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. It smelled of dust and loneliness. She tried not to think about Laurel, spending the last years of her life alone. No kids to visit her. No husband. No grandchildren. Just Laurel living in this mausoleum of a house, shuffling from room to room, dusting and cleaning compulsively the way she had when Virginia lived there.

She couldn’t sleep with that thought or with the musty blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She shoved it off, lay on her side, staring out the front window, wishing the night away.

She must have drifted off.

She woke to the sound of rain tapping against the roof and the subtle scent of cigarette smoke drifting in the air.

Cigarette smoke?

Her pulse jumped, and she inhaled deeply, catching the scent again. Just a tinge of something acrid and a little sharp lingering.

Was it coming from outside?

In the house?

She crept to the doorway that led into the hall and peered into the foyer. The front door was closed. Just the way she’d left it, but the scent of smoke was thicker there, and she glanced up the stairs, terrified that she’d see him again.

She saw nothing. Not him. Not the light that should have been shining from the landing.

The upstairs hallway was dark as pitch, and she was sure she saw something moving in the blackness. The shadow of a man? The swirl of smoke?

She didn’t care. She wanted out.

She lunged for the door, scrambling with the lock and racing onto the porch. Her car was in the driveway, but she hadn’t brought her keys, and the phone that she’d been clutching to her chest when she fell asleep? Gone.

She must have dropped it.

She should have thought to look for it before she went searching the house for a cigarette-smoking intruder.

She ran down the porch stairs, her bare feet slapping against wet wood. She made it halfway across the yard before she saw the man standing on the sidewalk. She skidded to a stop, her heart beating frantically, as she watched the butt of his cigarette arch through the darkness.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his face illuminated by the streetlights, his little dog sniffing around at his feet.

“I...” What could she say? That she’d smelled his cigarette and thought someone was in the house? She doubted he’d want to know all the details of that. “Fine...”

“Probably you should put some shoes on. This isn’t just rain. It’s ice—and your feet are going to freeze.”

Her feet were already freezing, but she didn’t mention that. She was too relieved to have found the smoker outside her house to be worried about her feet. She thanked him and walked back to the house. The door was open as she approached, just the way she’d left it.

She’d nearly reached it when it swung closed.

She grabbed the door handle, trying to push it open again.

It was locked.

She hadn’t paid much attention when Gavin had been installing it. Was it the kind of knob that locked automatically?

One way or another, she was locked outside.

Which, she thought, might be for the best.

The door might have closed on its own. There was a slight breeze. It was also possible she’d imagined the shadow in the upstairs hallway. She’d imagined plenty of other things before—faces staring out of the dark corners of rooms she knew were empty, shadowy figures standing at the foot of her bed when she was just waking from nightmares. None of those things had ever turned out to be real, but right at that moment, she was certain someone was in the house, and she was just as certain that if she entered it, she might not come out alive.

She didn’t have her phone, didn’t know any of the neighbors. She’d given Gavin and Cassie the spare keys to the house, but she had no way of contacting either of them. She did know John Forrester, though, and he’d told her to call if she had any trouble. She didn’t know what time it was. She didn’t care. She jogged around the side of the house and headed toward his garage apartment.

* * *

Samson growled, the sound a soft warning that pulled John from sleep. He sat up, scanning the dark room for signs of trouble. The living room was empty, the TV still on whatever station John had been watching when he’d fallen asleep on the couch.

“What is it, boy?” he asked, keeping the light off as he walked to the window where the dog was standing.

The dog growled again, nudging at the glass, his gaze fixed on some point beyond the yard.

Virginia’s house?

John leaned closer, peering out into the blackness. Ice fell from the inky sky, glittering on the trees and grass, tapping against the garage roof. Not a good night to be out, but he thought he saw a shadow moving near the shrubs. As he watched, it darted through the thick foliage, sprinted into the open.

Medium height. Slim.

Virginia?

Samson stopped growling, gave a soft whine that meant he recognized the person running toward the garage.

Virginia, for sure, and it looked as if she was in trouble.

He ran to the door, yanked it open. He was halfway down the stairs when Virginia appeared. She barreled toward him, wet hair hanging in her face, head down as she focused on keeping her footing on the slippery stairs.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

It was obvious everything wasn’t.

She had bare feet, no coat, skin so pale it nearly glowed in the darkness.

“I’m running through an ice storm in bare feet,” she responded. “Things are not okay.”

“What’s going on?” he asked, grabbing her hand, urging her up the last few stairs and into the apartment.

“I locked myself out of the house.” Her teeth chattered, and he grabbed the throw from the back of the couch and dropped it around her shoulders.

“Should I ask why you were outside in the middle of the night?”

“I smelled cigarette smoke and thought it was coming from inside the house.”

He didn’t like the sound of that.

The police hadn’t found cigarette butts on the property, but that didn’t mean the guy who’d been there wasn’t a smoker. “I’ll go check things out,” he said, grabbing Samson’s work lead and calling the dog.

“Don’t go rushing over there yet, John. I’m not done with my story.”

“The ending isn’t as exciting as the beginning?” he asked, grabbing a towel from the linen closet and handing it to her.

“I’m not sure.” She wiped moisture from her face and hair, then tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. “The cigarette smoke was coming from outside. Some guy walking his dog. When I went to go back in, the door closed.”

“The wind?” he suggested, and she shrugged.

“That would be a logical explanation.”

“But?” he prodded, because he thought there was more to the story, and he wasn’t sure why she was holding back.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” she said with a sigh. “I was diagnosed with PTSD a few years ago. I went to counseling, worked through a lot of issues, but I still have nightmares. I still wake up in the middle of the night and think someone is standing in my room or hiding in the shadows. Sometimes I think there’s danger when there isn’t.”

This was part of what she hadn’t told him earlier. She’d hinted at it, said she’d nearly died, but she hadn’t given details. He’d done a little digging and asked a few questions. Morris hadn’t been eager to give details, but there’d been a few newspaper articles written about it. Local Attorney Shoots Wife and Self in Apparent Murder-Suicide Attempt.

Lots of speculation as to why it had happened, but there’d been no interviews with Virginia or her grandmother-in-law, so no one knew for sure how a seemingly rational high-level attorney could snap.

Personally, John didn’t think he’d snapped. He thought the guy had been out of control from the get-go, that he’d just been hiding it from the world.

“The worst mistake you can make—” he began, taking the towel from her hand and using it to wipe moisture from the back of her hair. The strands were long and thick and curling from the rain, and he could see hints of gold and red mixed with light brown “—is hesitating to ask for help because you doubt your ability to distinguish real danger from imagined danger.”

“I think I’ve proven—”

“You’ve proven that you’re strong and smart,” he said, cutting her off, because thinking about what she’d been through, the way she’d probably spent her entire marriage—in fear and self-doubt and even guilt—made him want to go back in time, meet her jerk of a husband and teach him a lesson about how women should be treated. “You might jump at shadows, but you’re not calling for the cavalry every time it happens.”

“I guess that’s true,” she conceded with a half smile. She had a little color in her cheeks, a little less hollowness in her eyes.

“So, tell me what happened with the door. You don’t think it was the wind.” Not a question, but she shook her head.

“I turned all the lights on in the house.”

He’d noticed that, but he didn’t say as much, just let her continue speaking.

“Then I went downstairs, lay down on the couch and fell asleep. When I woke, the lights upstairs were off.”

“Power outage, maybe?”

“The other lights were still on.”

“Did you check the circuit breaker? Maybe you blew a fuse. It happens in old houses.”

“I might have checked, if I’d been able to get back in the house. The door locked when it closed. I couldn’t remember if Gavin installed a lock that does that, but...” She shuddered and pulled the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders.

“I don’t think he did.” And that worried John. There’d been evidence that the guy who’d been in Virginia’s house had stayed there for a while—clothes in the closet, an unmade bed. It could be that he’d returned, found a way in, gone back to whatever he was doing before Virginia had arrived. “Tell you what. Stay here. Samson and I will go check things out.”

“I gave the spare key to Gavin and Cassie, and the doors are all locked.”

“I’ll call Gavin and ask him to meet me at your place. I’ll call Officer Morris, too. He should know what’s going on.” He attached Samson’s lead, and every muscle in the dog’s body tensed with excitement.

Samson loved his job, and John loved working with him. He was one of the smartest, most eager animals John had ever trained.

“Heel,” he commanded as he stepped outside. “Lock the door, Virginia. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

FIVE

John called Gavin on the way down the stairs and asked him to call Officer Morris. He didn’t want to make the call himself. He knew what the DC officer would say—stay clear of the scene. Let the local police handle things.

Wasn’t going to happen.

If someone was in the house, John planned to find him. Virginia had been through enough. He wasn’t going to stand by and watch her be tormented. So far, that was what seemed to be happening. No overt threats of danger, no physical attacks, the guy seemed more interested in terrifying her than in hurting her.

That could change, though, and John wasn’t willing to wait for it to happen.

The upstairs lights were on when John arrived at the house. He could see them gleaming through the windows. That didn’t mean they hadn’t been off when Virginia woke. He kept that in mind as he eased around the building, Samson sniffing the air, his ears alert, his tail high. Focused, but not cautious. So far, the dog didn’t sense any danger.

They moved around to the front of the house, and Samson headed straight across the yard, sniffing at a soggy cigarette butt that lay on the sidewalk. It seemed odd that Virginia had been able to smell the smoke.

He left the butt where it was and walked to the porch, Samson on-heel. The dog nosed the floorboards, sniffed the air, growled.

“Find,” John commanded, and the dog raced off the porch and around the side of the house, sniffing the ground, then the air. He nosed a bush that butted up against the edge of the house, alerting there before he ran to a window that was cracked open. No way had Virginia left it that way. Someone who’d been through what she had didn’t leave windows open and doors unlocked.

Samson scratched at the window, barking twice. He smelled his quarry, and he wanted to get into the house and follow the scent to the prize.

“Hold,” John said, and the dog subsided, sitting on his haunches, his eyes still trained on the window.

John eased it open. The screen had been cut, and that made his blood run cold. Virginia’s instincts had been spot-on. Someone had been in the house with her.

A loud bang broke the silence, and Samson jumped up, barking frantically, pulling at the lead. John let him have his lead following him to the back of the house. A dark shadow sprinted across the yard. Tall. Thin. Fair skin.

“Freeze!” he called, but the guy kept going.

“Stop or I’ll release my dog,” he shouted the warning, and the guy hesitated, turning a little in their direction, something flashing in his hand.

A gun!

John dove for cover, landing on his stomach as the first bullet slammed into the upper story of the house. He pulled his weapon, but the perp had already darted behind the neighbor’s house. No way was John taking a blind shot. It was too dangerous for the neighbors, for anyone who happened to wander outside to see what all the commotion was about.

He unhooked Samson’s lead, releasing the dog, allowing him to do what he did best.

Samson moved across the yard, his muscular body eating up the ground. No hesitation. No slowing down. He had unerring accuracy when it came to finding suspects, and the guy they were seeking was close. No amount of running would get him out of range, because Samson would never give up the hunt.

John sprinted across the yard, knowing Samson would alert when he had the perp cornered. Ice crackled under his feet as he rounded the neighbor’s house, racing into the front yard. Samson was just ahead, bounding across the street and into a small park lined with trees. The perp had plenty of cover there, plenty of places to hide and take aim.

“Release,” he called, and Samson slowed, stopped, sending John a look that said why are you ending the game?

“Let’s be careful, pal,” John said, hooking the lead back on. “The guy has a gun.” And he’d already discharged it.

They moved through the trees and farther into the park, Samson’s muscles taut as he searched for the scent. When he found it, he barked once and took off running. The darkness pressed in on all sides. No light from the street here. Just the ice falling from the sky and the muted sound of cars driving through the neighborhood.

Behind them, branches snapped and feet pounded on the ground. A dog barked, and John knew that backup had arrived. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Dylan Ralsey and his dog Tico heading toward him.

“Gavin called. I was closer than he was, and he thought you could use some backup,” Dylan said as he scanned the darkness. “His ETA is ten minutes.”

“Thanks,” John replied. He didn’t stop. They didn’t have time to discuss what had happened, go over the details, come up with a plan.

“Tico was bored anyway. It’s been a slow night.” Dylan moved in beside him, flanking his right, Tico on his lead a little ahead.

The park opened out into another quiet street. Both dogs stopped at the curb, nosed the ground, whined.

“He had a car,” John said, disgusted with himself for letting the guy escape.

“Wonder if any of the neighbors have security cameras? Seems like that kind of neighborhood, don’t you think?” Dylan asked.

It did.

The houses were large, well maintained and expensive. Lights shone from porches and highlighted security signs posted in several yards.

“That would almost be too easy, wouldn’t it? Look at some security footage, get a license plate number, find our guy?” he murmured more to himself than to Dylan.

“We can’t assume the guy was driving his own car, but if we could get a tag number on whatever he was driving?” Dylan smiled through the darkness. “We’ll have something to go on.”

“Did Gavin mention whether or not Morris sent the clothes we found this afternoon to the evidence lab?”

“Not to me, but if they were sent, it might be weeks before you hear anything. If they can find some DNA, there might be a match in the system.”

“Finding one will take even more time that Virginia might not have. The perp is bold. He entered the house while she was sleeping, and he had a gun.”

“Did he fire it?”

“Hit the side of the house. The bullet should be lodged in the siding.”

“We might get some ballistic evidence from it.”

“You mean Morris might,” John said. “He’s the local PD who’s handling the case.”

“I know who he is. Gavin told me to steer clear of the guy.”

“Guess Morris isn’t all that happy with my involvement.”

“From what Gavin said, he’s on his way, and he’s not happy. Said you needed to stop stepping on his toes or things could get ugly.”

“Should I sit back and watch a woman be terrorized?” John asked, allowing Samson to nose the ground, follow whatever scent he could to the east.

“As a fellow member of the Capitol K-9 Unit, I’m going to have to say yes. Because that’s the official protocol.”

“What would you say as my friend?”

“You know what I’d say, John. Do what you have to do to keep Virginia safe.”

“I guess you know which way I’m going to go,” John responded, because he couldn’t sit back and watch crimes be committed, he couldn’t back off and wait for help to arrive when he could be the one doing the helping. It was the way he’d been raised. His father, grandfather, brother, had all been police officers. They’d all given their lives for their jobs, sacrificing everything to see justice done.

“I guess I do.”

Samson stopped at a crossroad, circled twice, then sat on his haunches. He’d lost the trail. Not surprising. He was trained in apprehension and guard duty. Scent trail wasn’t his forte, though he’d done some training in that, as well.

“Good try, champ,” John said, scratching the dog behind the ears and offering the praise he deserved.

“The perp is heading toward downtown,” Dylan said, his gaze focused on the road that led out of the community. “If we had a description of the vehicle, I could call it in, get some officers looking for it.”

“Anyone who confronts the guy is going to have to be careful. He isn’t afraid to use his weapon.”

Dylan scowled. “That’s not news that fills me with warm fuzzy feelings.”

“I wasn’t too thrilled, either.”

“You’d be even less thrilled if you were lying in a hospital bed.”

“True, but I don’t think the guy was aiming for me. I think he was just trying to get me to back off.”

“So, he’s playing games?”

That was the feeling John had, so he nodded. “That’s the impression that I’m getting.”

He’d dealt with plenty of criminals. He’d had a few occasions when he’d been certain he was looking evil in the face. He was trained to understand the way felons would respond in a variety of situations, and he had a reputation for being good at staying a step ahead of the bad guys.

Sometimes, though, crimes weren’t about what could be gained. They weren’t about revenge or jealousy or passion. Sometimes they were a fantasy being played out, a game whose rules only the perpetrator knew.

He thought this was one of those times.

If he was right, the perp’s next move couldn’t be predicted. How he’d act or react couldn’t be ascertained.

The best thing they could do was find him quickly and get him off the street; because until he was locked away, Virginia wouldn’t be safe.

* * *

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Virginia mentally counted houses with Christmas lights while she waited for Officer Morris to finish typing whatever it was he was typing into his tablet.

Six. Seven. Eight.

She hadn’t learned much about what had happened at Laurel’s place, but she could say for sure that John had a good view of the neighborhood from his kitchen window—houses, streets, the city beyond, all of it covered with a layer of ice that sparkled with reflected light.

It would be a mess for the commute in the morning, but right then, it was lovely. So were the Christmas lights hung from eaves and wound around columns and pillars. Several trees were decorated for the holiday. Most of them with soft blue or white lights. Very elegant and lovely, but that was the type of community they were in.

Nine. Ten. Eleven.

Officer Morris continued to type, and Virginia continued to count, because it was easier to do that than think about the gunshot she’d heard. No one had been injured. That’s what Officer Morris had told her, but she hadn’t heard from John, and she was worried.

Because worrying was something she excelled at. Apparently so was counting.

Dealing with emergencies? Not so much.

She almost hadn’t opened the door when Officer Morris knocked. She’d been too afraid of who might be on the other side.

“Okay,” Officer Morris said. “The report is filled out. We’re good to go. How about we walk you back to your place, take a look around? Aside from a cut screen and busted window lock, I didn’t see anything that looked out of place, but it would be best for you to take a look before I leave.”

Her place.

Right.

She kept thinking of it as Laurel’s or Kevin’s or the Johnsons’, but it belonged to her, and she had to go home to it. At least for the next few days.

“I should probably wait for John to return.”

“He’ll meet us at the house. I need to speak with him.” There was no question in Officer Morris’s voice. He had a plan, and he expected that everyone was going to follow it.

She didn’t mind that. She didn’t mind him. He seemed like a good guy, a nice cop. The fact that he knew what had happened to her...that was a little awkward, but he wasn’t treating her with kid gloves, and she appreciated that.

She still didn’t want to go back to the house.

Not after he’d been in it again. The guy who looked like Kevin. She hadn’t seen him, but she was certain that was who it had been. Two different intruders in less than twenty-four hours seemed like too much of a stretch.

Yeah. It had been him. He’d broken the lock, cut the screen, entered the house. All while she’d been sleeping.

She shuddered, pulling the blanket John had given her closer.

Officer Morris’s expression softened, and he touched her shoulder. “It’s going to be fine, Virginia. He’s gone. I promise you that.”

She wasn’t sure who he was talking about. The guy who looked like Kevin? Kevin?

Either way, he meant well, the words soothing and kind.

“Right. I know.” She plastered a smile on her face. One that felt brittle and hard.

“I’ve been doing a little research,” he said. Maybe he was hoping to distract her from the panic that was building. “Laurel Johnson was involved in a lot of charitable organizations.”

“Yes,” she responded, her mouth so dry it was all she could manage.

“One of them was the state prison ministry. She used to go there twice a week.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I doubt anyone did. She spent some time with one of the prisoners, helped him get his college degree. Name was Luke Miller. Ever heard of him?”

“No.”

“He was released two months ago.”

She wasn’t sure what he was saying, what he was trying to get at. She was still thinking about going back to the house, walking into the place that had brought every nightmare she’d ever lived through.

“You look a little shaky. How about some water before we head over?” he suggested.

She nodded, mute with fear.

He walked into the kitchen, found a cup and filled it. “It really is going to be okay,” he said, holding out the cup.

She took a step forward, felt the earth shake, the entire world rumble. For a moment, she thought she’d lost it, that it had finally happened, panic making her completely lose touch with reality. She was on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, smoke billowing all around her.

Officer Morris shouted something, and she rolled to her side, saw him lying under the partially caved-in wall, ice falling on his dark hair.

“Get out of here!” he shouted.

She struggled to her knees, her feet, grabbed the wood that was pinning him.

“Go!” he said again, and she shook her head, tugged harder, praying that somehow her strength would be enough to free him.

SIX

Smoke billowed up into the sky, flames licking the side of the garage as John raced toward his apartment. He’d expected trouble, but he hadn’t expected this. He should have. He should have been prepared for anything.

Too late now.

The building was in flames, the interior exposed on the lower and upper levels.

A bomb?

That was what it looked like.

If there were more, they’d all be killed, but he wasn’t going to wait for the fire department to show, couldn’t wait for the bomb squad to be called in. Virginia and Officer Morris had been in the apartment. If they still were, they were in trouble.

“Hold!” he commanded, and Samson stopped short, his soft whimpers following John as he raced up the stairs that had been left untouched by the explosion.

The front door was closed. No time for a key, he kicked it in, smoke billowing out as it opened.

“Be careful!” Dylan shouted as he raced up the stairs behind him. “This place could crumble any minute.”

That was John’s fear. Getting in and out as quickly as possible was his plan.

Only God knew if that would happen, and John had to trust that His plan was best, that He’d see him through this like He had so many other things.

He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose, then headed into what had once been his living room. Part of the ceiling and wall had caved in, icy rain the only thing keeping the fire from taking over. Smoke billowed up through the floor and in through the collapsed wall. In seconds, the place would be pitch-black.

He scanned the room.

Virginia stood in the kitchen, tugging at lumber that had fallen, her frantic cries for help barely carrying above the roaring of the fire below.

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