Protect and Serve
Author
Terri Reed
Reads
19.4K
Chapters
16
One
“Georgiiiinnnaaa!”
Gina Perry froze midstride in the center of her bedroom. An explosion of panic detonated in her chest. She recognized the unmistakable singsong tone of her brother.
Oh, no. No, no, no. Tim had tracked her to Desert Valley, Arizona.
Frantic with alarm, she whirled around to search the confines of her upstairs bedroom. The sliding glass door to the terrace stood open, allowing the dark March night air to fill her house.
Where was he? How had he discovered where she’d been hiding? Had she made a fatal error that brought him to her door?
She stumbled backward on shaky legs just as her brother stepped from the shadows of her closet.
Light from the bedside table lamp glinted off the steel blade of a large knife held high in his hand. His face was covered by a thick beard, his hair stuck out in a wild frenzy and the mania gleaming in his hazel eyes slammed a fist of fear into her gut.
Choking with terror, she turned and fled down the stairs.
She couldn’t let him catch her or he’d make good on his threat to kill her. Just as he had their father two years ago.
Her bare feet slid on the hardwood steps. She used the handrail to keep her balance.
Tim pounded down the stairs behind her, the sound hammering into her like nails on a coffin.
Her breathing came out in harsh rasps, filling her head with the maddening noise. She made a grab for her phone on the charger in the foyer but missed. Abandoning the device, she lurched for the front door and managed to get the lock undone and the door opened.
Without a backward glance, she sprinted into the night, across the small yard to the road. Rocks and debris bit into her bare feet, but she ignored the pain. Faster!
Dear God, help me!
The Desert Valley police station was only half a mile down the quiet residential road on the west side of town. Street lamps provided pools of light that threatened to expose her. She ducked behind the few cars parked along the curb and moved rapidly through the shadows.
She had to reach the police station. Only there would she would be safe.
There, Tim couldn’t hurt her.
“Sisssster! I’m coming for you!”
He wasn’t far behind. She’d never make it to the station before he caught her. But the K-9 training center where she worked was closer. If she could get inside, she could call for help.
Grateful the moon hid behind cloud cover on this spring night, she stayed in the shadows and prayed she’d make it to safety. Just a little farther now. Her lungs burned from exertion. Her heart pounded in her chest.
Not daring to glance back to see how close Tim had gained on her, she ran for the training center and dove behind the bushes growing along the fence of the small outdoor puppy-training yard. She sent up a silent plea to God above that Tim wouldn’t find her in the bushes.
“You can’t hide from me,” Tim shouted, his voice taking on the manic tone she knew all too well. A tone that had always sent her into hiding when they were kids.
Her body trembled with fear. She curled into herself, hoping to make herself smaller, less of a target for him to spot. The unmistakable sound of his heavy breathing as he passed by her hiding place tormented her. She bit her lip, drawing blood, the coppery taste making her gag. She clamped a hand over her mouth.
“You betrayed me, Gina. For that you’ll pay. I’m going to kill you as soon as I find you.”
His voice sounded farther away now. He’d moved past the yard and was nearly at the end of the next building. She breathed a small sigh of relief. But she couldn’t relax. She wasn’t safe yet. She had to get inside the training center.
Cautiously, she made her way along the training yard fence in a low crouch. The gate to the yard was open. Odd. All the trainers were careful to keep them closed and locked in case a dog escaped from the center and made it outside. It was as much for the dogs’ protection as the general public’s.
She rounded the corner and froze.
Someone lay faceup on the ground, half in, half out of the gate.
Moving closer, Gina recognized Veronica Earnshaw.
Gina’s boss.
Panic crawled up Gina’s throat and she gasped for air.
There were two gaping wounds in Veronica’s chest.
Oh, no. No! Had Tim done this? Had he come to the training center first and, when he’d failed to find Gina, hurt Veronica instead?
Gina scuttled closer. Please, Lord, don’t let her be dead. “Veronica?”
With a trembling hand, she put two fingers against Veronica’s neck.
No pulse. Gina’s heart sank.
It seemed, once again, God had ignored Gina’s plea. Just as He had when Gina witnessed her brother murder their father.
She choked back a sob. Tears blurred her vision. It should have been her lying in the dirt, not Veronica.
A scrape of noise echoed in the stillness of the night. Her brother retracing his steps?
She scuttled back to the bushes, burrowing in deep and drawing her knees to her chest. A line of Scripture wove through the shock numbing her mind. She clung to it like a lifeline. The Lord is with me, I will not be afraid.
The litany echoed through her head, mocking her. Because she was afraid. Deathly afraid.
* * *
Officer Shane Weston and his canine partner, a German shepherd named Bella, walked along Desert Valley Road. The cool Arizona night air smelled of the fragrant western honey mesquite trees that had started to flower as spring arrived.
It was dark, nearly ten o’clock, but Shane couldn’t remain cooped up inside the condo he was staying in, one for out-of-town trainees. He was restless, anxious to see where he’d be assigned. He’d put in a request for his hometown police department of Flagstaff, but no one could guarantee he’d get his choice or even that he had a choice.
This past Friday, he’d completed his twelve-week training session at the Canyon County Training Center, a pilot project for the state of Arizona that trained new police recruits to be K-9 officers.
Not every candidate who applied was selected for the K-9 program. Shane had been thrilled that he’d made the cut. Once he was accepted, he’d been placed with a group of other rookies, and they’d attended the police academy together in Phoenix before coming to Desert Valley for the K-9 training.
Upon the start of every twelve-week session, the trainers matched each officer with a dog based on master trainer Veronica Earnshaw’s research into the rookies, along with questionnaires the recruits filled out prior to the start of the program.
Shane had gleaned that all the trainers used their instincts and knowledge of dogs to help with the pairing of officers to canines. The center was a well-run operation, highly respected throughout the state and a model for other centers.
Shane couldn’t be more pleased with his pairing to Bella.
He knew, however, that once the training began, if a dog and rookie officer hadn’t jelled for whatever reason and the trainers’ attempts to intervene failed, then the officer and dog were reassigned to work with new partners to finish out the program.
Thankfully, he and Bella had meshed from the moment they were introduced.
Now that training was complete, the officers and their canines would be allocated to various police stations throughout Arizona, and the training center would then be reimbursed by the police stations. A win-win for everyone.
Shane sent up another quick prayer that his request would be honored and he’d be assigned to the Flagstaff PD, where he could prove to his brothers and father that he wasn’t weak. He wasn’t a failure.
He planned to be the best officer he could be, with ambitions to one day make captain, or even chief. One day he’d be the one in charge, and then he’d finally earn his family’s respect.
Shane waved a greeting to an older man taking out his trash.
Very few people were out on this Saturday night, and those who were made a point of acknowledging him and Bella. Shane liked that the community of Desert Valley embraced the K-9 officers and their canine partners. He couldn’t say the same of bigger cities, where law enforcement was usually viewed with fear, suspicion and malice.
Bella stopped abruptly, her ears perking and her nose lifting to smell the air.
Unease tightened Shane’s shoulder muscles. She’d been alerted to something. “What is it, girl?”
Bella took off. Keeping the beam of the flashlight aimed ahead of him, Shane ran to keep up, his feet pounding noisily on the pavement. The lead connected to the dog’s collar pulled taut, and Shane pressed himself to move faster. They headed toward the training center. Had something happened to one of the dogs? The trainers?
Bella led him past the veterinary clinic and skidded to a halt at the outdoor puppy-training yard.
Shane stopped and kept Bella at his side. He swept his flashlight over the scene before him. Dread crimped his chest. He sucked in a quick breath.
Veronica Earnshaw lay twisted on the ground with her dark hair and striking face coated in dirt. Her open eyes stared at the stars above. And what appeared to be two gunshot wounds marred her chest. Bile rose in his throat.
His priority as the first officer on the scene was to determine if the victim was alive or dead.
Bella tugged at the leash. He gave her the hand movement to sit and stay. She obeyed, but her gaze was riveted to the bushes along the fence.
Was the perpetrator hiding in there?
Wishing he had his sidearm, which he’d left locked up in the condo, he shone the flashlight on the thick shrubbery. He let out Bella’s lead. She made a beeline for the greenery and sat staring at the dense foliage.
Caution tripped down his spine. There was no coverage for him to use. If the person who’d shot Veronica was in the bushes with the gun, he might well be the next victim.
“I’m a police officer. If someone is in there, you better come out,” he said with authority.
“Shane?”
He knew that voice. “Gina?” It was the junior trainer from the Canyon County training facility. A sob came from the bushes, then Gina crawled out. He reached out to help her and she flinched. Her long auburn braid was coming undone. The hazel of her eyes was nearly gone because of her enlarged pupils.
He held up his hands, palms out.
Was Gina’s shock real or fake? Had she committed murder? Or was she a witness?
Cautious, in case there was a gun he couldn’t see, he crouched beside her, noting blood on her hands and smeared on her khaki pants and pink sweater. “Gina. Are you hurt?”
“No.” She took a shuddering breath. “She’s dead. Veronica’s dead. He killed her.”
A witness, then. He refocused his attention on Veronica. There was no discernible movement of the upper part of her abdomen, indicating her breathing had stopped or was too shallow to be observed.
He checked for a pulse and found none. He shone the flashlight into her eyes—no response.
There was no question in his mind.
Gina was correct.
Veronica Earnshaw was dead.
His chest tightened; his lungs seized. An itch scratched at his throat. He put his hand on the inhaler in his pocket, but he refused to let the asthma take hold. There were procedures to follow. A crime to investigate. He had no time for an asthma attack right now. And as the first responder, he had a responsibility to make sure no element of the scene was disturbed any worse than it had already been.
Instead of his inhaler, he took out his cell phone and called the police department. When the dispatcher answered the call, he said, “This is Officer Shane Weston. I need assistance at the side yard of the Canyon County Training Center. One gunshot-wound victim. One potential witness.”
He hadn’t ruled out perpetrator. Not yet.
“I’ll let the chief and Officer Hayes know,” she responded before the line disconnected.
Slipping his phone back into his pocket, he made mental notes of the scene since he didn’t have a notepad and pen. When he left the condo, he hadn’t expected to end up working a crime scene.
He hadn’t heard the report of a gun, much less two shots, so he knew this tragedy hadn’t happened recently. Unless...a noise suppressor had been used.
The thought stuck in his mind like a thorn.
Because if that were the case, then Veronica’s murder was premeditated.
He did a quick visual search with the flashlight for the weapon but came up empty. A dark trail of what he assumed to be blood led from Veronica to the training center doors. Had Veronica been dragged out of the building or had she managed to crawl to the gate seeking help?
As he waited for the Desert Valley police, he turned his attention to the woman sitting on the ground by the bushes. She’d drawn her knees to her chest and had begun rocking. Compassion tangled with suspicion. As much as he didn’t want to think ill of Gina, she certainly had a reason to dislike the lead trainer.
“Gina, can you tell me what happened?”
She didn’t acknowledge him but kept rocking, her gaze locked on something only she could see. He gently touched her shoulder.
She started and scrambled away from him. “No, please, no,” she cried and curled into a tight ball.
He backed away, giving her space. “Gina, I’m not here to hurt you.”
She raised her teary gaze to meet his. She blinked as the glazed fog lifted. “Oh, Shane. We’re not safe. He’s here. He found me.”
A knot in his chest tightened. He? “Who are you afraid of?”
A visible tremor ran over her. “My twin brother, Tim.”
“Wait, you have a twin?” He’d had no idea.
“Yes. Two years ago he escaped police custody in Mesa and disappeared.” She rubbed at her temples. “I moved to Desert Valley to hide from him. I had hoped he wouldn’t find me here. But he has. And now...”
Concern arced through Shane. They had an escaped criminal on the loose. Gina’s twin brother. Had he killed Veronica thinking he’d shot his sister? Or was this a contrived story to cover Gina’s crime? Was there really a brother, much less a twin? He didn’t know her well enough to know if she had a sibling. “What happened to Veronica?”
“I’m not sure. I found her like this. I checked for a pulse.” She looked away. “There isn’t one.”
He winced. She’d already contaminated the scene—if she wasn’t the perpetrator. “Don’t touch anything else or move again until the chief arrives, okay?”
She nodded on a shuddering breath.
“Why do you think your brother killed Veronica?” Shane asked her.
“Isn’t it obvious?” She stared up at him. “He came here looking for me and instead found Veronica. He killed her out of rage because I wasn’t here.”
“You didn’t see it happen?” Though her explanation was plausible, there were holes. “How would he know where you work?”
“I don’t know. He’s smart.”
“But you don’t work here anymore, right?”
“What?” Her voice held a note of confusion.
“Didn’t Veronica put you on indefinite probation?” It had been a spectacle. Veronica had turned her mean streak onto Gina yesterday right in front of the newest class of graduated rookies. Veronica had loudly and very publicly claimed Gina had used the wrong training technique and declared Gina was on probation indefinitely.
Shane had attempted to talk to Gina after the incident because he’d felt bad for the pretty trainer, but she’d hurried home and he hadn’t seen her until now.
Gina’s shoulder rose and fell. “She did. But in typical Veronica fashion, she called me this morning to apologize.”
“That’s surprising,” he said. “She didn’t strike me as someone who would own her mistakes easily.”
One side of Gina’s mouth curled. “Oh, it wasn’t a humble gesture. She does this almost every session. She gets mad for some perceived infraction and makes a scene.” Gina blew out a breath. “Veronica needed me to return to the center to process the intake of three new German shepherd puppies donated by Marian Foxcroft.”
“So you were here today.”
“Yes. This morning.” She wiped her forearm across her forehead. “I would have been at the training center this evening if I hadn’t already committed to serving at the community church’s Saturday-night potluck dinner.”
He hadn’t known she attended church. He hadn’t seen her there these past few Sundays. “Do you mean the church’s singles’ potluck?”
She nodded.
For some reason the idea of her mingling with other singles rubbed him wrong. Which was so out of left field and inappropriate at the moment. Irritated at himself, he pushed the thought aside to focus on Gina.
Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. He hated seeing her cry. Yet there was a jaded part of him that wondered if the tears were real. Were they a ploy to gain his sympathy?
“Veronica wasn’t pleased that I couldn’t be here tonight,” she said. “But she agreed to microchip the new puppies and expected me to take over their care and training first thing on Monday morning.”
However, that didn’t explain how Gina came to be here now. Something about her story felt off.
The sounds of Desert Valley Police Department’s finest arriving drew Shane’s attention. Since the station was so close, several officers came on foot while the chief of police and the lone K-9 officer of the department drove to the training center.
“Is that...?” Louise Donaldson, the first officer to reach the scene, clamped a hand over her mouth and turned away.
Officer Dennis Marlton put a hand on her back and bowed his head as if the sight were too much to bear.
Officer Ken Bucks staggered back several steps. Though it was too dark to see his expression, Shane imagined that seeing an acquaintance murdered like this must be a shock, to say the least.
The last murder victim in the community of Desert Valley had been the wife of K-9 officer Ryder Hayes five years ago. A murder that had never been solved.
Shane glanced at Ryder, his face hidden in shadows created by the many flashlight beams directed toward the victim. Sitting at Ryder’s side was his canine partner, a handsome yellow Lab named Titus. Shane had seen the pair around but hadn’t really had a reason to interact with the Desert Valley Police Department’s only official K-9 officer.
Chief Earl Jones, a tall, imposing seventy-year-old man with thick graying hair, knelt beside Veronica and checked for a pulse, apparently to confirm Shane’s pronouncement that the master trainer was dead.
When he lifted his head, tears shone in his gray eyes. He stood, his hands fisted at his side. He was clearly struggling to contain his grief and anger. “Who did this?”
“Gina believes her brother, Tim Perry, did,” Shane said, noting that Gina hadn’t moved, just as he’d instructed her. “She didn’t see it happen, though. I haven’t asked her how she came to be here tonight.”
“Hmm, her brother, huh?” Earl scrubbed a hand over his jaw.
“Apparently he’s a wanted criminal in Mesa,” Shane added. Did the chief know Gina had a brother who was in trouble with the law? Or had she kept that information hidden? The thought made him wonder what else she could be hiding. Was Gina capable of murder? Was the story about her brother a convenient way to deflect blame?
