Protect and Defend
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Terri Reed
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Chapter One
Detective Melody Zachary halted abruptly at the sight of her office door cracked open. Unease slithered down her spine. She’d locked the door last night when she left the Sagebrush Youth Center. She always did.
Pushing back her suit jacket, she unlatched her weapon from the holster at her hip and withdrew the Sig Sauer. She pushed the door wide with the toe of her heeled boot. Stepping inside the darkened room, she reached with her free hand for the overhead light switch and froze.
A shadow moved.
Not a shadow. A man.
Dressed from head to toe in black. Black gloves, black ski mask...
Black eyes.
Not just the irises, but the white part of his eyes, as well.
Her heart stalled.
Palming her piece in both hands, she aimed her weapon. “Halt! Police!”
The intruder dove straight at her. She didn’t have time to react, to pull the trigger, before he slammed into her chest, knocking her backward against the wall. Her head smacked hard, sending pain slicing through her brain. The air rushed out of her lungs.
The man bolted through the open doorway and disappeared, leaving only the echo of his black, rubber-soled tennis shoes squishing against the linoleum and bouncing off the walls of the hallway.
Ignoring the pain pounding in her head, Melody pushed away from the wall. For a moment, her off-balance equilibrium sent the world spinning.
The exit door at the end of the hall banged shut. She grimaced. He was escaping.
Forcing herself to move, Melody chased after the intruder. As founder and co-director of the youth center, she’d come in this morning expecting to get a little work done before heading to the police station to start her shift. She hadn’t been prepared for a smackdown and footrace.
The blood surging through her brought the world into a sharp focus she didn’t experience anywhere else in her life except on the job. It had been a while since she’d had to chase a perp. And never from the youth center.
This place was supposed to be safe, for the kids who sought help and for the volunteers who ran the center.
Out on the sidewalk, she searched for the trespasser. Sagebrush Boulevard was empty. There was no sign of a person dressed in black. At seven in the morning on a Tuesday, Sagebrush, Texas, was barely coming to life.
At the end of town, the spire of the white community church gleamed in the early morning May sunlight, like a beacon of hope. A stark contrast to the dark figure who’d assaulted her. She sent up a silent prayer of protection, for herself, for the youth center and for the citizens of Sagebrush.
A cynical voice in her head taunted, Would God listen?
As much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t know. He certainly hadn’t listened to her pleas when her marriage fell apart and her ex-husband abandoned her to go “find himself.”
Holstering her weapon and pulling her tailored jacket closed, she retraced her steps and entered Sagebrush Youth Center’s single-story brick building.
She stopped in her office doorway surveying the scene. Irritation raced through her. The place had been ransacked. The filing cabinet had been emptied, the files strewn all over. The pictures of her family had been knocked off the desk.
Her heart squeezed tight at the sight of her sister’s face smiling up at her from one of the images. Her arm was slung over her then twelve-year-old son’s shoulders. A time when they’d been happy. Alive.
Forcing back the sadness, she continued her perusal. Books ranging from popular fiction to nonfiction teenage psychology had been pulled down from the shelves and lay haphazardly on the floor. The open desk drawers appeared to have been rifled through.
A cardboard box lay toppled upside down, the contents spilling out. Her nephew’s name was written across the side in big bold letters. She didn’t need a paper inventory of the box. She had the contents memorized. The files full of witness testimonies, and Daniel’s effects at the time of his death had been in that box. All that was left of a life cut too short.
A sense of violation cramped her chest. She was used to investigating this sort of vandalism, not being the victim herself.
She was no one’s victim. Her fist clenched.
She would find the person who broke in, and discover what they’d wanted. She tapped her foot, impatient to get in there and see what had been taken.
But protocol had to be followed.
Yanking her cell phone out of the backpack-style purse she always carried, she dialed the Sagebrush police dispatch non-emergency number.
“Sagebrush Police Department.” Cathy Rodriquez, the day dispatch operator answered in her no-nonsense tone.
“Cathy, it’s Detective Zachary. I need a crime-scene unit at the youth center. My office has been broken into.”
“Were you hurt, Melody?”
“I’m fine.” She wouldn’t mention the throbbing headache. The last thing she needed was to be coddled. She’d find some pain reliever in the nurse’s station once things settled down. “I surprised the intruder, but he got away.”
“I’ll let the higher ups know what’s going on.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Melody hung up and leaned against the doorjamb. Despite the doubts that at times tried to rob her of faith, she sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving that the intruder hadn’t been armed. This scene could have gone down very differently.
The sound of footsteps sent a fresh wave of adrenaline pumping through her veins. She whipped around, her hand going to her weapon.
“Melody?”
At the sight of her volunteer co-director and fellow Sagebrush police officer coming toward her, she let out a tense breath. Jim Wheaton always wore the navy blue Sagebrush Police Department uniform, claiming the visual reminder of authority helped keep the kids in line.
Nearing fifty and single, Jim spent more time at the center, whether he was on duty or off, than any other volunteer. He claimed it was because he didn’t trust the teens not to cause trouble, but Melody suspected he liked the company even if he wouldn’t admit it.
“You’re here early again today,” he said, coming to a halt a few paces away.
She usually stopped by Arianna’s Diner for a pastry and cup of coffee before heading to the station, but ever since her nephew’s grave had been desecrated last month, she hadn’t had much of an appetite. Keeping herself occupied gave her less time to think.
Besides, the diner was closed now that the owner, Arianna Munson, had been killed after being linked to the crime lord, known only by the police as The Boss.
For the past several years, a crime wave had terrorized the citizens of Sagebrush. The mastermind behind the crime syndicate was a faceless, nameless entity that even the thugs who worked for The Boss feared.
This man was at the top of the police department’s most-wanted list. Especially after the crime syndicate kidnapped Rio, the three-year-old German shepherd partner of the K-9 unit’s captain. The whole department was on high alert looking for the canine.
She could have used a dog like Rio today. Maybe she should look into getting a K-9 partner for the center. A nice big dog with sharp teeth. “Hey, Jim. I interrupted someone breaking into my office. They made a mess of things.”
His gray eyes clouded with concern. “You okay?”
“Just a bruised ego.” And a knock to the noggin. Nothing she couldn’t handle.
“Let me see.” He tried to push past her.
Her arm shot out and blocked him from entering. “I’m waiting for the CSU team.”
He scowled. “It was probably a kid looking for some loose change.”
Melody shook her head. “Guy was too big, too strong to be a teen.”
“You get a look at his face?”
“I didn’t.”
The center’s front door opened. A small dog with his black nose pressed to the ground entered. Melody recognized the beagle as Sherlock, part of the K-9 unit. He wore a vest with the Sagebrush Police Department emblem over his light brown and white coat. A harness attached to a leash led to the handsome man at the other end. Melody blinked.
What were Narcotics Detective Parker Adams and his K-9 partner doing here?
The dog was adorable with his floppy ears and big round eyes.
Much like his handler.
She didn’t know the narcotics detective well. She worked for the homicide division, mostly cold cases, while he was part of the Sagebrush’s elite K-9 unit. Their paths hadn’t crossed much, though she’d noticed him at the police station.
Hard not to take notice when he filled out his uniform nicely with broad shoulders and trim waist. She liked the way he wore his dark hair swept back from his forehead and his warm brown eyes appeared kind whenever he glanced her way.
He wasn’t much taller than she, but he had a commanding presence that she found disconcerting. Though why, she wasn’t sure. Growing up the daughter of a cop, there were few people who intimidated her. But something about the handsome officer made her pay attention.
Two crime-scene-unit techs filed in behind Parker carrying in their equipment. Considering the police station was at the other end of the block, Melody wasn’t surprised how quickly they’d arrived. She just didn’t understand why Parker had responded to her call.
The CSU team approached, each member wearing a dark blue Sagebrush Police Department windbreaker. Parker hung back, letting his dog sniff the floor, the thresholds of the closed classroom doors, the lockers.
“Hey, Melody,” said Rose Bigsby, a stocky woman with short blond curls and wire-rimmed glasses perched on her short nose. “Report came in that you had a break-in.”
Melody gestured to the open door of her office. “In there.”
Clay Gregson nodded to Jim and then smiled shyly at Melody as he moved past her to enter her office. The tall and lean CSU technician wasn’t much on small talk, something the officers of SPD were used to. Rose, on the other hand, made up for her partner’s lack of conversation just fine. Rose followed him in and started the process of looking for anything that would lead them to ID the intruder.
“Any idea who broke in?” Parker asked as he and his dog approached. “What was he looking for?”
Melody frowned. “I have no idea who the guy was or what he was after.”
“What are you doing here, Adams?” Jim asked.
“Captain McNeal thought it’d be a good idea for Sherlock here to check out the center,” Parker replied evenly. “Considering.”
Her defenses stirred. “Considering what?”
He met her gaze. His dark eyes intense, probing. “The rumors of drugs being dealt out of here.”
Her hackles rose like the feathers of a peacock on high alert. She’d been battling that particular thread of gossip since the center opened. She routinely searched the building and kept a close eye on the kids. She was certain there were no drugs on the premises. “We have a strict no-drugs policy. Any offenders will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Parker shrugged. “Then there’s nothing to worry about. Sherlock shouldn’t find anything. He’s got the best nose in the state, and it’s never wrong.”
“I’ve got to go to the station,” Jim said abruptly and headed for the exit.
Watching him hustle out the door, Melody frowned. He’d just arrived. She shrugged off her coworker’s strange behavior. Even though she was fond of Jim, she’d long ago decided she would never figure out the male species.
Or teenagers. Starting the youth center had been her attempt to help the kids of Sagebrush so they wouldn’t end up like her nephew. At sixteen, Daniel had gotten mixed up with drugs, dealing and using, by all accounts. He’d ended up dead because of it. During a standoff with the police, he’d been wounded in the leg by Captain Slade McNeal and then shot in the heart by an unknown sniper. The assassin was never caught.
Saving other teens from Daniel’s fate had become her mission in life.
However, that didn’t mean she understood the teens or their thought processes. Thankfully, there were tons of books on the subject. If she could prevent even one teen from ending up addicted to drugs like Daniel, she’d feel she succeeded.
Her gaze strayed back to the mess in her office. Rose knelt beside the lamp and dusted black powder over the surface. The flash of a camera momentarily brightened the room as Clay photographed the crime scene.
What had the intruder been looking for?
“Did you get a look at the perp?” Parker asked, drawing her attention.
“No, he wore a ski mask.”
“With blacked-out eyes?”
Surprise washed through her. “Yes. Very freaky. How did you know?”
“We’ve had a run-in with a guy wearing a ski mask and some kind of eyewear that blacks out the whites of his eyes. Did he take anything?”
Absorbing that information, she turned her gaze once again to the box labeled with her nephew’s name. Would she find something missing? Did the vandalism to her office have anything to do with last month’s desecration of Daniel’s grave? A lump of anxiety lodged in her chest.
It had been five years since Daniel’s death. Five years of searching for answers and coming up empty. What had recently changed to make someone dig into the past? And Daniel’s grave?
The questions intensified the headache pounding at her temples. She didn’t believe in coincidence. Daniel’s grave, now her office. Were the two events connected? Maybe it was time to re-question some of Daniel’s old buddies. Someone had to know something useful.
Her heart squeezed. Five years wasn’t nearly long enough to have healed some wounds, though.
Realizing Parker was waiting for her to respond, she said, “I only did a cursory look, but I didn’t see anything obvious missing. Perp rifled through all my files, drawers and books. Seemed to be searching for something.”
“Interesting.” He seemed to be thinking about something. “I wonder if this was the same guy who searched the station last night.”
“What?” She hadn’t heard about that.
“Someone searched the station house, concentrating mostly on the K-9 unit and Captain McNeal’s office.”
“Do you have any idea why? What were they looking for?”
His expression turned cagey. “We think it has something to do with the crime syndicate plaguing Sagebrush. But the station house wasn’t broken into per se. The culprit came from within.”
Surprised, she widened her eyes. “You think a fellow officer is working for the crime syndicate?”
“That’s one theory. Though I can’t help but wonder if the two incidents somehow connect to Captain McNeal’s missing dog, Rio.”
“Last month, K-9 Officer Jackson Worth spotted a masked man clad in black who was walking a dog matching Rio’s description. We also have a witness who saw someone dressed like you’ve described kill a man in cold blood.”
A shiver of dread worked its way over Melody’s flesh. She was thankful the intruder had decided to just knock her down rather than kill her.
What was he searching for? And would he be back? Maybe this break-in had nothing to do with her nephew’s grave. Or maybe it had everything to do with it.
She intended to find out, regardless of the danger.
* * *
At four that afternoon, Parker’s captain summoned him to his office. He knocked lightly before opening the door.
Captain Slade McNeal sat at his desk. He held the file with Parker’s notes from the day. “So tell me what you think about this break-in at the youth center.”
Only four years older than Parker, Slade had slightly salted dark hair and a square jaw. Lines of stress bracketed his blue eyes.
Stepping fully into Slade’s office, Parker said, “The perp who broke into the youth center matches Nicki Johnson’s description of the man who killed Gunther Lamont last month. The CSU techs didn’t find anything useful.” Not that he expected them to. So far the ski-mask guy had been very careful. No prints, no clear description identifying him.
“Did Detective Zachary find anything missing?”
An image of the pretty dark-haired, blue-eyed woman rose in Parker’s mind. He didn’t know Melody well. She kept pretty much to herself and devoted most of her free time to the Sagebrush Youth Center. A supposed alternative to the drug scene for the teens of Sagebrush.
But Parker was dubious of any place where teens with drug habits gathered. Though he appreciated the intention behind the youth center, he just wasn’t convinced any place was safe from the invading poison.
Rumor had it that too many kids were partying on the center grounds.
Nothing had ever come of the internal investigation their captain had initiated. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening, which was why Parker and Sherlock had headed over to the center when the news came in that there’d been a break-in. The crime syndicate overrunning Sagebrush had their hands in the drug trade and would no doubt see the youth center as a viable outlet for their product.
Painful memories of his younger brother raced unbidden to the forefront of his mind. A deep sadness welled. Followed quickly by the anger that always chased after thoughts of Ethan.
His brother had died from tainted drugs.
Forcing his own personal torment back to the dark recesses of his mind, he answered, “No, nothing missing. Perp ransacked her office. She has no idea what he was looking for.”
Slade narrowed his blue eyes. “The code?”
Parker shrugged, baffled by this turn of events. “Maybe. But why her office? She’s not a part of our unit.”
“Assuming that the masked perpetrator and The Boss are the same person, he must be getting desperate,” Slade said.
Parker’s cell buzzed, and he checked the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number. “Parker Adams.”
“You better hustle over to the youth center. There’s a drug deal going down.”
Parker recognized his confidential informant’s gruff voice. “What kind of drugs?”
“How should I know?” The man hung up.
Parker blew out a frustrated breath. Sometimes Harry Trenton was a pain in the neck. But his intel was usually worth the stipend Parker regularly doled out to him. Which meant the youth center wasn’t what it seemed. An image of the lovely Melody rose in Parker’s mind. He sure hoped the pretty detective wasn’t involved in dealing drugs. He didn’t like the idea of arresting her. But he would in a heartbeat. Getting drugs off the street was his number-one priority.
Meeting Slade’s questioning gaze, Parker said, “My CI claims there’s a drug deal going down at the youth center.”
Visible tension tightened Slade’s jaw. “You didn’t find any drugs this morning?”
“No. Sherlock followed a couple of false trails. Could have been trace amount brought in on a shoe.” He hoped that were the case.
McNeal stroked his jaw. “Check it out. If you find something concrete, let me know. I’ll have to inform Captain Drexel.”
The captain of the homicide division and Melody’s direct boss.
“Will do.” Parker headed out the back door of the brick one-story building and jogged the short distance to the K-9 Training Center on the adjacent lot. Parker had dropped Sherlock off a little earlier with the training staff because, being a two-year-old beagle, the dog needed some time to run around and burn off his excess energy so he’d be ready to focus when needed.
Callie Peterson, the lead trainer for the Sagebrush Special Operations K-9 Unit, greeted Parker with a smile and a wave as Parker approached the training yard.
“Sherlock’s in kennel one,” she called out as she worked with Justice, a good-looking bloodhound, and his handler, Austin Black.
“Hey, Parker,” Austin called out.
Parker lifted his hand acknowledging his friend and fellow team member.
Continued training for all the dogs of the K-9 unit was mandatory and necessary to keep the dogs and their handlers fresh and working well together. Justice was an integral part of the unit, his specialty search and rescue. Thanks to Austin and Justice, seven-year-old Brady Billows had been found unscathed after two thugs working for The Boss nabbed the boy because he’d been a witness to the assault on Captain McNeal’s father and Rio’s kidnapping.
Now if they could only find the captain’s beloved dog. Even a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward offered by the captain’s good friend, Dante Frears, hadn’t yielded any results. Everyone was working hard to bring Rio home.
Going to the kennel door, Parker grabbed the nylon leash from the nearby hook. Sherlock’s short legs kicked up dirt as he jumped at the door clearly wanting to be set free.
“Settle down, boy,” Parker said softly as he opened the dog-run door.
Instantly, Sherlock sat, his tail thumping the ground, his big brown eyes staring at Parker.
Love for the little beagle filled Parker as he clipped on the leash and led the dog toward his vehicle. “Come on, boy, we’ve got work to do.”
With his lights flashing, Parker drove the few blocks to the youth center with Sherlock inside his special crate mounted in the back passenger area of the SUV. Parker glanced in the rearview mirror at Sherlock. Affection rushed to the surface. The dog was the closest thing to family Parker had in Sagebrush. His parents had moved to San Antonio not long after his kid brother’s death.
The sharp pain of loss stabbed at him. Parker’s life plan had changed that day. He vowed to keep the streets drug free. A tall order for just one person, but Parker figured for every drug dealer he put behind bars, more kids would have a chance to live.
He’d gone on to the local college, but instead of majoring in business as he’d planned, he’d majored in criminal justice. As soon as he’d graduated, he joined the police academy, setting his sights on becoming a narcotics detective. When he’d been offered the job to work with the K-9 unit, he jumped at the chance. Sherlock was the best drug-sniffing beagle in the whole state of Texas.
They both proudly wore the Sagebrush Police Department emblem.
Parker brought the official K-9 unit vehicle to a halt at the curb, climbed out and opened the back door for Sherlock. The beagle jumped out. Immediately, his nose went to the ground, sniffing for a trail to follow. Reining in the leash, Parker walked toward the front of the Sagebrush Youth Center.
A squeaking sound drew Parker’s attention. An old man, dressed in ragged clothing, pushed a shopping cart full of his possessions down the sidewalk. Their gazes met. Surreptitiously, Harry, the confidential informant who’d called Parker, pointed one gnarled finger toward the rear of the building.
Without acknowledging the old man, Parker veered Sherlock away from the front steps and hurried toward the back of the building where a wire fence, erected to keep in stray balls from the basketball hoops, dug into the cement of an old parking lot. Voices echoed off the sides of the center.
“Look, you don’t scare me.”
Parker recognized Melody’s voice. The words were spoken evenly enough but a faint tremor of fear underscored them.
“You should be scared, lady. You’re all alone. We can do whatever we want with you.”
The pretty detective was in trouble.
