Buch lesen: «Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas: Protecting Virginia»

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.”