Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas: Protecting Virginia

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—”