Truth And Consequences

* * *

Whitney pulled up to the small stucco house she rented from the Carters next door. When she’d first signed up for training last year, she’d stayed in the dorm-like condos next to the K9 Training Center. She’d met Shelby’s father there, Brian Miller. Whitney had been a rookie in every way, naive and eager to fit in. When the handsome, charming fellow rookie had started flirting with her in spite of the no-fraternizing policy, she’d fallen hard.

Brian hadn’t lived in the dorms, but he’d hung out there a lot. He’d had his own house between Desert Valley and another small town, about ten miles from the training center. He’d told her he preferred to live in his own place since he had a part-time job as a night watchman at a strip mall.

But she understood now, Brian had a house because he liked to take women there, where it was private and secluded. And apparently, he’d taken a lot of women there.

Brian had lied to her and cheated on her, even on the night before the police dance when she’d planned to tell him she was carrying his child. But then Brian had never made it to the dance. He’d died in a fire at his house about an hour before the dance started. Then, about two weeks later, her brother, Lucas, had been killed in Afghanistan.

Now Shelby would never know her daddy or her uncle. Whitney often wondered if Brian would have been happy to hear about the baby. Or would he have turned away from her?

She had no doubt Lucas would have loved Shelby, but he also would have made it his mission to come home and help Whitney out. She’d withheld telling him, and she’d paid dearly for that, too.

What did it matter now? Brian and her brother had both died too young. She knew how her brother had died. But she still didn’t understand why or how Brian had died. Until lately, no one in the department had wanted to listen to the one theory that she couldn’t shake. Had Brian been murdered?

Whitney glanced around, blinking. Night had settled in and with it, a desert chill. Every time she remembered Brian, the tug of a bittersweet struggle warred inside her soul. She’d loved him immediately. And he’d taken advantage of her completely. Now she had a beautiful baby girl and...because of Shelby, Whitney had turned her life around. She wanted to be worthy in her daughter’s eyes, so she’d dedicated her life to Christ and made a pledge to be very careful regarding men. But even after all the pain of Brian’s betrayal, Whitney still had concerns about how Brian had died.

In a house fire, supposedly from a burning candle.

His entire family had died in a horrible fire caused by a lit candle when he was a teenager. He’d been the only survivor. So Brian never lit candles in his house. Ever.

It didn’t make sense. But whenever she tried to explain that to people, they’d pat her on the hand and tell her the fire had been ruled as an accident. Whitney hoped to prove one day that the fire that had killed Brian had not been an accident. And since another rookie had died from a mysterious fall down the stairs of his home almost two years to the day before Brian died, she couldn’t help but notice certain similarities. Couple that with Veronica Earnshaw’s murder and the horrible murder of a police officer’s wife five years ago and...things were being to look eerily similar.

But she couldn’t think about that tonight. She needed to go next door and pick up Shelby. Marilyn Carter had four kids of her own, but she’d insisted on babysitting Shelby.

What’s one more, honey? She’ll fit right in and she’ll learn a lot faster, watching my rug rats running around.

Whitney loved the Carters, and so did Shelby. She paid Marilyn what she could and thanked God each day for the family who had helped her change her life for the better.

She might be starting out with the department, but she loved her job, and she hoped like most of the rookies to move on to a big-city department one day. She wanted Shelby to have what she’d never had—stability.

“C’mon, Hunter,” she said. “Here. Let’s go find Shelby.”

Whitney leashed the big dog and started toward her neighbors’ rambling ranch house. But Hunter held back.

“What’s wrong?” Whitney had never seen Hunter refusing to go next door. He loved the hustle and bustle of the crazy household full of children. He looked forward to seeing Shelby every day, too. “What’s up, Hunter?”

He bristled and started growling low, a sure sign that something wasn’t right. Whitney drew her weapon and ordered, “Go ahead.”

Hunter tugged her toward the gate to her backyard, his growls now turning into aggressive barking. When Whitney rounded the corner, her heart picked up its tempo. The gate stood open, a broken latch dangling against it, the sound of the metal hitting wood grating on her nerves as a reminder that she’d messed with some dangerous people today.

Someone had broken into her backyard.

Releasing Hunter, Whitney ordered the K9 to search. Hunter took off, growling and barking. Whitney followed, thankful for the security light shining a sickly yellow glow over most of the small backyard. When Hunter alerted near the fence running along the back of the property, Whitney noticed some broken branches on a spindly pine sapling and some splintered areas on the weathered wood. Sneakers? Someone had hopped this fence. Ordering Hunter ahead of her, she quickly checked the house. The back door was locked, but she could tell from the scratches etched near the wood on the old lock that someone had been here and had tried to get into her house. She and Hunter had scared them away.

By the time she’d gathered herself enough to go next door to pick up Shelby, she saw Jack Carter standing out on the porch, squinting into the darkness.

“What’s going on?” he asked, glancing at her house, his deep voice full of concern.

“A prowler, from what I could tell,” she said, knowing the big, burly mechanic would watch the neighborhood if he thought someone was messing with them. But Whitney wanted to reassure her neighbor. She wouldn’t put Jack and the family she trusted with her baby in danger. “Hunter will alert if they come back.”

“It’s getting as bad here as in the big towns,” Jack said. “Want me to take a look?”

“No. I checked everything. The house is still locked tight. We arrived in time to keep them from getting inside.”

“What do you think they wanted?” Jack asked, his hands on his hips.

She couldn’t tell him her suspicions since she wasn’t supposed to talk about an active case. It could get out around the neighborhood that drug dealers might be lurking in the area, and people might panic or, worse, take the law into their own hands. This could have been a coincidence, kids out for kicks. She hoped.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t have anything much of value in there.” She glanced back at her tiny little rental home. The home she’d decorated with secondhand items. The home she loved even if it was a temporary place until she got her first assignment. It might be a rental, but it meant the world to her while she was still here in Desert Valley. “But would you tell Marilyn to give me a few more minutes? I want to check inside just in case.”

“Sure,” Jack said. “Shelby is on her play quilt giggling at the boys. She’s fine.”

Whitney nodded. She wanted to keep it that way, too. But as she made her way along with Hunter to the front door of the house, David Evans’s words came back to her with full clarity, making Whitney wonder about those two men who’d gotten away earlier.

What if they come after you?

* * *

“I don’t care what you think I should have done,” Dr. William Pennington shouted to the scurrying nurse. “Get the gauze and let’s get this man’s finger sutured so I can get out of here on time for a change.”

“I’ll take care of Mr. Ramsey’s cut,” David told the teary-eyed nurse when she headed toward the supply room. The poor woman had been on her feet for over eight hours now. He’d arrived in town yesterday, and this was the first afternoon he’d volunteered here, but he hadn’t seen any of the three nurses on staff take a real lunch break.

David enjoyed the work and being able to get to know some of the locals, but Whitney had been right. He couldn’t see how anyone on earth would actually want to work for this tyrant of a physician. The man obviously thought he was above managing a run-down clinic in a small town. But he sure didn’t make it easy to work for him, let alone volunteer.

Wondering if Whitney would make good on calling him in to look at mug shots, David hoped she’d been able to ID the two men without his help. He wanted to have another opportunity to talk to her, but not in a busy police station. He’d have to find a way to see her again and tell her that he’d known her brother, Lucas.

“Go ahead. Be my guest,” the nurse whispered as she shoved the supplies into David’s hands. David returned to the present, but the nurse was already leaving. “I’m outta here.”

David watched her grab her purse and head for the back door, thinking his first day here had turned out to be exhausting. The doctor he’d talked to on the phone had seemed wary about someone offering to volunteer in the first place, but he’d also told David he could use the help. But in person, Dr. William Pennington was a harsh leader who barked orders and scared both nurses and patients. He’d guided David through the proper papers to allow him to practice medicine on a temporary volunteer basis, but he sure didn’t seem appreciative of having an experienced volunteer on hand. Maybe he didn’t want the staff to outshine him?

David had caught Dr. Pennington staring at him at odd moments. Maybe the man was territorial. His ego was as big as the whole state of Arizona. He stayed locked in his office between patients and talked in low growls on his cell when he paced up and down the hallway.

David intended to show the good doctor that he didn’t scare that easily. He needed this work to keep him centered. He had a compulsion to help hurting people, a need that obviously stemmed from seeing too much death and destruction.

Or maybe from being the only son of a now deceased highly successful doctor who had been considered a pillar of the community back in East Texas. Could he ever live up to what his father had expected?

He returned to the exam room, where the doctor was fussing at the frazzled man who’d come in with a work-related injury. “You need to be more careful in that garage, Mr. Ramsey. This is the third work-related accident you’ve had in the past year.”

“Couldn’t be helped,” the man said. “Wrench slipped. We’re always backed up and behind. I got in a rush.”

The condescending doctor with the gray-streaked dark hair stared down the grimy mechanic, his rimless glasses giving a clear view of his disapproval. “That doesn’t mean you should get careless. I have my car serviced at Carter’s Garage, you know. I’d hate to file a complaint with your boss because you failed to do your job correctly by being careless.”

“Need some help?” David offered, smiling at the man who sat with a worried frown wrinkling his forehead.

“Where’s Phyllis?” Dr. Pennington asked in a curt, angry tone, his scowl meant for David.

“I told her I’d help you out,” David replied, daring the doctor to say anything. “She never got her lunch break.”