Secrets And Lies

Please, God, please! she prayed frantically as she searched the room for another way out. There wasn’t one, but an old computer monitor sat abandoned on the floor, wires tossed on top of it. She lifted it and slammed it into the window. A tiny hairline crack appeared. She slammed it again, and the glass cracked more. Behind her, the assault on the door continued, the wood starting to splinter and give.

Please, she prayed again as she lifted the monitor and threw it with all her strength.

* * *

Glass shattering.

Rookie K-9 officer Tristan McKeller heard it as he hooked his K-9 partner to a lead. The yellow lab cocked his head to the side, growling softly.

“What is it, boy?” Tristan asked, scanning the school parking lot. Only one other vehicle was parked there—a shiny black minivan that he knew belonged to Ariel Martin. He was late to their meeting. That seemed to be the story of his life this summer. Work was crazy, and his sister was crazier, and finding time to meet with Mia’s summer school teacher? Nearly impossible. He’d already canceled two previous meetings. He couldn’t cancel this one. Not if Mia had any hope of getting through summer school and moving on to the next grade. That’s what Ariel had said when he’d pulled her aside at church last Sunday.

She can do it, Tristan. She’s smart enough. We just have to find the right motivation. We’ll talk about it at the meeting. You are going to be there, right?

Of course, he’d assured her that he would.

What he hadn’t done was assure her that he’d be on time. A good thing, since it looked like he was going to be more than a few minutes late. Jesse was still growling, alerted to something that must have to do with the shattering glass. Kids fooling around and busting school windows? A ball tossed the wrong way, taking out a streetlight?

He hoped it was something that innocuous, but he wasn’t counting on it. Things had been happening in Desert Valley, a string of crimes that seemed to have surprised everyone in the small town. Drug runners. A dirty cop. Murder.

“Find!” he commanded, and Jesse took off, pulling against the leash in his haste to get to the corner of the building and around it. Trained in arson detection, the dog had an unerring nose for almost anything. Right now, he was on a scent, and Tristan trusted him enough to let him have his head.

Glass glittered on the pavement twenty feet away, and Jesse beelined for it, barking raucously, his tail stiff and high.

“Front!” Tristan said, and the dog returned to him, sitting impatiently, his dark eyes focused on the window.

“Stay!” Tristan commanded, and Jesse dropped down with a grunted protest. He wanted to keep going, but Tristan couldn’t risk him cutting his paws on the shards of glass.

A woman appeared in the window. Dark hair. Pale skin. Freckles. Very pregnant belly that wasn’t cooperating as she struggled to crawl through the opening. Ariel Martin. The newest teacher at Desert Valley High School. Smart. Enthusiastic. Patient. He’d heard that from more than one parent. He’d even heard it from Mia. The few times Tristan had spoken to Ariel, he’d been impressed by her interest in his sister, and he’d felt confident that she could help Mia regain her academic grounding. If Mia would let her.

“You okay?” he asked, running to Ariel’s side.

She shook her head, dark gray eyes wide with shock, a smear of blood on her right hand. She’d cut herself. It looked deep, but she didn’t seem to notice. “He’s got a gun. He tried to shoot me.”

The words were calm, crisp and clear, and they chilled Tristan to the bone. Two women had already been murdered in Desert Valley. Was Ariel Martin slated to be the third?

“Who?” He grabbed her arms, hauling her through the opening.

She landed on her feet, her body trembling. “I don’t know. He was wearing something over his face.”

“But you did see a gun?” he asked, wanting clarification before he called in a gunman on the loose.

“Saw it. Heard the bullet slam into the wall. Saw one go through the door. He was trying to get into the resource room where I was hiding, but I think he heard your dog barking and left.” Her voice trembled, but she didn’t hesitate, the words flowing out easily. Truth did that to people. This was no overly imaginative person freaked-out about something that might have been seen. This was a woman who’d been terrified by a very real, very imminent threat.

Her safety was first, but Tristan wanted to go after the guy now, before he had a chance to run. If this was connected to the other murders, this might be the break they’d been looking for. Ariel had seen the guy. Not his face. But his height, width, maybe his skin tone.

He called dispatch and asked for backup as he led Ariel to his SUV. The sooner they hunted the perp down and took him into custody, the safer everyone in the vicinity would be.

He couldn’t leave the victim, though. Not until he was certain the gunman wasn’t hanging around, waiting for another opportunity to strike.

“Do you think he’s gone?” Ariel asked.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know. Not for sure. He could be in the building somewhere, or heading around the side of the school,” she responded, just a hint of a tremor in her voice. Despite her advanced pregnancy, she was fit and muscular, her legs long and slim, her arms toned. He’d noticed that the first time he’d seen her. She’d walked into church with her head high, her shoulders squared, her belly pressing against a flowy dress, and there wasn’t an unattached guy in the congregation who hadn’t sat up a little straighter. A few months later and her belly was bigger, but she still looked confident and determined. Being shot at could shake the toughest person, though, and it had obviously shaken her.

He opened the passenger door, helped her into the seat.

“I do know for sure,” he assured her. “Or at least, Jesse does.” He pointed to his K-9 partner. The dog was relaxed, his tail wagging, his scruff down. He’d be growling or barking if he sensed danger. Instead, he’d loped back to their vehicle, not even a hint of tension in his muscular body.

Good, but not good enough for Tristan. He wanted to search the school, make sure the guy hadn’t left anything behind—firearms, bombs, some kind of accelerant that he could use at a later date to cause mass casualties. Not likely, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Same for Ariel. Aside from her paleness and the cut on her hand, she seemed to be doing okay. It was better to get her checked out at the hospital, though, and make certain there wouldn’t be any complications with her pregnancy. He called dispatch with the request for an ambulance as he opened the back of the SUV and pulled out a first-aid kit.

“I don’t need an ambulance,” Ariel protested.

He ignored her, pulling on disposable gloves and lifting her wounded hand. “This is deep. You’ll need stitches.”

He pressed gauze to the wound, and she winced.

“Sorry.” He didn’t ease up on the pressure, though. She’d bled a lot. Probably more than she realized.

“It’s fine.” Her free hand lay against her belly. No ring on that one or the one he was holding. He knew she was a widow. He’d heard rumors that her husband had died shortly after she’d found out she was pregnant. He hadn’t asked for details, but he’d wondered. Mia really liked Ariel, and Tristan figured it took a special kind of person to win his sister’s affection. He’d imagined that Ariel must be gentle, quiet, maybe a little sentimental, but taking off her wedding ring so soon after her husband’s death didn’t seem sentimental at all.

Then again, maybe it was. He didn’t know much about those kinds of things, and he didn’t know Ariel well enough to ask. What he did know was that she deserved better than this.

He met her eyes, saw fear in the depth of her dark gray gaze.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said.

“I hope so.”

“It will be. The ambulance should be here soon. They’ll triage this before they transport you,” he said, and she frowned.

“Like I said, I don’t need an ambulance.”

“You’re nine months pregnant—”

“Eight, and—”

Whatever she planned to say was cut off by a police cruiser’s siren. The vehicle screamed into the parking lot, lights flashing, tires shrieking as Eddie Harmon’s car squealed to a stop beside Tristan.

Eddie jumped out of the car, his uniform shirt pulled tight across his stomach, his shoes scuffed and pants wrinkled.

“What’s going on here? Got a call about a gunman?” He eyed Ariel, taking in her bleeding hand and her very pregnant belly. “I’m assuming it was a false alarm, maybe a misunderstanding?”

Of course he’d assume that. Eddie liked to take the easy route to police work. His focus was on his family and his upcoming retirement rather than his job. He wasn’t a bad cop, but he wasn’t a good one, either.

Tristan would have preferred to have one of the K-9 officers there. He trusted Eddie to do his job, but he hated to leave Ariel with a guy who probably wasn’t going to take her seriously. She looked too pale, too vulnerable, and he was tempted to stay right where he was until the rest of the K-9 team arrived. But, every minute he waited was another minute the perp had to escape.