Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas Read online

  It took ten minutes to go through every drawer, to open every secret compartment. She took out a beautiful mother’s ring that Kevin had presented to Laurel years before he met Virginia. Laurel had worn it every day, and as far as Virginia knew, she’d never taken it off. Not when Kevin had been alive.

  She set the ring on the desktop and took a strand of pearls from another secret compartment. The jewelry piled up. So did the old coins and the cash—nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of that. Laurel had liked to have cash on hand. Just in case.

  “That’s a lot of money, right there,” Officer Forrester said quietly. “I’d think if the guy were here to steal, he’d have left the desk empty.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have time to go through it.” She rolled the desktop down, leaving the jewelry and money right where it was. The words felt hollow, her heart beating a hard harsh rhythm. She wanted to believe the guy had been there looking for easy cash but the sick feeling of dread in her stomach was telling her otherwise.

  “That’s a possibility,” Officer Winters said, her voice sharp. “It’s also possible he found other valuables and took off with them. You said you hadn’t been here in a while. He could have left with thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen property.”

  I don’t really care if he did. I never wanted any of this. I still don’t, she wanted to say, but she didn’t, because there wasn’t a person she knew who wouldn’t have celebrated the windfall Virginia had received. The few friends she’d told had given her dozens of ideas for what she could do with the money, the house, the antiques. Most of the ideas involved quitting her job, going on trips to Europe and Asia, traveling the country, finding Mr. Right.

  She hadn’t told anyone but Cassie that she didn’t want the inheritance. Even Cassie didn’t know the entire reason why.

  Or maybe she did.

  She was her boss, after all. There’d been a background check when Virginia had applied for the job. If the information about Kevin had come up, Cassie had kept it to herself. She’d never questioned Virginia, never brought up the life Virginia had lived before taking the job at All Our Kids.

  That was the way Virginia wanted it.

  No reminders of the past. No questions about why and how she’d ended up married to a monster. No sympathetic looks and whispered comments. She didn’t want to be that woman, that wife, that abused spouse.

  She just wanted to be the person she’d been before she’d fallen for Kevin.

  It had taken years to realize that wasn’t possible. By that time, keeping quiet about what she’d been through had become a habit. One she had no intention of breaking.

  She walked to an old oil painting that hung between two bay windows and pulled it from the wall, revealing the built-in safe that Laurel had shown her a year after she’d moved into the house, a day after Kevin had shoved her for the first time.

  Maybe Laurel had thought seeing all the beautiful jewels that would be hers one day would keep Virginia from going to the police.

  It hadn’t.

  Love had.

  She hadn’t wanted Kevin to be arrested. She hadn’t wanted to ruin his reputation and his career. She’d believed his tearful apology, and she’d believed to the depth of her soul that he would change. She’d been wrong, of course. Sometimes, she thought that she’d always known it. Even then. Even the first time.

  She knew the lock combination by heart, and she opened the safe. It was stuffed full of all the wonderful things that Laurel had collected over the years. Her husband had been generous. He’d showered her with expensive gifts.

  She pulled out a velvet bag and poured six beautiful sapphire rings into her palm. Seeing them made her want to puke, because they were the first things Laurel had pulled out the day she’d opened the safe and shown Virginia everything she would inherit one day.

  She gagged, tossing the rings into the safe and running to the en suite bathroom. She heard someone call her name, but she wasn’t in the mood for listening. She slammed the door, turned the lock, sat on the cold tile floor and dropped her head to her knees.

  If she’d had one tear left for all the lies she’d been told and believed, if she’d had one bit of grief for what she’d longed for and lost, she’d have cried.

  She didn’t, so she just sat where she was, the soft murmur of voices drifting through the door, while she prayed that she could do what she knew she had to—face the past and move on with her life. It was the only way she’d ever find the sweet spot, the lovely place where she was exactly where God wanted her to be, doing exactly what He wanted her doing.

  No more floundering around waiting for other people to call the shots. No more watching as life passed by. She wanted to engage in the process of living again. She wanted to do more than be a housemother to kids. She wanted to mentor them. She wanted to be an example to them. She wanted to be able to tell her story without embarrassment or shame, and she wanted other people to benefit from it.

  That was what she thought about late at night when she couldn’t sleep and all she had were her prayers and the still, soft voice that told her she was wasting time being afraid, wasting her life worrying about making the wrong choices.

  She needed to change that.

  The problem was, she wasn’t sure how.

  Someone knocked on the door, and she pushed to her feet, her bones aching, her muscles tight. She felt a thousand years old, but she managed to walk to the door and open it.

  Officer Forrester was there, Samson beside him. The other two officers were gone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—”

  “You don’t have to explain.” He took her elbow, leading her back into the room.

  “I feel like I do, Officer—”

  “John. I’m not on duty.” He smiled, and his face softened, all the hard lines and angles easing into something pleasant and approachable.

  “You chased down the guy who was in my house.”

  “Tried to, but only because I was in the right place at the right time.”

  “Or the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He chuckled. “I guess that depends on how you look at it. I see it as a good thing. But, then, I love what I do, and I’m always happy to step in and help when I can.”

  “That’s...unusual.”

  “You seem awfully young to be so jaded, Virginia.”

  “I’m not young.”

  “Sure you are.” He opened Laurel’s closet, whistling softly. “Wow. This lady had some clothes.”

  “She did.” She moved in beside him, eyeing the contents of the walk-in closet. Dresses. Shoes. Belts. Handbags. “I guess if the guy didn’t take a bunch of cash and jewelry, he probably didn’t take any of her clothes.”

  “Do you think that was what he was here for?” he asked. “Money?”

  “That’s what the police think he was here for.”

  “I’m not asking about the police. I’m asking about you. Do you think he was here for money or valuables?”

  * * *

  It was a simple question.

  At least in John’s mind it was.

  Virginia didn’t seem able to answer it.

  She stared at him, her face pale, her eyes deeply shadowed.

  “Okay. You’re not going to answer that,” he said. “So, how about you tell me why it’s been so many years since you’ve been in the house?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not important.”

  “If it weren’t, you’d be willing to tell me about it.”

  “Maybe I should have said that it’s important to me but has no bearing on what happened today.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “The police seem to think—”

  “I think that I already said that I’m not interested in what the police are sayi
ng. You know this house, you knew your grandmother-in-law. You knew your husband, and every time you mention that the guy who was here looked like Kevin, I can almost see the wheels turning behind your eyes. You’re thinking something. I’d like to know what it is.”

  “I’m thinking that I could have been wrong about what I saw. Maybe the guy didn’t look as much like Kevin as I’d thought.” She closed the closet door and walked to a fireplace that took up most of one wall. There were a few photos on the mantel. He hadn’t looked closely, but he thought they must be of Virginia’s family. She lifted one, smiling a little as she looked at the image of a young man and woman in wedding finery. Probably taken in the fifties, it was a little faded, the framed glass covered with a layer of dust. She swiped dust from the glass, set it back down, and John waited, because he thought there was more she wanted to say.

  Finally, she turned to face him again. “My husband wasn’t the easiest man to live with. I have a lot of bad memories. I really don’t like talking about them.”

  That explained a lot, but it didn’t explain who had been in her house or why he’d been there.

  “I’m sorry. I know that’s got to be tough to live with,” he said.

  “Some days, it’s harder than others.” She looked around the room, and he thought she might be fighting tears. She didn’t cry, though, just cleared her throat, and smoothed her hair. “I know you’re trying to help, and I appreciate it, but Officer Morris already knows everything there is to know. If he’s worried that this is connected to...my past. He’ll let me know.”

  That should have been enough to send John on his way. After all, this wasn’t his case. Morris and Winters were calling the shots. He was just a witness who happened to be a police officer, but he didn’t want to leave. Not when Virginia still looked so shaken.

  “Morris is a great police officer, and he’ll handle things well, but I’m your neighbor. If something happens, I’m the closest thing to help you’ve got. Keep that in mind, okay?”

  “I will.” She hesitated, her fingers trailing over another photo. “The thing is, something did happen. I almost died eight years ago. Right outside the front door of this place. Not even the neighbors were able to help. That’s why I haven’t been back. That’s why I don’t like talking about it. That’s why I don’t want to believe the guy I saw today has anything to do with Kevin.”

  The words were stated without emotion, but he read a boatload of feelings in her face. Fear, sadness, anxiety. Shame. That was the big one, and he’d seen it one too many times—a woman who’d done nothing wrong, feeling shame for what she’d been through.

  “Your husband?” he asked, and she nodded, lifting another photo from the mantel. She was in it, white flowers in her hair, wearing a simple white dress that fell to her feet.

  “This is my wedding photo. I guess Laurel cut Kevin out of it. We were married in Maui. A beautiful beach wedding with five hundred guests.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. It was excessive. We footed the bill. I would have preferred to use the money to finish my doctorate, but Kevin...” She shook her head. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to you,” he responded.

  “It shouldn’t.” She replaced the picture she was still holding. “I should check the other rooms, see if anything has been disturbed.”

  She walked into the hall, and he didn’t stop her.

  He wanted to take a closer look at the photos on the mantel. The one of Virginia didn’t look as if it had been cut. He opened the back of the frame and carefully lifted the photo out.

  It had been folded.

  He smoothed it out, eyeing the smiling dark-haired man who stood to Virginia’s right. Not touching her. Which seemed odd. It was a wedding photo, after all. The guy had a shot glass in one hand, a bottle of bourbon in the other. He looked drunk, his eyes heavy-lidded, his grin sloppy.

  He replaced the photo and looked at the others. Nothing stood out to him. They were all of the 1950s couple—marriage, new house, baby dressed in blue.

  Kevin’s father? If so, there were no other pictures of him. No toddler pictures. No school photos. No wedding picture. That made John curious. There was a story there, and he had a feeling that it was somehow related to the man who’d been in the house.

  It wasn’t his case, and it wasn’t any of his business, but he planned to mention it to Morris. See if he knew more about the Johnson family than Virginia did.

  Or more than she was willing to reveal.

  That was going to have to change. There was no way she could be allowed to keep her secrets. She’d have to open up, say everything she knew, everything she suspected, because John had a bad feeling that the guy who’d been in her house had been after a lot more than a few bucks. He’d been after Virginia, and if she wasn’t careful, he just might get what he wanted.

  FOUR

  The police thought the intruder had entered through the kitchen. The lock hadn’t been tampered with, but there were a couple of muddy footprints on the back deck and a pair of old size ten boots sitting under the swing.

  They weren’t Kevin’s. He’d always worn Italian leather. Dress shoes shined to a high sheen paired with suits he spent a small fortune on. Even if he’d worn boots, Virginia didn’t think they’d have been sitting out on the back deck years after his death.

  They belonged to someone. So did the clothes she’d found in the closet in the bedroom she hadn’t wanted to enter. The bedroom she and Kevin had shared. She’d gone in anyway, found faded jeans and threadbare T-shirts hanging in a closet that had once been filled with Kevin’s clothes. Kevin had never worn jeans, had rarely worn T-shirts. No, the clothes had belonged to someone else. Officer Morris had taken them as evidence. Virginia wasn’t sure what kind of evidence he could get from them. Hair? DNA? She hadn’t asked. She’d been too busy trying not to panic.

  Now she was alone, the officers gone, the house silent. She paced the living room, cold to the bone. She’d turned the heat on high, turned every light in the house on. She’d made tea and drunk two cups, but she couldn’t get warm.

  Someone had been in the house.

  Someone who’d looked like Kevin, who’d called her Ginny, who’d mocked her with words that had made her blood run like ice through her veins.

  A friend of Kevin’s?

  If so, he wasn’t someone she’d ever met.

  Whoever he was, he’d been in the house for a while. The clothes, the boots. The police had agreed that the guy had spent some time there.

  That meant he’d had plenty of time to take whatever he might have wanted, but the house seemed untouched, hundreds of valuable things left behind.

  She rubbed her arms, trying to chase away the chill. It didn’t work. It was the house, the memories. She’d thought about going to a hotel, but she had to do this, and she had to do it alone. Cassie had offered to stay the night, babysit her like she babysat the children at All Our Kids. Virginia had refused her offer.

  At the time, the sun had still been up.

  Now it had set, the last rays tingeing the sky with gold and pink. If she just looked at that, stared out the window and watched the sky go black, she might be okay.

  She would be okay.

  Because there was nothing to be afraid of. Gavin had changed the lock on the back and front doors; he’d checked the locks on all the windows. The house was secure. That should have made her feel better. It didn’t.

  She grabbed her overnight bag and walked up the stairs, the wood creaking beneath her feet. She knew the sounds the treads made. She knew the groan of the landing, the soft hiss of the furnace. She knew the house with all its quirks, but she still felt exposed and afraid, nervous in a way she hadn’t been in years.

  She thought about calling Cassie, just to hear someone else’s voice, but
if she did that, Cassie would come running to the rescue.

  That wasn’t what Virginia wanted.

  What she wanted was peace. The hard-won kind that came from conquering the beasts that had been controlling her for too long.

  Outside, the neighborhood quieted as people settled in for an evening at home. That was the kind of place this was—weekend parties and weeknight quiet. Older, well-established families doing what they’d done for generations—living well and nicely.

  Only things weren’t always nice there.

  She’d learned that the hard way.

  She grabbed a blanket from the linen closet. There was no way she was sleeping in any of the bedrooms. She’d sleep on the couch with her cell phone clutched in her hand. Just in case.

  She would sleep, though.

  She’d promised herself that.

  She wouldn’t spend the night pacing and jumping at shadows.

  Only it had been years since she’d lived alone, years since she’d not had noise to fill the silences. The sounds of children whispering and giggling, the soft pad of feet on the floor, those were part of her life. Without them all she could hear were her own thoughts.

  She settled onto the couch, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. It smelled of dust and loneliness. She tried not to think about Laurel, spending the last years of her life alone. No kids to visit her. No husband. No grandchildren. Just Laurel living in this mausoleum of a house, shuffling from room to room, dusting and cleaning compulsively the way she had when Virginia lived there.

  She couldn’t sleep with that thought or with the musty blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She shoved it off, lay on her side, staring out the front window, wishing the night away.

  She must have drifted off.

  She woke to the sound of rain tapping against the roof and the subtle scent of cigarette smoke drifting in the air.

  Cigarette smoke?

  Her pulse jumped, and she inhaled deeply, catching the scent again. Just a tinge of something acrid and a little sharp lingering.

  Was it coming from outside?