Secrets And Lies

“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.

“There was a shooter,” Tristan assured him. “I’m going to take Jesse into the building and secure the scene. There’s an ambulance on the way. Can you stay with the victim until it arrives? Until we know what the perp is after, we can’t assume he’s not going to try to strike again.”

“In other words, you want me to take guard duty,” Eddie said, crossing his arms over his belly and eyeing Tristan dispassionately.

“Right.”

“I guess I can do that.” Eddie shrugged. “Easier than walking around the building looking for the perp.”

That’s exactly what Tristan figured he’d say.

He met Ariel’s eyes. She still looked scared. She also looked exhausted, her face pale, her cheekbones gaunt. He hadn’t noticed that before, but then he’d been telling himself for months that he shouldn’t be noticing anything about Mia’s teacher. His life was filled up with work and with his sister. He didn’t have time for relationships. Especially not complicated ones. A pregnant widow? That was way more than he had room for in his life.

“This might take a while. When I finish, I’ll check back in with you.”

She nodded, and he called Jesse to heel and jogged to the building. The perp hadn’t gone out the front. Jesse would have scented him when they’d walked back to the SUV.

“Where is he?” Tristan asked, and Jesse’s ears perked, his nose going to the air and then the ground. Tristan would have preferred to have Shane Weston and his apprehension dog, Bella, there tracking the perp, but waiting was out of the question.

“Find him!” he urged, and Jesse ran to the back of the school, nosing the cement path that led to double-wide doors. They yawned open, the corridor beyond silent and empty. This had to have been the entrance point. The exit point, too, if the guy was gone.

Tristan followed the dog across the threshold, calling out as he entered the building, warning that police were present. No response. He hadn’t expected one. He really didn’t expect the perp to have hung around.

Jesse tugged him through the hall, passing classroom after classroom. The lab stopped at room 119, sniffing the floor before walking inside. There, he nosed around near a teacher’s desk, sniffing a dark blue sweater that hung over the back of a chair. He huffed quietly and left it, continuing across the room to a storage closet that stood open.

Had the guy been in the closet? Maybe waiting for Ariel to return to the classroom? The thought turned Tristan’s stomach. Master police dog trainer Veronica Earnshaw had been murdered in her place of employment, shot to death while microchipping a new litter of puppies for the Canyon County K-9 Training Center. Since then, Desert Valley had been on edge. That wasn’t the first murder in the area. Five years ago, K-9 officer Ryder Hayes had lost his wife on the night of the annual Desert Valley Police Department dance and fund-raiser. She’d been shot and killed while carrying her dress home just hours before the party.

The perp had shot at Ariel. Was this newest incident somehow related to the other two?

Jesse left the closet, tracing a path from there back to the desk and then out into the hallway. They moved through the dimly lit corridor, the dusky sunlight barely penetrating this far into the building. They reached the corner where the east and west wings jutted to either side of the main building, and Jesse barked, prancing around what looked like bits of concrete and wallboard.

“Front!” Tristan commanded, and the dog returned, dropping down on his haunches.

“Stay!” he said, motioning for the dog to lie on the floor, then moving past and looking at the debris that littered the gray-white tiles. A chunk of wall had been blown from the corner, the bullet still lodged in concrete. Tristan called for Jesse and continued on past several closed doors. He didn’t need the dog to show him where Ariel had been hiding. The door to the room had been shot through, the old wood caving in from the force of a foot kicked into it over and over again. Another few well-placed kicks and the door would have caved in, giving the gunman a clear shot at his intended victim.

A random act of violence?

Tristan didn’t think so. Everything about this seemed premeditated—the perp hiding in the closet, the mask that had hidden his features, the determination to get through a locked door. The guy had been after blood, and if Tristan hadn’t had a meeting scheduled with Ariel, he might have gotten it.

God always has a way.

It’s what his father had told him over and over again. It’s what Tristan’s mother had repeated during Tristan’s challenging teenage years. Since they’d died, Tristan had been too busy trying to raise Mia to spend much time trying to figure out what God’s way was.

Maybe that had been his mistake. Maybe it was the reason why Mia was struggling so much in school and with making friends. Becoming a K-9 police officer had seemed like the perfect transition from being an army dog handler into civilian life, but that wasn’t the reason Tristan had signed on to the Canyon County K-9 Center Training Course. He’d joined in honor of his army buddy and good friend Mike Riverton who’d died the previous May.

Mike had sung the praises of the K-9 program, and he’d been trying to get Tristan to apply. Then Mike had died—killed when he’d fallen down steep stairs at his home. That’s the story Tristan had been told, and that’s what the medical examiner’s records said, but Tristan wasn’t buying it. A guy like Mike—trained in mountain climbing and free-climbing rock walls—would never have fallen and not been able to catch himself.

Yeah. Things around Desert Valley weren’t what they’d seemed when Tristan had moved there for the program. Small towns, he was learning, often hid big secrets.

He frowned, his thoughts going back to Ariel, the way she’d looked when she’d been struggling to escape through the broken window, the fear in her eyes, the subtle trembling of her voice.

Sometimes, small towns also hid murderers.

Not for long, though.

Tristan knew the Desert Valley PD was closing in on the killer. He was certain it was just a matter of time before the perpetrator was found. But, time wasn’t anyone’s friend when a murderer was on the loose.

A murderer, he thought, eyeing the splintered door and the bullet hole, who might have just attempted to strike again.

TWO

She’d almost died.

Ariel couldn’t shake the thought, and she couldn’t ignore it as an EMT leaned over her cut palm, eyeing the still-bleeding wound.

“You’re going to need stitches,” the young woman said brusquely. “We can transport you to the hospital for that, or you can go to the clinic. Your call.”

“I’ll go to the clinic,” Ariel responded by rote.

If she’d died, the baby would have died. Thinking about that was worse than thinking about herself, broken and bleeding on the floor of the resource room.

She shuddered, and the EMT frowned.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her tone a little gentler. “You seem shaky, and they could check on the baby. It might give you a little peace of mind.”

Aside from the guy who’d shot at her being thrown in jail, there wasn’t much of anything that could give her that. “I’m sure.”

The woman nodded, pressing thick gauze to the wound and wrapping it with a tight layer of surgical tape. “That should hold it until you get to the clinic. Have someone drive you. Husband, family.”

“All right.” Except that Ariel didn’t have a husband and she didn’t have any family. She was making new friends at church and at work, but even after five months, they weren’t the kind of relationships she could count on in a pinch.

If the principal came to check out the damage to the school, she’d probably offer to give Ariel a ride. Pamela Moore’s daughter, Regina, had been Ariel’s best friend from kindergarten through their sophomore year of high school. They’d stayed close after Ariel had moved away, and when Regina had taken her dream job working as NICU nurse in Phoenix, Ariel had cheered her on.

Regina had been the reason Ariel had been offered the job in Desert Valley. She’d contacted her mother, pleaded Ariel’s case and gotten her an interview for a job that had opened up when another teacher had gotten married and left town.

It had seemed like a God-thing, the opportunity coming out of left field at a time when Ariel had been desperate to get away from Las Vegas and all the memories it held. She’d wanted a quiet little town to raise her daughter in. She’d wanted a safe environment where everyone knew everyone and where small crimes were considered a big deal. She’d thought that was what Desert Valley offered, all her sweet childhood memories leading her to believe the place would be perfect. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Several Desert Valley police vehicles had pulled into the parking lot and K-9 teams were spread out across the school grounds. Ariel could see a female officer walking through the gym field, her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, a golden retriever trotting in front of her. Ellen Foxcroft. A nice young woman who everyone in town seemed to like. Her mother was a different story. Marian Foxcroft was notorious for sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. She had money and influence in Desert Valley, and she wasn’t afraid to throw both around to get what she wanted.

Unfortunately she also had enemies. She’d been attacked a few months ago and left in a coma. It was one of the many crimes that had been taking up the front page of the town’s newspaper.

Ariel had tried not to pay much attention to the stories. She had enough stress and worry in her life. She hadn’t wanted to add to it, and she’d been afraid...so afraid that she’d made another mistake—just like the one she’d made when she’d married Mitch.

She touched her stomach, feeling almost guilty for the thought.

“Ma’am?” the EMT said. “Would you like me to call someone for you?”

“No. I’m fine.” She stood on wobbly legs and moved past the EMT just to prove that she could. Her keys were in her classroom. So were her purse and her cell phone. The house she’d bought with money her great-aunt had left her a decade ago was only two miles from the school, but walking there wasn’t an option. Not with the gunman still out there somewhere.

Had Tristan found any sign of the guy in the school? Was he okay? She’d watched him walk toward the building, and she’d wanted to caution him to be careful, because the gunman had meant business. He’d been bent on murder, and if Ariel had walked into her classroom, she’d have probably been shot before she’d even realized she was a target.

She shivered, rubbing her arms against the chill that just wouldn’t seem to leave her.

“You holding up okay?” someone asked.

She turned and found herself looking into Tristan McKeller’s dark brown eyes.

“I was just thinking about you,” she said, the words escaping before she realized how they’d sound. “What I mean—”

“Is that you were wondering if I’d found the gunman?” he offered, and she nodded.

“Yes. And if you were okay. Apparently, you are.”

“I am, but the gunman is still on the loose. We’ve got a couple of K-9 teams trying to track him. Hopefully, we’ll have him in custody soon. You said he was wearing some sort of mask?”

“It seemed like it. I only got a glimpse as he was coming out of my room.”

“Were you heading there when you noticed him?”

“I was on my way back from the Xerox machine. I’d heard a door slamming shut, and I thought it was you.” She spoke quickly, filling him in on the details and doing everything in her power to not allow emotion to seep into her voice. Breaking down in front of people wasn’t something she liked to do. Even when Mitch had screamed at her, telling her that the baby she was carrying would ruin his life, she hadn’t cried.

She finished and Tristan nodded. “Matches with what I saw. There’s a bullet slug in the corner of the wall and one through the door into the room where you were hiding. If you’d been standing in front of the door—”

“I made sure that I wasn’t.” She cut him off. She didn’t want to speculate, she didn’t want to imagine. She’d been spared. Her baby had been spared.

God looking out for them?

She wanted to believe that.

She’d been trying hard to believe that everything that had happened—all the difficulty and trouble—would turn out for the good. There were days, though, when she questioned His goodness, wondered if He’d decided to turn His face away from her.

“Smart thinking, Ariel. It saved your life.” His gaze dropped to her stomach, to the baby bump that pulled her silky summer top taut over her abdomen. “And your baby’s. I guess you decided against the ambulance ride?”

“I’ll get stitches at the clinic.” Maybe. Or maybe she’d use a couple of butterfly bandages and hope for the best. The last thing she wanted was to walk out of the local medical clinic alone after dark, and there was no way she was going to ask Principal Moore to go with her. Not when the gunman was still on the loose. What if he came after Ariel again? What if someone else was in the line of fire?

The thought made her stomach churn.

“You’re new to town,” Tristan said, the comment taking her by surprise.

“I’ve been here for a few months, and I lived here when I was a kid,” she corrected, not quite sure where he was going with the conversation.

“You were in Las Vegas prior to your move?”

“Yes.”

“And your husband—”

“He was my ex, and he died a few weeks before I accepted the job offer here.”

His expression softened, as if he realized there was a lot more to her story than anyone in town knew. “Had you been divorced long?”

“I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”

“Most violent crimes aren’t committed by strangers. Most involve people who know each other. Is there a new relationship? A boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend? Someone who might be holding grudge?”

“Do I look like I have time for another relationship?” she asked with a laugh that she knew sounded bitter and hard.

She swallowed down the emotion, tried again. “There’s no one else. My ex-husband died three weeks after our divorce was finalized.”

“Can I ask the cause of death?”

“A car accident. He drove off a hillside and crashed into a tree. The car burst into flames on impact.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. He wasn’t a very nice guy, but no one deserves that.”

He studied her for a moment, his eyes such a dark brown the irises were nearly invisible. They reminded her of Mia’s, the lashes black and thick. Mia, though, always looked sullen. Tristan looked concerned.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and she tensed, not comfortable with the pity she saw in his eyes.

She didn’t need anyone to feel sorry for her. She just needed to move on with her life, make a safe home for her baby and create something out of the nothing she’d been left with when Mitch had told her they were done.

“Like I said, so am I, but there’s nothing I can do to change it. All I can do is make a good life for our child.” My child was what she’d wanted to say, but Mitch would always be part of their little girl’s life, the shadowy parent who existed as nothing more than a name, a photograph, a hole in the heart.

“It’s still tough, Ariel. There isn’t a woman on the planet who doesn’t deserve better than what you got. It’s getting late, and you need to get those stitches. How about I follow you over to the clinic? Jesse and I can escort you in and then follow you home when you’re done.” He touched his dog’s head, and the yellow lab seemed to smile, its tongue lolling out.

“I—”

“You know it’s the safest thing, right? Until we find out who this guy is and why he took a shot at you, you need to be cautious.”

She knew. She didn’t like it, but she knew.

“All right,” she conceded. “But I’d rather just go home. A couple of butterfly bandages will take care of this.”

* * *

Tristan didn’t agree with the butterfly bandage idea, but he wasn’t going to argue. Ariel knew what she wanted and after being married to a not very nice guy, she probably didn’t need anyone telling her what decisions to make.

“That’s fine. I’ll walk you into the school. You can get your things and then we’ll head out.”

“You aren’t needed here?” she asked as they headed across the parking lot.

“I was off duty when I arrived. The chief assigned the case to someone else.”

“It’s probably for the best,” she said, brushing a few strands of hair from her cheek, the bandage on her hand crisp white in the fading light.

“Why do you say that?” He led her through the front door and into a wide lobby. Posters hung from walls, announcing clubs that would be meeting again in the fall.

“Mia,” she responded. That was it. No other explanation.

“You think I should be spending more time with her?” He tried to keep defensiveness out of his voice, but he was feeling it just the way he did every time some well-meaning neighbor or church lady or school counselor pointed out that Mia needed more attention and time than what he was able to provide.

“I have no idea how much time you spend with her. I just know it can’t be easy raising a teenager. Especially one who’s been through a really difficult loss.”

She was right about that.

He’d been an only child until he was seventeen, and he knew nothing about kids or teenage girls. He was learning, but it was a slow process. One that Mia didn’t seem to have much patience for. “Mia has been through a lot. The last couple of years have been hard on both of us.”

“I know, and I have a lot of sympathy for both of you, but hard times aren’t an excuse for poor work.” She stopped short and looked straight into his eyes. He was struck by that—by the directness of her gaze, the unapologetic way she pointed out the truth.

“I’ve told her that a dozen times.”

“Probably a dozen too many. Kids like Mia need structure. They need consequences, too.”

“I hope you’re not talking about me letting her fail, because I’m not willing to do that.”

“If she doesn’t improve her grade in my class, she’s going to fail, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it.” She sighed and started walking again. “I was thinking more along the lines of grounding her until her grades come up.”

“I’ve done that. I’ve also made her come to work with me on her days off, so that I can make sure she’s not goofing off. None of it seems to matter. She still turns in shoddy assignments.”

“When she turns them in at all,” Ariel added, and he couldn’t argue the point. Mia had received zeros on her last three assignments.

“I’ve been thinking about hiring a tutor to work with her. She hates the idea.” It was the only option they hadn’t explored. He could hire someone, see if that person could help nudge Mia into focusing on school again. “She’s a smart kid. Before my parents died, she was in the gifted program.”

“I know. I saw her records. Her standardized test scores are high, too.” She stopped at the yellow police tape that blocked off one corridor of the school. “Tutoring will help, but she needs to know that people are invested in her life.”

“She’s got plenty of people invested. She just isn’t appreciative of the fact,” he muttered.

“Fourteen-year-olds seldom are.” She smiled, but her gaze was focused on the hallway beyond the tape. “I guess I should get my things,” she said quietly.

“I can get them for you,” he offered. “If you’d rather not go back to the classroom.”

“I’ll have to go back Monday, so I may as well face it now.” She lifted the police tape and shimmied under it, her advanced pregnancy not seeming to hinder her movements.

Up ahead, rookie K-9 officer James Harrison and his bloodhound, Hawk, crisscrossed the hallway, moving from side to side and back again.

“We’re moving through,” Tristan said, and James gave a brief nod, his focus on a wadded-up piece of paper that lay on the glossy tile.

“Anything interesting?” Tristan asked, and James finally looked up.

“I’m not sure. Hawk alerted here, so I’m going to process it like it is. It could have just been left behind by a kid and kicked by the gunman when he ran through.” He shrugged, his gaze shifting to Ariel. “We’ll figure it out though, and get this guy behind bars as quickly as possible.”

He was trying to reassure her, but Ariel didn’t look convinced. She looked tense, her arms crossed protectively over her stomach, her bandaged hand resting on the swell of her abdomen.

“I appreciate that,” she said. “I’ll feel a lot safer when he’s in custody.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?” James asked, opening up an evidence collection kit. He took a quick photo of the paper, then put on gloves and lifted it.

“No, but I don’t think he’s anyone I know.”

“You didn’t see his face?” James carefully opened the sheet, studying words that were scrawled across it.

“No. He was wearing a mask of some sort. I already explained everything to Officer McKeller.”

“I know it’s frustrating, but you’ll probably be explaining things to a lot of people, Ms. Martin,” James responded. “Unfortunately, that’s the way these cases usually work. Lots of questions asked over and over again. Did the chief give you permission to leave the scene?”

“She’s been cleared to go,” Tristan responded. “I’m going to escort her and make sure she arrives home safely. At this point, that’s my top priority.”

She tensed at his words, but she didn’t protest them.

“Good,” James said. “If the guy was planning this, if he found out information to help him achieve his goal, there’s no guarantee he won’t go after her somewhere else.” He held up the paper, so that Tristan could read the handwritten words.

Desert Valley High School

Room 119

Ariel Martin

They were scrawled in black ink, every i dotted with a circle. The A underlined.

Ariel took a step back, her gaze focused on the paper, her face leeched of color. Freckles dotted her nose and her cheeks, giving the impression of youth, but there was maturity in her eyes—a deep knowledge of what it meant to struggle, to suffer and to survive.

She’d been through a lot. Now she was going through more. That bothered him. It made him want to do everything in his power to keep her safe.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Yes. I...” She pressed her lips together, sealing in whatever she’d planned to say. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”

“There are a lot worse things that people can be,” he responded, and she smiled, a dimple flashing in her right cheek. She had a pretty smile, a soft one.

“True. The thing about the letter...the writing looks really familiar.”

“A student?” James suggested.

“No. My ex-husband.”

“Did you part on good terms?” James asked. “Is it possible—?”

“He’s dead.” Tristan cut in. There was no sense walking down that road. A dead man didn’t write notes. He didn’t carry a gun. He didn’t stalk his ex.

“That blows a hole in my theory, then,” James responded, carefully placing the note in an evidence bag.

“What about the writing made you think of your ex?” Tristan asked Ariel.