Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

He’d make it look good for the camera, but he’d show mercy. He’d do something to the kid so he wouldn’t feel too much pain. And he’d kill him quickly.

After all, he wasn’t a monster.

Dean liked Stacey’s father. The older man was only in his early sixties, with a youthful face and attitude. But the swelling of his joints and his slow movements told the entire story of his early retirement.

He’d been a lawman for many years, though-a deputy for his own father, then sheriff-and still thought like one. So not only did he immediately offer to watch every inch of footage from the mall surveillance cameras; he also proved able to help in another way.

Like any really good cop, the man had kept journals throughout his years in office. He still had them. “I can’t promise anything,” he told both Dean and Stacey as they set up her laptop on his kitchen table. “But I’ll dig them out and glance through them, see if I noted any cases of animal abuse. Just because I can’t remember it off the top of my head doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” He shook his head sadly and told Dean, “I recently lost my dog, you know. I can’t imagine somebody hurting a defenseless animal on purpose.”

Dean kept his mouth shut, understanding Stacey’s reason for keeping the truth to herself. For her sake, and for Mr. Rhodes’s, he hoped she never had to tell him.

Something else they didn’t tell him: that a child’s life was in danger. Neither of them wanted to add to the pressure. Though Mr. Rhodes was smart and capable, his daughter appeared to want to shield him, as if she’d assumed the role of protective parent because of his physical ailments.

The man’s slight smile, and the occasional roll of his eyes, said he knew it. And that he put up with it.

Stacey might think she was fooling everyone with her hard shell and swagger. But there was a nurturing, loving woman inside her. He’d felt it. He’d seen it.

He also knew why she tried to hide it.

It wasn’t just her job, a woman as sheriff. Stacey’s attitude was another means of self-protection, of getting over the emotional meltdown he suspected she’d experienced after Virginia Tech. She hadn’t talked about it; she hadn’t needed to. He’d watched the news coverage, seen the photographs, read the stories. The VSP hadn’t been first responders, but they’d been on campus within hours of the attack.

She’d seen things that would haunt any sane person. And now, thanks to this Reaper case, she’d seen even more.

The campus shooting had prompted her decision to come back here. Her need to keep anyone from getting too close, her lone-wolf lifestyle, her refusal to think about having kids someday, all related to the way she boxed up her emotions and hid them away. That she’d finally begun to let them out with the crying jag in his arms Saturday night hinted she might be ready to deal with them.

He just wondered if she’d let him stick around long enough to be there when she let it all go and decided to move on with her life.

He hoped so. It was crazy to feel this way after only a week. But, God, he hoped so. Because he had the feeling that, with her, he could move on with his own, too.

“You really think I’ll see somebody from Hope Valley on here?” Mr. Rhodes asked. Sitting at the table, he watched Stacey open the video file and cue it forward to the point where they’d left off.

“I don’t know, sir. There’s a chance.”

“This is shopping mall footage,” he said, nodding at the screen. His voice lowering, he asked, “Is this related to that little Maryland girl whose body they found in the woods Monday?”

Stacey had told him the bare bones, but she obviously hadn’t told her father everything. Just as she’d promised.

Dean nodded once.

The older man shook his head in visible disgust. “I’ll prop my eyes open with toothpicks if I have to. I promise I won’t miss a face.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Stacey said, bending to kiss his cheek. “Normally I’d say to take it slow and easy and don’t overdo it. But today…”

He patted her hand. “I’ll overdo it as carefully as I can.”

Thanking him as well, Dean said good-bye to the other man and walked out of the house, standing on the front porch. Stacey came out a moment later.

“So this is where you grew up, huh?” he asked, staring across the rolling green lawn. The huge trees, a pond at the base of a nearby hill, and the old red barn in the distance gave the whole place the feeling of an Americana painting.

Maybe it suited her father. Maybe it had once suited her. But not anymore.

“Yes. My grandparents built it.” She walked down the stairs, tugging her keys out of her pocket. “I couldn’t wait to live anywhere else when I was a kid.”

“It’s rustic,” he said as they got into her squad car.

“That it is.”

“You’re not.”

She had just put the key into the ignition, but paused and glanced over at him. “What?”

“This isn’t you. You might have stepped right back into the lifestyle when you came back here, but here’s not where you belong.”

Her jaw flexed and she jerked her head forward. She pushed the ignition key a little too hard, grinding the engine, then thrust into reverse and backed up. “What do you know about where I belong?” she asked as she pulled out of the long driveway.

He didn’t answer, instead countering with a question of his own. “Are you telling me that when this is all over you’ll be perfectly happy going back to writing speeding tickets and reassuring old ladies who hear raccoons in their garbage cans at night?”

Her lips quirked the tiniest bit. But she was too stubborn to admit he was right. Not yet, at least. She was intuitive and bright, but never accepted anything at face value. She looked at every side of things before conceding a point. Which was, honestly, an asset in their profession.

He said nothing more. He didn’t need to. She’d look at all sides and concede the point. Sooner or later.

Or else kick his ass to the curb for trying to force her to do so before she was ready.

Another voice interrupted the silence in the car. “All units.”

She glanced at him, then grabbed her radio handset, fumbling it a little, as if unused to getting calls. Judging by what he’d seen of the town, he understood why.

“I’m here, Connie; come back.”

“We’ve got reports of shots fired, Sheriff. Repeat, shots fired.”

Any hint of a smile left her mouth, and the color drained out of her face as if someone had pulled a plug on it. Shots fired . Damn. He could only imagine when she had last heard that call.

“The address?” Stacey barked, immediately alert and ready. No more hesitating, no more fumbling; she was all business.

The dispatcher gave her the information. The street name sounded a little familiar, though he couldn’t immediately say why.

Stacey, however, obviously knew it. Her mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Then she floored it.

Since they’d been at her father’s place, a couple of miles outside of town, they weren’t the first to arrive. She spotted two other squad cars in the driveway, lights still flashing. From up the street came the sound of another siren: the volunteer ambulance crew. Per the last radio call, there was at least one known casualty.

Leaping out of the car immediately after she swung onto the lawn, she didn’t even pause to shut the door. Nor did she wait for Dean, who came on her heels. Her fingers unsnapped her holster as she ran, her Glock in her hand as she darted toward the porch, her eyes shifting as she tried to spot her men.

No one was outside. The front door stood open.All was deadly silent, the late afternoon saturated in tension.