Debby Giusti - The Colonel's Daughter

Mrs. Logan eyed the house completely devoid of light. “Yolanda must have lost power in the storm.” Thunder rumbled overhead, and fat raindrops pummeled the car.

“I’ll get the casserole, Mother. You make a run for the door.” Michele grabbed the ceramic dish from the backseat and raced behind her mother to the covered porch.

Roberta tapped twice with the brass knocker. When no one answered, she glanced questioningly at Michele and then pushed the door open.

“Yolanda, it’s Roberta and Michele. We’re early, but we wanted to help before the others arrive.” Roberta stepped inside and motioned Michele to follow. A bolt of lightning sizzled across the sky. A second later, thunder shook the house.

An earthy smell wafted past Michele. She closed the door and looked left into the dining area. Flames from two large candles flickered over the linen tablecloth, highlighting the plates and silverware stacked on the sideboard.

“Yolanda, where are you?” Roberta walked toward the kitchen, her heels clipping over the hardwood floor.

Michele placed the casserole on the dining table before she returned to the foyer. At the opposite end of the hallway, her mother stopped short, hands on her hips.

“Yolanda?”

Roberta’s raised voice and insistent call twisted more than a ripple of concern along Michele’s spine. A sense of foreboding flooded over her as intense as any she had felt for her father in the twelve months of his deployment. With the silent quarters closing in around her, she was now equally worried about Yolanda.

A floorboard creaked in the living room. Michele turned toward the sound. The settling house, the wind howling down the chimney...or was someone there?

She crossed the hallway, drawn by a need to discover not only the source of the noise but also the mineral smell that increased in intensity the closer she got to the living room. Her neck tingled, but she ignored the warning and stepped toward the oversized couch and love seat that filled the center of the living area.

A small table and chair sat nestled in an alcove behind the love seat. Michele tried to make out the dark outline on the pale carpet.

“Yolanda?” From the kitchen, Roberta called one more time. Her voice was filled with question and a tremble that signified she, too, sensed something was wrong.

Michele’s pulse quickened as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Newspapers lay scattered around an overturned lamp.

Her stomach tightened.

A roar filled her ears. She stepped around the couch and saw the woman lying in a pool of blood.

“No!” Michele’s hand flew to her throat in the exact spot where Yolanda’s neck had been cut.

A rustle sounded behind her. Before she could turn, a violent force lunged into her. She crashed against the back of the couch. Her ribs took the blow. Pain exploded along her side and mixed with air that whooshed from her lungs. She gasped, and for an instant saw only darkness.

Retreating footsteps sounded in the hallway.

Her mother screamed.

Michele fisted her hands and willed herself to remain conscious. A door slammed shut in the rear of the house.

Still gasping for air, she struggled to her feet and stumbled out of the living area, her only thought to find her mother and make sure she was alive.

Lightning turned the darkness bright for one terrifying second. Roberta lay slumped against the wall.

Dropping to her knees, Michele touched her mother’s shoulder. “Mama?”

Roberta moaned. Her eyes blinked open.

Relief rushed over Michele along with a wave of nausea. She hung her head to stave off the passing sickness and dug in her pocket for her cell phone.

A face flashed through her mind. Without weighing the consequences, she punched Speed Dial for a number she should have deleted ten months ago.

He answered on the second ring.

“Criminal Investigation Division, Fort Rickman, Georgia. This is Special Agent Jamison Steele.”

The memory of his warm embrace and tender kisses washed over her. For one sweet, illogical second, she felt safe.

“Hello?” He waited for a response.

“Jamison—”

A sharp intake of air. “Michele?”

“I need help.” Rubbing her free hand over her forehead, she tried to focus. “I’m at Quarters 122. In the Buckner Housing Area. Contact the military police.”

“What happened?”

“One of the wives... Her husband’s in Afghanistan. He’s in my father’s brigade. She was hosting a potluck for the brigade wives. Someone broke in—”

Jamison issued a series of commands to a person in his office. “I’m on the way, Michele. The military police are being notified. I’ll be there in three minutes. Are you hurt?”

“I...I’m okay. It’s Yolanda Hughes.”

Michele swallowed down the lump that filled her throat. “Yolanda’s dead.”

* * *

Heart in his throat, Jamison pulled to the curb and hit the ground running, weapon in one hand, Maglite in the other.

Stay calm. Ignoring the internal advice, his gut tightened when he stepped into the house and spied Michele on the floor with her arm around her mother.

For an instant, he was once again the man who loved Michele more than anything. Swallowing hard, Jamison shoved aside any lingering hope for a future together, a future that had died when she walked out of his life.

Raw fear flashed from her blue eyes and cut through his resolve to remain neutral. Ten months ago, her smile had lit up his world. Today Michele’s face was as pale as death and furrowed with pain.

Head buried in her daughter’s shoulder, Mrs. Logan cried softly. Michele nudged her gently. “Jamison’s here, Mama.”

The older woman glanced up, her eyes red and swollen. “Oh, Jamison. Yolanda... A man raced past me and out the back door. I...I tried to stop him.”

“Did he hurt you?” His gaze fell on Michele. Tousled brown hair hung around her oval face.

“We’re both a little bruised. Nothing serious. But Yolanda—” Unable to continue, Michele raised a trembling hand and pointed to the living area.

“Stay where you are,” he cautioned, struggling to remain objective. “The ambulance is on its way.”

A rank, coppery smell greeted Jamison as he entered the living room. He aimed his light over the blood that had soaked into the thick carpet, blackening the fibers.

His gut twisted at the tragic sight.

The victim was an African-American female. Probably mid- to late-thirties. Shoulder-length brown hair. Dark eyes wide open. The look of terror etched on her face.

A deep laceration had severed her carotid artery. Massive blood loss pooled under her upper torso.

Kneeling beside the woman, he felt for a pulse, yet knew full well life had been heinously snatched from Yolanda Hughes. Her wrist was supple and still warm. No rigor mortis. Not yet.

He tried the light switch, then played the Maglite over the living room. His gaze settled ever so briefly on the family photograph above the mantel. The deceased was smiling warmly, her hands on the shoulders of a man in uniform. Major’s rank on his epaulets. Two children. A boy and girl.

The dread of finding the children dead roared through Jamison. He strode back to the hallway. “Mrs. Hughes had kids?”

Michele held up her hand, palm out. “They’re at the Graysons’. Lieutenant Colonel Grayson is my father’s executive officer. The two families are close. The Grayson kids invited Benjamin and Natalie to stay with them tonight.”

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Jamison moved quickly into the kitchen and edged open the back door. He stepped outside and studied the darkness, knowing the killer was long gone.

Retracing his steps, Jamison headed toward the flickering candlelight and checked the dining area before he scurried up the stairs to the second floor. Sirens screamed in the distance.