Lenora Worth - Capitol K-9 Unit Christmas - Protecting Virginia

The comment brought back the memory he’d been searching for. Captain Gavin McCord’s wedding. His bride and her entourage of foster kids, the quiet woman who’d been with them. He hadn’t paid all that much attention to her. She’d been pretty enough, her hair swept into some elaborate style, her dress understated, her shoes sturdy. Nothing showy about her. They might have been introduced. He couldn’t remember. He’d been too busy thinking about getting food from the buffet.

“You’re Cassie’s friend,” he said, pulling Samson’s lead from his pocket and attaching it to the shepherd’s collar.

“Yes. Virginia Johnson. Cassie and I work together at All Our Kids.” She glanced at the hedge again, tucking another stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her nervous energy made him antsy. He didn’t much like sitting idle when he could be doing something, and right at that moment, he and Samson could be searching for whomever she’d seen.

“Tell you what, Virginia,” he said. “Go ahead and call the police while I look around. If there’s someone in the house, we’re giving him way too much time to get away.”

“I hope he does get away,” she muttered.

“You want him coming back?” he asked, and she flinched.

“No, but I don’t want you killed, either, Officer—”

“John Forrester. Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m not waiting out here by myself,” she said, moving in behind him as he made his way to the shrubs.

“Then wait at my place.” He shoved the keys into her hands, pointing her toward the external staircase that led to his second-floor garage apartment.

“But—”

“Find!” he said, commanding Samson to move forward.

The Shepherd took off, lunging through the shrubs and out into a pristine yard, nose to the ground, body relaxed. He was trained in apprehension and protection. He knew how to track a suspect, corner him and disarm him if necessary.

He was also good at sensing danger, at knowing when someone was around who didn’t belong. Right now, he was focused on a scent trail. Probably Virginia’s.

John followed as Samson beelined across the lawn and headed straight toward the large Victorian. The Shepherd bounded up the porch stairs, and stopped at a door. Cracked open, a little wedge of light visible beyond, it looked as if it opened into a kitchen.

“Hold!” he commanded and Samson settled onto his haunches, eyes trained on the door.

John nudged it open, peering into an empty kitchen.

“Find,” he commanded, and Samson trotted into the room.

The house lay silent, the air thick with something that made the hair on the back of John’s neck stand on end. He’d been in enough dangerous situations to know when he was walking into trouble. He could feel it like a cold breeze brushing against his skin.

Samson sensed it, too. His scruff bristled, his body language changing. No longer relaxed, he sniffed the air and moved toward a doorway to their left. Beyond it, a staircase wound its way to the second floor.

Samson charged up, his well-muscled body moving silently. John moved with him. In sync with the Shepherd’s loping gait, muscles tense, every nerve alert, he jogged onto the second-floor landing and into a wide hallway. Seven doors. All closed. Another staircase that led downstairs.

Samson growled, the deep low warning seeming to echo through the hallway.

“Police!” John shouted. “Come on out or I’ll send my dog to find you.”

There was a flurry of movement below. Fabric rustling, footsteps pounding.

Samson barked, yanking at the lead, tugging John into a full-out run.

A door creaked open as they raced downstairs and into a large foyer.

The front door?

Samson veered away from it, pulling John through the foyer into an old-fashioned parlor.

Cold air filled the room, swirling in from an open door that emptied onto a wraparound porch.

“Find!” John commanded, and Samson raced through the open doorway and out into the crisp winter day, his well-muscled body tense with anticipation.

Someone had been in the house. There was no doubt about that. What he was doing there was something John had every intention of finding out.

He ran down porch steps, Samson bounding in front of him. No hesitation. The dog had the scent, and he’d follow it until they found their quarry. Once he did, the guy was going to be very sorry he’d picked that house.

TWO

Virginia didn’t know what to do.

That was going to be a problem, because standing in the middle of some guy’s yard, waiting while he searched her house for a dead man? That was nuts.

Yet that was exactly what Virginia was doing.

She’d called the police.

She knew they were on the way.

She could have gone inside the garage apartment like Officer Forrester had suggested, but she was frozen with fear, so afraid that she’d move the wrong way, head the wrong direction, make the wrong choice, that she wasn’t doing anything at all.

“Snap out of it,” she muttered, and the words seemed to break terror’s hold.

She could breathe again, think again.

And what she was thinking was that she needed to meet the police and explain what she’d seen. Crazy as it might sound to them, Kevin had been in that house. Or someone who’d looked an awful lot like him, because there was no way the man could have actually been her husband. She’d seen Kevin’s gravesite. She’d read the inscription that his grandmother had had carved on the marble stone: Beloved son. Beloved husband. Virginia had wanted to scratch those words out, just leave his birth and death dates.

Of course, she hadn’t.

She’d always played by the rules, done what she was supposed to, tried to be the best that she could be. That included being a survivor. So, she’d done what the therapist had suggested—gone to the gravesite, read the police report, the coroner’s report, the reports from the doctor who’d pronounced Kevin dead. She’d tried to heal, because that was what everyone had expected, and it was what she wanted to do.

Eight years later, she didn’t know if she could heal from what she’d been through. The wounds had scarred over, but they weren’t gone. They still throbbed and pulsed and ached every time something reminded her of Kevin.

Kevin, who apparently had a doppelgänger, one who knew who Virginia was and knew that Kevin had called her Ginny.

She shuddered.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. Officer Forrester’s K-9 partner?

Maybe, and maybe they’d found the guy who’d been in the house. She knew enough about the Capitol K-9 Unit to know that every member was handpicked to do the job. They were all well trained, driven, hardworking. She’d seen that firsthand when one of the foster children she and Cassie were caring for had been in danger. The Capitol K-9 team had stepped in, protecting Cassie, Virginia and the kids.

Virginia had been more than happy to let them do it; but, then, she’d spent most of the past few years letting other people call the shots. It was so much easier to do that than to risk making a mistake, doing something that would get her into the kind of trouble she’d found herself in with Kevin.

She needed to change that. She knew it. She’d known it for a long time. Accepting the inheritance from Laurel was part of that. Taking control of her life, being less afraid and more courageous—that was the other part.

Sirens were screaming, and she knew the police were close. She could keep standing where she was or she could head back to the house and wait for them to arrive. A few weeks ago, she would have stayed put, but she had plans. Big ones. She wanted to open her own foster home, take the money she’d inherited and put it to good use. She really felt as if that was what God wanted her to do, but there was no way she could until she started taking control again, started regaining what she’d lost eight years ago.