Hope White - Hidden in Shadows

“You’d better ice your cheek or you’re gonna look like Rocky Balboa after ten rounds in the ring.” Lowering his hands, he started for the house.

She reached for the fire extinguisher.

“I’m on your side, remember?” he said.

“Then fix my lights.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s no light in my house. I went to the garage to check the fuse box and that guy jumped me, I mean jumped over me.” She shook her head in confusion.

“Go on inside and I’ll check the fuse box.”

“It’s dark inside.”

“Okay, then wait on the porch. The cops should be pulling up any second now.”

She hugged her midsection with one hand and clutched a charm at the base of her neck with the other. Although she acted strong, she looked broken and terrified.

And way too fragile.

Luke went into the garage, pulled out his pen flashlight and inspected the fuse box. As he expected, all switches were in the Off position. Luke snapped them on and light beamed from the house onto the back porch.

“Want me to close the garage door?” he called.

No answer.

Luke peered out from the garage. The woman was gone. What the heck? Did the guy come back? Send an accomplice? He started for the house.

“Police! Freeze!” a female shouted from behind him.

Luke raised his hands. “I’m a federal officer.”

“Yeah and I’m Judge Judy. Get down on the ground.”

“If you’d let me turn around—”

“Do it!” The woman sounded too young and green to be holding a firearm.

The guys in Luke’s division would have a field day if the pip-squeak cop shot him in the back due to lack of experience.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Luke dropped to his knees, interlacing his hands behind his head.

“All the way down!”

He hesitated, bitter memories tearing through his chest. Being forced down…

Held there while his partner, Karl, fought for his life.

“I said get down!” she ordered.

“Deanna, what are you doing?” the Yates woman said, coming out of the house.

“Stay in the house, Krista,” the cop ordered.

“No, he’s a good guy.”

Good? Hardly.

Krista walked up to Luke, removed his shield and flashed it at the cop.

He doubted the rookie could see past her adrenaline rush.

Luke heard another car pull up.

“How do you know that’s real?” the female cop said.

“It’s real,” a man offered.

Luke recognized Chief Cunningham’s voice. Luke had spent a good hour with him earlier tonight going over the case.

“Lower your weapon, Officer West,” the chief said.

From the concerned look on Krista’s face, Luke sensed the female cop didn’t follow the order. This was probably the most action she’d seen in her entire year on the force. If she’d even been on the force a year.

“West!” the chief threatened.

Krista sighed with relief and touched Luke’s shoulder. “You need help getting up?”

Right, he still hadn’t moved, paralyzed by the dark memories that he couldn’t bury deep enough. Guilt had a way of rising to the surface to mess with your head at the worst possible moments.

Krista gripped his arm to help him stand. As if he needed help from this fragile thing.

Fragile. Innocent. Dangerous.

“I’m fine.” Luke stood and turned to the cop. She looked barely twenty.

“Sorry about that,” the chief offered.

“No problem,” Luke said.

“Yes problem,” Krista countered.

They all looked at her.

“Anastasia is missing.” With a shake of her head, she went into the house.

Luke glanced at the chief. “Who’s Anastasia?”

“Her cat,” Officer West said.

Luke glanced at the house. Krista had nearly been taken out by a member of Garcia’s gang and all she could think about was a silly cat?

“Officer West, continue your patrol and don’t tell anyone about Agent McIntyre’s presence in town,” Chief Cunningham said. “I’ll handle things here.”

“The guy who jumped Miss Yates was driving a dark green minivan,” Luke said.

“Okay, thanks.” Officer West walked to her cruiser.

“These are not teenage pranksters, West. Radio in if you spot the van. That’s an order,” the chief said. “Yes, sir.”

The chief turned to Luke. “Ready?”

“For what?”

The chief started for the house. “I have a feeling Krista isn’t going to be in a talking mood until we find her cat.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Welcome to Wentworth, son.” Chief Cunningham climbed the steps and disappeared into the house.

“Fantastic,” Luke muttered.

He was allergic to cats, and even more allergic to small towns. He grew up in one and hightailed it out of there before he hit his seventeenth birthday. There was too much gossip in a small town, too much imagined drama.

He climbed the steps and glanced across the yard. Imagined? Most of the time. In Krista Yates’s case he was pretty sure she’d brought it home with her from Mexico, probably in her luggage, or in something she saw or said.

He shook his head. She was a talker, for sure, but he couldn’t imagine the sweet-faced blonde saying anything offensive or rude. This wasn’t about manners, it was about one of Mexico’s biggest drug cartels moving product into the country via innocents.

The Yates woman defined innocent.

Luke stepped into the house and found the chief and Krista in the living room. “So the house was like this when you got home?” the chief said, eyeing the mess.

“I thought it was the cat.”

“You thought the cat tipped over your end table?” Luke asked.

“She’s a really big cat and she’s rather upset with me right now.”

“The sooner we can get a description of the man you saw in the garage, the more accurate it will be,” the chief said.

“You don’t think he killed her, do you?” Krista asked, her eyes rounding with fear. Wide, green, helpless eyes.

“Now, why would he kill your cat, Krista?” the chief said.

Krista narrowed her eyes. “You, of all people, should not be asking me that. Gladys still has scars from the quilting open house.”

“Point taken.”

“Anastasia? Here, kitty, kitty.” She glanced at Luke. “Get the Whiskas. On top of the microwave.” She disappeared upstairs.

Luke glanced at the chief.

“The sooner we find the cat…” the chief said with a shrug.

Luke found the bag of cat treats in the kitchen. As he grabbed them, his gaze caught on a photograph on the windowsill of a teenage Krista, and he guessed her mom, and perhaps grandmother. They looked like a team, arms around each other, ready to take on the world.

They were a loving family. He’d always wondered what that looked like.

It’s not like he hung out with the guys at work and their families. He’d had a few invitations, but he knew he didn’t belong and would make everyone feel awkward.

He never seemed to belong.

And that was fine by him.

“I got the cat treats!” he called out, more than a bit irritated with this diversion from their course of finding her attacker.

The chief was on the phone, and Luke started up the stairs. Krista met him halfway.

“No shouting,” she whispered.

“I was shouting?”

“You shake and I’ll grab.”

“Excuse me?”

“The cat. You go ahead of me and shake the bag and I’ll grab her when she comes out.”

“Ma’am, we really need to talk about—”

“Shake and grab.”

If the guys found out about this, he’d be more of a laughing stock than if he’d been shot by Rookie West.

She motioned for him to slip around her. The staircase was narrow and he couldn’t help but brush up against her as he passed. She smelled fresh, like flowers, even after a twelve-plus-hour flight. How was that possible?

Shaking the bag, he started down the hallway, glancing into a bedroom. Neat and tidy, the four-poster bed was covered with a down comforter and the curtains looked handmade.

“Kitty, kitty. I love you, kitty,” she crooned.

He kept shaking, ignoring the generous use of a word he’d rarely heard growing up. What the heck was wrong with him tonight?

Lack of sleep. He’d gone too long on five hours a night. It was bound to catch up to him.

“Wait.” She touched his arm.

Warmth seeped through his leather jacket as he eyed her petite fingers.

She pointed to the next bedroom and released him, tiptoeing ahead. He glanced at his arm, struggling to remember the last time he’d felt any gentle, nonthreatening human contact.

Yeah, man, you do need sleep.

After he nailed Garcia and his production line. After the murderer was in jail. After…

What? There’d always be another Garcia.

Luke’s job would never be over and he’d never be satisfied.

Krista crooked her finger and he followed her into the bedroom. This one had to be hers. A canopy bed centered the room, draped in light purple and pink material. A Bible lay on her nightstand and a tray of antique perfume bottles lined her dresser.

Luke glanced away.

Krista pressed her fingers to her lips and kneeled down pointing beneath the bed. He motioned to the bag of treats and she nodded for him to shake. He shook. They waited. No cat.

“Oh, boy. She’s gotta be under here.” Krista shimmied beneath the bed.

He felt something brush against his pants and glanced down to see a black-and-white cat doing a figure eight around his legs.

“Miss Yates?” he said.

“Yeah?” her muffled voice answered.

“Is this the cat you’re looking for?”

She wiggled back out and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Anastasia?” With a confused frown she glanced up at Luke. “She hates people.”

“I’m not people. I’m a federal officer, remember?” He smiled, hoping she’d be able to shift gears quickly and give them the intruder’s description before too many other things clouded her memory.

“Wow.” She looked up at him with awe. Respect.

He didn’t deserve it.

“Not a big deal.” He passed her the treat bag and she opened it.

The cat pounced on Krista. “Okay, okay,” she laughed, a sweet, carefree sound.

“About your statement…” he said.

The cat purred and rubbed against Krista’s knee as she put a treat on the hardwood floor.

“Ready?” he said.

“Sure.” She stood and Luke automatically reached out to steady her. He withdrew his hand, afraid his touch might damage her somehow.

He turned to leave the room.

“Wait a second, can you hold this?” She handed him the treat bag.

She put her hands together and stood at her dresser. “Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to help such wonderful children in Mexico, for seeing me home safely, for my friends, for Anastasia and for Agent Luke for being my hero tonight. Amen.”

He wanted to correct her, tell her he was no one’s hero, not by any stretch of the imagination.

“Okay, let’s get this over with,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”

She took a step toward the door, wearing that pleasant smile.

The crack of a gunshot echoed through the window.

Luke grabbed her and hit the floor.

Here she was, knocked on the ground again. Not exactly how she pictured her first night home. She’d hoped to get into a bubble bath to wash the plane scum from her skin, sip a cup of chamomile tea and crawl beneath her down comforter.

Instead, someone was shooting at her.

“Stay here.” Agent McIntyre stood and pressed his back against the wall.

“But the cat—”