by Leann Harris
“He’s a cop,” Lilly whispered back.
Zoe paused. “Good. Then maybe you should check out the creep in the car parked across from the house. He glared at me when I stopped in front of your house.”
Jon rushed to the front door and disappeared outside. Lilly heard the squeal of tires.
Racing outside, she saw Jon on his cell phone.
“Yeah. I got the plate. It’s a black Jeep Cherokee,” he shouted into the mouthpiece. He rattled off the plate number to someone on the phone.
“Well, I say he’s a man of action,” Zoe quipped, watching from the open door.
Lilly turned to her friend. “He was here to make sure I put on the locks.”
“Is this a new service the cops are providing?” Zoe asked.
Sandra Tillman, Lilly’s neighbor, walked out of her house. “I got the license plate number,” she yelled as she waved a piece of paper over her head. Jon moved into the street and took the paper from the older woman, who smiled and nodded.
Jon’s actions and the respect he showed Sandra Tillman amazed Lilly. He came back into the house.
Zoe introduced herself. “I’m Lilly’s friend, Zoe Schneider.”
“I’m glad you brought a drill,” Jon replied, spying the tool.
“I guess we need to fix the slider in Lilly’s bedroom first,” said Zoe.
Jon nodded. “You got it.”
“Lilly also got a couple of dead bolts for both the front and back door.”
Jon and Zoe disappeared down the hall, leaving Lilly to stare after them. They obviously didn’t need her help.
She felt like she was in a nightmare she couldn’t wake from. What was going on here? Why was someone after her? Did it have anything to do with Peter?
“Oh, Lord, what’s going on?”
FIVE
“W hat did you think of Peter Burkstrom?” Jon asked Zoe as she drilled a hole in the header of the sliding glass door.
She paused and looked down over her shoulder at Jon. Perched on the step stool, she looked like a childlike woman with a deadly weapon. “You mean that weasel?”
That told him exactly what Lilly’s friend thought of her ex.
She handed him the drill and motioned for him to pass her the lock. He obliged.
“Screws.” She motioned with her fingers.
He complied, then changed the bit on the drill and gave it back to her. With a burst of power, the drill drove the screws into the door frame. “Pete caused Lilly no end of misery. Any man who’d desert his pregnant wife is worthless.”
“From what I’ve heard, he eventually turned his life around.”
Zoe climbed off the step stool. She slipped her drill into her work apron. “Yeah, he did. But I wouldn’t have bet on him.” She picked up the remaining locks. “Let’s finish the sliders in the living room.” She grabbed the step stool, but he took it from her hand.
“You don’t believe in redemption?” Jon asked as he followed Zoe into the living room.
She paused. “I do. But Pete was a jerk in high school. What Lilly ever saw in him is a mystery to me.” She shook her head. “He left a lot of destruction in his wake. Yeah, he straightened up, but I needed to see lots of proof. Up until his death, he was good to his word.”
“But you weren’t going to bet on his long-term success,” Jon noted.
Zoe looked down. “I’m not proud of my doubts, but I’ve seen more than one person claim to be one thing, then do something completely opposite.”
“He was moving in the right direction, Zoe,” Lilly said, walking into the hall.
Zoe looked her friend in the eye. “You’re probably right, but remember, I saw the struggle you had after he left. I was the one who spent all thirty hours with you in the labor suite and in the delivery room when you had Penny. It was such a beautiful thing. How any man could miss that event is beyond me.”
Lilly enfolded Zoe in her arms. “And I love you for all the support you gave me.”
Jon recalled witnessing the birth of both of his girls. His precious girls. It had been one of the most moving experiences of his life.
He clamped down on the thought. He couldn’t go there. His gaze locked with Lilly’s and he saw understanding and compassion in her eyes. A shared pain so intense that only God could heal it.
The doorbell chimed, breaking the tableau. Zoe walked over to the sliding glass doors in the living room. Lilly hurried to the front door. Opening it, she found Penny standing there.
Penny turned and waved to someone. “Thanks. I had a blast,” she called. Walking into the living room, she took note of the visitors. “Wow. What’s going on?”
“Hey, munchkin.” Zoe grinned. “How are you?”
Penny ran to Zoe and gave her a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“What? I’m not welcome?” Zoe asked in mock horror.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Penny.
Zoe laughed and ruffled Penny’s curls. “I know. I’m here to help install some locks.”
Penny looked at her mother. “Mom?” she said, fear coloring her voice. Her eyes moved to Jon.
Jon stepped forward. “I told your mom that after the break-in at your dad’s apartment, it would be a good idea to install extra locks on your doors and windows. And I stopped by to see if your mom got the locks. I was drafted to help Zoe put them all in.”
Penny’s gaze moved to her mother.
“That’s all it is, sweetie. Just a precaution. After the mess in your dad’s place, I realized how easy it is for someone to break in.” Lilly walked over to her daughter and knelt before her. “That’s all.” She brushed the hair back from Penny’s face.
Penny thought about it, then nodded. “I like that idea. I don’t want anyone to break in our house.”
Jon saw Lilly’s body relax.
Penny went on. “Let me tell you about the swim this afternoon. By the way, I forgot to take my house key today. That’s why I rang the bell.”
Penny’s chatter eased the tension in the room. As Jon worked on the doors in the living room with Zoe, he told himself that hearing Penny’s chatter was a blessing. Even with the sharp pain he felt from the memory of his daughters’ birth, Penny’s sweet voice filled his heart with joy.
“What’s this, Mom?” Penny asked. She picked up one of her father’s high school yearbooks from the box by the back door.
“Your dad’s things,” replied Lilly.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” asked Penny, frowning.
Lilly rolled her eyes. “Someone decided to go swimming.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Penny complained.
“The manager of the apartment complex wanted me to clean out the apartment, so I did. Pastor Kent came and picked up some things to give to families in the church.”
Penny glanced at the things in the box. “Did you bring that digital picture frame?”
“I did. I tried to think of what you might like from your dad’s apartment. I brought your father’s yearbooks because I thought you might enjoy looking at them.”
Penny took the digital frame out of the box and plugged it in. Pictures of Penny and Peter came up. Penny sat and watched pictures from the weekend they went to Taos and then she turned off the digital picture frame, her expression sad. She peered into the box from the apartment, looking through the items. Finally she pulled out a yearbook, took it to the couch and opened it.
Lilly glanced over at Jon and Zoe, who were still working to install the lock on the first sliding glass door in the living room. Earlier, when she’d heard Jon questioning her friend about Peter, she’d been mad, but she’d quickly realized that Jon was only doing his job.
Zoe’s opinion of Peter didn’t come as a shock, but she’d never aired it to Lilly. Zoe had endured a couple of bad relationships where the men said one thing but did another. And she’d been made a fool of in front of her friends. Those relationships had jaded Zoe, but Lilly couldn’t blame her friend for her feelings. They’d spen
t a lot of time together while she was pregnant. Her parents were great, but Lilly had felt like such a burden to them. It was Zoe’s get-up-and-do attitude that had helped Lilly through that difficult time.
Lilly had done a lot of soul-searching and had worked through a lot of self-pity, too. The Lord knew exactly who to put in her life.
“Do you need any help?” Penny asked.
Jon glanced at Penny. “I think we left the package for this lock in your mother’s room. Would you get that for us?”
“Sure.” Penny raced out of the room.
Jon smiled and shook his head. When he turned back to Zoe, she was studying him. “You’re a good guy.”
The comment startled Lilly. Zoe didn’t give men the benefit of the doubt.
“Here it is,” Penny yelled and handed the package to Jon.
He glanced at the instructions and said, “You’re right, Zoe. That last screw is optional.”
Penny beamed. Zoe grinned. And Lilly’s heart experienced a major jolt.
“Are you married?” Penny asked Jon.
Lilly’s face drained of color. Before she could open her mouth, Penny continued, “Do you have any kids?”
Lilly’s heart pounded in her chest. She wanted to snatch back the innocent words her daughter had spoken.
Jon turned to Penny. “I had a family, but they died.”
Penny nodded. “Were they shot like my daddy?”
“No. My girls got sick and died.”
Zoe stopped working and stared at Jon.
“Do you miss them?” Penny asked.
“I do.” His words had been spoken so softly, but the impact nearly knocked Lilly to her knees.
“I miss my daddy,” Penny confessed.
Jon nodded. “I understand.”
“Will the hurt go away?”
“It will change,” he answered. “Your memories of your daddy will turn from sad to happy. Your heart is sore now. Later, you heart will get better and you will remember your daddy with happy thoughts.”
Penny nodded and rested her head on her arms as she sat at the dining-room table.
She watched Zoe and Jon install the last lock. “What tribe do you belong to?”
The room fell silent.
Lilly’s eyes widened and her neck flooded with color. “Penny, you shouldn’t—”
Jon shook his head, stopping Lilly. “I was the product of a mixed marriage. My father was Navajo and my mother was an English lady who ended up on a dig in Arizona.”
Penny’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Jon nodded. “Yes, they fell in love and got married.”
“Wow. How cool is that?” said Penny.
He grinned at Lilly. “When I was seven, my parents, my sister and I spent a year in England. I thought I would freeze to death. Sometimes, I wouldn’t see the sun in the sky for a week. I didn’t like that.”
“I hate it, too, when it’s cloudy all day,” Penny added. “Wow, if it was cloudy that long, that would be a real drag.”
“It’s time for bed,” Lilly told her daughter.
Penny pursed her lips, but a firm look from her mother stopped the protest. “Okay.” She said goodnight to Zoe and Jon, then walked down the hall and into her room.
“I’m sorry about her questions,” Lilly said.
Jon smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Her honesty is refreshing. Besides, Dave’s girls grill me on just about everything. I discovered early on that it was best just to go with the flow.”
The tension in Lilly’s body seeped out.
“Well, it looks like we’re all done with these locks. If there’s anything you need or if you think of any new information, call me.” He nodded to Zoe. “You’re a handy lady with a drill.”
“You ought to see me rewire a light,” Zoe quipped.
Jon smiled. “I just might call you to do some rewiring for me. Last time I tried that, I saw the inside of the emergency room.”
Zoe laughed.
Lilly thanked him profusely as she showed him out.
As Jon walked out the door, he heard Zoe say, “He’s okay.”
It looked like a party at the house. The detective was there again. Cars driving up, people coming and going. He should’ve threatened the woman at Peter’s apartment instead of punching her out.
He’d watched as they installed the locks on the sliding glass doors. He’d have to find another way to get inside. Burkstrom could’ve hidden the evidence he took anywhere. He could’ve photographed the evidence, then destroyed it. He needed to discover what Burkstrom had done, then recover it. It was worth a lot of money to him. It was worth another man’s freedom.
He thought about the garage opener that she’d used to raise the door. It wouldn’t be hard to find the code.
They thought they could stop him with locks.
He smirked. They couldn’t.
Jon took a gulp of his morning coffee. Setting the paper cup down on the scarred police-issue desk, he stared at his notebook as he reviewed what he knew in the Burkstrom case. From all appearances, Peter Burkstrom was killed in a random robbery. And even the break-in of his apartment could be explained. The robber had decided to see the place of the man he’d killed. He probably took Peter’s wallet during the robbery. Jon could buy that, but Lilly’s house being searched told him that Lilly’s claim that Peter had been murdered could be true.
He typed in the license plate number that Lilly’s neighbor had given him the night before.
“Mornin’,” Dave greeted as he sat down. “I brought you a peanut butter cookie that the girls made last night. They thought poor Uncle Jon needed some cookies.” He tossed the Ziploc sandwich bag onto Jon’s desk.
Jon reached for the bag, opened it and ate the cookie in three bites. After a swig of coffee, he grinned. “Tell the girls thank-you for breakfast.”
Dave nodded toward the computer screen. “What are you looking up?”
“Last night someone was watching Lilly’s house. The neighbor got the license plate.”
“And?”
“It comes back as a stolen plate from a vehicle owned by a little old lady in Galisteo.” Jon had driven through the little town south of Santa Fe while investigating a murder last year. “She reported her plate stolen.”
“So we’re no closer to knowing who our perp is?”
“I’m hoping that one of those tapes we got from victim’s apartment complex will show the same car that Lilly’s neighbor saw last night.”
“Hey, there, Mr. Littledeer,” a little girl’s voice said.
Jon looked up and saw Lilly and Penny standing inside the door of the squad room.
Penny waved, then held up her hands and wiggled her fingers. Lilly stood behind her daughter.
“They took my fingerprints. That ink is messy.” Penny glanced down at her T-shirt. There was a small forefinger print on the hem of her shirt. She held up the fingerprint card.
Jon’s gaze met Lilly’s. Her lips twitched.
“So you and your mother have been fingerprinted?” Jon asked, walking toward them.
“Yes. It was way cool. When I tell my friend Tammy, she’ll be jealous. She had her fingerprints taken at the mall. I got mine taken in a real police station.” Penny’s smile spoke of satisfaction.
“Penny,” Lilly said in rebuke. “That is not very nice of you.”
Penny hung her head. “Tammy is always telling me about what her daddy does at the university. How she gets to play in the president’s office and do neat things. I just want her to know I do neat stuff, too.”
Jon watched as the color bled from Lilly’s face. He squatted down to be eye to eye with Penny. “Would you like to come and sit in a real police car?”
Penny’s face lit up with wonder. “Wow! I could sit in a real police car?”
“Yes. I’ll even let you turn on the lights and the siren,” said Jon.
Penny turned to her mother. “Can I? Please.” Lilly nodded.
“Yes.”
Pe
nny whooped her delight.
Jon grabbed Penny’s hand and they left the squad room.
Lilly felt glued to the floor and she stared at the door through which Jon and Penny had disappeared.
“You’ve just witnessed a miracle.”
Lilly turned, coming face-to-face with Jon’s partner. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen Jon volunteer to entertain a little girl, with the exception of my twins.” He shook his head. “It’s been about three years since he lost his oldest daughter and nearly two years since he buried his younger daughter and his wife. He’s good with my girls because they don’t take no for an answer. And my girls know they can get to Jon. But I’ve seen him around other children. He holds himself away from them. His willingness to entertain your daughter is…” Dave shook his head.
The door opened and Penny stuck her head inside. “C’mon, Mom! We’re waiting on you.”
Dave smiled. “You better go.”
Lilly felt the earth shift under her feet. Jonathan Littledeer was a force to be reckoned with.
SIX
J on walked back into the police building. He remembered Penny’s laugh of excitement when she turned on the siren on the police cruiser.
His oldest, Wendy, would’ve been just a year younger than Penny. Oddly, the fierce pain that usually accompanied thoughts of his daughters had changed in some way. Thoughts of his little ones still hurt, but not as much as they once had.
“Did you charm her?” Dave asked when Jon walked back to his desk.
“The car impressed her.” He sat down at his desk. His gaze fell on his notebook. They needed to talk to Peter’s old boss. “You want to take a little trip out to that construction company that Burkstrom worked for? See if they can tell us anything that we haven’t come across?”
“Why not? And we can also stop by the lab and see if they can get anything off those tapes we got from the apartment complex.”
Jon and Dave made their way to the evidence lab.