Shield of Refuge

by Carol Steward

  She shook her head, pushing his hand from her neck. “No, he said you had everything, but no more. He said he’s going to show you, outsmarting all of…all of you cops, and…”

  Garrett was trying to make sense of her mumbling. “And what, Amber?” he whispered, his heart breaking for her. He caressed her back, trying to calm her down so he could understand her. He didn’t ever want to let her go.

  She looked at him with those crystal-blue eyes. He could drown in her eyes. If they ever had the chance, he could think of nothing he’d enjoy more.

  She placed her hands on each side of his face. “He’s going to kill…” She kissed him gently, then cried again.

  He ran his fingers along her chin and noticed blood on his hand when he took it away. “Shh, you’re okay now. He’s gone. Amber, I need you to lie down and let me check your…” He could barely breathe, let alone speak. Surely he hadn’t slit her throat. “I won’t let that happen. We won’t let him near you again, honey.”

  “No,” she cried. “He’s—”

  “Amber, shh. Don’t think about it. I’m going to call 911 now. I need to get my cell phone out of my pocket.”

  He let her loose, and she pulled him close and kissed him. “Don’t leave me alone, Garrett. He’s…going to kill you,” she moaned. “He’s after you, Garrett.”

  Garrett hoped his shock wasn’t as apparent to her as it was to him. “I need to alert the police, Amber. And we have to get you checked out. Where’s a clean shirt, or gauze, or…”

  After making the call, he turned to her dresser and went for the largest drawer, hoping to find a cotton T-shirt to stop the bleeding. It was a shallow cut, but bleeding more than he dared let go.

  She shook her head and stood. “I’m fine, aren’t I?” she said so innocently he had to smile. She was going into shock.

  He finally found a shirt, then picked her up and set her on the bed. “You look very fine. But I’m kind of biased. I’d like a medic to make sure.” He forced a smile and looked at the cut. “It’s not too bad,” he lied, “but it’s going to need a few stitches.”

  She passed out again. “I love you, Amber. I don’t care if it’s been a week or a decade, I’m always going to love you.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and said a prayer. “Heavenly Father, I know You aren’t so cruel to bring my bride to me and take her away so soon.” He felt tears sting his eyes. He pressed her cotton shirt to her throat, vowing silently to find this thug.

  Ten minutes later the chief stormed into her apartment bellowing orders to get fingerprints and scour the scene for evidence. Finally he wanted answers.

  He’d called his parents, who went to the hospital to watch out for Amber while he met with the detectives, going through everyone he could have ticked off in his short career. For the next three hours Garrett was again on the other side of the badge, and he didn’t like it. He needed answers. He needed to figure out who could hate him enough to kill him, and anyone in the way.

  By noon, Amber had been released with fifteen stitches. She’d gone home with his mother, and he and his father had come to her place to board up the window, find the essentials for her to work on the wedding cake at his parents’ house, and throw out the blobs of dough, which had risen all over the proofing oven.

  Until this guy was caught, he had to convince her to officially close her business. Sarah and Nick had gone to watch the house. He wasn’t taking any more chances assuming anywhere was safe. This guy had picked his way into a steel fire door. This time he’d bypassed the shop and went right to her home.

  The crime scene had been picked clean, and crime tape was across all the doors into her apartment. Black fingerprinting dust covered everything.

  Still, there was no time to waste, for any of them.

  Three hours later, while Amber rested, Garrett made the phone call to find out how he could get hold of the owner of the yellow SUV. He made the call, then hurried out the door.

  Amber greeted Andrea and Sean, then excused herself to shower and get ready for her final appointment with the bride of the week. “If Maya Brewer arrives early, have her take a seat. I’ll be right down.”

  She’d just finished her shower and putting her makeup on when Grace Matthews called upstairs to tell her that the bride-to-be was here and in a panic over Amber’s emergencies.

  Maya hugged Amber when she heard what had happened. “I heard there’s another storm expected this weekend. Are you sure that you won’t have a problem getting the cake up to the resort?” Maya asked without taking a breath as Amber tried to remain patient.

  “I have it under control,” she said confidently, even if she was a nervous wreck just thinking about it. It had only been twelve hours since the attack. She wanted to give Maya a guarantee, but her life had no more guarantees.

  She pulled out her notebook and reviewed all the times and details with the bride. “I’m scheduled to arrive at noon Friday with the cake and the mints. The flowers will be delivered that afternoon. I confirmed the menu for three hundred.”

  “Three hundred? I thought we told you four, to be safe.” Customers like Maya were the reason Amber wrote every detail into the agreement. By the date of the event, there were always questions.

  Amber pulled up the scanned document of their final contract. “We settled on three hundred. The other one hundred was going to cost you a bundle,” she gently reminded Maya. “The hotel prepares for an extra ten percent, so you have enough food for 330 guests. How many more RSVPs did you receive this week?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Amber included that on her documentation and added it up. “That’s 305 guests with eight days to go. I think you’re fine. It’s not uncommon for a few cancellations to come at the last minute to offset those who forget to return their responses.”

  She went through her list of final reminders, printed them out and gave the bride a copy. As they went through them, Amber highlighted those that the bride needed to do between now and the wedding. It was a good reminder for Amber, as well.

  When Maya left an hour later, exhaustion from the past few days set in.

  That night, Garrett and Amber sat in front of the fire in his parents’ family room, counting their blessing for being alive.

  “Who do you think it was, Garrett?”

  “I don’t know.” He held her in the crook of his arm, brushing her hair off her forehead. “We don’t have to talk about that, Amber.” But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, either. He couldn’t stop wondering who could hate him that much.

  “What else is there to talk about?” Amber said. “That the police have cut off my livelihood, or that a murderer has me afraid to go home or run my business?”

  “It’s for your own safety.”

  She gazed into his eyes. “Will it ever be safe again? Not just for me, but my customers, too?”

  “We’ll sure do what we can to help you get business booming again. For now, Mom and Dad offered to lend you their van to get everything to the resort.”

  “Your dad told me, and I wish I knew a way to thank them, but I really couldn’t under these circumstances.” She looked into Garrett’s eyes, wondering if the intensity of her feelings for Garrett would ever fade. “Would you come with me?”

  “There’s only one person who would keep me away. And if it means staying here in Fossil Creek in order to keep you safe, that’s what I’ll do. If I can’t go, Dad would probably drive you if you’d feel better.”

  Tears silently fell, and she moved to rest her head on his firm shoulder. “I can’t believe how close we came….”

  Garrett noticed his high school yearbooks on the bookshelf and wondered if there was someone from high school he’d made mad enough to hold a grudge. Someone he’d seen with handcuffs. He jumped from his seat, surprising Amber.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He pulled four books from the shelf. “I’ve been trying to think where I’ve seen someone with handcuffs. In high school I was in the Explorers, a club o
f kids interested in law-enforcement careers. No one was very good with handcuffs, and since we didn’t ever really cuff anyone, there wasn’t too much emphasis on their use. Maybe that was where I saw that interesting technique. I can’t even get a definite time line. I kept trying to place him in my police academy classes. Not only does that not make any sense, it’s terrifying to consider.”

  Amber took one of the yearbooks and looked at the front. “A decade is a long time to hold a grudge. I can’t believe you’ve made anyone that mad, Garrett. He wants you…dead. He said he wants to hurt you.”

  “The rock…it wasn’t meant for you. And it wasn’t gang related. It was a message to me. He must have seen me there earlier that night. Why the tires?” He thumbed to the index and looked for Explorers under clubs, then turned to the page it was featured on. He read through the list of names, Amber looking over his shoulder. “Anyone look familiar?”

  “Uh-uh,” she mumbled as she studied the photo. “These were kids who were interested in being police officers? Wouldn’t they have to be pretty clean-cut kids?”

  Garrett was busy reading, and didn’t hear all of what she’d said. “What?”

  She repeated her questions. “So what in the world could you have done that would make one of them want to hurt you and people you care about?”

  He thought for a while. “A lot of them were straight-A students, but there were a couple who had tough family lives. Alcoholic parents, abuse…there was one kid I inadvertently got kicked out of the group. He was hanging around with some gang members at one of my football games. When I got home from the game, I asked my dad about the rules…and the guys I’d seen him with. He never came back.” Garrett quickly scanned the photo. “He’s not in this one. Look in the others. I don’t remember which year he joined.”

  She looked, but didn’t see anyone in the club photos who looked at all familiar. “Do you remember his name?”

  “Anthony something…” Garrett paced the room while Amber looked up every Anthony listed. “Anthony,” he whispered over and over.

  “Maybe Dad would remember—just a minute.” He took off for the stairs.

  “Garrett, he’s probably asleep. It can wait until morning, can’t it?”

  “Well, I guess so. Depends on who is next on his list, though. He wants to torture me. Dad never forgets names, especially of the thugs.”

  The next day Amber had a surprise delivery when she and Garrett stopped at the shop to meet the installation men from the security and glass companies. The sign company dropped off the magnetic signs for the cars, and wanted to start on the storefront sign that afternoon. She held up a colorful automobile sign. She baked several batches of rolls for one of her best customers and had the boxes with her. “May as well have CiCi try them out this morning, see if it helps avoid parking tickets.”

  After the attack Amber was apprehensive of making additional investments. “They’re seriously going to do the storefront today?” Amber had been so excited about it a week ago. “Finally it will officially be my store—Parties Galore and now I’m too scared even to try to make a go of it again.”

  “Don’t let this creep steal your dreams, Amber. We’ll get through this,” Garrett insisted. “God didn’t bring you this far for you to give up. No matter what you do, you’ll have struggles, but God is always there to get you through.”

  Sean had shown up to help. “If you haven’t thought of it already, we should call the paper to do a ribbon-cutting ceremony.”

  Garrett agreed. “But you should wait until we catch this guy.”

  Amber smiled at the thought. “Sean, that’s a brilliant idea. Let’s figure out how quickly we can pull this together. I don’t want to give that creep a chance to gloat—not another day! I’m thinking we should either do it on the weekend after this huge wedding, or at least that next Monday, so I can bake extra to have free samples. Hey, the parade of the holiday lights is coming up soon. Maybe we should plan to have the grand opening that weekend. We could piggyback on their advertising.”

  Her mind was moving a mile a minute with possibilities and, after hearing Amber’s excitement to keep her business going, Garrett offered his full support.

  “Sean, the city council’s requirements are on the city’s home page. Contact the mayor’s office and…”

  “It’s right up my alley. Leave it all to me.”

  She read his mind and smiled. “It’s going to be one of your business-planning projects, isn’t it?”

  Sean nodded. “Okay, so it wasn’t an original idea…”

  With a laugh, Amber shook her head. “You can test all of your ideas on my business, Sean. Just don’t make me go through the class with you. Deal?”

  Amber called the sign company and confirmed the installation for after lunch. She hung up and squealed, giving Garrett a hug. “It’s really going to be okay again, isn’t it?”

  “It will be bigger and better than ever,” Garrett said.

  FOURTEEN

  After the front window was installed, the men from the security company got started, and Garrett went to a meeting he’d scheduled with the chief. Nick and Sarah both came to stand guard in his absence. Amber and Sarah had fun talking about their New Year’s Eve surprise wedding party. They were having a private ceremony and a party for friends and family to bring the New Year in together.

  “Let me see your stitches,” Sarah said, and Amber lifted her head, feeling the tug on the wound.

  “Did they do a good job on them?” Amber asked. “I can’t see them without reflecting them into two mirrors, and they still looked jagged.”

  Sarah studied them again. “They look smooth from here. How’re you doing?”

  Amber shrugged. “Some minutes I feel really brave and like I’m fine, and then an instant later I’m crying at how close it was.”

  “That’s good. Normal, I mean. Don’t be hesitant to talk to someone if it doesn’t start getting less and less often that you’re feeling that way.”

  “Is it also normal that I was mad that Garrett stayed with me and didn’t go after him?”

  “You don’t want the guy to hurt anyone else. That’s pretty understandable.”

  “But now…I’m scared for Garrett’s safety every time he’s out of my sight. I don’t know how you deal with the danger every day—for you, and for Nick.”

  Sarah smiled. “We make the most of the time we have together. I know he won’t take foolish chances, and I think he believes that I won’t, either. I hope so, anyway. It’s a lot different when you have someone waiting for you at the end of the day. I was a lot more willing to put myself on the line and take stupid chances when I was truly single. Not that the rest of my family and friends didn’t matter, but…it’s just a lot nicer having Nick.”

  Amber laughed. “Falling in love is overwhelming to the senses.”

  “This from a wedding planner? Now, that’s frightening,” Sarah exclaimed.

  Amber blushed. “I think that’s why it’s overwhelming. I had the image of the perfect ‘look’ of love and romance. And when it happened to me, I didn’t think it was real.” The smile disappeared. “Not until I realized how quickly I could lose Garrett. Funny thing is one crime introduced us, and a different one threatens to tear us apart.”

  “Once we know for sure who we’re looking for, he doesn’t stand a chance of getting away again.”

  “I hope he’s caught soon.”

  The fire-escape door had to be replaced, and Amber ordered the top of the line for security. No matter whether it would be her living here or anyone else, she didn’t want a repeat of this incident. The windows, while old and not very well insulated, were almost impossible for an adult to break in to or climb into from outside. Being on the second floor, she’d had a false sense of security that could never be replaced.

  Garrett had taken his yearbooks into the precinct, hoping that it would give them some clues.

  Now Garrett was back, and he didn’t look happy.

  “Wh
at’s wrong, Garrett?”

  He glanced at her, then at her staff. “We have a missing person report filed. She fits the description you gave.”

  Amber’s relief at his safe return fell through to the cellar. “Who is she?”

  “Could we talk somewhere privately?” he said, sounding very official. And very police officer-like.

  She didn’t like the tone in his deep voice.

  Amber looked at Andrea and Sean, pausing to collect her thoughts. “We’ll be upstairs if you need us…I mean, if you need me.”

  She glanced at Garrett, wondering why this was so hush-hush. Surely he realized she’d shared this information with her employees after all that had happened. She flipped the light switch on and hurried up the stairs, anxious to know more.

  After the door closed behind them, she turned to face him. “So what did you find out? Is she okay?”

  “Her name is Jenna Miller—five-eight, slim build, auburn hair…”

  She closed her eyes, seeing the girl all over again. She nodded.

  “She totaled her compact car in the last snowstorm. Her boyfriend is going to University of Nebraska at Lincoln and lives on campus, so he let her borrow his SUV until Christmas break. He hasn’t heard from her since that afternoon…they were on the phone when she saw the police officer walking up to her window. Jenna asked Steve, the boyfriend, if his plates were expired.”

  Amber closed her eyes and felt the tears well at her eyes. “Were they?”

  He shook his head. “No, but she told him she’d call him back after she got things straightened out. He’s been trying to reach her, but she isn’t answering her cell phone. He got hold of her roommate. She insisted Jenna had been in and out, that their paths had just crossed. Her boyfriend is on his way here. I’ve called her parents in Alaska, talked to her roommate and asked Nick to look up a few theories of mine.”

  “No one suspected anything was wrong?”

  He shrugged. “Campus police didn’t know about our case, because it wasn’t…” Garrett paced the room. “What’s done is done. We need to go on from here. The parents filed a report with campus police. It’s faster for them to get into her school records than if city government got involved right now.”