Ryan hesitated, and Jenkins thought he was going to argue his point, but the kid seemed to deflate a little. The hard edge that had been around his clear blue eyes seemed to melt, and he nodded. “Okay. I just want you to be safe, and this guy really doesn’t seem to like me having friends.”
“That’s too bad for him,” Kerry said snidely. “I like you and me together, and we’re going to do what it takes to get this guy away from us and into prison where he belongs.” Kerry softened her harsh tone. “He’ll get caught before anything happens. You’ll be checking things over once you start work, and you’ll be able to put things together. I have confidence in you.”
“I think you need to get away from here and get some rest, though,”—she turned to Jenkins—“Officer Jenkins, would it be okay if I got him over to his uncle’s place now? I think we’ve covered everything that we know for now, and you know where to find him.”
Jenkins glanced at Ryan. “That’s fine. Get some rest, kid. You need to be at your best when you start, and that’s not going to happen if you let yourself get exhausted.”
Ryan nodded, knowing he wouldn’t be able to convince the two that he was fine. “I want to look for Hunter. If he did just wander off, he would come back before too long. He’s too well trained to just take off.”
Jenkins put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “If he comes back here, I’ll bring him to your uncle’s bar. Now go get some sleep; you look exhausted.” Jenkins silently wished Kerry good luck in dealing with her exhausted and worried friend before going into the apartment to see what had been found.
“I can drive myself, you know,” Ryan stated grumpily as Kerry tried to steer him toward her Jeep.
“Ryan, you’re exhausted and worried. I don’t think you should drive. I’m nowhere near as tired as you, so please let me do this for you,” Kerry argued.
Too tired to do more than his initial protest, Ryan gave in. “Fine, you can drive me. I would have been fine though.” Kerry just shook her head at his stubbornness and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Ryan leaned his head back in the seat wearily. Maybe Kerry had been right about his driving abilities right then. He closed his eyes and listened to the radio playing softly as background noise. A few minutes later he felt the Jeep pull to a stop and Kerry turned off the ignition.
“Ryan, we’re here,” she said when he made no move to get out of the car.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled tiredly without opening his eyes.
“What are you sorry for, Ryan?” Kerry asked curiously.
“For snapping at you. You were only trying to help; I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“It’s okay, Ryan. You’re tired and your apartment was just broken into. I understand the need to snap at someone in that kind of situation. I didn’t take it personally, but I accept your apology.”
“It’s no excuse,” Ryan said, sounding more alert. “You didn’t deserve me complaining about anything you do for me.”
“Like I said, I understand. We should probably go in and tell Frank what happened. Would he be sleeping? The bar is still open.”
Ryan gave a half shrug. “He could be. I don’t think he was planning on working tonight, but it’s possible that he would have gotten pulled into something that would have kept him up.”
“One of the hazards of running a bar,” Kerry agreed as she and Ryan made their way across the parking lot to the bar.
Ryan nodded. “We have to go through the bar to get to the stairway to the apartment. That will give us a chance to see if Frank is still down here or if he’s upstairs,”—Ryan looked at his watch as he held the door for Kerry—“although it is nearly two already. The bar is closing in about ten minutes.”
“Good thing we’re not here for a drink then.” Kerry looked around the bar as she entered. There were a few people left inside, but most had already gone home. “I don’t see Frank.”
Ryan nodded in acknowledgment and walked over to where Ed, the bouncer that night, was standing. “Hey, Ed, you know if Frank is still up?”
The large man shrugged. “I dunno. He hasn’t been down here for a while that I’ve seen. If he’s not upstairs, he could be in the office.”
“You guys been having any trouble recently?” Ryan asked, curious if his stalker would start making trouble for the bar.
“Nah,” Ed said, waving his hand in a throwaway gesture. “Just a few drunks that got rowdy. Nothin’ I couldn’t handle myself. I didn’t need to call the cops.”
“That’s good. Glad to hear it. Well, I need to find Frank, so I’ll see ya around, okay?”
“Sure, Ryan. Hey, you done at the academy?”
“Yeah, just finished. I start at the downtown precinct in a couple days.”
“Congratulations. You’ll make a good cop. You were always good with the troublemakers here.”
“Thanks, Ed. Goodnight.”
“‘Night, Ryan.”
Ryan took Kerry’s hand as he turned to the section of the bar where Frank’s office was. The door was locked, so they went through the bar to the stairway and knocked on the door at the top of the stairs.
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want too,” Ryan told Kerry. “It’s pretty late and you have Ebony to take care of. I can talk to Frank about this on my own.”
“I’m still pretty awake, and I can sleep in tomorrow. The only plans I have involve cleaning my house, and I don’t need to be up early to do that. I can stay as long as you need me.”
Ryan squeezed her hand in thanks, and knocked on the door loudly. He finally heard Frank’s footsteps as he came to answer the door. “Ry? Kerry? What are you two doing here?”
“To make a long story short, Frank, my apartment was broken into while we were at dinner, and I can’t get back into it until the police clear it.”
“Well, don’t just stand there then, come in,” Frank said gruffly, ushering them to the living room. “I suppose Hunter will have to stay for the night too?”
Ryan shook his head and sank into the couch with a sigh. “Hunter is missing. He wasn’t at the apartment when we got there, and he didn’t show up at all while we were talking with the police.”
“You look exhausted, Ry. Maybe we should wait until morning to talk about this. Kerry, are you staying in town tonight?”
“No, I need to get back home to take care of Ebony. If you need me for anything tomorrow, just call me. I’ll be home all day.” She looked at Ryan, and noticed that he had fallen asleep already. “Tell him that too, okay?” she said softly.
“I will. I’m glad you were with him tonight. Be careful driving home, there could be deer out wandering around near your house. Give me a call when you get home, so I can let Ryan know you made it safely. He’d worry otherwise.”
“I will. Goodnight, Frank,” Kerry said as she gave Frank a hug and took one last look at Ryan before closing the door behind her and heading for home.
NINE
A few days after the break in, Ryan still hadn’t heard anything about what had happened to Hunter. He had been surprised to find out that the stalker had not left a note at the apartment, but it did not shake his feeling that it was the stalker and not just some random break-in. The police hadn’t found anything that would help them discover who had broken in, and they hadn’t heard anything about other stolen dogs in the city.
Ryan sighed as he got out of bed to get ready for his first night on the job. He would be meeting his new partner that night, and he wanted to be at his best, so he had tried to get enough sleep.
Unfortunately, his nightmares had other plans for him, keeping him from wanting to fall asleep at all, and when he finally fell asleep he wouldn’t be asleep for long before a nightmare jerked him awake.
He showered and shaved and put on his uniform that he had picked up from the station when he had been hired. His weapon would be issued to him that night, so for now his belt held only a Maglite flashlight, gloves in a heavy-duty pocket, a small first aid kit in a pouc
h, and a key holder. He adjusted the items on the belt so they would not get in his way and left enough room for his holster.
Ryan rubbed at his eyes wearily as he realized he had been getting ready quickly to leave himself time to take Hunter for his walk, only to remember that the dog was not there.
He sighed as he pinned his badge to his dark blue uniform shirt, wondering what his father would have thought of him becoming a cop. I know you didn’t want this, Dad, but I need to find answers, and this is the only way I can think of to do it. He grabbed his uniform cap and walked out the door, locking it behind him.
***
Kerry sat on her porch watching Ebony running around the yard. She hadn’t seen Ryan much in the past few days, and worried that he was going through a bout of depression. She knew he had to prepare for working the third shift, so he would have to change his sleeping habits, but she felt as though he was avoiding her. He’d seemed distant when she had talked to him last, and she knew that losing Hunter had hit him pretty hard. While it was still possible that the dog would turn up, it was becoming more and more unlikely every day.
The only good thing about the last couple days was that the stalker had not communicated with either Ryan or her, and she was grateful for the slight reprieve. She sighed, glancing at her watch. It was a little before nine o’clock, which meant that Ryan would be on his way to the precinct for work.
Calling Ebony, Kerry rose from where she sat on the porch steps and turned to go into the house. The big black dog followed her in, and Kerry locked the door and set the alarm. She hoped that Ryan would have an uneventful first night on the job and that having something worthwhile to do would get him out of his present mood.
***
Ryan reached the station and went to the captain’s office where he had been told to report in. He tapped lightly on the doorframe as he entered. “Captain Riever?”
“Come in. You must be the rookie, Ryan Parker, right?” said the middle-aged man as Ryan entered the office. The captain didn’t look like much, but Ryan got the impression that he would be formidable when the circumstances called for it.
“That’s right, sir,” Ryan said with a curt nod.
“Relax, son. Your partner isn’t here yet, so why don’t you tell me a little about yourself. I heard you had a break-in at your apartment the other day. What happened with that?”
“The perp hasn’t been found yet, so I don’t know why he broke in. My dog has also been missing since that night, so he was either stolen or deliberately let out of the apartment and something happened to him to prevent him from coming back.”
The captain cocked his head to the side and asked, “How do you know the dog didn’t just run away?”
Ryan shook his head confidently. “Hunter is well trained; he would never have left the apartment for so long if he’d been able to come back.”
The captain nodded, accepting the answer. “You said before that you don’t know why the perp broke into your apartment, but you didn’t say anything about not knowing who did it. Do you know who broke in, Parker?” Captain Riever watched the young man in front of him flinch at the question before he was able to get his emotions under control.
“I think this would be easier to tell from the beginning,” he said. The captain nodded before Ryan continued. “When I was seven, my parents were murdered. Their killer was never found, and it is now a cold case. Soon after that is when I decided that I was going to be a cop, like my father was. I wanted to be able to find out who had killed my parents and why.”
“I didn’t know until I was a senior in high school, but my uncle had begun receiving notes and pictures in the mail that had to do with me. In some of those notes, the man confesses to being the one who killed my parents, but he never said why.” Ryan stopped talking as he felt someone behind him. He spun around defensively, forgetting for a second that he was safe in the police department.
“Easy there, tiger,” a female voice said as he nearly punched the woman who had entered the room silently while he spoke. Her brown eyes were wide in shock at his reaction. Whoa this guy is skittish.
Ryan blew out his breath, shaking off the sudden burst of adrenaline. “Sorry about that. You startled me.”
The captain was just as surprised by Ryan’s reaction to Traci’s entrance, but he figured with more of the kid’s story, he’d be able to tell why he was so jumpy. “Ryan, this is your partner, Traci Vetters. Traci, this is Ryan Parker.”
“Sorry about sneaking up on you,” she said as they shook hands. “I didn’t want to interrupt your story.”
Ryan nodded abruptly, feeling embarrassed at his reaction. “Ryan, would you like to finish the story now? You would probably have told your partner everything anyway; this way you get it out in the open.”
“Yes. How much of it did you hear?” he asked, turning his gaze to Traci.
She shrugged. “Not very much but it sounds pretty serious: somebody’s sending notes to your uncle and confessing to killing your parents?!”
“Okay. The quick version of what I told the captain before that is that my parents were murdered, the person who did it is the one who sent notes to my uncle,”—Traci nodded, her face masking any reaction she may have had to the news—“and Frank tried to keep the notes from me; he succeeded until I was a senior in high school. I was home before him, and was the one who got the mail. The note was addressed to me, so I opened it.” Ryan shuddered a little bit as he remembered how he had felt when he had read that first note.
“What did it say?” Traci asked curiously. The captain simply sat at his desk silently taking in the story his new recruit was telling him.
Ryan hesitated before again steeling himself for the memories. “It said that he was never going to give up on trying to get me for himself. For some reason he felt that I was his property, and had no right to live my life without his permission. The worst thing is that when I confronted Frank about it, he told me that he had gotten an average of one note a week since my parents had been killed. All had been addressed to me, and nearly all of them threatened me in some way. Frank also admitted that there had been some times when he was afraid this guy was going to kidnap me, so he had a cop friend of his follow me around.”
“Your father, he was William Parker, wasn’t he?” the captain asked when Ryan stopped speaking for a moment.
Ryan nodded. “Did you know him? I wouldn’t really be surprised; he spent a lot of time here before he moved into the more political aspect of police work.”
“I’ve heard of him. I remember hearing about his death, and that he left behind a young boy. It’s a shame; by all accounts your father was a good cop, even when he went into the political aspect of it.”
“Yeah, he was great,” Ryan said, unable to hide the wistful tone that crept into his voice as he talked about his father.
“Sorry for the interruption,” Captain Riever said. “Please continue. We still have some time before the two of you are scheduled to be at the gun cage.”
Ryan hesitated. He realized he was spilling his entire story on two people he had just met. He was giving them things to use against him if the situation called for it. “Well, suffice to say that the guy hasn’t given up.” Ryan paused. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Ryan stopped speaking and Traci felt that he was holding something back. It seemed like he was being very forthcoming, and she figured that he was still hoping to figure out who had killed his parents. He seemed shrewd enough to know that he would need his captain and his partner to help, but still seemed reluctant to share everything.
What possessed me to tell them all of this? Ryan turned his attention back to his new partner. “I would appreciate any help in tracking down my dog. He’s been missing since the break-in at my apartment.”
Traci was at shocked the change of subject; she’d expected him to say more about the stalker. “Sure. I’ll definitely keep my eyes and ears open.”
“Sorry I took up so much time.”
Ryan directed his apology at the captain. “When are we supposed to be at the gun cage?”
A flicker of surprise went through the captain. The kid who had started out being so open about everything was now shutting himself off. His eyes were veiled, hiding his feelings from even Riever’s searching gaze. I thought I was good at reading people. This kid is going to be a difficult one to get a read on, despite his openness tonight.
“Captain?” Traci said, trying to get his attention.
“Sorry. You’re due in supply in about five minutes. Bring him back here once you’re done,” he said to Traci.
“No problem, Cap. Come on, Rookie. We need to get you a weapon.”
Ryan nodded, following his partner out of the office silently.
“Hey, partner. Snap out of it,” Traci said, waving a hand in front of Ryan’s face. “We need to get off the elevator.”
“Sorry,” he said, following Traci to the gun cage where he would be issued the weapon he would be using for the foreseeable future. He shook of the lingering memories, and focused on the task ahead of him.
TEN
As the new partners left his office, Captain Riever reflected on what Ryan had told him. The man was resilient, yes, but he clearly still had some issues to deal with. And who wouldn’t? The guy’s been stalked since he was a kid and now the perp’s after his girlfriend. The captain had only known Ryan’s father by reputation, but the way that Ryan told his story made him want to help the kid find out who killed his parents. Captain Riever tried to put the story out of his mind and do the paperwork that had been sitting on his desk for the past week, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Captain Riever jumped a bit when Traci knocked on his door. “You done already?” he asked gruffly as she walked in, followed by her new partner.
“Yeah. Rookie didn’t take long,” she said. “So, Cap, what do you want us on tonight?”
“We had a call about a disturbance at 1432 Water Street. Caller said there was screaming coming from the house. Vetters, walk the rookie through this one. You know how domestic cases can be.”
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