Fear

by Adrianne Lemke

  Janie looked like she wanted to object to the arrangement, but realized that Ryan had only suggested it because he wanted Kerry to be kept safe. Kerry looked unsure for a moment, but Traci appeared to agree with Ryan’s proposition right away.

  “What about the horses?” Kerry asked. “I can’t leave them at the farm by themselves. I would have to go out there at least twice a day to feed them and exercise them. How about you stay at my place? There’s a security system and Ebony is there.”

  Traci glanced at Ryan, and knew he wanted to stay in town in order to keep an eye on what was going on at the precinct. “I can stay with Kerry for a couple weeks,” she offered.

  Both Ryan and Kerry looked at her, startled by the offer.

  “Are you sure?” Ryan asked. “If the killer goes after her, you’d be in the line of fire too.”

  “I’m a trained police officer, Ryan, and have been for several years more than you. I can handle myself, and I will have my weapon with me.”

  Ryan looked at the ground and considered the options. “I really wish I had Hunter,” he mumbled. “I would feel more comfortable with you spending time in the barn if he was there to keep an eye on things.”

  Kerry gently placed her hand on Ryan’s arm. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I know how much Hunter meant to you, but Ebony has been doing a decent job of checking the property. She may not be trained for it, but she is pretty territorial.”

  “Okay. But when Traci is at the station, I don’t want you home by yourself.”

  “Ryan, Captain Riever gave both of us the next few nights off; we can figure out later what to do when I’m at work, okay?”

  Ryan nodded in agreement and gave Traci a look that clearly pleaded with her to take care of Kerry. “We’re not leaving right now, Ryan; I don’t think you should be alone just yet. We can stay until you feel ready to give your statement to the investigating officers. They’ll need to know everything that you know about him so they can help to find out who he is.”

  “Okay, Traci. I think I’ll go in after I take a shower. I need one after that run.”

  The sigh of relief from the three women once Ryan left the room was almost audible.

  “That boy is as stubborn as his father was,” Jane said, shaking her head and clucking. “I didn’t think he’d ever give up the foolish idea that you would actually leave him alone to cope with this.”

  Kerry started, and looked at Jane. “Oh, I feel awful!” she exclaimed. “With all this, I forgot to ask you how you were doing. I know you and Frank were close.”

  “I’m doing all right,” the older woman replied. “I feel better when I’m keeping busy, so I’m glad Ryan’s around. I worry about him sometimes. I think he’s lost too much in his life. He’s not ready to believe that someone he loves is going to be able to stay with him as long as the psycho is still loose.”

  “I hope we at least managed to convince him that Kerry’s not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. I think you may be even more stubborn than he is, Kerry. And in this case, that is definitely a good trait to have.”

  “I appreciate that, Traci. I just hope that you and the other officers are able to find this guy soon. I don’t want you to have to put your life on hold in order to make Ryan feel better.”

  Traci gave Kerry a strange look. “What?” Kerry asked.

  “I’m not doing this to make Ryan feel better,” she informed Kerry in a serious tone. “I’m doing this because I think he’s right. You are in danger, and he knows it. I’m not saying he’s right about wanting to shut you out; I’m the one who convinced him to talk to you after our run today. I am, however, saying that his concerns are valid.”

  Kerry listened to the other woman, her head cocked to one side as she considered what Traci said.

  “You saw the warning given to him by the stalker. The pictures indicate that this guy knows who Ryan’s closest relationships are with—and it was you and Frank. Ryan is there in order for the stalker to show the control he feels he has over Ryan’s life.”

  “If he can get pictures of him no matter where he goes, he could grab Ryan anytime. That’s what he’s saying, right?” stated Kerry, sounding slightly defeated as Traci nodded.

  “He’s not just going to let Ryan find him. If he feels that the police or Ryan are getting too close to him, he’ll do something else either to you, or to Ryan,” Traci explained. “In the meantime, I’ll keep my eye on you so Ryan won’t worry while he’s concentrating on anything that could help to get this bastard off the streets before he kills again.”

  The three women heard Ryan turn off the shower, and Traci started to wind down the conversation with Jane and Kerry. “Are the two of you staying here while Ryan and I go to the station?” she asked them.

  “I’ll be here. I’m going to clean the kitchen. It’s a bit of a mess right now,” Janie answered.

  Kerry shrugged as she answered, “I guess I’m not supposed to be home alone, so I’ll be here until you’re able to come home with me. I’ll help Janie clean the kitchen or something.”

  Traci nodded. “I’ll stop at home before we come back here, so we don’t have to worry about it later. I need to get some clothes and stuff for staying with you. We should really give Ryan some alone time tonight. I know we were all saying he shouldn’t be alone, but he needs to process his uncle’s death, and I think we’re distracting him from it.”

  “I agree,” Janie said. “Ryan needs some time to grieve. He’s not going to do it in front of us, no matter how much we want him to. It’s just how his father and Frank were.” Janie choked a bit when she spoke about Frank in the past tense, and the younger women could see the pain in her eyes from losing a close friend.

  Ryan came out of the bedroom in time to see Janie start to cry. “I’m sorry, Janie,” he said going to her and giving her a hug.

  She gave him a small but sincere smile, her cheeks wet with tears. “You have nothing to be sorry for, young man,” she stated. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I didn’t acknowledge that anyone else was in pain,” he said softly. “I was selfish all day today, and I expected all of you to deal with it.”

  Jane shook her head adamantly. “That’s not true. You reacted to Frank’s death the way you reacted to your parent’s death. He was a parent to you, and you are grieving him as such. You didn’t intentionally ignore other people’s pain; your own pain took away the ability to process anything else.”

  Ryan looked like he wanted to believe her, but he didn’t say anything more about it, and Jane let the subject go.

  “I’m ready to go,” he said to Traci. “I also need to make the official identification for Frank’s body at the morgue, right?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I’m sure that’s the last thing you want to do today, but it needs to be done. The department can only delay it for so long when they know a family member.”

  He gave a brief nod and turned to Jane and Kerry. “Traci and I might be a while. You’re welcome to stay here,” he said, looking at Jane before glancing at Kerry and adding, “…both of you.”

  “We’re staying,” Kerry said. She reached out to touch Ryan’s arm, but he flinched away from the contact so she put her arm down.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled as he and Traci left. Traci gave him an odd look as he apologized to Kerry.

  “Ryan,” she said. “You do know that no one here is going to hurt you, right?”

  He nodded tensely and waited for her to grab her belongings before they left the apartment.

  “Why are you so afraid of being touched right now, Ryan?” she asked as they continued walking out of the building.

  “I’m honestly not sure,” he answered with a brief one-shouldered shrug. “I only know that when someone touches me right now I feel like I need to get away as quickly as possible.”

  To Traci, Ryan sounded as if he were getting annoyed with his emotional response to his uncle’s murder. He’s been pushed enough today.

  Ryan and T
raci climbed into the squad car that Traci had driven to the apartment building the previous night, and drove in silence to the station.

  ***

  He knows I’m serious now. Frank was surprised when he saw me and he died with the knowledge that I would get Ryan soon. I’ll give him a few days to work through his emotions. They were all over the place after I killed his parents, and I gave the boy the chance to get attached to Frank as a parent too. That was a mistake that should never have happened. Ryan was mine! I should have been the one who raised him, not that bar owning bastard! He’ll be mine soon. After some re-training, he will belong to me.

  SEVENTEEN

  Traci looked at Ryan surreptitiously and tried to determine if he should be back at work already. It had been a week since Frank’s death, and the funeral had been held the previous day. Traci had wanted Ryan to take off of work at least one more day, but he had insisted he was okay to return. She’d tried to read him but could only tell that Ryan wasn’t as guarded as he had been for the past week. He had shown very little emotion since the first day after Frank’s death. He had given his statement and identified the body, but had been eerily calm throughout the process. His eyes had shown an icy anger as he stood at the graveside funeral, but he had been silent for the entire day.

  I wish she’d stop watching me. It’s hard trying to do private work while being so closely watched. Ryan gave an involuntary shudder as his thoughts drifted to the stalker. He knew Traci would have seen the shudder, and hoped she would ignore it, or think it was a shiver. He hadn’t told her that he had told the investigating officers everything that they had found out about the stalker. He’d even included that they had reason to believe that the man was a cop.

  The investigating officer, Chad Kellerman, had been sympathetic to Ryan’s situation, but had told him in no uncertain terms that he was to leave the investigation to him and his team. He had cited the department policy of removing an officer from a case if he or she was too close to it, and Ryan had told the other man that he would stop investigating. However, he kept the picture that Matthews had identified as a possible suspect. The man still looked familiar to him, but now he was beginning to see a resemblance he didn’t want to believe. He wanted to find out for sure what the officer’s name was before he would believe it. Unfortunately, he was having difficulty finding the names that went with the pictures.

  This database is screwed up. Any other precinct, the names would have been right next to the pictures, but I had to come to the one where the names are all apparently case numbers.

  Ryan knew that Traci thought he had stopped looking into the picture since he had agreed to stop investigating. She probably thinks that I’m too scared of what this guy might do to Kerry if I continue looking into it, Ryan thought as he again brought up the search page to see if he could find the name.

  “Are you ready to head out?” Traci asked as the shift was ending.

  “You go ahead,” Ryan said with a dismissive wave. “I have a bit of paperwork to finish up, and I don’t want Kerry to get home before you do.”

  Traci hesitated, but knew that Ryan didn’t need her hovering over him all the time. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  He waved distractedly at her as she left, never taking his eyes off the screen. He had finally found a list of the people who had been in the department the year his father had been killed. Ryan glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, and he glanced down the list. He saw several names that were in blue, and when he clicked on one, it brought up a picture of the officer.

  He scrolled down the list and saw Captain Riever’s name on the list. Wonder what he looked like twenty years ago. Ryan clicked on the name, and blanched when he saw the same man that had been identified by Matthews. Ryan began breathing quickly, as if he had run a marathon, and had to force himself to calm down as he again looked at the picture. His eyes hardened as he looked at it, and he felt a strong sense of rage as he looked at the face of a man he had grown to trust. His blood ran cold when he realized that the man who had been stalking him for nearly his entire life had also assigned him his partner—and she was on her way to ‘protect’ Kerry.

  Can I trust her, knowing that he placed her with me? He had to have a reason for choosing her, and she was at the crime scene when the picture of me was taken. I shouldn’t have told them anything. I kept Riever in the loop about everything I was doing, and because of that Frank is dead! Ryan minimized the screen as he almost blindly went to the captain’s office. It was empty.

  He went home. Where does he live? Ryan fought to remember the address and finally was able to. Feeling blind rage, Ryan raced toward the doors, not hearing Levi Travers, a fellow officer, calling to him in concern.

  Levi tried to catch up with Ryan, but by the time he reached the parking lot, he only saw the rookie officer’s vehicle tearing out. After what happened with the kid’s uncle and with the look of fury on Ryan’s face, he decided to call Traci. In the few weeks he had been working with Ryan, Travers had become fairly close to the rookie, and he didn’t like seeing the look of fear and anger on the boy’s face.

  “Traci?” he asked as she picked up the phone.

  “Yes, who is this?” she asked.

  “This is Levi Travers from the precinct. You asked me to watch out for Ryan, and he just tore out of here looking angry and scared. I’m not sure where he was going, and he didn’t stop when I called to him so I figured I should call you.”

  “I just left the precinct a few minutes ago, and he seemed fine. I’m coming back now. I need to see what he was looking at when I left. Thanks for calling, Levi. I really appreciate it.”

  “Not a problem, Traci. I don’t want anything happening to that kid, and I heard about what happened to his uncle. The rumor mill has been spinning quite the stories about Ryan right now, and from what I’ve been able to tell, it seems like they have it at least mostly right this time.”

  “What are they saying?” Traci asked, sounding apprehensive.

  “They’re saying that Ryan was being stalked, and that his stalker is the one who killed his uncle. Is that true?”

  Levi heard a sigh on the other end of the line. “It’s true,” she acknowledged. “He’s been stalked since his parents were killed when he was a kid. The guy has been escalating, so we were looking into it. Unfortunately, he managed to kill Ryan’s uncle before we were able to find him.”

  “So now you think Ryan found something? Wouldn’t he call you if he had?” he asked, sounding confused. Traci and Ryan seemed to work so well together that he couldn’t imagine Ryan going off on his own if he’d found something about the case.

  “Ryan hasn’t been thinking completely straight since his uncle was killed. The man raised him, and was the only family Ryan had left. And if he found something about his stalker it could have made him mistrust the people around him.”

  Levi could hear Traci muttering about horrible drivers as she maneuvered her way through the early morning traffic back to the precinct. “Why would he mistrust us? We’re the good guys, and we’re here to help him.”

  Traci’s voice became angry sounding when she answered him. “Not all of us. We’ve found enough evidence to show that his stalker is a cop, which means all of this probably stems back to something between this guy and Ryan’s father. We’ve figured out that they worked together, but we haven’t found a name yet. Although…” Traci hesitated as if unwilling to share her opinion with Levi.

  “What? What did you think of? I want to help. That kid has been through enough, and if he found out who killed his uncle, he could throw his whole life away for a chance at revenge. If you have an idea who it is, you have to share.”

  After another minute’s hesitation Traci replied, “I can’t be absolutely sure, but the picture looked somewhat familiar. The man in that photo looks like Captain Riever; or some close relative that looks like him. I don’t want to believe it, but if Ryan figured it out, he could have felt that he couldn’t
trust me…”

  “…Because you were placed with him by Captain Riever, right?” Levi asked, starting to understand what the younger man had been going through. He ran his hand through his graying brown hair as he thought about what he could do to help. “I’m going to check Ryan’s computer. He tore out of here so quickly that he might not have logged off.”

  “Okay. I’m almost to the station. Give me another minute and I’ll be parked. I’ll meet you by Ryan’s desk, okay?”

  Levi agreed and hung up his phone to walk to Ryan’s desk to check the monitor. He was slightly discouraged when he saw the black screen, but when he saw that the computer was still on he pushed the button to turn the screen back on. He noticed that there was a file minimized on the bottom toolbar, and he brought it up to look at it. He saw a picture, and when he looked at the name, he saw that it was—as Traci had suspected—Captain Riever.

  “My God,” he said softly as a prayer. “Keep him safe. The captain is a dangerous man to have as an enemy.”

  Levi looked up as he saw Traci coming through the bullpen, and told her what he had found. “This won’t be good for Ryan. The captain is an excellent marksman and he’s pretty high in martial arts. I’m not sure if he’s a black belt, but if he’s not, he’s only the next level down.”

  “Have you tried calling Ryan?” Traci asked. “I tried him after I hung up with you, but he didn’t answer.”

  “Keep trying. We need to warn him to stay away from Riever. Even if the captain is innocent, he will protect himself if he thinks Ryan is there to harm him in some way.”

  “Why couldn’t we figure out sooner that it was him?” Traci asked softly, her voice filled with regret.

  “For one thing, he’s in much better shape than he was when that picture was taken,” Levi answered. “For another, his hair is hidden by the hat and his face looks different now than it did then. He’s thinner now, and he grew a beard and moustache. All of that put together could have made it more difficult to recognize him.”