Standing Fast

by Maggie K. Black

  Behind her, in the other room, she could hear Felicity, Zoe and Linc talking in hushed tones, outside of Freddy’s earshot. She wasn’t sure what to think of the fact that Linc and Star had come back alone, or that Linc had asked if she’d mind watching the children while the three of them talked. Which was okay by her. After all, the three of them were members of the United States Air Force who had signed up to serve their country and were part of the Red Rose Killer investigation. All the adults who’d been at the barbecue tonight had been, and while her friends had always done their best to include her in conversations about their hunt for the Red Rose Killer, as much as they were able to tell her, it didn’t change the fact that she would always be a civilian and a preschool teacher.

  Being left to watch the children had never been a role that bothered Maisy. It was something she’d always gravitated to. Growing up, she’d gone to so many military get-togethers and parties, and watched the men and women in uniform stand around talking about important issues. They all seemed so strong and confident, statuesque and bold, the best that the country had to offer, standing there holding plates of food and having dizzyingly complex conversations that made her head spin. She’d watch how other young people her age—most of whom were already in the Civil Air Patrol cadet program—would stand around the edges of adult conversations, joining in and listening keenly, and it was as if she could see their minds growing into the men and women they’d be one day.

  But that wasn’t who she was. That just wasn’t her world. Sure, she’d stood by her father’s side for a while, but then she’d invariably found herself slipping off to the room where the little children and babies were. She’d played with the infants and started little games for the toddlers and preschoolers, making them smile and laugh and freeing up their tired parents to go socialize with the other adults. She’d liked it there. She fit there and felt like she belonged.

  Just like she seemed to fit here, comfortably on the couch with Allie McLear snuggled into her side and Freddy lying happily at their feet. Allie’s eyes closed. Then the little girl drifted off into a comfortable sleep. Maisy sighed. There was something about just having the little girl near that filled her heart with joy. Allie was like a little bundle of...well, of everything. She was so full of energy, happiness, curiosity and joy.

  If what Chase said was true, first her own mother had abandoned her and then her father had been accused of being the accomplice of a serial killer. Maisy’s heart ached. That was far more than any child should have to bear. How much more would she have to go through? Maisy cradled her closer into her side. She prayed that whatever came next, Allie wouldn’t have to face it alone.

  She heard voices rise in the kitchen, as if the volume of the conversation had been turned up a notch by the arrival of someone else, not that she could make out the words. Then she felt fingers brush her shoulder and heard the sound of the deep and strong voice she’d have known anywhere. “Maisy?”

  She turned her head, careful not to jostle a sleeping Allie. Chase was standing behind her. His hand pressed gently on her shoulder, as if silently nudging her to stay seated.

  “I’m going to try to let her sleep,” he said softly. “She hasn’t slept through the night in ages and she’s always overtired. If I’m careful, I might be able to carry her home and put her back to bed without her waking up.”

  She nodded. Freddy turned his curious little face up toward them, quizzically looking up at them over Star’s back. She raised a finger to her lips and hushed him softly. “Allie’s asleep.”

  He nodded and turned the television volume down three notches. She smiled. He was such a good kid, and she was both happy and thankful to see how well the little boy had adjusted to having Linc in his life. She gently nudged the sleeping girl deeper into her arms, then stood, feeling Allie’s head fall against her chest. It was only then that she realized Chase’s shirt and jeans were streaked with dirt, like he’d been crawling across the ground.

  “You might want to clean yourself up a bit,” she said.

  “It’s okay. I brought a blanket from her wagon.” He draped the soft pink-and-purple blanket over his shoulder and chest. She walked around the couch to him and gently slid Allie into his arms. Her hands brushed against his forearms as she did so, and for one fleeting moment, she felt the strength of his biceps beneath her fingertips. She stepped back and watched as a sleeping Allie snuggled happily against her father. An odd and almost unnameable longing surged inside her chest, to know what it was like to feel that safe. But she didn’t know if it was that she wished she’d known growing up what it was like for her own dad to care for her that way, or if she longed to know what it was like as a woman to be held safely by such a man.

  “What happened?” She kept her voice low, hoping the sound of the television would still protect Freddy’s young ears. “Did you find them?”

  But she knew from the look in his eyes, even before he shook his head, that the answer was no.

  “They got away,” he said. “Queenie tracked them to a hole in the perimeter fence and we followed the scent out into the woods. Ava and her dog, Roscoe, are still searching the ravine. Isaac and Tango went with them.”

  Yeah, no one should be alone in the woods right now. The fact that they’d found another hole in the fence filled her with dread. That Boyd Sullivan was able to sneak onto the base was a horrible, daily, pressing reminder that even inside a guarded perimeter, no one was ever truly safe.

  “We have Security Forces patrolling the perimeter,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “The hole will be fixed tonight.”

  But what about the next hole and the next? How had this horror, this fear, this tragedy continued on so long, with no end in sight?

  “Well, I reckon I should be saying good-night,” Chase said.

  She nodded. “Yeah, you should probably get Allie home to bed before she wakes.”

  But still, he didn’t move and neither did she. They just stood there, with their eyes locked on each other, and Allie sleeping softly on her father’s chest.

  “Goodbye, Maisy,” Chase said.

  She bit her lip. “Good night, Chase.”

  He turned and walked toward the kitchen, passing through quickly and professionally, with a quick word to the others, a nod of his head and Queenie by his side.

  She waited five minutes after he’d left and then walked into the kitchen and joined the others. Their serious conversation had changed to small talk by the time she made it in there. On purpose or by design, she wasn’t sure. But she was thankful for it. She hung around just long enough for Ava, Isaac and their dogs to return, sadly with no trace of the person that she and Chase had seen.

  Her goodbyes were quick despite the fact that all of her friends had collectively decided to walk her to her car. There were kind smiles and deep hugs, along with the promises that people would be praying for each other and the reassurances that Boyd Sullivan would be caught soon. They were the kind of comfortable words that she’d gotten so used to both hearing and saying that they’d become part of the regular patter around the base. And while they meant a lot, something in her heart longed for the day conversations like these would be a distant memory.

  She dreamed of her father that night. It wasn’t the first time he’d walked into her dreams since his death, leaving her with disjointed thoughts she wasn’t sure what to make of or how to understand. In this dream, he’d been promoted to General Lockwood and was in full dress uniform, white and gleaming with dark shoes of shining polished leather. She was a teenager in the dream, barely more than sixteen, she guessed. They were walking through a lavish fruit market filled with exotic fruits of all shapes and colors that she was sure didn’t exist in the reality of the waking world. She’d asked her father if she was allowed to go out on a date with Chase, who somehow she knew was a teenager himself.

  Every good tree bears good fruit, her father told her in
the dream. Chase isn’t bearing good fruit. Trees that don’t produce good fruit should be cut down and burned in the fire. Jesus said that.

  She’d argued back with him that Jesus had also said that trees should be given an opportunity to grow first. Jesus had specifically said that a tree should be tended, cared for and loved for a while before the farmer would truly know if it was ever going to bear fruit.

  Then she’d woken up before her father could answer. She sat up and blinked, her eyes still swimming from sleep. The clock read seven in the morning. It wasn’t possible. How had she slept through her alarm? For the first time since her father’s death, she’d missed her morning run, and now she had less than an hour to shower, dress, eat and make it to Sunny Seeds to open the door.

  It was only then she realized her cell phone was ringing and wondered if that was what had woken her. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, grabbed her phone off the bedside table and stood. It was Oliver Davison, the highly focused FBI agent who was off the base chasing down leads on the Boyd Sullivan investigation. Why was he calling her? Fear stabbed her heart so quickly that her fingers fumbled, dropping her phone on the soft white carpet before quickly snatching it up again.

  “Hi,” she said, feeling her breath catch in her throat. “It’s Maisy.”

  “Good morning, Maisy,” Oliver said, his voice held both dedication and sadness, along with a weariness that hinted of a long career filled with such calls. “I’m calling as a courtesy to let you know that while Security Forces were searching the forest and ravine around the Canyon Air Force Base perimeter, the body of a man was found. We’ve identified him as Airman Drew Golosky—”

  Her intake of breath was so sharp he paused.

  “Do you know him?” he asked.

  “I know his brother, Frank,” she said. She sat down on the edge of her bed, grabbed a handful of blankets and squeezed tightly. “Last night I was with a group of people who placed a video call to Frank in Afghanistan yesterday. Drew was invited to the barbecue, but we hadn’t thought anything of the fact that he wasn’t there because he was on leave.”

  She’d never imagined he was dead.

  “A red rose and a note were found under his arm,” Oliver continued. “We believe it was the work of the Red Rose Killer. His uniform was missing, and his identification was used to enter the base within the past few days...”

  Her head swam, and for a moment, the FBI agent’s words seemed to distort and blur into white noise. Boyd Sullivan had been on the base in the past few days? He’d just strolled right through the gate with a stolen uniform and ID? If Boyd Sullivan was the “bad man” Allie was frightened of, did that make Drew Golosky the “hurt man”? But how would little Allie have seen them? Besides, Chase had said Allie had been yelling about a “bad man” for months, not that she had any proof of that.

  Oh, Lord, please save us from this nightmare.

  Dread washed through her veins, the feeling both sickening and familiar. How many more of these phone calls would there be? How many more people would die?

  “Who else was in attendance at the barbecue yesterday?” Oliver asked.

  She ran through the names, realizing as she did so that it was very unlikely she was the FBI agent’s first call to someone who’d been at the barbecue, and so she might be telling him information he already knew. She wondered how many identical conversations he’d been through so far today and how many more he had to go. Her eyes closed.

  Oh, Lord, I feel trapped inside a nightmare with no sign day is ever going to break again. How many voices have called out to You to guide investigators to find and capture Boyd and his accomplice? Please, may Your answer come soon.

  She hoped that when that day came, Chase and little Allie wouldn’t be caught in the trap.

  “I want to assure you that we’re doing everything in our power to catch your father’s killer and make sure he’s brought to justice,” Oliver said. “We will catch him, Maisy. I give you my word. In the meantime, please don’t let your guard down.”

  * * *

  At least the Security Forces had the courtesy to knock on his door this time, instead of breaking it down and throwing a warrant in his face, Chase thought, as he stood there in his PT uniform and looked through the front door of his bungalow at the two investigators standing on his front step. After he’d made the impulse decision to follow Queenie through the hole in the fence after the hooded figure, he shouldn’t have been surprised to have Captain Justin Blackwood and Lieutenant Preston Flannigan appearing at his door. Allie was still asleep, and when he’d lost track of Queenie in the few minutes between feeding her breakfast and making coffee, he’d figured that she’d sneaked into the little girl’s room. But before he could even open his mouth, Queenie had run to his side.

  He saluted. “Good morning, sirs.”

  The officers returned the salute.

  “At ease,” Justin said. “May we come in?”

  Well, that was definitely a change from door breaching. Not that he was about to let his guard down. Last night’s barbecue had been an all too painful reminder that he was a suspect and would always be a suspect no matter how nicely or politely people treated him.

  Chase’s eyes rose to the clock. It was ten after seven.

  “Absolutely,” Chase said. “But if we can keep the volume down, I would appreciate it. My daughter is still asleep. She normally wakes up around now for preschool, but I decided to let her sleep in this morning. She’s been sleeping really badly.”

  After last night, he was feeling even more conflicted about his decision to keep her home from Sunny Seeds. Had he made the right call? Would Allie be better off with life being as normal as possible and spending time with other kids? How much of his decision-making process was being influenced by his own conflicted feelings about Maisy? Something about seeing her last night and that moment they’d shared on the bench had shaken the fragments of his broken heart. And that same feeling had been there just as strong after he’d gone chasing after the fugitive and come back to pick up Allie.

  He let the police into his living room, where they stood around his battered wood dining room table, stained from endless painting, coloring and crafting he’d done there with his daughter. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Thank you,” Justin said, and Chase couldn’t help but notice that this time the captain was doing the talking, while Preston stood silent one step behind him. The men sat, with Chase and Justin opposite each other and Preston at the end of the table. Justin pulled an envelope from a folder under his arm and even before reaching inside, Chase knew without a doubt that it contained the picture of another body. “We regret to inform you that another body has been found. The remains of Airman Drew Golosky were found in the ravine by search teams in the early hours of the morning. We believe he is one of Boyd Sullivan’s victims.”

  The picture lay on the table in front of him. The tall, strong airman had been stripped of his uniform. The remains of a rose were displayed on the body along with a note. Poor Frank. Chase’s head dropped into his hands as a heavy weight sank like a stone to the bottom of his stomach. The fact that his friend’s brother had died hit him far deeper than the fact that these men were no doubt here to question him as a suspect.

  God, please be with Frank right now and his entire family. Comfort them. Surround them with Your mercy. Uphold them with Your mighty arms.

  Queenie’s head fell on the top of his foot as she lay down beside him. He reached down and brushed his fingers over the top of her head.

  Justin pulled a notepad from his pocket and flipped to a new page.

  “We believe Airman Golosky has been dead for seven days,” Justin said. “His identification and uniform were used by Boyd Sullivan to get onto base twice during this time.” Which lined up perfectly with when someone had reported seeing him at Chase’s house. “I need to ask you if you can account f
or your whereabouts on Thursday, July 12, Friday, July 13 and Monday, July 16.”

  Chase paused for a long moment before answering, as he searched his brain for anything abnormal about his regular schedule on those days.

  “Each day followed the same routine,” he said finally. “I took Allie to Sunny Seeds at oh eight hundred. Then I came home and trained Queenie around the house until sixteen hundred. I then took Queenie to pick Allie up from preschool and we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening together.”

  Justin jotted down a few notes. Chase noticed he kept the book shielded, so neither he nor Preston could read it. “Any witnesses to corroborate your story?”

  “No, sir,” Chase said. “Just my daughter.”

  Who was hardly a reliable witness. How had he never noticed just how small and lonely his life had become? That there’d be no friends or colleagues there for him, showing up with meals or inviting him for dinner to help him through these difficult and trying days. Was Liz right? Did he push people away?

  Just like he’d pushed away Maisy.

  “How well did you know Airman Drew Golosky?” Justin asked.

  “Well enough to say hello,” Chase said. “I couldn’t say the last time I’d seen him or we’d spoken. His brother, Frank, and I served together in Afghanistan and I consider him a friend.”

  “And when was the last time you spoke to Frank Golosky?” Justin asked.

  “Last night,” Chase said. “I was at a barbecue at the home of Sergeants Linc and Zoe Colson. It was Frank’s birthday.”

  Justin’s composure flickered slightly, but it was only a moment before his features returned to their neutral position. “Are there any witnesses to your conversation with Frank Golosky last night?”