K-9 Hideout

by Elizabeth Heiter

  One of the officers who’d tried to kill him was in prison. The moron had actually used his police-issued weapon to shoot Tate, so when the bullet had been dug out of Tate’s arm, that had cinched Officer Jim Bellows’s fate. But the other two had gotten off. Not enough evidence, the jury had ruled. Not enough evidence that they’d participated in the payoff, and not enough evidence that they’d participated in the attempt on Tate’s life.

  Tate had only seen Jim in the park. But Jim wasn’t the only officer there, Tate was sure. Jim must have brought his two closest friends on the force, Paul Martin and Kevin Fricker. Tate had seen all three take the payoff, but financial forensics had only found a large deposit to Jim Bellows.

  It was no surprise that the other two had used throwaway weapons or that they’d hidden the money better. Jim had always been a liability, constantly on the verge of an Internal Affairs investigation for one reason or another. Usually his inability to curb his drinking, since he’d shown up intoxicated at work a few times.

  Kevin and Paul were smarter, more cautious. It had turned out they were just as crooked.

  Still, Kevin and Paul had managed to stay on the force, at least for a time. But Tate’s accusations had stained their reputations, as well as his own. The rest of the officers hadn’t known who to believe, or who to trust. Eventually, Kevin and Paul had left—and so had Tate.

  The court had decided Kevin and Paul hadn’t been involved. The feds decided they weren’t an ongoing threat. But Tate knew otherwise. The last thing Kevin had whispered as he’d walked past Tate on his final day at the police station had been “Jim was my best friend, and you destroyed his life. Watch your back. One day, we might just destroy yours.”

  Tate hadn’t bothered to tell the FBI about the threat. The case had been closed. And a vague threat wasn’t enough to reopen anything.

  Instead, he’d contacted an old family friend and asked what it would take to disappear. Until that moment, he’d expected to stay in Boston. Even though the other officers hadn’t gone to jail, the fact that he’d accused them would make them immediate suspects if any harm came to him. But the look in Kevin’s eyes had told Tate he wasn’t the only one in danger.

  Now, staring down into the town he’d grown to love so much, the town that sometimes made him wonder why he’d ever left Alaska in the first place, Tate wished he’d seen it coming. Some of the signs were there, but until he’d stumbled onto the three cops taking a payoff, he never would have guessed it was happening.

  Before the incident, Jim Bellows had seemed like a time bomb. Kevin and Paul had seemed more even-keeled, more professional. They were partners and had actually come to Tate’s aid on a dangerous call once. Still, he’d always seen something volatile in them, something vague that made him intuitively understand why they’d befriended Jim.

  One of the lieutenants used to call Paul Napoleon because he made up for being five foot six by lifting weights until he resembled a tank. The officer had always loved to intimidate with his size. Kevin, who looked a solid decade younger than his thirty-nine years, used the fact that he wasn’t particularly intimidating—even at six foot four—to get close to someone. Then he’d bring the hurt.

  Both tactics were fine, in the appropriate situation. But Tate preferred to stick to tactics that didn’t have an undercurrent of bullying.

  He hadn’t destroyed their careers fully. Both had gone on to other departments in other cities. But he doubted he’d happened to catch them taking their first payoff. What he probably had destroyed was their illegal-income source. And that day, Tate had known they’d never forgive him for that. Or for putting Jim behind bars.

  So, when his family friend had said he could do unofficially for Tate what he’d done for years for federal witnesses—only to a lesser degree, giving Tate some contact with his family—he’d jumped on it. Better to start over than to constantly live in fear. Especially if that fear was for more than just himself.

  In the years since, he’d kept tabs on Kevin and Paul, expecting one day their illegal activities would catch up to them. But they were both still police officers, both still a potential threat. He’d finally accepted that this was his life now and allowed himself to embrace it.

  He would probably never go home again. But he was going to make sure that wasn’t Sabrina’s fate.

  Chapter Eight

  Someone was staring at her.

  Sabrina’s breathing became shallow as the certainty washed over her. She glanced around the little downtown, trying to be subtle but feeling obvious as her gaze lingered on any man she didn’t recognize as a longtime Desparre resident.

  Maybe she just sensed the police watching her.

  Tate had told her that the police wanted her to act normal, try to get out and engage with people. She was supposed to notify them whenever she went anywhere, so they could watch from a distance. They figured that’s what her stalker was doing, so they would look for anyone paying her too much attention.

  As she glanced around, Officer Lorenzo Riera nodded briefly at her. It evened out her breathing, made her shoulders relax from where they’d crept up her neck. If she couldn’t have Tate watching over her—she knew he was off duty today—having the serious veteran officer keep watch was a close second.

  Walking from where she’d parked near the grocery store toward the park felt strange today. She’d done this walk many times, but somehow, even after doing it just once with Tate and Sitka, it felt unnatural not to have them at her side.

  Every step felt stiff, and the swing of her arms that was meant to look casual seemed awkward. No matter how many times she told herself not to make it obvious she was watching for someone, she couldn’t stop herself from scanning the area.

  A tall man with dark hair and a terrible mustache stood up the hill, near a vehicle that was parked close to where Talise’s truck had been yesterday. He met her gaze and gave her a brief nod the same way Officer Riera had done. But this man wasn’t a cop.

  She didn’t know him. The way he immediately averted his gaze after that nod made her shoulders tense up again. Was the bad mustache a disguise? She didn’t recognize him from around town, but then again, she didn’t know everyone.

  Her gaze went back to the officer, to see if he’d noticed, but his expression was even. He didn’t even seem to be paying attention to her as he meandered across the street, stopping to chat with people along the way.

  She tried to will Officer Riera to look her way as the mustached man got into a light-colored sedan, but the officer still wasn’t watching. So, she picked up her pace, hoping to get a license-plate number. As the vehicle pulled onto the street quickly enough to make the tires squeal, she saw that the plate was caked over with mud.

  Frustrated, she glanced back at the officer again.

  This time, he looked in her general direction, his gaze sweeping over and past her. As he continued walking, he shook his head.

  Did that mean he knew the man? Was she being paranoid? Seeing every man as a threat now?

  She reached for her phone to text the officer, to make sure he’d seen what she had.

  “Sabrina!”

  She jumped at the sound of her name, almost dropping her phone as her hand jerked automatically toward her purse, where she still kept a canister of pepper spray.

  When her gaze swung toward the park, she saw Lora Perkins and Adam Lassiter waving. Lora was frowning, like she knew something was wrong, and Adam seemed like he was faking enthusiasm at seeing her.

  After Talise, they were some of the people she knew best in Desparre. So, she tucked her phone away and pasted on a smile she could feel quivering as she walked toward them.

  “Are you okay?” Lora asked, putting a hand on her arm when she reached them. “We heard about the truck almost hitting you yesterday.”

  Sabrina nodded. “Yeah. The police think it was a freak accident.” It was what the
y’d said to tell anyone who asked about it, just in case her stalker had been responsible. They wanted him to feel like he’d gotten away with it, so he’d be more confident continuing to follow her. Talise had been asked to play along, pretend she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten to engage her parking brake. Police hadn’t given her specifics on why, just that they thought the ploy would help draw out the person responsible.

  Lora’s frown deepened, the perfectly smooth, pale skin on her forehead furrowing as if she could tell Sabrina was lying.

  Lora was only a few years older than Sabrina, but from the moment they’d met, she’d mothered Sabrina. She’d even commented on it once, laughingly telling Sabrina she knew she was doing it, but that she couldn’t help it. She’d grown up in the mountains of Desparre, with drug-addicted parents and three younger siblings who needed to be fed and cared for. They were all adults now, all successful and married and living far away from the town where they’d grown up. While Lora claimed she couldn’t bring herself to have kids and spend the rest of her life the way she’d spent her childhood—looking after others—she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing it with everyone she met.

  “Are you sure?” Adam asked.

  Sabrina’s gaze shifted to him. He, too, was a few years older than her. He was newer to Desparre than she was and knew even fewer people. He probably never would have spoken to her or anyone else if Lora hadn’t pressured him to do it. Once you befriended Lora, it was hard to say no to her good-natured attempts to help.

  He didn’t seem particularly suspicious of her lie, but it was hard to tell beneath the look of despair and grief that was always on his face. His wife had died a few months earlier, and he’d left behind their home on the other side of Alaska for some peace and quiet here.

  She shrugged, trying to sound flippant. “Yeah, what else would it be? It was scary, but trust me, Talise will never forget to put her parking brake on again!”

  Adam nodded, his gaze drifting to the other side of the park, where a group of kids were playing. But Lora still looked suspicious.

  Sabrina averted her gaze, and her attention caught on a man standing by the park gazebo. He was lowering his phone like he’d had it up to take a picture, and his gaze locked on hers, lingering for a moment before he turned and walked out of the park.

  Her breath caught. Something about his build and his walk was familiar. From seeing him around town? Or from back in New York?

  “Sabrina.” Lora squeezed her arm. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem really spooked.”

  Ripping her gaze away and hoping Officer Riera was paying attention, Sabrina tried for a smile. Because it shook way too much to be believable, she admitted, “I guess yesterday scared me more than I realized. I keep thinking a car is going to come at me out of nowhere.”

  She tried for a laugh and was amazed when it came out self-deprecating but real. “I think I’m going to head home and relax for a while.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Lora said.

  “Let us know if you need anything,” Adam added.

  The look on his face—like he’d finally lifted out of his own grief enough to see something around him was wrong—told her this wasn’t working at all.

  She needed to get it together. Because the best way to find her stalker was to give him a chance to watch her. And give the police a chance to spot him doing it.

  The way things were going, she was more likely to alert him to the fact that police were watching. And if he knew that, would he leave? And leave her in a perpetual state of limbo?

  Or would he make one last bold move and kill her this time?

  * * *

  TATE STARED AT the picture of Dylan Westwood on his computer screen. This was Sabrina’s old boyfriend. It had to be.

  Leaning back in his chair in the second bedroom he used as a home office, Tate studied the man Sabrina had been dating two years ago. He’d woken early to do some digging into Sabrina’s life, but he only had another hour and a half until he needed to be at work.

  The photo someone had chosen to accompany Dylan’s obituary showed him grinning, amusement clear in his dark blue eyes. According to the obit, the twenty-eight-year-old marketing associate at a record label had been survived by both parents and four younger siblings.

  Tate had found the obituary from cross-referencing an article about Dylan’s murder from New York two years ago. He’d found that article by searching for information about a murder in that time frame that mentioned a stalker. Dylan had been shot in his own home and the story said police believed his girlfriend’s stalker had murdered him. They were asking anyone who had information to come forward.

  Sabrina Jones’s real name was Sabrina Reilly.

  Tate tried the name out on his lips. Something about it matched her more than Jones. But Jones was a smart choice for going on the run, since it was one of the most popular last names in the US. If she ever ran into trouble with her fake ID, it might have been easily explained away as a mix-up with some other Sabrina Jones.

  Pulling up a couple of social-media sites, Tate typed in Sabrina Reilly and searched through the possible matches. He found her on the third site. Her account was set to private, but there were certain things he could still see, including her profile picture, which told him he’d found the right Sabrina. In the picture, her head was thrown back, and she was laughing. Her hair was shorter, still with those natural waves. Her dress was more trendy, less practical than what she wore in Alaska. But mostly, she looked the same—minus the haunted look in her eyes.

  Scrolling through the posts that weren’t hidden from view, including pictures she’d been tagged in—all from over two years ago—Tate searched for anything or anyone that seemed out of place. But all of the comments seemed to be from friends, and even meticulously cross-checking each of the people who’d liked her photos didn’t reveal anything that stood out as odd.

  So, he went deeper, checking each of the friends in those photos, until he found a few who had their profiles set to public. He dug into their older pictures, too, looking for anywhere Sabrina was not tagged or in the background, searching for anyone who commented or liked too many of them. Still nothing.

  With a frustrated sigh, he kept going, finding other people with the last name Reilly, until he came across one who had to be her older brother. Conor Reilly. He was a stockbroker with a long-term girlfriend and a love of baseball. Two years ago, his posts had suddenly become public. On some of his early posts, there were multiple comments asking about his sister, all of which he’d ignored.

  Tate dug into each of the people who’d asked about her, but none seemed likely to be her stalker. They all seemed far too embedded in the Reillys’ lives. And Tate agreed with the New York police: the person stalking Sabrina had to be on the outskirts of her life. If he was too close to her, she would have noticed that he paid her too much attention or that he acted extra awkward, nervous, angry or overly emotional around her.

  Leaning back in his chair, Tate frowned at the screen. He felt a hint of guilt at digging into Sabrina’s personal life without her permission, but if this led to a promising lead, it would be worth it. He’d learned early as a cop that people put way more of themselves online than they realized. And a lot more of it was discoverable by strangers than they probably wanted.

  The missing piece he needed might still be here, somewhere, tangled in a web of loose social connections. He’d keep picking at it when he could, but for now, it confirmed what the Desparre PD had decided from the outset: the key to finding Sabrina’s stalker would be tracking him here. Not trying to dig him out of her past.

  Woof!

  Startled, Tate glanced over and realized Sitka was standing in the doorway. “What is it, Sitka?”

  She took a step forward and barked again.

  Tate frowned at her, knowing she wanted his attention but not sure why. He glanced a
t his watch, realizing that he’d lost track of time while he’d been searching. He needed to hurry and get ready for work. Jumping to his feet, he said, “Thanks, Sitka.” Then he heard the sound of a car engine starting up.

  She hadn’t been trying to tell him they were running late for work. She’d been alerting him that someone was here.

  Hurrying down the stairs, Tate peered through his peephole out to his drive. The area around his house was partly obscured by woods, but he didn’t see anyone. The car was gone. Except... He squinted at his front stoop, where something had been left.

  Sabrina’s stalker had obviously identified him and Sitka as allies of Sabrina. Even if he’d figured out where Tate lived, would he dare to come here?

  Thinking of the description of Dylan’s death from one of the articles about the unsolved murder, Tate ran upstairs, where he kept his gun locked up. Less than a minute later, he was back downstairs, phrases from the article floating through his brain.

  ...shot in his own home...house ransacked...only suspect is an unidentified person stalking his girlfriend.

  Compared to the fingerprint-free notes the stalker left Sabrina, Dylan’s murder seemed uncontrolled, full of rage.

  “Sitka, move over here,” Tate instructed, pointing back toward his kitchen, away from the front door.

  She followed his instructions, backing quickly into the kitchen. But she was looking at him like she didn’t understand. They weren’t working; they were at home. Home was safe and fun.

  He didn’t think anyone was out there, but he didn’t want to take any chances if the stalker had left some kind of explosive device or wanted to lure him closer.

  Peering through the door once more, Tate tried to identify the object, but it was right up against the door, mostly out of view. Instead of opening his front door, he told Sitka, “Stay,” then ran around to his attached garage at the side and slipped out that way. He didn’t see anyone skulking near his house, but then, he’d heard a vehicle drive away. So most likely, the person had dropped something at the door, then run.