Standing Fast Read online

  Red-and-blue lights flashed ahead. The sound of sirens mingled with the fierce sound of fearless K-9 dogs barking. Security Forces cops in combat gear swarmed a small bungalow. Her breath caught. Had police finally caught Boyd or the accomplice who’d been sneaking him on and off the base?

  Please, Lord, may the nightmare finally be over. Help them catch Boyd before anybody else gets hurt!

  As she approached the police operation, her footsteps faltered. There was someone ahead of her, crouched low in the bushes, watching the police operation.

  They had their back to her and their features were obscured by an oversize hoodie and a black baseball cap. The figure seemed too slender to be Boyd. Could it be Boyd’s accomplice? Was it the anonymous blogger who’d been making people’s lives miserable with a steady stream of salacious gossip? Or even some paranoid Canyon resident who thought they needed to skulk in the shadows and disguise themselves to avoid the Red Rose Killer?

  Maisy’s pulse quickened. She reached into her pocket, feeling for her cell phone.

  The figure turned. A bandanna covered the lower half of their face. A knife flashed in their gloved hand.

  Save me, Lord!

  Instantly, she whipped her backpack off her shoulders and spun it around in front of her like a defensive shield. A heavy metal water bottle wasn’t much against a knife, but one way or another she’d go down fighting. Her eyes searched in vain for a glimpse of the figure’s eyes or anything solid to identify who they were.

  “Stop right there!” she yelled, wincing at the way her own voice quaked. “Drop the knife! Right now! I mean it!”

  The figure hesitated. Maisy’s limbs shook.

  Help me, Lord! What do I do?

  She wasn’t authorized to carry a weapon on base and the backpack wouldn’t do much. But there were large rocks encircling a nearby garden and she had a whistle on her key chain. Whatever it took, no daughter of Clint Lockwood was going down without a fight. The barking of Canyon’s K-9 dogs seemed to be growing louder, followed by the sound of even more sirens.

  The figure lurched forward a step. Hot tears rushed to Maisy’s eyes as she steadied herself to fight. Then the figure turned and sprinted away through the base.

  Relief washed over Maisy’s body and tension fled her limbs so suddenly she felt her knees go weak, nearly pitching her to the ground. Who was that? Had that knife been for protection or violence? She propelled her wobbly legs toward the cops, as her heart beat so hard in her slender frame. In the three and a half months since the Red Rose Killer had broken out of prison, it was like a deep fog of uncertainty and fear had descended over the base. Neighbors suspected neighbors. Colleagues viewed each other with suspicion. Stamping out gossip among her students was a daily task, and when parents arrived at the school, they hugged their children closer and were slower to let them go. Two of her friends, Felicity and Zoe, had quickly married the men of their dreams, rather than waiting a moment longer to start their happily-ever-afters. It was like everyone was a little more aware of how precious life could be.

  Something crunched under her feet. She bent down. Her fingers reached for the glittering shapes, cupping them into her palms. They were seashells. No. Wait. They were dried pasta. Bright pink with gold paint splotches and coated in purple glitter, they were the same kind of pasta she used for craft time at Sunny Seeds, and unless she was very wrong, she’d helped one of her own students paint these very shells herself before painstakingly placing them on a cardboard picture frame—Allie McLear.

  What would remnants of little Allie’s treasured frame be doing out here on the ground? Confusion gripped her heart again as the bright-eyed toddler’s face swam unbidden into her mind, along with that of her handsome, broad-shouldered father, Chase McLear. The students had made the frames and taken them home as a Valentine’s Day present for their parents and caregivers. She could still remember the sweet and chagrined look on Chase’s face the next day as he’d stood with his lanky form half leaning against the door frame to the entrance of Sunny Seeds and explained that Allie would like a picture of herself and Maisy to put in it, if she’d be okay with him taking one. She hadn’t been about to say no.

  She’d always tried her best not to have favorites, but she had to admit that Allie had burrowed a meaningful place in Maisy’s heart. There was something special about the tiny blonde, motherless bundle of sunshine with vulnerable eyes and an eager smile. And if she was honest, she suspected Allie’s father was something special too.

  While he’d told her that he was one of thousands of airmen who’d been trained by her father, she hadn’t actually met Chase before he’d been deployed to Afghanistan many years ago or spoken to him until he moved back to Texas and enrolled his daughter in Sunny Seeds. She’d vowed long ago that she’d never fall for a man in uniform. It was a promise she’d stuck to for all twenty-five years of her life. But she couldn’t deny that over the past few months she’d developed a bit of a crush on Allie’s father. Probably ever since the day the single father had first dropped Allie off in her care.

  Her steps quickened as she recognized the house number and street from the Sunny Seeds’s attendance records. Police encircled Chase and Allie’s house. Were they in some kind of trouble? Had they been targeted by the Red Rose Killer? Please, no!

  She started running toward the house. A small crowd of people had formed on the sidewalk. She pushed past them, her heart stuttering a beat as she caught sight of the tall and strong form of her friend Captain Justin Blackwood standing among the cops. What was the head of the Red Rose Killer investigation doing at Allie and Chase’s house? She ran for him. She had to tell him about the knife-wielding figure.

  A hand in the crowd caught her arm. She turned back. It was the tall, blonde form of Yvette Crenville, the base nutritionist and someone else who she knew had been targeted and threatened by Boyd Sullivan thanks to a failed past romance.

  “We’ve got to stay back,” Yvette said. She let go of Maisy’s arm. “They’re making an arrest. It might be Boyd’s accomplice.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Maisy said. She prayed Chase and Allie were all right. “I just saw a prowler in the bushes. I have to report it while there might still be a chance to catch them.”

  “Could it be Boyd?” Yvette’s beautiful eyes went wide. “Someone reported that he was seen going in and out of that house.”

  Chase and Allie’s house? “No, that’s not possible. One of my students lives there. Her father seems like a really great guy. There’s no way...”

  Her voice trailed off, unable to find the words to finish the sentence. After all, Yvette had never expected that the man she’d once loved would turn out to be a serial killer. She ran toward Justin, even as she felt her gaze pull toward the house. Two cops flanked a tall and broad-shouldered man in soft gray track pants and a simple white T-shirt who knelt by the back door of the bungalow. His head was bowed and his hands were linked on top of his head.

  Chase looked up, and his eyes widened as his gaze met hers through the chaos, and the previous stutter she’d felt in her chest turned into a jolt so painful it seemed to shock her heart’s ability to even beat.

  No, no it couldn’t be. Her secret crush, and the single father of her favorite student, was being arrested for harboring her father’s killer.

  TWO

  Maisy watched, her head swimming in confusion and disbelief, as Chase stayed kneeling between the uniformed cops. Prayer filled her aching chest.

  Lord, what’s happening? Did Chase really have something to do with Dad’s murder?

  “Justin!”

  The tall cop turned toward her, his lips set in a grim line. “Morning, Maisy. I’ve got to ask you to step back.”

  Justin Blackwood was a tough and reliable captain, but even then, she’d never seen his face so serious.

  “I just saw a prowler in the bushes with a knife!” s
he said, forcing herself to leave the question of Chase’s arrest for now. If there was even a possibility it was Boyd Sullivan, that was all that mattered for now. She pointed. “Over there. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. But they were thin. I don’t think it was Boyd Sullivan, but he’s been living in the woods for months, so who knows how much weight he’s lost. They had a hoodie and a bandanna over their face. They pulled a knife, but when I yelled they ran away. I think they had part of a picture frame Allie and I made.”

  She held out her hand to show him the pieces she’d picked up. Justin’s face paled. In an instant he’d summoned two K-9 officers to his side and quickly took a detailed description of the suspect’s appearance from Maisy and the direction he’d gone. The cops and their canine partners took off after the suspect. Justin turned to Maisy.

  “Are you okay?” Concern reverberated through his voice.

  She nodded as something about the sincerity of her friend’s caring question made her voice catch. The single father of a teenaged girl, Justin had been someone Maisy had considered a friend for years. If she was honest, she suspected her father had been disappointed that no romantic spark had ever bloomed between her and the military police captain. She’d definitely noticed how the cut of Justin’s jaw and the intensity of his gaze had a certain attractiveness, which had turned more than one female head on base. But the fact that his obvious good looks had never had any impact on her personally had been one of the reasons she figured she was immune to the charms of any man in uniform—a thought that had promptly evaporated the moment Chase McLear had brought little Allie into Sunny Seeds and sent a thousand butterfly wings flapping in Maisy’s chest.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “They didn’t threaten me or come anywhere near touching me. They just pulled a knife and then ran. Whoever they were, I wasn’t their target.”

  Justin nodded slowly. She had a pretty good guess what he was thinking. In the several sightings of the Red Rose Killer since he’d escaped prison, one constant that remained was that he only killed people he thought deserved it—like her father—or that he needed something from to achieve that aim.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why are you arresting Chase McLear? Yvette said Boyd had been seen going in and out of his house. That can’t be true.”

  He paused and his eyes rose to the sky as if he was trying to decide what to tell her.

  “I know that different members of the investigative team have been chasing down a lot of different leads,” she added quickly. “I don’t expect to be kept in the loop about all of them and I know there’s a lot you can’t tell me. But Chase is the father of one of my students.”

  Justin’s brows furrowed and for a moment, it looked like he was weighing his words before deciding what to say. “I can confirm that the investigative team received an anonymous tip that Chase McLear was harboring the Red Rose Killer—”

  “But that’s impossible!” Maisy felt her hand rise to her lips. “Chase...I mean, Senior Airman McLear is a good man and a devoted father.”

  A single eyebrow rose. “I assume this is your subjective personal opinion of the man from your interactions with him and not based on any specific evidence as to his relationship with Boyd Sullivan?”

  Heat rose to her face. If she was honest, she wasn’t even sure why she was defending Chase so quickly and eagerly. There was just something about him that got to her. She’d always believed in Jesus’s teaching from “The Sermon on the Mount” that the true character of a person’s heart was known by the things he did. Despite his reserved exterior, she was convinced Chase truly loved his daughter. It was obvious every time she’d watched Allie barrel into his waiting arms at the end of the day. And sometimes when he met her gaze over his daughter’s blond curls, it was almost like she caught a glimpse of something lost and broken behind his deep green eyes.

  “Senior Airman McLear says it was all a misunderstanding and that there was a prowler on his property—”

  “And I saw a prowler with a knife,” Maisy interjected again. The slight narrowing of her friend’s eyes suddenly reminded her that as a friend and civilian she was being treated with far more latitude than anyone serving under the strict captain would have ever received for such an outburst. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I’m just really shaken by this.”

  “I understand,” he said, but the firm timber of his voice let her know just how little impact her passionate defense of Chase would have on his investigation. “Senior Airman McLear has maintained his innocence. We will of course be taking his claims of a prowler seriously and hopefully my officers will be able to track down and catch the person you saw. I’m trusting you to respect the fact that there is additional information about this investigation that I’m not at liberty to tell you. But I do feel a responsibility to let you know this is not the first time this suspect has come to our attention. Now, I have to ask you, do you know if he had any kind of relationship or interaction with your father?”

  “No.” She shook her head, feeling her sweat-soaked hair dance and fly around her head. “My dad was his basic training officer, but that was years ago.”

  “Do you know if your father was particularly hard on him?” the captain pressed.

  “My father was hard on a lot of people.” Especially her. Again, her eyes flicked to where Chase was kneeling, flanked by officers. Anger burned in his eyes, mixed with a quiet desperation bordering on panic, like a wounded animal desperately scanning the snare that had just trapped him. “Look, Chase can’t be working with Boyd Sullivan. I’m almost certain of it.”

  The lines of Justin’s brow furrowed deeper. “Again, do you have any evidence to back that up?”

  “No.” Her chest fell. She had a hunch and nothing more.

  Was her blind faith of Chase’s true nature any different than Yvette’s had been about Boyd?

  A frightened and furious wail seemed to break through the early morning air and rise above the chaos. A cop in flak gear was carrying a squirming and pajama-clad Allie out of the house. She recognized him. Lieutenant Preston Flannigan was the slightly pushy single father of one of the boys in her preschool.

  “No!” Allie squirmed, fighting against the firm arms holding her. “Stop! No! I want Daddy!”

  Sudden tears rushed to Maisy’s eyes. “What’s going to happen to Allie?”

  “That’s up to Chase. We’ll be taking him in for questioning. Hopefully, he has someone who can take her. If not, we’ll arrange for a base social worker.”

  A stranger? She knew the social workers on base were wonderful people who did a difficult job, but still, she couldn’t imagine how hard it would be on little Allie to understand where she was going and what was happening to her. She glanced at Chase. His face had paled with an agony that seemed to rip her own heart in half. No, she couldn’t just stand there and watch this happen. She took a step toward the little girl. “Allie, it’s going to be okay.”

  Allie’s tearstained face turned toward her. “Maisy! I want Miss Maisy!”

  Her little arms shot out, and Maisy felt her arms instinctively wrap around the child.

  “Justin, I’ll take her to the preschool with me, if Chase is okay with that. She’s one of my students and watching her the extra hour before school starts is no trouble at all. I know her and she knows me.”

  Concern rumbled in the captain’s voice. “Are you sure?”

  Maisy’s eyes glanced from father to daughter. “Absolutely.”

  “All right.” He led her through the crowd until they reached Chase. “Maisy has offered to take care of your daughter while you come in for questioning. Is that acceptable to you?”

  Chase turned toward them and gratitude filled his gaze. “Yes, thank you. Please, don’t let her out of your sight. There was a prowler outside of my home this morning. They cut the screen on her bedroom window.”

  Was that the same per
son she’d seen skulking in the bushes? She wanted to ask him more and tell him what she’d seen, but with Security Forces all around and little frightened Allie in her arms it would have to wait. “I’ll keep her safe, Chase. I promise.”

  “Thanks,” he said again. “She’ll need to get dressed and changed. Plus, I haven’t fed her breakfast yet. She’s recently been refusing to eat cereal if milk touches it, but she’s okay with fruit...” His voice trailed off, as if his mind was struggling to figure out what else he should tell her.

  “Don’t worry,” she said quickly. “I’ve got a change of clothes for her in her cubby at the preschool. I bought some fresh fruit yesterday and I have frozen waffles and yogurt on hand for breakfast.”

  The number of students who’d been having problems both eating and sleeping had increased since the Red Rose Killer had broken onto the base. She heard Allie’s babbling voice at her ear, and the toddler took Maisy’s face in both of her hands, turning the preschool teacher’s gaze away from Chase. Allie looked at her seriously. “Police broke my house, Maisy.”

  “The police are just searching your house to make sure that you and your daddy are okay,” Maisy said, softly. “Like Queenie searches your house for things. Now, your daddy is going to help the police and you are going to come to school with me. We’ll have special strawberries and waffles for breakfast. Would you like that?”