Standing Fast. Maggie K. Black

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СКАЧАТЬ hard in Chase’s chest that he’d wanted to run through the base to find Maisy, scoop her up into his arms and promise he’d do anything in his power to avenge her father’s death. Instead, a nod and an “I’m sorry for your loss” at the Sunny Seeds Preschool gate had had to do.

      Sudden footsteps sounded in the darkness. Bright light shone in his eyes. Voices shouted so loudly they seemed to be coming from all directions at once. “Hands up! Hands up! Get down! Down on the ground!”

      Six members of the Air Force Emergency Services team swarmed his yard in full flak gear. Someone must have seen either him or the prowler in the bushes and called the police. Instinctively, he dropped to his knees and put his hands up as instructed, with his gun in one hand and the picture in the other.

      “Hey, guys! It’s okay! This is my house. There was a prowler, but they’re gone!”

      “Hands where we can see them, Airman!” The voice was brusque and male.

      Chase complied. What was going on? True, he’d only been stationed back at the base for a little over a year, and before starting K-9 training, most of his Security Forces work had involved things like guarding gates and patrolling secure facilities. But that didn’t change the fact that these men and women in uniform were still his colleagues. He searched past the barrels of M4 carbine rifles and Berretta M9 pistols for a familiar face. From inside the house, he could hear Queenie barking. Allie’s wails rose. Cops rushed past him, kicking down his front door to get inside and fanning out around his small home.

      “Clear!” voices echoed from inside his home.

      “Clear!” came another.

      What was this? What were they searching for?

      “Let me explain,” he said, in the calmest voice he could muster. “There was a prowler. But they’re gone.”

      No response. His teeth clenched. His heartbeat roared. Enough was enough! They were terrifying Allie, and for what? “Please! Let me go get my daughter!”

      A sigh of relief filled Chase’s lungs as the tall form of Captain Justin Blackwood, head of the Boyd Sullivan investigation, stepped around the corner. Blackwood’s reputation as a stellar cop was beyond reproach.

      “Sir!” Chase said, instinctively feeling his shoulders straighten and his fingers flinch, wanting to salute. “What’s going on?”

      But any relief he’d felt melted away as he saw the grim frown on the captain’s face. “Airman Chase McLear. We have a warrant to search your premises. We have reason to believe you’re harboring Boyd Sullivan.”

      * * *

      Faint hues of crimson and burnt orange sky brushed along the edges of the horizon as Maisy Lockwood jogged down the sidewalk and through the residential neighborhoods of Canyon Air Force Base. Water sloshed back and forth in her metal water bottle as it knocked around inside the backpack that sat heavy on her slender shoulders. The sun had just started its climb into the morning sky, but already she could smell the humidity in the air. Today was going to be another scorcher.

      The whole base is on high alert and you’re out jogging alone? The voice of her close friend and newlywed Staff Sergeant Felicity James filled her mind.

      At least I’m not wearing headphones, she mentally argued back. As much as she missed pounding her sneakers down the pavement in time to the music, running without it was one of the many changes she’d made since Boyd Sullivan had escaped prison and broken onto the base to kill those his twisted mind thought had somehow wronged him. But giving up jogging around the base before heading into work at Sunny Seeds Preschool each morning, just like she had with her father every day for years before he was murdered, had been one thing she’d refused to let that demented killer take from her.

      Something inside her needed that time to pray, and sometimes even cry, before opening the classroom doors each morning and welcoming the shining, hopeful little faces who counted on her to be the caring one who doled out hugs, wiped away tears and blew air kisses over bumped foreheads and scraped knees. They needed her to be at her best. So she mourned for the father whose approval she’d never quite managed to earn, knowing with each step that maybe if she’d gotten there just a few minutes earlier on the morning he was murdered by Boyd, he’d still be alive.

      She blinked back a tear and tightened the pink bandanna that held back her hair. Her father’s basic training officer voice thundered through her ears. I’m not here to baby anybody’s feelings or hold anybody’s hand. There are two types of people in the world, the weak and the strong. Which one are you?

      Weak. That was his implication. Just like her beautiful and delicate mother who’d died from a drug overdose when Maisy was thirteen, leaving her in the care of a man who didn’t do hugs and definitely wasn’t about to blow an air kiss over any of life’s wounds. At barely five feet tall, with two left feet, Clint Lockwood’s only child hadn’t even tried to take the air force’s physical test, much to his disappointment. A sudden lump formed in her throat. Their relationship hadn’t been perfect, true, but when Boyd had murdered him, he’d taken not only his life but Maisy’s hope that their relationship could ever be better. She swallowed hard. Her father had considered Boyd weak too. And the angry and disturbed young man had returned the day he’d escaped prison to get his revenge.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ