Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #1 (26 page)

Eddie snorted. “Face-planting me into the sidewalk is a great way to start.” He lifted his mug in a toast. “Thanks.”

The waitress slipped their soup bowls onto the table, allowing him to let the remark pass without comment. Clearly it would take a lot more than a few shared dinners to chisel that boulder-sized chip from Eddie's shoulder.

Sirens cut through the silence. An ambulance whipped out the bay next door, but with hedges blocking a good part of the view, Cole couldn't tell if Sherri was inside. He breathed a silent prayer for her protection that only partially quelled the urgent desire to follow the ambulance and do the job himself. Okay, time to stop worrying about treading on his brother's feelings. He locked gazes with Eddie. “If you want me to trust you, you need to be straight with me. 'Cause I'll tell you, across the street is an office full of deputies that think you should be sitting in jail. Are you stalking Sherri?”

“What?” Eddie's head jolted back, his eyes wide with shock that looked pretty believable, unless it was shock that Cole had clued into his double life. If Eddie was trying to exact revenge for the way Cole had ignored him, terrorizing Sherri was a sickeningly smart way to go.

“You heard me,” Cole said through gritted teeth, not wanting to believe the worst about Eddie despite appearances.

“No, man, I just needed a fix.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I thought you of all people would believe me.”

“I want to, Eddie. But you're not giving me anything to go on. You say some guy told you to do these things, but you don't have a name, a location and scarcely a description. And her partner's got it in for you now.” Cole had checked the guy's background. A former army medic, the man had a little too much righteous warrior in him for Cole's comfort level.

“I'm telling you, that day in the ambulance is the first time I'd seen her in, like—” he hesitated, the flick of his gaze betraying his deception “—like, forever.”

Cole let it slide.
For now.
If he wanted to earn Eddie's trust, he needed his brother to at least think he believed him. “And where were you when this
guy
told you to raid her ambulance?”

“Around.”

“Around where?”

“I don't remember. The park maybe.”

“The park downtown?” Where psycho homeless guy hung out.

“Yeah, maybe. I hang there sometimes. It's not like I go looking for him.” Eddie slurped his soup. “He finds me.”

Cole didn't like the sound of that. “He finds
you
?”

“Yeah, you know. We just kind of run into each other.”

Yeah, Cole could imagine the kind of places they ran into each other. If anyone had asked him seven years ago if there was a booming drug culture in Stalwart, he would've laughed. Now...he wasn't so sure. “You hang out together?”

“No, but he knows what it's like to, you know, need a fix.”

Needing to get his own fix on the guy's whereabouts, Cole resisted the urge to point out that the guys at Teen Challenge knew, too, and cared a whole lot more about helping him. Eddie wasn't ready to hear it yet.

“He sometimes gives me tips on where I can get stuff free,” Eddie went on.

“You mean steal it?”

Eddie shrugged again.

“What's he drive?”

“Never paid attention.”

“But he does drive? He's not some homeless guy living on the street?”

“He doesn't look like one.” Eddie pushed away his empty soup bowl. “We done?”

Cole's cell phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. Zeke? He'd thought his partner would be happy to have another day off from being saddled with him. Probably calling to rub in that his nephew wouldn't be taking a sick day if he were on the job. Cole held up a finger to signal Eddie to wait a minute and clicked Talk. “What's up?”

“You know where your brother is?” Zeke's voice grated. Why the sheriff had partnered Cole with the one guy who resented him filling the new opening, he'd never know.

“Here with me. Why?”

Eddie's wary gaze snapped to his.

“You're lucky. Dispatch just got a call of a savage dog attacking a female paramedic.”

Cole's pulse jumped. Sherri was the only female paramedic in Stalwart. “Where? Is she okay?”

“I don't know what her condition is. I'm on my way. So's animal control. She's at Line One near Third.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

Zeke's snort punctuated the click of him hanging up. Clearly his intention hadn't been friendly.

Cole threw cash on the table and grabbed Eddie's arm. “We've got to go.” Zeke may have taken his word that Eddie was with him, but he wanted Sherri to see it for herself.

“Me?” Eddie looked as if he thought Cole was taking him to a lynching—his.

FIVE

“N
ice dog,” Sherri repeated to the snarling Rottweiler, her heart jack-hammering her ribs.

Dan, who'd gotten away by ramming the dog with the gurney, was frantically trying to get dispatch to raise their 9-1-1 caller. “I told you I had a bad feeling about this place.”

“Now? You really want to have this argument now?” His battering-ram routine hadn't helped the situation. Eyes fixed on the hundred-pound mass of heaving muscle and bared teeth, she continued her slow back pedal. She already had one inquest hanging over her head. Making another patient wait because of a
feeling
hadn't been an option. One more backward step and the jagged stucco of the L-shaped house dug into her spine.

Her heart jumped to her throat. The dog had her cornered in the middle of the L, a good hundred feet from the safety of the ambulance. “What do I do now?” She breathed through clenched teeth.

“Try holding out your hand like you're friendly.”

“Are you crazy? He'll bite it off.”

“Okay.” Abandoning his radio, Dan edged forward and cautiously reached for the overturned gurney.

Like lightning, the dog dug its teeth into the cushioned top and with a whip of its head sent the gurney clattering.

Sherri edged sideways along the wall as Dan sprang back and nearly went down.

But the dog didn't pounce on him. It immediately retrained its narrowed black eyes on her and stalked closer inch by menacing inch.

Reaching behind her, she felt for the doorknob.

It didn't give.

Sweat trickled down her cheeks. Dan was yelling something, but she couldn't make out what over the roar of blood pulsing past her ears.

Finding the doorbell, she drilled it with her thumb. “Nice doggie,” she repeated.

With a blood-chilling growl, the dog bared its fangs.

“Dan!”

“Yah, yah!” he yelled and jumped around like a crazy man. “Help is coming, Sherri. Just don't make any sudden moves.” Except Dan's sudden moves weren't doing a thing to distract the beast.

She struggled to pull in a breath. They'd warned her about dogs in training. But she couldn't remember a thing they'd said. “Am I supposed to maintain eye contact?” She hadn't dared take her eyes off of him.

“Yeah, I think so,” Dan said between “yahs.”

She tried showing it an open palm like he'd suggested earlier.

“No, don't look him in the eye!” A guy rushed toward them, scooping up a dead branch as he ran. “Look at its ears or feet, or it'll think you're challenging him. And fist your hands. Pull them close to your body. Don't give him anything to bite.”

She instantly shifted her gaze to its ears, gulped at their pointy tips aimed straight at her face.

“Go home!” the guy ordered. “Bad dog. Go home!”

“It's not listening,” Sherri eked out. She chanced a glance back at its eyes and the dog lunged.

Massive paws slammed into her, driving the air from her chest. Razor-sharp teeth sliced through her shoulder.

“Cover your face!” The guy swung the branch toward them.

The dog snapped its head around and caught the limb in its teeth. She pushed at its chest, trying to get out from under him. Pain screamed through her shoulder. “Get him off me!”

* * *

“Stay in the truck,” Cole ordered Eddie as they careened to a stop behind an orange car parked behind Sherri's ambulance. The sound of her scream ripped through his chest. Drawing his gun, he raced toward Dan and another guy waving their arms and bouncing around like rodeo clowns.

At the sight of Sherri pinned to the ground by a monstrous dog, its paws on her chest as it viciously tore into her, Cole's heart lurched. He skidded to a stop and got a bead on the dog. Sweat stung his eyes as his finger trembled over the trigger. Blocking out her screams, he inhaled, the scent of blood so strong he could taste it.
Aim center mass and shoot to stop the threat.
His field training officer's instructions blasted through his brain. But Sherri was under that mass!

He jerked up his arms and squeezed off a shot.

The bullet pinged the stucco wall, distracting the dog enough to break his bite, and Cole's heart kicked back to life.

The guy with the branch stormed in again, swinging.

The dog lunged for the tree limb as, gripped by the image of it mauling Sherri, Cole tried to get another bead on it.

Two animal control officers raced up. “It's okay. We got it.”

The guy wrestling with the dog flung the branch at it and scaled the wall as effortlessly as Spider-Man would have.

The animal jumped and tried to clamber after him.

The guy clung to an awning with one hand, his feet and other hand braced against adjoining walls as the dog's heavy claws tore at the stucco. Its snapping jaw narrowly missed the guy's foot.

“We got it,” one of the animal control officers repeated, angling around the dog with a long pole with a loop attached.

Holstering his gun, Cole raced to Sherri's side, his stomach clenching at the sight of the blood-drenched bandage Dan had pressed against her shoulder. “What can I do?”

“Grab the trauma bag!” Dan jutted his chin toward an overturned gurney.

Cole righted the gurney, unbelted the bag secured on top and skidded to his knees at Sherri's side.

Dan's gaze flashed to the dog that animal control was still struggling to subdue. “Help me get her to the ambulance.”

She groaned and pushed onto her hands and knees. “I can get up.” She staggered to her feet, her pallor grayer than the weathered stucco.

Cole scooped her into his arms—how perfectly she fit—and hurried toward the ambulance. “Grab the door,” he shouted at Dan as her lips pinched into a white line. “It's okay. You're going to be okay. Hang on.” He slowed a fraction to keep from jostling her and shot a glance over his shoulder to ensure the dog hadn't veered back in their direction.

The animal-control officers had it cornered, but the dog's ears suddenly perked.

Cole curled his arms to bring Sherri snug against his chest and ran the last five yards to the back of the ambulance, ignoring the pounding pain that stormed into his head at the exertion. Two steps ahead of him, Dan shoved the recovered gurney aboard then grabbed Cole by the top of his sleeve and hauled them up into the ambulance a second before the dog lunged their way.

“Lay her on the gurney,” Dan ordered, but Cole couldn't make his arms cooperate.

She was trembling viciously against his chest and the thought of letting go seemed wrong on too many levels. What if this attack was deliberate? Could he trust Dan with her care?

The ambulance's side door burst open, and Eddie's face bobbed into view. “Cole, we have to go.”

Dan swung toward the door. “You!” He brandished the scissors he'd been about to take to Sherri's shirt and looked at Cole's brother as if he'd tear him to pieces.

“Eddie didn't have anything to do with this,” Cole said quickly. “We were at the coffee shop in town when the call came in.”

The man's jaw worked back and forth, as if he wasn't ready to swallow the excuse.

But the uncertainty trembling in Sherri's eyes as she tried to push out of his arms bothered Cole more. He set her gently onto the gurney.

“We've got to go
now
,” Eddie pressed.

The back door burst open, and a paramedic whose name Cole couldn't remember jumped into the rig. “What have you got?”

“Dog bite in the shoulder.” Dan tore off Sherri's sleeve, revealing raw, ragged flesh.

Eddie turned away and heaved.

Cole focused his attention on Sherri's face, swallowing hard.

“I'm fine.” She rolled onto her uninjured side as if she intended to get up.

“Take it easy, superwoman.” Dan pressed her back to the gurney as the other paramedic checked her vitals and muttered about irresponsible owners. “Is Bill checking on our 9-1-1 caller?”

“Yeah, but sounds like it might've been another crank call. Neighbor says the homeowner's been in the hospital for weeks.”

Cole wouldn't have thought it possible, but Sherri's face turned even grayer.

“Cole.” His brother's impatient bark hit him like a blow to the back.

He spun on his heel. “What?”

“The woods. We have to check them out. Didn't you see the way the dog's ears perked? Someone blew a whistle.”

What Eddie had been trying to tell him finally sank in. Someone had called the dog off. And that someone had to be in the woods the dog had lurched toward!

Cole's gaze snapped to Dan.

“I'll take care of her,” he said, already dousing the wound with saline. “Find the creep who did this.”

“Right.” Cole barreled out the door. “C'mon, Eddie.” They sprinted to the two animal control officers who were lifting the tranquilized Rottweiler into a cage on the back of their truck. “You see whoever was blowing that whistle?”

“Saw movement in the woods over there.” The officer jutted his chin toward the woods across the street. “Didn't get a good look, though.”

“Okay, thanks.” Cole glanced back at the yard where Zeke was still questioning neighbors, then motioned to Eddie. “C'mon.” They raced into the woods, but picking up the trail in the rotted leaves matting the ground proved difficult.

“Over there!” Eddie pointed to a muddy boot print on a rock, then another a yard away.

“He was probably heading toward Third Street.” Dodging tree branches, Cole raced that direction. Chances were that if the guy didn't live nearby, he'd have a car parked on Third. The smell of rotting leaves and damp earth clawed at his throat. If this guy got to his car before Cole caught up to him— Cole cut off the thought and ran harder.

Brighter light filtered through the trees. The road had to be close.

An engine roared to life.

Cole sprinted toward the sound, broke past the tree line. But the road was deserted. He slammed his palm into a tree trunk. “We lost him.” He fisted his hands against the sting of failure more than the sting in his palm. How many times would he let Sherri down?

Eddie hunched over, braced his hands on his knees and gulped air. “Can't you put out a BOLO?”

“For what? We don't even know what he's driving.” And there weren't any houses around. Cole stalked back through the woods in the direction they'd come. “Our best hope of tracking him is if he had a dog license for that menace. He'll be looking at an attempted murder charge after I get through with the DA.”

Eddie tripped over a tree root and his knees hit the dirt.

Extending a hand to help him up, Cole spotted a cell phone in the leaves. Using a tissue to preserve fingerprints, he picked it up. “You drop this?”

“No, I lost my phone a few days ago.”

That explained, at least, why he hadn't responded to any of Cole's messages.

Eddie wiped his dirt-smeared hands down his jeans. “You think it's the guy's we were chasing?”

“If it's still got juice, chances are good it is.” Cole hit the power button and the screen lit. He grinned. “We've got him.” Using a pen tip, he pushed a couple of buttons to pull up the contacts menu. “If we can't get an ID on the owner from the phone's number, we'll get it from his contacts.” His heart jerked at the sight of an all-too-familiar phone number—his father and Eddie's home number.

Eddie's face turned as pale as Sherri's had been.

“Who's phone is this?” Cole demanded.

“I...I...” Eddie backed away looking guilty.
Very
guilty.

Cole fisted Eddie's shirt in his hand and backed him against a tree. “Who's terrorizing Sherri?”

“I don't know.”

“Whose phone is this?” Cole demanded more loudly.

Eddie's mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out.

Cole shoved him hard against the tree. “Tell me.”

“It's mine. It's my phone.”

“Yours?” Cole's grip went lax. Eddie had been with him the whole time. There was no way he could've sicced that dog on Sherri, and if he knew who had, he wouldn't have pressed Cole to follow the dog.
Would he?

“Can I have it back?” Eddie's voice quivered.

“No, we need to dust it for fingerprints.” Cole's breath bottled up in his lungs. They'd find Eddie's prints, identify the phone as Eddie's, and take one look at his rap sheet and not believe for a second that he wasn't connected.

Alibi or not.

And Cole—the new cop brother—trying to defend him would
not
go over well.

Eddie tugged on his arm. “Cole, you can't turn it in. They'll think I'm trying to hurt her. You know they will. But I'm not. I swear I'm not.”

Cole flung off his grasp, plodded back toward the road. “I can't withhold evidence.” He could still picture the censure in Sherri's eyes when he'd begged her not to say anything about the pills she'd found in his pocket. “If this phone is found out later, it'll only make you look more guilty, like I was trying to cover for you.”

“They wouldn't find out. 'Cause I'm not going to tell them. They'll put me in juvie this time for sure if you turn it in. Please, you can't do this to me. I'm your brother.”

His conscience twinged. “I'm not doing it
to
you. I'm trying to stop whoever is terrorizing Sherri.”

“So you're choosing her over me? Just like you always chose everyone else over me.”

“What? That's not true.” Except even as he said it the many times Eddie had begged him to play with him paraded through Cole's mind, and every time he'd chosen to go out with his buddies instead.

“You're just like Dad. You look like him. You sound like him. And you think like him. Family doesn't mean anything to you.”

Cole rammed Eddie against a tree, rage boiling in his chest. “I'm nothing like that man.” All his life he'd been told how much he was like his father. Until seven years ago it had seemed like a compliment. Now it ate at his insides like acid. “I'm here because of you. I left the Seattle police force and took this job because of you. Because I care about
you
.”