Danger in a Small Town

Miss Tabitha’s green eyes twinkled. “Oh, who knows. Maybe someday. But I’ve all I can handle on my plate right now.”

Tess hugged Miss Tabitha then held the door open. “I’ll be waiting for the urns.”

Ethan winked. “With bated breath.”

Tess couldn’t hold it back this time. She laughed. He joined her, and as Ethan escorted Miss Tabitha to the sidewalk, Tess couldn’t squelch the tiny flicker of excitement. She liked Ethan Rogers.

“Lord? I did the right thing coming home, didn’t I?”

Only time would tell.

THREE

Later that evening Ethan delivered the urns as they’d agreed. He didn’t stay long, saying he had to meet his cousin to go over the files on the three drug overdoses. Tess couldn’t help the sense of loss every time she thought of the dead woman. It was good to know Loganton would have someone with Ethan’s training and experience working on their drug-crime problem.

She murmured a silent prayer for anyone trapped by drugs, for someone to show them a better way, God’s way.

After she had Uncle Gordon settled in for the night, she headed to her room with her Bible. She changed into her favorite blue T-shirt and polka-dot pajama pants, washed her face, brushed her teeth, took down her ponytail then turned off the overhead light. She clicked on the bedside lamp and curled up on top of her silky green-on-green comforter to pray.

But the image of the dead woman’s dog—now her responsibility—intruded in her conversation with her Lord. She didn’t want a nasty confrontation with Uncle Gordon, not over an abandoned dog. “Father, I know I’m treading on thin ice here. Uncle Gordon’s not crazy about dogs, and I’ve just taken one on—even though he’s still at the groomer’s tonight. I was too chicken to bring him home the same day Uncle Gordon left the hospital. Help me, please?”

She opened her worn and marked-up Bible then went straight to the book of Psalms. That’s where she usually wound up when she needed comfort. Verse eleven in Psalm 5 leaped out at her, highlighted in yellow marker. “But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them…”

She’d turned to these words time and time again while things at Magnusson’s Department Store were in turmoil. Someone with knowledge of their security codes had been stealing from cash registers, most frequently from her department. As the manager, Tess had immediately come under scrutiny since she had the code for the register. No matter how vehemently she insisted on her innocence, until the culprit—a computer whiz from the IT department—was caught, her every move had been scrutinized.

She’d clung to that verse and the knowledge of the Apostle Paul’s experiences, how he’d endured beatings and jailings and never stopped praising and trusting God. But it had been hard at times. These days she still found it difficult to trust people.

Even after the woman was arrested and Tess cleared, many of her fellow workers continued to avoid her. Work became intolerable. When her cousin Molly called about Uncle Gordon’s situation, Tess jumped at the opportunity. She needed a fresh start.

She’d never expected to stumble on a dying woman while out for a jog.

After an hour or so she closed the Bible, turned the light off and again prayed for wisdom and the right words when she brought the dog home from the groomer’s tomorrow. She fell asleep to the sound of a spring rain.

Ethan and his partner, Steve, had crouched across from the alley for hours. It wasn’t the best neighborhood to work; it had hit on bad times years ago. Now it offered a haven to anyone with evil intent. Drug dealers had sunk the roots of their sick empires deep into the cracks of the crumbling pavement and had spread shoots like tentacles to choke off all life they found. Ethan and Steve were there to round up another purveyor of death.

The agency had been after Ernesto Moreno for a decade; the guy was slick. Ethan and Steve had been assigned to the Chicago end of the case three years before. All that work, all that danger, would finally come to fruition tonight. They were about to get their payoff. They had Moreno’s jail cell ready.

Twenty minutes ago they’d heard their backup behind the rotting fence down one side of the alley.

Ethan was growing tired of waiting. He wanted Moreno now.

Then, at around two-thirty, three shadowy figures arrived near the trash bin that blocked the alley’s far exit. The wait was coming to an end.

“Ready?” Steve asked.

“I’ve been ready for Moreno from day one.”

The meticulous investigation had painted Moreno as a deadly Pied Piper. He’d led too many into the trap of coke, heroin and meth. That kind of poison was deadly, the meth particularly cheap and available to those with fewer means. This scum spent his time hanging out around schools. Oh, yeah, Ethan was ready.

He and Steve crept silently, hugging the fence, its jagged splinters snagging their clothes, their weapons drawn, all their senses on alert.

Inch by inch the partners edged close enough to hear the suspects’ argument.

“You owe me!” the lanky one on the far left said in a raw whisper.

“I do not,” spat the short, thin shadow farthest back.

“You got all you gonna get.”

“That’s not what you said. You don’t come through, I’ll tell—”

PZZZZT! And then another PZZZZT!

A wail ripped through the silent night.

“We’re in!” Steve cried.

Time blurred for the next few seconds. More shots rang out, these without benefit of a silencer. As Ethan rushed deeper into the alley, he tripped over something—someone who moaned.

Not Steve, Lord, please.

“Man down!” On his knees, Ethan reached for the victim’s neck to check for a pulse. Close enough to feel the shallow puffs of breath, Ethan got a better look at the pain-stricken face. His stomach heaved. The victim was only a boy, a teen.

Ethan sucked in a harsh breath. This was his worst nightmare, everything he worked so hard to prevent. As dark as the night was, he still could see the bloom of blood on the boy’s chest.

Another moan soughed out. The teen opened his eyes. “P-please…”

Sudden brilliance from a floodlight almost blinded him, but as he blinked, a man hurtled past him out of the alley. Ethan looked up and met black eyes filled with hatred. And then Moreno was gone.

“Nooooo!” Ethan sat up, panting, face drenched in tears. Over the past few weeks, the tormenting dreams had come farther apart, lasted less time, milder in their intensity. Tonight, however, he might as well have been back in Chicago, Robby Stoddard dying on his lap, his partner down with a bullet too close to his spine and Moreno getting away.

“When, Father? When will I be free of these dreams?”

A vicious bolt of lightning shocked Tess awake. Gusting wind blew a fine mist through the screened window and dampened Tess’s face. The temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees, turning her warm cocoon into a cold, soggy mess. Her heart pounded at the suddenness of the storm.

The crash of another thunderbolt got her on her feet and moving across the room to close the window. She bolted the window shut, then watched the wind thrash the branches of the oak tree outside. She willed her heart to slow down and her breathing to return to normal. To try and restore a sense of normalcy, she stripped the wet linens from her bed. She’d have to sleep on the couch downstairs until her mattress dried.

Five minutes later, in a dry nightshirt, Tess was still on edge. She’d never liked thunderstorms. She went to the dresser, straightened her hairbrush, mirror, bottle of perfume and makeup case.

Thunder crashed again and lightning streaked the dark sky outside her window. She loved the sense of safety in her cozy yellow-and-green room and didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t climb into the wet bed again. Fed up with her jumpiness, she went to the bathroom for a drink before heading downstairs. But once she turned off the tap and took her first sip, she heard more running water. She put the cup down on the countertop, and went out to the hallway.

Tess paused to listen, hearing nothing but the continued battering of the rain. She waited, attentive to every creak the old home gave out. She must have imagined the sound.

A fierce gust of wind slammed against the house. Heavy raindrops beat against the slate roof and the leaded windows. Tess shivered, thankful for the shelter the sturdy house provided.

Then she heard the rushing water again, and this time there was no mistaking it. Water was running inside the house. She’d have to find where it was coming in before they suffered water damage.

In an excess of caution, she listened outside the private bathroom in Uncle Gordon’s room and then started down the stairs. It sounded like a running faucet, but Tess had done the supper dishes herself. She knew she’d turned off that tap. After years of paying for her own utilities in Charlotte, she wasn’t about to let water run overnight.