LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Who else is or was in the house?”

      No answer. Over the mike, Dallas heard broken messages from a frantic voice. Why in the world wasn’t dispatch intervening? He didn’t need a distraction right now, he thought, as he turned the volume down even more.

      The beeping of a car horn sounded. What’s going on now? He went to the door to see what was happening, and noticed the lights of his cruiser flashing. Then the siren started, drilling through the brick walls.

      “Don’t either of you move an inch!” Dallas said as he rushed out the door. He jumped off the porch in time to see a man running down the street.

      Dallas looked frantically for the social worker. “Miss Matthews?” He turned and scanned behind him, then spun back to the car. Where is she?

      Again he radioed dispatch. “We have a suspect fleeing a domestic disturbance. He’s headed south on Sixth Street, toward Main Street. Long dark hair, medium build, average height, jeans and white T-shirt. There are three, possibly more subjects here at the house.”

      He couldn’t see Miss Matthews in the car, but the doors were still closed. And the passenger half of the windshield was shattered like a spider web.

      “Subject may have vandalized a police cruiser,” he reported. He looked down the street again, then scanned the area between the car and the road, seeing nothing. He leaned closer to the cruiser and finally saw her lying across the seat with her hands over her head. She’s hurt! He realized. The adrenaline pulsing through his body came screeching to a sudden halt.

      Mark Pierson’s police car rushed past the house and took off after the suspect while Dallas tried to open his cruiser’s door.

      It wasn’t closed tight, but it was locked. He knocked repeatedly. “Miss Matthews, open the door.” When she jumped, she hit her head on the steering wheel. She turned toward him, rubbing her temple. Her huge eyes shone with fright as she fumbled for the door handle.

      “Are you okay?” Dallas reached across and turned off the siren and lights, then backed out of the car again. She was shaking. He quickly took stock, glad to see that the broken windshield had held. The majority of the damage was right in front of the passenger. He shook her gently. “Miss Matthews?”

      “Stay in the car, out of harm’s way, my foot!” She pointed to the windshield and started to climb out, but Dallas stopped her.

      He touched his hand to her shoulder and knelt down between the door and the car. “Hang on there for a minute. Tell me what happened.” Kira’s cocoa-colored skin seemed paler than it had before the incident. Was she in shock?

      “What happened? Didn’t you hear me telling dispatch?” Wide-eyed, he gazed darted from the shattered windshield to him.

      The frantic voice made sense now. “A little, but it wasn’t really clear,” he said, not about to admit she’d sounded like a lunatic. He hadn’t even realized it was her speaking. Now he at least understood why.

      She was going through everything that had happened when as another officer approached. Pete Ford paused, listening.

      “You’re sure he wanted to get in in order to take the car?” Pete asked.

      The social worker glared at him. “Look at the driver’s door! It has to have a dent the size of…” She glanced at her hand, then at Dallas’s. “The size of your fist,” she said, grabbing his wrist and lifting it in the air.

      Pete walked around the car and nodded. “Yep, it sure does.”

      “And when he couldn’t get in, he must have decided I could be convinced to let him in, for he threw the rock at the door again and again. He obviously wasn’t thinking about safety glass.” She shivered.

      When Miss Matthews had finished talking, Pete pointed to the house. “Who’s inside? I’ll catch up there.”

      “Mom and a son. Shirley—” Dallas glanced at his notes “—Mason, and Cody Jones. I suspect there’s a younger child, but no one is talking yet. This guy must have been leaving the back of the house as I was going in—”

      “He jumped the fence about three to five minutes after you went inside,” Miss Matthews confirmed.

      Dallas waited a minute to make sure she was through. “I think we need to get that cleared up right away, find out what he was doing here. The suspect I saw running had dark hair—”

      “It was past his shoulders,” Miss Matthews interrupted again. “And frizzy. Wild looking…” She held her hands a few inches from her head to show how full the guy’s hair was. “He was Caucasian. And had tattoos all over his arms.” Dallas’s mind drifted and he wondered if he had sounded as frazzled after the shooting that day.

      Dallas glanced at her hair. From the looks of it, her own would frizz out just as far if it wasn’t in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her brown eyes were huge, with long lashes framing them. Her gaze darted back to the car, as if it would bite her.

      “He was high or stoned, one of the two. His eyes were…scary.” She looked back at the windshield and wrapped her arms around herself. “He was bleeding. He put his hands and face up against the glass, so you can probably get fingerprints.” She pointed. “Don’t let anyone touch that spot.”

      “We’ll take care of that, don’t worry.” Dallas focused his attention on Kira, wishing he could have prevented this incident. He realized she was processing the experience, a bit at a time. Normally, he’d have been irritated with her for interrupting him, but he understood her shock. He’d been there. He moved to the trunk, popped it open and pulled out a blanket, forcing his post traumatic stress symptoms from his mind, only allowing it to help him prevent her from experiencing a delayed reaction as he had.

      Returning, he unfolded it and offered it to her. “Why don’t you cover up with this for a few minutes and rest. We’ll talk more in a few minutes.”

      She needed to know someone was there to let her talk.

      Thank you. I don’t know why I’m so cold.”

      Dallas knew that soon she’d realize she did know why, she just didn’t want to admit it. She wanted to be in control, just like she was every other day. A strong woman like her walked into domestic disturbances on a regular basis, but after tonight, things would be different. “Go on in, I’ll be a few more minutes,” Dallas said to the other officer. He couldn’t bring himself to walk out on Kira yet.

      Pete nodded and went inside without a word. Dallas liked knowing the men serving next to him here in the middle of rural Colorado. Pete had a wife and a one-year-old son. That was more than Dallas had known about most of the officers in Phoenix.

      He looked into the cruiser, surprised to see Miss Matthews had leaned her head back and closed her eyes. He knew her calm wouldn’t last very long.

      More officers showed up, and he let them assist in the search for evidence, and keep spectators off the premises while they finished the investigation. He assigned one officer to find out what neighbors knew about the family.

      Dallas took the opportunity to take notes for his report. About ten minutes later he noticed Miss Matthews’s eyes were open again, and he leaned back into the car. “Are you warming up?”

      She nodded. “I thought for a minute that he was going to go into the house after you. I couldn’t think of anything to do except pray and honk the horn, hoping maybe that would scare him away.”

      Dallas reached for her hand and held on tight. He wished he could give her the strength to get through the evening unscathed. “You did a great job. I like your quick thinking. Take a deep breath and be thankful that it wasn’t any worse.”

      THREE

      “Are there kids inside?” Kira didn’t dare dwell on what had happened. She needed to help the children get away from this crazy man. There wasn’t time

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