LITMIR.BIZ

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them played second fiddle to enjoying their unselfconscious way of living. And who didn’t want to watch a feathered creature fly?

      The air didn’t disappoint—it was freezing—as she and Fred stepped into the fenced yard area where the dogs could run free, whether they were boarders or healing from treatment. It was atop a hill, on the way to the mountains, and overlooked Black Hills Lake. The yard sloped down to where the RRPD had installed a small concrete pier for training purposes. The insides of Patience’s nose stung from the harsh temperature, but the beauty of the view was worth it.

      “How are you doing, Fred?”

      Fred didn’t respond to her verbal inquiry, but sniffed the ground and in short order lifted his leg against a small bush. A burst of relief filled her, warming her from the inside out. Nothing was more satisfying than to see a patient recover quickly and return to normal. As Fred resumed sniffing the frosty ground, she looked up at the stars that speckled the dark sky, the full moon their only competition. She and her canine companion could stay out a few minutes more before the cold became a concern for Fred’s healing body.

      A creaking sound floated through the air and she turned her attention to the lake. It was beginning to freeze over with a thin crust of sparkling ice, but was too deep to solidify in just one cold night. A movement caught her eye and she noticed a small boat in the middle of the lake, approximately two hundred yards from shore, dead center from where she and Fred stood. Patience blinked, hoping she was imagining the warning signals from her tightening gut. It was too early for ice fishing and too late, as well as too cold, for anything else recreational.

      Something very wrong was happening on Black Hills Lake.

      She raised the binoculars with shaky hands and focused on the boat. What she saw seemed out of a nightmare. A tall figure, masculine in stature, was holding the limp body of a woman in his arms, her slim limbs hanging lifeless. At least Patience believed it to be a woman, as the figure had long hair. The pale gold strands hung over the man’s arms and reflected the moonlight. Her gut tightened painfully and Patience held her breath, waiting for the woman to wake up. Wake up!

      Before she could yell to let them know they were being watched and should cease whatever they were doing, the man dropped the woman over the side of the boat. There was no struggle, nothing but the soft splash as the body disappeared from sight. As if it’d never been there.

      Patience couldn’t stop the gasping cry that escaped her lips. Her exclamation, while not at top volume, carried across the eerie stillness. Frozen in place, she kept the binoculars focused, noting whatever details she could.

      Icy shock crept over her as the man turned toward the clinic, searching for the source of the sound. She saw the moment he spotted her on the shore, his ice-blue eyes clear and sinister in the moonlight, through the binocular lenses. She didn’t recognize him, but knew that he saw her, and his frown was the only warning she had before he leaned over and started a high-power motor she hadn’t noticed before. Patience dropped the binoculars to her chest and scooped up Fred, adrenaline lending her strength. She’d lifted heavier dogs before, but she never had to move this quickly with them.

      “Hang in there with me, Fred.” She ran back into the clinic and quickly put him in his kennel. Her phone was on her desk where she’d left it, but she had to lock the back door before running for it. When she turned the standard lock, she looked through the window and noted that the boat had carved through the thin layer of lake ice and the hulking man was close to the shore behind the clinic. He was clearly aiming for the small pier that the RRPD used for its launches and when training the K9 divers.

      Patience went into alert mode, following the protocol practiced in drills with the RRPD. She locked herself in her office, grabbed her phone and went to the gun safe as she called the dispatcher.

      “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?” Frank Lanelli’s familiar, confident voice eased her nerves as she rattled off her circumstances. All the while she unlocked her gun safe, took possession of her weapon, ensured it was loaded and then climbed under her desk, her designated safe spot.

      A shot rang out and she couldn’t keep from flinching. She knew the killer must have gotten through the outside security fence by now, which she told Frank.

      “The shot I heard had to be him breaking through the outer gate.”

      “Good action, Patience. You locked the back door up tight. That will slow him down, too.” Frank had known her since she was a kid and had five children of his own, whom she’d gone to school with. He was an anchor for the Red Ridge County emergency dispatch system. “Where are you now?”

      “I’m in my office—the room closest to the kennel, farthest from the clinic’s back entrance. I’m under my desk with my .45.” She heard a crash and instinctively tightened her hold on her weapon. “I think he just broke a window.” She couldn’t help gasping for breath.

      “Where are you, you bitch?” The man’s roar reverberated through the walls.

      “Oh, no. He’s coming for me, Frank.” Frantic, she tried to focus, figure out what to do next.

      “Hang on, Patience. Was that the intruder yelling?”

      She clung to Frank’s voice. “Yes. That was him. He’s angry and calling me a b-b-bitch.” She could barely breathe as fear’s noose tightened the muscles around her chest, where her heart raced. She felt its beats on her thighs, pressed up against her as she was folded under the desk. And against her baby bump. Her baby. Please, please let her make it through this. For the baby if nothing else.

      “You’re good, Patience. You locked your office door?”

      “Yes.”

      “And turned off the lights?”

      “Yes, but he has a weapon—”

      “Tell me what you hear, Patience.” Frank’s voice remained steady and clear.

      “He’s calling for me. He’s going to kill me, Frank.” And the baby. The baby no one but she knew about.

      “No one’s going to hurt you, Patience. You’re doing great. You have your weapon ready to go. Keep me on the line. Keep talking if you can. If you have to put your phone down, keep it on, okay? Two units are en route. You’re certain you saw a body go into the lake?”

      “Yes, positive.” She repeated the details of what she’d seen. “Even if she was alive, there’s little chance she still is. She looked unconscious, or dead, and the water is too cold.”

      “Okay, we’re dispatching one K9 team now. That will be Sergeant Maddox with Greta. They’ll go straight to the lake. You stay put until the other RRPD units arrive.”

      All she heard was Nash’s name. Nash would make it okay. He was an accomplished, practiced, proficient K9 officer.

      Frank continued with the running commentary, but even his professional expertise, his years of calming traumatized citizens, couldn’t soothe her. There was an intruder in her clinic, most likely a murderer. The doom that shrouded Red Ridge over the Groom Killer had nothing on the dread that choked her. Had she found out she was going to have a baby today only to lose everything at the hands of some evil stranger?

      A loud crash, followed by the sound of splintering glass hitting the clinic’s floor, sharpened her senses. He was breaking the kennel windows that lined the corridor. The dogs started barking and Gabby shrieked in outrage. Please don’t let him hurt the patients.

      “Where are you? Come out now or I’ll take out your precious animals!” And he had a weapon to make good on his promise.

      He was closer, too close. Patience tightly hugged her knees, weapon ready in her right hand. She’d do whatever she had to do to stay alive and protect her baby.

      “One minute out, Frank.” Nash spoke to dispatch, his siren blaring as he raced through town in his RRPD K9 SUV, Greta secured on the back seat. His entire shift had been routine until Patience’s call came in from the clinic. He had to help

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