The Marine's Last Defence. Angi Morgan

Ellen was scheduled to leave for Seattle yesterday. Her flight was canceled and she was rescheduled for eleven o’clock this morning,” Bree whispered. “She wouldn’t have left anything out of place. She never does.”

      Jake searched the kitchen. It was immaculate compared to his apartment. “Look, even if someone was here earlier, they’re gone now.”

      “How do you know they aren’t hiding? Where’d they go? All the doors are still closed. What if someone was with the man with the gun?”

      “I checked out the perimeter and backyard.” He needed to follow procedure and begin from the beginning. But instead, he broke protocol and placed his hands on Bree’s shoulders, trying to reassure her it would be okay.

      Great, he hadn’t even called the location into his partner or captain yet. If someone had been there, they were long gone. He had little hope of a BOLO. Bree inhaled and opened her mouth to speak again. He covered her parted lips with a finger. Her warm breath escaped, but she didn’t utter a sound.

      “I’m going to call for backup. You’re going to stay here with Dallas. Try to keep her quiet. Nod if you understand?”

      She barely moved. He wanted to dab her wet lashes and give her a long hug. Why? Maybe it was the sympathy he felt for the dog spilling over to this petite, caring woman. Or the way she’d giggled at him in the diner. He didn’t know and squashed the urge.

      “One thing first. What did Brenda Ellen Richardson look like?”

      “Dark brown hair, about my length, slender, average height.”

      “What color were her eyes?”

      “Were? She’s...then she is who you found at the lake. They’re brown.”

      She described his murder victim. With his luck, he’d be destroying more evidence by searching the house, but he needed to secure it. He pulled his cell from its belt holster. “Wait here.”

      Jake called for backup and moved methodically through the rest of the house. Once he was in the front room, he saw a picture of his murder victim, laughing with an older couple. Most likely her parents. And then another of her with a golden retriever. He called his partner, giving him the name and address, and hung up before the old goat could gripe at him for being inside the house.

      The furniture was nice, no dust on the shelves, a variety of books in the hallway case. From his point of view, barely anything was out of place. Breakfast dishes, a drop of blood from slicing cheese and a cracked coffee table that could have happened when the dog ran through the house. It didn’t look like there’d been an intruder.

      But he entered each room as if an AK-47 was on the opposite side of the door. He couldn’t help it. Old habits were hard to break. His last partner had laughed a couple of times, but it had quickly become a routine for them. Better safe than sorry.

      A dress was lying on the bedspread—could have been worn Friday or laid out for today, he couldn’t tell. Two nice suitcases sat in the corner by the master bath, giving credence to Bree’s story.

      The house was clear. His backup should be here in a few minutes. Time to get some information from his witness and get himself back on this case. He headed downstairs and Dallas greeted him halfway up. “So you got loose. Overanxious?”

      He hooked his hand in the leash and spent a couple of minutes coaxing the pup to go with him.

      “I need to ask you a couple of questions now.” He entered the kitchen, but his witness was no longer there. Gone, along with the coat and suitcase.

      He’d fallen for her act, hook, line and sinker.

      Chapter Four

      “Dark hair, amethyst eyes, about five-three or -four. Looks a lot like the victim from the back. Nothing like her up close. Probably about twenty-five.” If Jake went into detail about the heart shape of her face, the petite bone structure or how he’d noticed the way her nose curved at the tip and had five distinct freckles, his partner would think him nuts. Or might believe Jake had let her go deliberately.

      As it was, the razing hadn’t ceased since Detective Elton Owens had shown up to continue the investigation. More precisely, the murder investigation that didn’t involve Jake. Owens stood there, checking his notes, treating Jake like a suspect. Or worse, like a naive rookie.

      “You say you saw her at the diner this morning? And you didn’t think to mention this when you returned with coffee?”

      “Come on, Owens. There was no way to know she was the victim’s house sitter. You’d still be waiting on Missing Persons or the chip information about the dog if I hadn’t followed the kids here.” And Animal Control, if it hadn’t been for the kids. He knew he was acting defensively and was just tired enough not to care.

      Owens ignored him and asked the crime scene investigator some questions.

      Jake knew he’d been a good police officer over the past year. He’d accepted being the low man on the totem pole in Homicide, accepting the grunt work, not caring how many hours he worked without pay. He didn’t have a life outside of the job and didn’t want one. Working over Christmas had kept him from a face-to-face meeting with his parents, siblings and other relatives.

      Being around his family made him uncomfortable. Being grilled by his partner was almost as bad.

      His family had never asked if the accusations his ex-wife had made were true, but they’d also never said the words were lies. Maybe they interpreted his embarrassment for being blind to his wife’s indiscretions, somehow making him the guilty party. After a while, it just didn’t matter. It was easier to let sleeping dogs lie and avoid confrontations about his disastrous marriage. He was moving past his first wife and the war.

      Thing about it—he was past his ex. And that was the hardest part for his parents to understand. Sad, but whatever had been there in the beginning of his marriage had slipped away after spending months and thousands of miles apart over the past six years.

      When the position opened in Dallas—three hours from his hometown in east Texas—he jumped at it. He needed a new start and it was easier that way. A year later and he was working in Homicide. Exactly where he wanted to be.

      Now his partner assumed he’d made mistakes instead of decisions. He’d like someone—anyone—to trust his judgment. No one really had since he’d left the corps. Well, he couldn’t actually blame them. He’d let the witness escape. Bree had turned on the waterworks and he’d been suckered in, big-time.

      Bamboozled. That’s right, Craig, teased the devil sitting on his shoulder.

      Owens removed the picture from the frame. “Definitely our victim. Looks like we need to find her parents to notify. The dog sitter, this Bree woman, you say she seemed more frightened that someone was in the house than that Mrs. Richardson had been murdered.”

      “I didn’t say that, Owens. She was visibly upset about both instances.” I think.

      “When you get back to the station, you can spend the day looking through mug shots. We’ll be taking a hard look at Richardson’s finances, see if we can find payment to this mysterious dog sitter. Right now, she’s our only lead.” He closed the notebook, returning it to his jacket pocket. “You sure she was a dog sitter?”

      “Joey knew her and seemed to trust her.”

      “No last name on the kid or any of the other kids?” he asked, but barely paused. “I’ll get a sketch artist to the diner and an officer moving house to house. Shouldn’t be too hard to locate this chick. Oh, and the captain wants to see you when you return.”

      “I figured.”

      Owens left the house, laughing as he stood on the porch talking to the first responding officer—as luck would have it—the same guy who had told him to set a good example for the kids at the park.

      “It’ll