Gone (18 page)

Chapter One

Present Day

“I didn’t complain when I was a private. I didn’t
complain while serving three tours in Afghanistan. These guys have no clue how
to make life miserable for someone like me. I can take a few icy sidewalks and
midnight shifts.”

Jake Craig skidded on the slushy cement. Digging his steel-toed
boots into the ice, he balanced on the slippery incline before he embarrassed
himself by slamming to the ground. His partner—sitting in the nice warm
car—probably had his smartphone ready, just waiting for him to fall flat on his
butt so he could record it all.

The cold of the early morning felt good compared to the many
long, hot desert memories he had from six years of war. North Texas cold didn’t
compare to the bitter mountain freezing when he thought he’d lose his toes.
Yeah, he could take his turn walking in the cold. At least this time he didn’t
have seventy pounds of gear to carry.

On the Dallas P.D. a little over a year, he’d recently
transferred to the homicide division. The promotion raised more than a few
eyebrows when he jumped from rookie to detective—skipping everything in between,
including the right to do so. Not too amazing for former military personnel. His
fellow P.D. officers knew about department politics where qualified ex-military
got bumped to the head of the list. It didn’t keep them from resenting him or
make being the butt of their jokes any easier.

Just like now when he’d been directed to search for a dead
body. An anonymous 911 call claimed there was a dead woman at the lake moving
around in the bushes. He’d asked dispatch to repeat and again the claim was that
a dead woman was moving around in the bushes.

“You go see if you can find that ghost,” his partner had
ordered when they’d arrived. He’d leaned his head against the headrest and shut
his eyes. “I’m going to keep the heater running on these old bones,
partner.
You love the cold, don’t cha,
partner?
”

“Sure, Owens. I could stay out here all freakin’ day.” Okay,
maybe his reply had been a slight exaggeration. Then again, he hadn’t actually
replied, just mumbled after he’d left the car. He would continue to accept the
late shifts, practical jokes and crank calls, just like he had this morning.

“I’m a freakin’ machine.” No one could break down the machine
at work.

The ghost was probably a drunk trying to get out of the
snowfall, but it had to be checked out. What if the call was just a staged joke?
Could Owens have arranged for a “ghost” to be at the spillway?

It was the perfect setup. Someone could pop out of the bushes,
try to surprise him, and he might even lose his footing. “I will not fall and
have that humiliation blasted across the internet. I’ll never hear the end of
it.” Those guys knew he’d be the one out here verifying ghosts don’t exist. And
he wouldn’t put it past any of them to have cooked up this entire charade.

As long as they dished it out, he’d take it. The cold,
searching for a ghost, whatever, he’d keep at the job. He wanted the job. He had
nothing else but the job. He wouldn’t let it slip through his fingers like the
rest of his life.

An early morning search of the underbrush around White Rock
Lake beat picking up Friday-night drunks from Deep Ellum any night of the week.
Homicide detectives wore civilian clothes, a definite improvement from the
street cops. Man, he was glad to be out of a uniform. Any uniform.

His years as a marine MP didn’t seem to make a difference to
his coworkers. Maybe they thought he was more qualified to deal with drunks than
legitimate homicides. If they only knew what he wanted to forget.

The beam from the flashlight reflected off a pair of red eyes.
The animal didn’t bolt. Jake took a step closer to the fence and heard the low
whine of a dog.

A black Labrador was under the brush on the other side of the
six-foot security fence. Located just below a large yellow-and-orange danger
sign, warning that the lake’s spillway was nearby.

The leash must have tangled around a limb, pinning the dog to
the cold February ground. The pup yelped, whining louder, visibly shaking from
the cold. He dropped back to the ground, obviously tired from his struggle for
freedom.

“Hang on, now. How’d you get over there?” Just to his right the
section of fence was raised off the ground, easy enough for a dog or person to
crawl under.

Jake clicked off the light and dropped it in his pocket. Going
over the icy fence was a lot cleaner than crawling under like the dog had. He
shook the chain-link fence, verifying it could hold his weight, and scaled it in
a few seconds, landing on the spillway side with both feet firm in the melting
snow.

“So you’re the ghost those drunks reported?” He knelt and
offered his hand for the Lab to sniff. It quickly licked his fingers. “You’re
friendly enough. What are you caught on?”

The stubborn dog refused to budge even with encouragement and a
gentle tug on his collar. His young bark did some tugging of its own on Jake’s
heart—he hadn’t thought he had one left—earning a smile from a jaded
soldier.

He pushed farther into the bushes, conceding that the only way
to get the dog loose was to get wet himself. The poor mutt shivered hard enough
to knock his tags together. Jake could relate, having been there a time or
two.

Working his tall frame closer, his slacks were soaked as the
slush seeped through the cloth. The snow that dropped on the back of his neck
quickly melted from his body heat and dampened his skin. He slipped his hand
around the dog collar and tugged again, receiving a louder howl and whimper.

“Are you hurt, boy? Is that why you can’t move? All right,
then. I might as well send my coat to the cleaners, too.” He stretched onto his
belly, sliding forward until he could reach the hindquarters of the dog, which
had gone completely still. “What’s wrong besides me calling you a boy when
you’re clearly a girl?”

Nothing felt out of place or broken. The pup’s whine was
consistent. The harder he pulled her toward freedom, the more the dog pressed
backward.

The leash was caught on something or the pup was injured. He
pulled hard and he still couldn’t get the leash free. Blindly he followed the
leather to an icy death grip of fingers, causing him to instantly retreat. His
jerky reaction scared the dog, causing her to struggle harder in the dark.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Take it easy and I’ll get you out of
here.” Jake kept a firm grip on the collar, snagged the flashlight from his
pocket and flipped the switch to take a closer look at the body.

The glassy look of the dead took him back to Afghanistan. He’d
experienced that look more than once in his military career. Male or female, it
always twisted his gut.

Then it hit him. The smell of death. Faint, most likely because
of the cold, but there wafting into his brain and triggering more memories that
he wanted to forget. Once experienced, he could never forget.

The call hadn’t been a prank. The woman’s coat was covered in
white. She’d been there all night. He’d flattened the crime scene getting to the
dang dog, which wouldn’t or couldn’t leave her side.

“Hold on there, girl. I’m not going to hurt you. Give me a
second here.” He couldn’t remove the leash from the body. So he’d have to
disconnect the dog.

Expensive leash with a word etched into the wet leather.
“Dallas? That your name or just a souvenir?” He kept a grip on the Lab with his
left hand and unsnapped the leash from the dog harness with his right.

He crooned, attempting to calm the shivering mass of fur. He
peeled his jacket off in the cramped space, the sharp broken twigs poking him
with every shrug. He draped Dallas and shoved his coat under the dog’s legs. He
took one last look into the frozen face. There was something about her, or the
situation.

Something he couldn’t put a name to. Or maybe just a habit he’d
started with the first investigation he’d had as a military cop. He didn’t want
to make the vow. He had a clean slate but couldn’t stop the words. “Whoever did
this won’t get away. And I’ll take care of your pup, ma’am. That’s a
promise.”

Unable to move, Dallas didn’t struggle much covered in his
jacket. Jake pulled her free, shimmying under the fence instead of scaling it,
dragging the pup under after. Then he sat on a fallen tree, holding Dallas in
his lap. He began to feel the cold as the wind whipped through the secluded
jogging path that viewed the spillway overlook and hit his wet clothes.

Dallas made a unique noise halfway between a howl and
whine.

“It’ll be okay, girl. We’ll find you another owner before too
long.” He stroked the pup’s head and she quieted just a bit. Her tags indicated
a rabies vaccination and that she’d been chipped, but they’d need Animal Control
to access the information.

Jake tried his radio. Nothing. He took his cell from its
carrier on his hip. Nothing. He moved up the hill until he had reception and
dialed.

“Dallas 911. What’s your emergency?”

“This is Detective Jake Craig, badge 5942. I have an expired
subject. Bus required at Garland and Winstead parking lot WTR 114 marker.”

“An ambulance has been dispatched to your location. Do you need
me to connect you to Homicide?” the dispatcher asked.

“Thanks, but we’re already here.”

“Understood, Detective Craig.”

Protocol required him to ask for an ambulance, but he knew it
wasn’t necessary. The woman frozen to the ground a couple of feet away was dead
and had been most of the night. He’d seen the dead before. Many times over and
under too many circumstances to remember them all. He didn’t want to
remember.

Life was easier when he didn’t.

The pup tipped her soggy face up at him, and then rested on his
thigh. Jake looked around the crushed crime scene as he dialed his partner’s
cell. “I don’t know about you, Dallas, but it’s going to be a helluva long
day.”

Copyright © 2014 by Angela Platt

ISBN-13: 9781460324417

GONE

Copyright © 2014 by Rickey R. Mallory

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