Chapter 10 #2
“No way is this the clinic.” She couldn’t imagine her sister ever agreeing to enter a place so obviously neglected.
“Desperate people aren’t worried about aesthetics,” Colt said as he sped up and drove to the supermarket a half mile away, where they were meeting the other members of the task force.
She blew out a breath at the truth in his words. The thought of her sister being desperate was a stab to the heart. And that Opal hadn’t felt safe enough to reach out was an even deeper pain. They were sisters. Didn’t Opal know Maren would always have her back?
Apparently not.
Shame and regret twisted her up inside like a pretzel.
He parked and they climbed out of the vehicle, leashed up their dogs and met the others.
The task force leader, Emmett, was already there with his K-9, a female, brown-and-white Newfoundland named Gemma, who specialized in snow and water rescue.
Emmett was setting up a command post at the back of his rig while Gemma supervised.
Maren watched as K-9 Officer Autumn Riley of the Canyon Creek PD approached. Tall and fit in cargo pants and a T-shirt with the task force logo on the pocket, the blonde cop strode over with her partner, a male bloodhound named Bear.
A shudder of dread prickled Maren’s skin. She hoped Bear’s specialty skill of cadaver detection wouldn’t be necessary today.
Lizzie and her retriever, Reena, arrived along with K-9 Officer River Jameson of the Ridge PD. River, a tall, blue-eyed officer, and his female yellow Lab, Frankie, were rock stars at search and rescue.
Two more vehicles arrived. The first contained dark-haired and dark-eyed, Lavender PD K-9 Officer Trevor Slate, with his female English springer spaniel, Lark.
They worked the arson cases. And from the last vehicle exited Boulder PD Detective and K-9 Officer Melody Rust, a redhead with bright hazel eyes, and her male chocolate Lab, Dusty.
Dusty was trained in detecting explosive materials.
They all gathered around the task force leader. Anticipation hung heavy in the air. This could be the biggest break yet in finding Mia and solving the case.
“We’ll split up into groups,” Emmett said, and divided the members.
“Trevor, you’re with me. We’ll approach from the east side of the house.
Lizzie and Autumn, you circle around the block and come at the house from the west. River and Melody approach from the rear,” Emmett instructed.
“Maren and Colt, make your presence known at the front door.”
Trevor stepped forward with several evidence bags. “We’ll have each of our partners, of the four-legged type,” he said with a grin at Maren and Colt, “sniff from each of these bags. We need to at least know if any of the deceased women were ever in the house. Or if Mia Andrews is still there.”
Maren wished she had something of her sister’s to offer for the K-9s to sniff. But she didn’t. She would have to be content with visually searching for Opal.
After all the dogs were given an opportunity to sniff from each bag, Emmett handed out earpiece communication devices. “Wait for my signal. Once Maren and Colt have initiated contact, we move in. If anyone tries to leave, take them into custody.”
“You got it, boss,” several task force members said as they dispersed into their groups.
Maren and Colt decided not to drive up to the house but rather walk. They cut through the parking lot and down the alley behind the grocery store. In tandem, with their dogs at their heels, they made their way to the door.
Colt remained a step behind Maren. “You do the honors.”
Taking a breath to calm her racing heart, she rapped her knuckles on the door and then stepped back, putting her hand on her sidearm. So much was riding on this moment. Mia, Opal or others could be held hostage on the other side of that door.
Fragile hope hovered but could shatter at any moment like spun sugar. The deep longing to see her sister, to make sure she was safe and unharmed, created more tension, tightening Maren’s shoulders.
The need to find Mia was a palpable entity that made Maren antsy. Her fingers flexed on the butt of her weapon as the silence stretched.
After several long moments without any sign of life inside the house, Colt stepped forward.
Anticipating he was going to try the knob, Maren opened her mouth intending to caution him to check for booby traps, when he squatted down and used a penlight to check the door’s threshold, shining the light up and around the doorframe.
Maren nodded her approval as he checked for wires to make sure the door wasn’t going to explode in their faces if they opened it.
He stepped back. “It’s not rigged as far as I can tell.”
“Doesn’t mean it still isn’t,” she said. She shuffled Haven off to the one side of the wall next to the door and Colt did the same.
“We’re going to breach,” Maren told the team through the communication piece lodged in her right ear.
Emmett’s voice rang clearly in response. “Go for it.”
Since Colt was on the side of the door’s handle, Maren gave the nod, and he reached forward with a piece of cloth that would protect his fingers in case there was any sort of poisonous substance on the metal.
He twisted the knob and pushed the door open while at the same time turning away and bracing.
Maren also turned away and counted to ten. When nothing happened, she peeked around the doorjamb into a very barren-looking house.
Disappointment and frustration ran rampant through her system. “Empty.”
“Hold your position,” Emmett said. “We’re coming. Let Melody and Dusty clear the house before anyone enters.”
Tugging their canines away from the open door, Colt and Maren waited on the sidewalk as the rest of the team descended. Melody and Dusty entered the house, looking for any evidence of explosives.
They returned a few moments later. “It’s clean,” Melody stated with a frown.
“Any signs of life?” Emmett asked as he charged up the porch steps toward the front door.
“Not that I can tell. Whoever was here was careful not to leave behind any visible trace,” Melody said.
Exasperated at encountering another dead end, Maren entered the empty house and headed up the stairs with Haven. Colt and Rusk followed right behind her, while the others fanned out to let their dogs sniff every inch of the place.
Neither Haven nor Rusk alerted in the bedrooms on the second floor. All three were vacant. The house appeared abandoned.
In the farthest bathroom, Haven alerted at the side of the bathtub. Maren hurried to peer over the lip and discovered a discarded hand towel lying inside the bathtub.
With her heart rate speeding up, Maren told the group, “Got something.”
Emmett and Colt hurried to her position with their canines. Both Rusk and Gemma let out a bark. The two dogs were also alerting on the towel.
Putting on rubber gloves she’d grabbed from her pocket, Maren lifted the discarded towel.
“Haven alerted. I don’t know whose DNA is on this, but it has to be someone’s scent held within one of the evidence bags.
Maybe this wasn’t a clinic, per se, but more of a holding ground until they could move the women to a medical facility. ”
“Sound reasoning,” Emmett said. He took the towel, put it into a new evidence bag with gloved hands and signed his initials to the outside. Maren did the same.
“I’ll have this analyzed and find out whose DNA is on it,” Emmett said. “Eva’s already working on finding out who owns this house. Let’s canvass the neighborhood and see if anybody has seen something or knows anything that’s useful.”
Glad to be out of the depressing structure, Maren, with Haven, Colt and Rusk, headed down the street.
Before they approached a neighboring house, a wave of despair and anxiety about her sister’s well-being crashed over Maren, pricking her eyes with the burn of tears. Fear for not only her sister, but her sister’s child, dug into her mind.
Growing up, Maren had been the strong one of the two of them. The one Opal had always turned to for comfort. They were stronger together than apart. Until their parents’ death.
Opal had turned inward, withdrawing from everyone, even Maren, while Maren’s rage at the injustice of the person getting away with murder had spurred her to push forward, excelling at school and then the police academy.
She could see now how single-minded she’d been, using academics and the drive to become a police officer as her way of coping with their deaths. Opal had eventually started using drugs to numb her grief.
Neither of them had sought help or found comfort in each other. They’d drifted apart until Opal cut ties and disappeared. And now she was on the run with bad people after her.
“Opal must feel so alone…” Her voice broke. “Dead to everyone who knew her, with nowhere comforting to turn. Not even me.”
Colt halted as Haven whined and brushed up against her legs. The dog seemed to always sense when Maren was upset.
“You can’t give up hope,” Colt said. “We’ll find her.”
He slid an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. The warmth of his bigger body wrapped around her, soothing her pain. For a moment, she rested her head on his shoulder, realizing how far she’d come to be able to trust this man. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
He was silent for a moment, then patted her shoulder before releasing her and stepping away.
A coldness seeped in. Unaccountably, she missed the anchoring effect he provided. The steadiness of his close presence.
“Right now, we have to focus on the investigation at hand,” he said, his tone all business now. “We know one of the baby smuggling victims was in that house because the dogs all alerted to a scent. Which victim remains to be determined but all the victims deserve our full attention.”
He and Rusk strode off, leaving Maren to stare at his retreating back with a surprising amount of hurt crowding her chest. She couldn’t help but feel that he was withdrawing emotionally from her, as if comforting her had been too much for him.
Knowing how badly he’d been burned by his last romantic partner, she understood his caution. But they weren’t romantically involved.
Unless he was afraid that she’d become too attached because of his efforts to offer solace?
No worries there.
She would emulate his guarded demeanor. Keeping a barrier up between them would be in both of their best interests. They were working a case and needed to keep their judgment clear. No emotional entanglements.
The last thing she needed right now was to fall for her temporary partner. Her heart had been closed off for so long after the deaths of her parents, her uncle and then believing Opal was gone, that she didn’t know if anything could pry her heart open again.