CHAPTER ONE

STEPH

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not even a dog barked tonight. Not a single call for service. Not so much as a car found in a no-parking zone. Telecommunicator Steph Buchanan leaned on her hand at her desk in the Communications Center and sipped more coffee, staring at the two dots on her screen that represented the two officers patrolling Lake Geneva. They’d been driving circles since their shift began, looking for something to do. It had been an hour since anyone touched the radio.

A light flickered below her monitors and her eyes dropped to the bank of illuminated switches. Peeling labels designated lobby door, hall door, etc. They glowed a light yellow-green, signaling she could flip the switch and unlock a door.

One had turned red. Garage.

There were only two ways to open any of the doors in the station. Steph could trigger them from her workstation. Or an officer could cue the door with the key cards they carried in their pockets. Around here, the butt-swipe dance was well-known. Cops walked rear-end-first into doors so the sensors at hip-height could scan their cards.

There was just one problem. There were only two officers on duty tonight. And Steph knew from the map on her monitor they were nowhere near the station.

She frowned at the red switch as it flashed back to yellow-green. Maybe one of the detectives or the lieutenant had come in. But two in the morning? That was odd. She looked up at the feeds from the security cameras, turning her eye to the one posted in the garage. Black and white SUVs sat in silent rows, facing the center aisle for fast deployment. Patrol bikes, used in the crowded tourist district near the lakefront, lined one wall, parked next to a pair of motorcycles.

At the far end of the garage, a door swung shut. Steph was just in time to see a leg and foot vanish through it and noted another switch turn red on her dashboard.

There was nothing through that door but locker rooms, the gym, evidence intake, and storage rooms. They didn’t have security cameras in those rooms. No one but officers ever went there.

Steph’s radio mic sat in a little stand on her desk. She pushed the button. “Forty-four o-six and forty-four ten, report your status.”

Static crackled. “Forty-four o-six. I saw a black cat just now,” Officer Dan Norton drolled.

“Forty-four ten. I saw it fifteen minutes ago in front of the bakery,” Officer Shelby Serrano replied. “It looked highly suspicious. At next sighting, we should pull it over for questioning.”

“Copy that,” said Norton.

Steph rolled her eyes. She didn’t feel like cop humor right now. “I’m just checking your GPS is working. Neither of you returned to the station, right?”

“Negative,” they each reported in turn.

“Okay. Somebody walked in. Probably just the lieutenant. I think he said he’d be in early—I just didn’t think this early. I’m taking five to check it out.”

“Need backup?” Serrano asked.

It reminded Steph of her college days, walking across campus after dark. Give me a minute, another female classmate from your dorm would say. I’ll walk with you. But Serrano’s offer of camaraderie existed on a different plane; no one wanted to mess with the sisterhood of bad-ass butt-kickers that were female cops.

“Negative,” Steph said. “I’m sure it’s fine.” It was far-fetched to think anyone could have entered the station besides an officer.

“Copy,” Serrano said. “Radio if you change your mind.”

“Ten-four.” Steph stood up from her station and grabbed a portable radio. She turned the volume low; she wasn’t sure why. Out in the hall, she opted against the elevator and took the stairs. They were quieter. On the lower level, she used her own key card and quietly pushed open the door to the patrol car bay. Automatic lights flickered alive, cold and white. The patrol units stared at her through blind headlights, silent, and yet she almost expected them to breathe, sigh, berate her for interrupting their slumber. She tip-toed across the garage to the far door, hip-checked the key card sensor, and pushed the door open. The hall beyond was dimly lit by recessed lights. She waited for her eyes to adjust, then crept forward.

Half the doors in this hallway, even Steph couldn’t open. Only the men, for instance, had the combination to the men’s locker room door; only the chief, the lieutenant, and the detectives had keys to the evidence and records storage rooms. One set of doors, Steph didn’t care for much, the ones labeled MAINTENANCE. Something about changing air pressure from the heating unit caused those doors to rattle exactly when you weren’t expecting. The veterans loved telling the newbies the doors were haunted.

Steph crept past them—quiet tonight—and around a bunch of two-by-fours leaning against the wall, God only knew why they were there. Maybe someone had planned to build more shelving in the storage rooms once upon a time.

She checked the knob to the evidence storage room. Tightly locked, as it should be. She peered to the door at the end of the hall. The records room was lined with boxes of paper files, row upon row of them, relics from the days before the Lake Geneva Police Department had standardized electronic systems.

The door was cracked open. This one was secured with a good, old-fashioned metal key. Either the lieutenant had entered with his key or the lock had been forced. A light bobbed inside as if it came from a phone or a flashlight.

“Hello?” she called before thinking it through. The lieutenant would have turned on the overhead lights.

The flash vanished. The room at the end of the hall went pitch black.

Steph lifted her radio to her lips, hand trembling, and said something she’d never said before. “LGPD, requesting backup.”

The radio crackled quietly and Shelby Serrano’s voice came over the air. “Ten four. ETA, ten minutes.”

Steph let her hand drop to her side and watched the door like a hawk. She was a dispatcher. A telephone cop. She’d walked people through countless emergencies, but she’d always had the safety of a phone line between her and whatever was happening. Sometimes her butt clenched at what she heard on the other end of the line, her jaw screwed tight at her inability to do more than advise and wait. But she didn’t have half the equipment the patrol officers did. She didn’t have a gun. She didn’t have handcuffs. She didn’t so much as have a flashlight. All she had—all she ever had—was her radio.

A rattling bang split the air as dramatically as a gunshot. Steph’s heart leapt into her throat and she whirled. The haunted doors. They rattled aggressively, fighting against their own latch as if skeletal hands demanded release.

Something hard struck the back of her head. Stars burst before her eyes. Then there was blackness and a sense that the floor was coming up to meet her.