At two in the morning, Tala sat alone in the living room of the small two-bedroom house she’d inherited from her grandmother. Its emptiness seemed to loom around her, broken only by the sounds of Grams’s bird clock ticking in the kitchen and heavy snow buffeting the windows. The house was dark except for a lamp by her side and the strings of twinkling lights she’d wrapped around the long leaves of the succulent plants on the other side of the room. Christmas lights blinked through the night around the birch trees in front of her house, making the curtains she’d pulled across the large front window flash from red, to green, to white again.
Normally Tala enjoyed the quiet. But now she wished she hadn’t let the hospice keep her grandmother’s zebra finches after her grandmother passed. Their little chirps and peeps would’ve been comforting on long nights like this when sleep failed her. But the birds were in the hospice’s sun-filled living room, where they enjoyed the company of two resident cats and a dog. She’d left Grams’s artificial Christmas tree there, too.
Lord, help me focus. Give me peace. Help me sleep.
Tala walked into the kitchen and considered going back to her laptop, which she’d left half-buried on the kitchen table, under newspaper articles she’d clipped about the Golden Bandit case. Instead, she put the kettle on and tossed two chamomile tea bags into her teapot. She took a long look out the back door at the snow cascading through the back porch light. Then she went back into the living room as the water boiled.
Thoughts of Ian weighed heavy on her mind. He used to perch himself on the front porch’s top step and wait for her when she wasn’t expecting him and barge through the back door into the kitchen when she was. Memories of him seemed scattered over every corner of the house, from the living room floor where they’d stretched out to play video games together, to the kitchen where they’d made copious amounts of popcorn, to the cupboard under the stairs where they’d hidden and read comic books.
A shadow passed by the front window. The lights changed from white to red. The shape loomed larger. It was the silhouette of a hooded man. Fear shot through her. The lights flashed again, and then, to her relief, he was gone. She stood there for one long moment, staring at the empty space where the shape of a man had been. Finally, she crept forward, slid the corner of the curtains back and looked outside. The front yard was empty.
Was she seeing things? Was she losing her mind?
Her cell phone began to ring, shattering the silence and sending her nerves jangling so hard she could almost feel them inside her. She searched the living room for her phone and eventually found it in the mess on the kitchen table.
The screen read “Unknown Caller,” but that wasn’t rare in her line of work. She suspected it might be Bob calling about the crime scene.
She hoped it was Ian.
She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hello, Tala.” The voice was male and menacing, and she recognized it in an instant. It was the man who’d grabbed her, bound her hands and forced her into his van. She clasped her hand over her mouth to muffle a terrified cry from slipping out.
“You were warned what would happen if you didn’t do what you were told,” her kidnapper said.
Terror washed through her veins so cold that for a moment she couldn’t move. Come on, Tala! Think like a cop. You’ve got the criminal on the phone right now. What would Lorenza do? She glanced to her laptop on the table. If she kept him talking and used her computer to contact the team, they could wake up Eli Partridge, the K-9 unit’s tech guru, and get him to track the call and tell her what else to do. But for that to work she had to keep him talking.
And she’d always been much better at getting tongue-tied than small talk.
“Who are you?” she asked and heard her own voice quake. “What do you want?”
The kettle wailed so loudly for a moment she thought she could hear it echo down the phone. She ran and switched it off.
“Stop playing stupid, Tala!” he yelled so loudly that she leaped, sending scalding water splashing over the counter. “Don’t insult my intelligence. We both know what a smart and special little girl you are and what I told you to do.”
And if he really knew her, he’d know how much she hated being talked down to like that. She set the kettle down, feeling the sudden urge to punch this stranger right in the jaw.
“I know exactly what you told me to do!” she snapped so loudly she was almost shouting back. “You told me to destroy evidence and derail the investigation. What makes you think I can even do that? Do you even have any idea how a crime scene investigation works? I can’t just single-handedly wreck one.”
She strode across the kitchen, pushed the mess of newspaper clippings off her laptop and opened the lid.
“Oh, I know exactly who you are, Tala Ekho, and what you’re capable of with that special brain of yours.”
That was twice he’d called her special and there was a certain venom to the word that felt intensely personal. He was so confident, too, even arrogant, that he knew exactly whom he was talking to. It was time she did, too.
“And you’re the Golden Bandit, right?” she asked.
He chuckled. “It’s got a ring to it, doesn’t it?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She switched her laptop on. It chimed as the desktop sprang to life.
“Don’t touch that!” the Golden Bandit snapped.
He must’ve heard it through the phone. She winced and hit the mute button before her laptop could make another sound and let him know that she hadn’t followed his order. Then she opened the email server.
“I told you not to touch your laptop!” he growled. “Step back from the kitchen table! Now!” The voice filled her ear and echoed outside the door. “You think this is a joke?”
Pounding sounded so hard on the back door it began to shake in its frame. She spun. A masked figure stood just feet away on the other side of the glass.
He smashed his fist against the window. It shattered.
The radio on the front dash of Ian’s SUV crackled. The female dispatcher’s voice came on. “All cars. There’s a report of a break-in at 629 Rose Ave—”
Tala’s house! Fear shot up his spine. He glanced at Aurora sitting beside him on the seat. The dog tensed as if sensing his fear.
“This is Trooper McCaffrey,” he answered. “My K-9 partner and I are on it. We’re four minutes away. Can you patch me in?”
“Her phone’s gone dead.”
He checked his blind spot and spun his vehicle in a tight U-turn, thankful that Lorenza had agreed to let him and Aurora patrol Tala’s neighborhood and its nearby pawnshops in case of trouble.
Lord, please, help me get there in time.
He drove as fast as he dared through the empty streets bedecked with holiday lights. His phone rang with a call from the colonel. He ended the call with Dispatch and answered.
“Tala’s in danger—” she started.
“I know,” he said. “We’re two minutes away—”
“Good. I’m sending Poppy and Stormy as backup.”
The call ended. Ian reached the driveway and pulled in so sharply the SUV skidded to a stop. Then he leaped out and unholstered his weapon, signaling Aurora to his side.
“Hello!” he shouted and rapped hard on the door. “Tala? This is Alaska State Trooper Ian McCaffrey!”
Something about identifying himself as law enforcement at a home he’d cheerfully walked into hundreds of times before compounded the fear already building inside him. He kicked over the rock that Tala’s grandmother used to hide a spare key beneath, found nothing there and then ran to the back of the house. A crash sounded ahead of him. Then he saw a masked figure dart out the back door and take off running through the woods. In a moment the figure was lost to the snow. Ian groaned, wishing the criminal had less of a head start, that he had backup to check on Tala while he chased after him, or that Aurora specialized in tracking and pursuing criminals.
Instead, he ran through the back door, which lay open with its window smashed. Broken glass and newspaper clippings littered the floor.
“Tala!” he called. “Tala! It’s me, Ian!”
The living room didn’t look like it had been touched. It took him two seconds flat to race upstairs, check out the house’s small main bedroom and even smaller second one, before rushing back downstairs. Then he realized Aurora was sitting beside the small triangle-shaped door to the cupboard under the stairs. His partner’s head was cocked to the side. He crouched down beside the door.
“Hey, Tala,” he said gently. “It’s me, Ian. The house is empty. The man who broke in is gone.”
He heard a soft scraping sound, then the door opened and he saw Tala peer out from behind a pile of camping equipment. By the look of things she’d barricaded herself in and armed herself with a baseball bat.
“I didn’t have time to run,” she said shakily, answering the question he guessed was in his eyes. “I was standing just feet away from him when he smashed the back door window and I knew it would be just seconds until he got inside. My boots and coat were between me and him and I knew I’d be in even more danger if I ran out without them...so I grabbed my phone and my laptop and hid.”
His mind flashed to the corpse Aurora and Grace had found buried by the snow. Tears burned his eyes when he thought of what could’ve happened to Tala.
Thank You, Lord, I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her.
“Ian!” Poppy’s voice sounded behind him.
He turned to see the red-haired trooper standing in the back doorway with her massive wolfhound filling the space. He pivoted on one knee to face her.
“House is clear,” he said. “Tala’s safe. Single suspect took off on feet through the woods heading west.”
“Got it,” Poppy said. Her eyes flickered to Tala’s face for a moment and concern pooled in their depths. Then she and Stormy ran back out into the night.
He prayed and asked God to help them catch the Golden Bandit.
Then Ian turned back to Tala and watched as she unfolded her limbs and eased her body out of the small space. It was amazing to think they’d both used to fit in there and sit cross-legged, with their knees touching as they read comics together.
“Are you okay?” he asked, feeling something heavy build on the back of his throat.
“I don’t know,” Tala admitted. Her chin quivered. “Those flyers had my phone number on them and I dropped them at the mall.”
He reached for her hand, she took it and he helped her out until she was crouched on the floor beside him. They hesitated there, eye-level with Aurora. He was just about to stand and help her up to her feet, when suddenly she said, “Oh, Ian, I was so scared.”
Instinctively, he opened his arms and she tumbled into them. Her head fell into the crook of his shoulder. He held her tightly.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’ve got you and I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
Ian held her for a long moment, feeling her breath hitch and shudder against his chest. Then slowly, her limbs stopped shaking and her breath settled, but still they stayed there, holding each other. Then without saying a word she eased back slightly, just enough that they could look into each other’s eyes. His hand slid down to the small of her back. Suddenly he felt that same overwhelming desire to kiss her lips that he’d felt back when they were teenagers. Only somehow deeper. He didn’t just want to embrace her. He wanted to hold her, protect her and do whatever it took to keep her safe.
But when she pulled away, he reluctantly let her go and they both stood. She strode past him into the kitchen, suddenly all business, as if the tender moment between them hadn’t ever happened.
“Once again I don’t see much point in calling out the forensics team,” she said. “My window was broken, nothing was stolen by the looks of it and he won’t have left any DNA. Also, I really don’t want the perception of special treatment just because investigators know me personally. It would be wrong. I want to be treated the same as any other break-and-entry victim. I’m not special.”
There was something bitter in her tone when she said the word special, almost like she thought it was an insult.
“The real question is how this man knows who I am and why he’s so convinced I can single-handedly derail an entire investigation,” she added.
“Did he say anything to you?” Ian hazarded a guess.
“The Golden Bandit?” Tala murmured. “Yes, he called my cell phone and threatened me from outside my house, before he broke in. He was toying with me, Ian. And I don’t think he’s going to stop until he gets what he wants from me.”