for Jesse and continued on past several closed doors. He didn’t need the dog to show him where Ariel had been hiding. The door to the room had been shot through, the old wood caving in from the force of a foot kicked into it over and over again. Another few well-placed kicks and the door would have caved in, giving the gunman a clear shot at his intended victim.
A random act of violence?
Tristan didn’t think so. Everything about this seemed premeditated—the perp hiding in the closet, the mask that had hidden his features, the determination to get through a locked door. The guy had been after blood, and if Tristan hadn’t had a meeting scheduled with Ariel, he might have gotten it.
God always has a way.
It’s what his father had told him over and over again. It’s what Tristan’s mother had repeated during Tristan’s challenging teenage years. Since they’d died, Tristan had been too busy trying to raise Mia to spend much time trying to figure out what God’s way was.
Maybe that had been his mistake. Maybe it was the reason why Mia was struggling so much in school and with making friends. Becoming a K-9 police officer had seemed like the perfect transition from being an army dog handler into civilian life, but that wasn’t the reason Tristan had signed on to the Canyon County K-9 Center Training Course. He’d joined in honor of his army buddy and good friend Mike Riverton who’d died the previous May.
Mike had sung the praises of the K-9 program, and he’d been trying to get Tristan to apply. Then Mike had died—killed when he’d fallen down steep stairs at his home. That’s the story Tristan had been told, and that’s what the medical examiner’s records said, but Tristan wasn’t buying it. A guy like Mike—trained in mountain climbing and free-climbing rock walls—would never have fallen and not been able to catch himself.
Yeah. Things around Desert Valley weren’t what they’d seemed when Tristan had moved there for the program. Small towns, he was learning, often hid big secrets.
He frowned, his thoughts going back to Ariel, the way she’d looked when she’d been struggling to escape through the broken window, the fear in her eyes, the subtle trembling of her voice.
Sometimes, small towns also hid murderers.
Not for long, though.
Tristan knew the Desert Valley PD was closing in on the killer. He was certain it was just a matter of time before the perpetrator was found. But, time wasn’t anyone’s friend when a murderer was on the loose.
A murderer, he thought, eyeing the splintered door and the bullet hole, who might have just attempted to strike again.
She’d almost died.
Ariel couldn’t shake the thought, and she couldn’t ignore it as an EMT leaned over her cut palm, eyeing the still-bleeding wound.
“You’re going to need stitches,” the young woman said brusquely. “We can transport you to the hospital for that, or you can go to the clinic. Your call.”
“I’ll go to the clinic,” Ariel responded by rote.
If she’d died, the baby would have died. Thinking about that was worse than thinking about herself, broken and bleeding on the floor of the resource room.
She shuddered, and the EMT frowned.
“Are you sure?” she asked, her tone a little gentler. “You seem shaky, and they could check on the baby. It might give you a little peace of mind.”
Aside from the guy who’d shot at her being thrown in jail, there wasn’t much of anything that could give her that. “I’m sure.”
The woman nodded, pressing thick gauze to the wound and wrapping it with a tight layer of surgical tape. “That should hold it until you get to the clinic. Have someone drive you. Husband, family.”
“All right.” Except that Ariel didn’t have a husband and she didn’t have any family. She was making new friends at church and at work, but even after five months, they weren’t the kind of relationships she could count on in a pinch.
If the principal came to check out the damage to the school, she’d probably offer to give Ariel a ride. Pamela Moore’s daughter, Regina, had been Ariel’s best friend from kindergarten through their sophomore year of high school. They’d stayed close after Ariel had moved away, and when Regina had taken her dream job working as NICU nurse in Phoenix, Ariel had cheered her on.
Regina had been the reason Ariel had been offered the job in Desert Valley. She’d contacted her mother, pleaded Ariel’s case and gotten her an interview for a job that had opened up when another teacher had gotten married and left town.
It had seemed like a God-thing, the opportunity coming out of left field at a time when Ariel had been desperate to get away from Las Vegas and all the memories it held. She’d wanted a quiet little town to raise her daughter in. She’d wanted a safe environment where everyone knew everyone and where small crimes were considered a big deal. She’d thought that was what Desert Valley offered, all her sweet childhood memories leading her to believe the place would be perfect. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Several Desert Valley police vehicles had pulled into the parking lot and K-9 teams were spread out across the school grounds. Ariel could see a female officer walking through the gym field, her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, a golden retriever trotting in front of her. Ellen Foxcroft. A nice young woman who everyone in town seemed to like. Her mother was a different story. Marian Foxcroft was notorious for sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. She had money and influence in Desert Valley, and she wasn’t afraid to throw both around to get what she wanted.
Unfortunately she also had enemies. She’d been attacked a few months ago and left in a coma. It was one of the many crimes that had been taking up the front page of the town’s newspaper.
Ariel had tried not to pay much attention to the stories. She had enough stress and worry in her life. She hadn’t wanted to add to it, and she’d been afraid...so afraid that she’d made another mistake—just like the one she’d made when she’d married Mitch.
She touched her stomach, feeling almost guilty for the thought.
“Ma’am?” the EMT said. “Would you like me to call someone for you?”
“No. I’m fine.” She stood on wobbly legs and moved past the EMT just to prove that she could. Her keys were in her classroom. So were her purse and her cell phone. The house she’d bought with money her great-aunt had left her a decade ago was only two miles from the school, but walking there wasn’t an option. Not with the gunman still out there somewhere.
Had Tristan found any sign of the guy in the school? Was he okay? She’d watched him walk toward the building, and she’d wanted to caution him to be careful, because the gunman had meant business. He’d been bent on murder, and if Ariel had walked into her classroom, she’d have probably been shot before she’d even realized she was a target.
She shivered, rubbing her arms against the chill that just wouldn’t seem to leave her.
“You holding up okay?” someone asked.
She turned and found herself looking into Tristan McKeller’s dark brown eyes.
“I was just thinking about you,” she said, the words escaping before she realized how they’d sound. “What I mean—”
“Is that you were wondering if I’d found the gunman?” he offered, and she nodded.
“Yes. And if you were okay. Apparently, you are.”
“I am, but the gunman is still on the loose. We’ve got a couple of K-9 teams trying to track him. Hopefully, we’ll have him in custody soon. You said he was wearing some sort of mask?”
“It seemed like it. I only got a glimpse