Page 69 of K-9 in Pursuit

“We’re keeping you cuffed until we know for sure what’s going on.”

Another deputy had pulled the woman with the knife to her feet and retrieved the dropped weapon. “He attacked me!” she shouted, and pointed to Brian.

“She had a knife,” Brian protested. “She threatened to kill my girlfriend.”

“He strangled her,” the woman shouted. “The knife belongs to him and he tried to kill me.” Then she sagged against the deputy, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

“That’s not what happened,” Brian said, but he doubted anyone heard him. They were too busy dealing with the hysterical woman and seeing to Chloe.

More law enforcement arrived, along with paramedics. Two deputies escorted Brian out of the alley to a waiting sheriff’s department SUV. They locked him in the back seat, then left him alone. Was he calm, or merely numbed by everything that had happened? The flashing lights from the ambulance bounced off the hood of the SUV and into his eyes, giving him a headache, but he stared down the alley, waiting for any sign of what was going on with Chloe.

Long moments later they wheeled a gurney into the alley, then emerged with a blanketed form. Brian swallowed a knot in his throat. The figure under the blankets didn’t move.

Chapter Twenty

Brian had lost track of how much time had passed when the driver’s door of the SUV opened and a thickset deputy with a gray buzz cut slid inside. “How is Chloe?” Brian asked. “Is she going to be all right?”

“What’s your name?” the deputy asked.

“Brian Weeks.” He waited for the jolt of recognition, the hardening of the man’s gaze as he realized Brian was the man suspected of killing another young woman in the same alley.

“She asked for you,” the deputy said. “She said you saved her life.”

Relief swept over him in a dizzying wave. “She’s awake then. Is she going to be all right?”

“She was unconscious when we got here but she came to. They’re taking her to the hospital to check her out.”

A second deputy, younger than the first, slid into the passenger seat. “I’m going to read you your rights, then I want you to tell us your version of what happened,” he said.

Brian told the story—of deciding to go to the places Sharee had visited on her evening rambles in hopes of finding anyone who might have seen what happened the night she died. Of his waiting for Chloe in the bar and getting the call from her phone. Of finding her slumped on the ground, the woman with the knife standing over her. “She threatened to kill Chloe. Then she went after my dog and I jumped her and wrestled the knife away.”

“Who is she?” the first deputy asked. “The woman with the knife?”

“I don’t know. But I can guess.”

“What’s your guess?”

“Chloe had a woman come to her shop who gave her name as Bunny Allerton. She wore a blond wig and a lot of makeup, like the woman in the alley. Chloe’s apartment was broken into and her purse was stolen and Chloe thought Bunny might have been responsible. In the alley just now, she talked about her husband and kids. I think her real name could be Douglas. She’s married to a man named Cameron Douglas, in Virginia. I can’t remember her first name.”

“Theresa Douglas,” the second deputy said. “Does the name ring a bell?”

“Yeah. But I don’t know why she was in that alley with Chloe. Chloe never did anything to hurt anyone.”

“Who is Cameron Douglas?” the first deputy asked.

“Chloe told me he was one of her sister Sharee’s teachers. Sharee had a crush on him and he filed a restraining order against her. She got kicked out of school and her parents decided to send her here to live with Chloe.”

“We recovered the knife in the alley,” the second deputy said. “Did you touch it?”

“No.”

The first deputy opened the driver’s door. “We’ll get prints and DNA from the knife. If you’re lying, we’ll know it.”

“I’m not lying,” Brian said.

“I’m not saying you are. But we will check.” He stepped out of the car and opened the door to the passenger compartment. “We’re going to take off those cuffs. You’ll need to come to the station and give a formal statement. We’ll send someone to the hospital to talk to your girlfriend. We want to get everyone’s stories straight.”

“Then can I see Chloe?”