Jina, page 3
part #1 of Oath of Honor Series
Unable to sleep after his less than satisfactory interview with Jina, Cole was listening to the police scanner when the 911 call came in. Hearing her name, he jumped off the sofa, quickly dressed, grabbed his weapon, and hit the door at a run.
Of course, Jina had headed to Madison, he thought with a burst of annoyance. No doubt she’d wanted to be there when he arrived at her sister’s place the following morning for the dreaded interview.
While he found the move on Jina’s part to be highly suspicious, his immediate concern was her report of a vehicle trying to run her off the interstate. As it was now just past one o’clock in the morning, the only logical explanation was that the driver was the same shooter who had shown up at the gym.
As he took the exit onto the interstate, he thumped his fist on the steering wheel. He knew he should have stayed in his car outside her duplex.
Cole hit the switch to turn on the red and blue light strip along the back of his SUV and floored the gas pedal, racing as fast as he dared toward Johnson Creek. The state patrol would probably arrive first, but he didn’t care. After the event barely an hour ago, he had a vested interest in this gunman too.
Not to mention his need to confront Jina over her late-night trek to her sister’s place. For claiming not to know anything about the dead guy on her family’s farmland, she was mighty determined to keep him from doing his job.
What was up with that anyway? Was she really concerned about her sister’s delicate condition, or was there something else going on?
His gut was screaming at him that there was far more to this situation than Jina had admitted to knowing.
No more professional courtesy. After this latest stunt of hers, their next interview would be at the Peabody police station. And if Jina didn’t come clean this time, he’d toss her in jail until she did.
Up ahead, bright red and blue lights from the state patrol lit up the sky. He searched the right-hand side of the road for signs of Jina’s Jeep Wrangler but didn’t find it.
Until he glanced over at the farmer’s field. His jaw dropped when he saw the four wheels of her Jeep pointing at the sky. His gut clenched with fear.
Was she hurt? Killed?
His previous annoyance vanished behind a wave of concern. She could play the tough cop all she wanted, but she was still flesh and blood. And being an expert in jujitsu and kickboxing didn’t mean she could survive a car crash.
He pulled in behind the patrol car and jumped out. There was no sign of the officer, so he shouted, “Jina!”
There was no response, which only made his pulse kick into high gear. Was she unconscious? There hadn’t been a top on the Jeep an hour ago, and he prayed she hadn’t been thrown from the vehicle.
As he grew closer to the upside-down car, Jina crawled out from beneath the Jeep and stood to face the patrol officer. A staggering relief hit hard, but he didn’t slow his pace. “Jina, are you okay?”
“Cole?” She couldn’t have looked more surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard the call come through the scanner.” He raked his gaze over her, grateful there were no obvious signs of injury. Maybe some bruising to her face, but nothing too serious.
Thank you, Lord Jesus!
“And who are you?” the cop asked.
“Detective Cole Roberts.” He felt slightly foolish for barreling out here like a bereaved boyfriend. “I’m with the Peabody Police Department.”
“Detective Roberts was at the gym earlier when an unknown perp took two shots at me,” Jina said, giving him an exasperated look. He belatedly realized she had an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. “I told you about that earlier. It looks like we’re both working under the theory that these two incidents are related.”
“What happened?” He gestured to the Jeep. “Did he ram into you?”
“No, I drove out here to avoid him.” She scowled, clearly upset at the state of her vehicle. “I was watching him try to follow me across the farm field in the rearview mirror when my tire hit that giant bolder over there. That’s what flipped me over.”
“And where is that vehicle now?” the patrol officer asked. The guy’s name tag indicated his last name was Parsons. “Are you sure you haven’t been drinking?”
“I don’t drink,” Jina snapped, glaring at him. “If you want to do a field sobriety test, go ahead. As I already told you, the vehicle followed me only partway into the farmer’s field. He must have realized he couldn’t get all the way across without risking me firing at him, so he backed up and took off.”
“Because he knows you’re a cop,” Parsons said with a frown.
“Yes, I identified myself as a police officer when he fired at me outside the gym.” Jina looked annoyed with having to repeat herself. “Cole was there; he can corroborate my story.”
“She absolutely identified herself as a cop,” he repeated. “We tried to find him, but he managed to escape in an SUV after he tried to run her over.” He glanced at Jina. “You think it was the same car we saw earlier?”
“It looked similar, yes, but I wasn’t close enough to say for sure.” She rubbed her left shoulder, and he imagined it was sore from the strap of the seat belt locking up across her chest. “When he was behind me, all I could see were his bright headlights.”
“License plate?” Parsons asked.
“I didn’t see one,” Jina said.
Parsons looked at him, then at Jina. Apparently, the patrol officer had given up on the idea Jina had driven out into the farmer’s field and flipped her Jeep because she was under the influence. “I can try to issue a BOLO, but without any identifying marks . . .” His voice trailed off.
“No license plate should be enough for the guy to get pulled over,” Cole said.
Jina snorted. “That hasn’t stopped him yet.”
Parsons seemed a bit out of his depth. Cole knew rookies often ended up working the graveyard shift, and based on the fact that the guy didn’t look old enough to grow a beard, he figured Parsons to be a newbie.
“We can take it from here,” Cole told the officer. “I don’t think there’s anything more you can do tonight, other than issuing the BOLO.”
“Yeah, okay.” Parsons looked relieved. Then he frowned. “What about the Jeep?”
“I need you guys to help me flip it back over.” Jina eyed her vehicle critically. “If all three of us work on this side, we should be able to roll it back up on the wheels.”
Parsons didn’t look happy about that, but Cole nodded, knowing Jina was stronger than she looked. And he worked out on a regular basis too. “Let’s do it.”
Amazingly, they were able to flip the car onto its passenger side, then again upright on all four wheels. Jina eagerly climbed into the driver’s seat and tried to start the engine.
There was a grinding sound, then nothing. She tried again with the same result. He was no mechanic, but obviously, the car wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
“I’ll drive you home,” he offered. “You need a tow truck. The windshield is shattered, and you probably broke the front axle, anyway, after hitting that rock.” He didn’t want to add that the insurance company would likely total the vehicle.
“Yeah.” Dejected, she slid out of the seat.
“Let’s go.” He gestured for her to take the lead.
“Ah, Detective Roberts? I need your phone number,” Parsons said. “For my report.”
He gave the rookie his office number at the Peabody PD. Then the three of them crossed the farmer’s field. At about eighty yards from where Jina’s car was located, she stopped to examine the ground with her phone flashlight.
“Now what are we looking for?” He scanned the area too. “Did he shoot at you?”
“No, he was too far away. I was hoping he would come close enough so I could nail him, but he didn’t.” She continued scanning the ground, then dropped to one knee. “Here, two sets of tire tracks. Mine and his.”
“I see them.” He glanced at Parsons who took out his phone to take pictures. “She was right about the car following her.”
“Yeah. I’ll—uh—add this to my report.” Parsons looked a little embarrassed for doubting Jina in the first place. As he should.
After a few more minutes of examining the ground, Jina stood and nodded at Parsons. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem.” Parsons climbed the embankment toward his patrol car. “Take care.”
“I’ll try,” Jina muttered, mostly under her breath. “Although it would be nice to know who this joker is.”
“Did you notice anyone following your Jeep from your place?” he asked.
“No, and I was watching for a tail.” She rubbed her sore shoulder again. “The interstate was mostly deserted, which caused me to let my guard down. I honestly wasn’t expecting the shooter to show. Even when I saw the headlights of his car coming up behind me, I slowed down, assuming he’d pass me by. Only he didn’t.”
He hated to imagine what might have happened if Jina hadn’t driven her Jeep across the farmer’s field. “I take it you didn’t see his face?”
“No.” She scowled again. “Although there is a suspect I should have considered earlier.”
His interest peaked. “Oh yeah? Who?”
“Guy by the name of Rory Glick. His last-known address is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so it didn’t occur to me until tonight that he might have come seeking revenge.”
“Revenge over what exactly?”
“He tried to rape me until I slammed him in the head with my computer. He was arrested and did two years in prison. He was released too early for my peace of mind, his lawyer argued he was drunk and wasn’t thinking clearly, but the fact that my clothes were ripped proved otherwise.” She shrugged. “One condition of his release was that his name was placed on the sexual offender registry.”
He hated thinking about Jina suffering a sexual attack. No wonder she’d put so many of the gym rats at Mike’s down on the mat. He’d silently cheered her on, and now he knew why she was so determined to stick up for herself. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“I’m fine.” She said the words carelessly, but he suspected those moments before she’d gotten a hold of the laptop had been terrifying. “What doesn’t make sense is why Rory would come after me nine years later? He’d attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, same as I did, but he was from Oklahoma. How could he have found me at Mike’s?” She waved a hand at her Jeep. “And again tonight?”
“Those are good questions.” He filed the name Rory Glick in the back of his mind for later. The gym shooting had not taken place in his jurisdiction, but that wasn’t going to stop him from looking into what the sexual predator had been up to. “We can work on that later. For now, let’s get out of here.”
“Okay.” She opened the passenger door and tossed her overnight bag onto the floor.
Seeing it reminded him of her intent to talk to her sister before he could. “Taking a trip?”
She flushed, her gaze sliding from his. “Yep.”
“Give it up, Jina,” he said in a clipped tone. “Don’t lie to me. I know you were heading to your sister’s house in Madison when this guy caught up with you.”
“So what?” Jina shrugged as if she took middle of the night trips to see her pregnant sister every day. “I’m worried about Shelly. She’s barely twelve weeks along in her pregnancy. I told you I wanted to be there to support her through this.”
“No, you asked me why I’d bother to talk to her at all,” he corrected. “Tell me the truth. Do you know Bradley Crow?”
“No, I don’t.” She spoke with confidence. “I meant to look him up on the computer but forgot. Why don’t you show me a picture? Maybe I’ll recognize him.”
He hesitated, then pulled out his cell phone. Thumbing the screen, he brought up Bradley Crow’s school picture. It was the only one he had of the guy. “This was taken his junior year.”
As she looked at the screen, he could almost see the wheels turning in her mind, imagining where she may have seen him before. Then she handed the phone back. “Nope. I don’t recognize him.”
“I don’t believe you.” He slid the phone into his pocket.
“Believe what you want,” she shot back. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
He waited until they were settled in the front seat and back on the road before turning to her. “You can come clean now or spend the night in jail. Your choice.” He gestured to the interstate stretched out before them. “You have until we reach the Peabody city limits to decide.”
She didn’t answer, sitting back against her seat and staring straight out the windshield as if he didn’t exist.
He suppressed a sigh. It was going to be a long twenty miles.
Chapter Three
Jina tried to think of a way out of this mess. Cole didn’t have much to hold her on, but she wasn’t keen on being put through the system. There had been something about Bradley Crow’s eyes that had bothered her, but the rest of his face had not looked familiar. Maybe her imagination was running rampant. Her stalker had always worn a hoodie and had a shock of curly dark hair hanging low on his forehead. There wasn’t a lock of dark hair on his forehead in the picture of Bradley Crow. In truth, she’d only gotten a few glimpses of her stalker’s face, only seeing him from afar.
At first, she hadn’t thought much about seeing him lurking outside her school, then at the custard stand where she’d worked. But after a few weeks, she’d grown suspicious.
Her memory of the guy was that he was short, maybe five nine or ten, had a lean, lanky frame, and slinked around with his head down. She’d found him odd, but not in a threatening manner. Mostly like a nerd who had no idea how to talk to girls. Which was fine with her, as she wasn’t interested. She had mentioned him to Jaxon as he’d worked at the custard stand with her, and her friend hadn’t seemed overly concerned about hoodie guy either.
Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen her hoodie stalker after she’d taken that shot at him. At the time, she’d assumed she’d scared him off and that was the end of that.
Now she had no idea what to think.
“The Peabody exit is in two miles,” Cole said, breaking the silence.
She swallowed a curse. Keeping her promise not to swear with Cole around was difficult. The man was beyond annoying.
As much as she hated to admit it, he wasn’t giving her much of a choice.
“Fine. There was one suspicious incident from twelve years ago.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke. “But I don’t believe Bradley Crow is the guy involved.”
“Involved in what?” He sounded irritable, and she supposed she couldn’t blame him.
“I had a stalker incident my senior year of high school.” She hated talking about her past. Having a stalker, then being nearly raped only made her appear weak. In the years since, she’d prided herself on being strong and capable, which had earned her the position as the tactical team sharpshooter. “I don’t know his name. He wore a hoodie and slinked around, popping up everywhere I went.”
There was a long pause as he considered that. “Okay, so what happened? Did you report him to the police?”
Here was where things got dicey. “Not exactly. For one thing, Peabody didn’t have a robust police department like they do now. I believe we shared a police department with Surrey. And for weeks the guy didn’t do anything other than watch me from a distance.”
Cole’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel as if he was losing his patience. “But he didn’t stop at watching you,” he finally said.
“No. He showed up one Saturday night at our house. My parents were gone, and Shelly and I were home alone.” She risked a sideways glance at him. His grim expression didn’t reveal his thoughts. “It was late, maybe eleven o’clock at night, when I heard a strange noise. I grabbed my father’s handgun and went to investigate. When I looked in my bedroom, the hoodie guy was climbing in through the window.”
“He entered your house?” Now Cole turned to look at her in shock. “What did you do?”
“I shouted that I had a gun. He didn’t move, so I fired at him.” She gripped her hands together in her lap. “That worked; he turned and ran away.”
“You missed?” Cole asked.
“Not exactly.” She cleared her throat. “I think I hit his arm or shoulder. There was blood on the right side of my window frame and another spattering on the ground outside. I followed the blood trail across the grass, then it disappeared near the road. It wasn’t nearly enough blood to indicate I’d hit an artery or anything like that.”
“And that’s when you reported the incident to the police?”
She didn’t answer, earning another scathing look.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered. “You didn’t call the police about a man trying to climb into your bedroom window.”
“No. I was worried I’d get in trouble for firing my father’s gun. Besides, I didn’t see him lurking around after that, so I was pretty sure I’d scared him away.” She forced a smile. “Mission accomplished.”
His jaw tensed, and it was a long moment before he spoke. “Are you absolutely sure this stalker of yours doesn’t look anything like Bradley Crow?”
It was her turn to battle a flash of anger. “I was seventeen, Cole. I never saw his face up close and personal. It was dark in my room, which is likely why he’d tried to get in that way. I only remember he wore a hoodie and had dark, thick, curly hair that covered his forehead.” She wasn’t going to mention the weird eyes. “So no, I can’t say anything for certain. Except that the last time I saw him, he was running away. And for sure I didn’t bash him in the head, so I doubt he’s your dead guy.”
“Someone else may have bashed him in the head,” Cole said in a tight voice. “Did it ever occur to you that you may not have been his only victim? That he might have done the same thing to someone else?”
To her shame, she hadn’t. But she did her best to squelch the flash of guilt. “I never heard anyone mentioning it, but anything’s possible. However, after shooting and hitting him in the arm, I was convinced he’d keep his hands to himself.”
