Surviving the Past

By Eleanor Dineen

Cincinnati police officer Kale Michaels is a woman on the edge, fighting against a past that had not been kind to her. When her past suddenly catches up to her, she has no choice but to face it head on. She refuses to accept that she may be in danger when a killer begins to target survivors of a horrific office shooting six years prior. An office shooting in which Kale had been directly involved. Can she survive when her stubborn behavior puts her directly in the line of fire?

FBI Agent David Malcolm never wanted to return to Cincinnati. Fleeing a bad relationship and gruesome memories of his days as a Cincinnati Detective, David was happy with his life in Virginia. A killer picking off survivors of an office shooting he investigated six years prior brings him back home against his wishes. David must deal with his past relationships, his family and a woman who believes she is invincible, all while tracking a vicious murderer.

David and Kale fight an attraction to each other as they both investigate the case, clashing at every turn. David struggles to keep Kale safe as Kale struggles to prove she does not heed his protection. Will their attraction distract them from finding the killer, and ultimately get one of them killed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eleanor Dineen
• Release date: Mar 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311768834

Eleanor Dineen

I worked as a police officer for a little more than four years. I am currently working as a Probation and Parole Officer which has what I call "mommy hours." I loved being a police officer and even enjoyed dispatching while pregnant, but my growing family needed more of my time. My wonderful husband is a Detective and busy, busy, busy. My passion has always been writing. My mother passed this on to me. She even got a book published once when I was a kid. She was (and still is) my hero. I love and encourage conversation about my line of work. If you have questions or you are just curious, do not hesitate to contact me.

Book preview

Surviving the Past

By Eleanor Dineen

Copyright Eleanor Dineen 2014

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

This book is a work of fiction. I have drawn upon my own experiences for much of the content. However, I have invoked an artistic license and have embellished for the sake of the storyline. No part of this book is intended to be reference or source material. Any relation to a real person or story is purely coincidence.

"And maybe just remind the few, if ill of us they speak,

That we are all that stands between

The monsters and the weak."

-Michael Marks

PROLOGUE

Kale Michaels was sitting in her windowless office with the phone cradled between her shoulder and her ear as she listened to the man on the line explaining exactly why his son could not have been the one to rob a convenience store. She had stopped listening to him approximately ten seconds after he started talking. Instead she started scrapping the fingernail polish off her nails one flake at a time. When her neck got a crick, she transferred the phone to her other shoulder and continued to try and reach her goal of removing all the polish on her fingers without the benefit of nail polish remover. She was probably supposed to care what the man on the phone was saying, but she honestly didn’t. Beside the fact that the man’s son was on camera robbing that convenience store, it really didn’t matter. The attorney she worked for was going to get the kid off anyway. As long as dad had the funds to pay.

She focused in on the man for a second to make sure that he hadn’t expected her to say anything yet. He didn’t. He was in the middle of a story about how his baby would never hurt a fly. His baby was twenty-five years old with a criminal history longer than her leg, but it would only be counterproductive to make mention of that. Kale concealed a yawn behind her hand and leaned back in her chair. The chair wasn’t meant to lean back, but since she had started work there more than a year prior, three bolts had fallen out of it. She fully expected that one of those days she would be leaning back in her non-reclining chair and fall directly on her ass. It was her own form of Russian Roulette. The Russian Roulette of the overworked, overly bored secretaries.

Technically she was a legal secretary which meant that she was qualified to help actually work the cases. Yet most days she was just a secretary, which meant answering the phones, filing paperwork and basically being the lawyer’s bitch. But, it paid pretty damn well. The attorneys of the firm Hargan, Markson and Pierce each had a secretary, a paralegal and a legal secretary. Why she ended up getting the bitch work was no surprise. She was Pierce’s legal secretary and to his great disdain, she refused to sleep with him. His secretary and paralegal had done no such thing, thus they were afforded two hour work lunches and had the perk of going out of town to assist their boss. Kale wasn’t about to make waves. This was not going to be her profession. She took the job to pay off her student loans and the one thing Pierce couldn’t touch was her paycheck. She had been hired as a legal secretary and he had to pay her as such, even if all she did was get him his coffee.

Of course, if he deigned to take a case that wasn’t going to cost the defendant hundreds of thousands of dollars, suddenly Kale had enough work to last her months, seeing as she was the one filing all the motions and doing all the legal work. Pierce didn’t do grunt work for those that couldn’t pay well. He saved his talent for the people that really mattered. And, he was a damn good attorney. She had lost count of how many murderers he had actually set free. It played havoc on her morals, but in the end, she wasn’t the one doing it. She only took paychecks from the devil and put salt in his coffee when he wasn’t looking.

The other two attorneys were just as bad about the glory. All three of them treated their team of assistants as expendables. Hargan was an interesting breed of man. He had legally changed his name from Matthew to Matthias to seem more prestigious. Kale always thought that if the goal was to sound like douchebag, he hit the nail on the head. Markson was a pretty typical attorney. He talked fast, he wore power suits and he didn’t care what anyone had to say about anything. He could argue that white was black and not back down until his opponent relented from sheer exhaustion. They refused to hire junior attorneys that would only steal the glory and split the paycheck with them. They instead, used their team of women. There were eleven women in the office. No other men than the three of them. Each man has his team of assistants and then there were two young women who worked the front desk. Kale didn’t mind the younger one. She was fresh out of college and eager to be working in a lawyer’s office. She was naïve and paid no attention to Pierce flirting with her. Her naivety would either work in her favor later on in life, or it would drown her. The other receptionist was trouble. She was a bit older than the rest of the girls. Older in that office meant pushing thirty. She was there to find a husband and that’s all she worked on day in and day out.

Kale mentally checked in on her caller, but he was still knee deep in the river he was crying. She crossed her legs and looked down at the heel she was wearing. If she wore heels, she found that Pierce was more pleasant around her. When she wore flats, he seemed to act more rudely. It probably wasn’t entirely appropriate for Kale to play into the man’s foot fetish or leg fetish or whatever the hell made him change his mood based on footwear, but some days she just needed him to back off. That was one of those days. She had stayed up late scrubbing her entire apartment which is what she did when she couldn’t sleep. It had been eight years ago that night that her mother had died. So she had barely slept. At about three in the morning Eli called her, knowing that she would be awake. He had calmed her enough to get a couple hours of sleep before work.

Eli was essentially her savior. He had come into her life when she was eleven years old. Kale and her mom had moved from place to place for as long as she could remember. Her mother had what Kale now recognized as alcoholism, but she was functional. They stayed in one city for as long as it took her to find a man and then subsequently dump him. She didn’t attract the best breed of man and Kale had always been afraid of what she might bring home. She had been leaving her alone in the hotels and apartments since Kale was a toddler. She would go out, get drunk, find a man and weasel as much money out of him as she could. Once, after her mother had passed out, one of her boyfriends had come after Kale. Kale had screamed bloody murder. Her mother had showed up and beat the hell out of the man. Kale had been ten.

Her mother apologized over and over again, promising her she’d never let her get hurt. They had moved again. To Cincinnati. Her mother had gone out like usual but the man she had brought home was different. Kale had hid in the closet when she heard them return. Her mom had passed out and the man had gone to hang up her jacket. That’s when he found her in the closet. She could remember it like it happened yesterday. He had crouched down, keeping his distance, not reaching out to touch her. He said hi to her and told her his name. Eli. He told her that her mom was sleeping at he had been about to leave to go home, but he had changed his mind and decided to sleep on the couch, just to make sure that everything was ok the next morning. Kale hadn’t said a word to him but he didn’t take offense. He just smiled at her, got up and pushed the closet door almost closed, leaving enough space so she could see out into the apartment.

Eli hadn’t left her since. He had dragged her mother to AA and stuck by her every single time she relapsed. He had married her and adopted Kale. And he had been by Kale’s side as she watched her mother die a slow and painful death at the hands of alcohol. Once her mother was gone, Eli was all she had. He raised her, protected her, punished her when she was a bratty teenager and he loved her. He had been a God send and she knew without him, she’d be nowhere near where she was.

There was silence on the phone and Kale knew that she had missed something. Somewhere in that filibust she had been expected to speak. She had to wrack her brain for the man’s name so she could address him. She had just remembered it when something else caught her ear. It was strangely familiar but she couldn’t identify it immediately. Even so, an icy cold finger of dread dragged down her spine. Her breathing slowed considerably in direct contrast to her pulse accelerating. Slowly as though she was moving through water, Kale pulled the phone away from her ear. She blindly hung it up on the base attached to the wall to her left. For some reason unbeknownst to her, she slipped her shoes off her feet and pushed them under her desk. She was up from her chair and walking toward her door. Her bare feet were silent against the cold wood floor beneath them. What the hell was that sound?

She heard it again. A muted metallic lash of air that made her startle. She had heard that sound before, but she couldn’t place it. She strained to try and make out the sound again. The familiarity of it was hanging just on the edge of her senses. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Her phone rang, making her jump. She looked back at it, and despite her body’s response to whatever she had heard, her mind started to try and calm her. It’s nothing, you’re paranoid. Kale took a deep breath and started to walk back to her phone, feeling pretty ridiculous for over reacting, when she heard a scream. It was ear piercing and suddenly cut short. Kale froze, her blood ran cold and her entire body erupted into awareness. Goosebumps covered her skin and she had stopped breathing. Everything slowed down around her as the sound from before was suddenly clear. Silencer. Gunshots. The phone stopped ringing leaving Kale in a soundless void.

Eli’s voice invaded her mind. Get your weapon. If you can’t get out, get to cover.

Another scream jolted her out of her motionless state. The office was no longer eerily silent. Kale could hear screaming coming from all over. Her office was one of the last ones, near the exits and she could tell people were running toward her. She stepped farther into her office listening and morbidly counting the amount of screams that were cut short. Four. Four had been shot down mid-scream. Kale dropped to her knees, reaching for her purse that she kept in the bottom drawer. Her movements were slow, too slow for the panic she was feeling. Each breath she took felt like it took a month’s time to exhale. Her arms and legs felt weighted down. Why wasn’t she screaming? Why wasn’t she running? Her hand reached the cold steel of the gun that Eli had bought her for protection. It was his voice she heard, urging her on.

Where’s the advantage, Kale? Find the optimal spot.

She fell back, sitting on her heels as she numbly pulled the slide back an inch to check the barrel of the gun. There was a round in the chamber. It was always ready to go. The screams were fewer now. There was a lot of time in between each one. People were starting to hide, making the shooter work for it. Had anyone called 911? Kale couldn’t think to dial the phone. She was coming unglued. She heard another woman’s scream. The panic, the terror of it swirled around her, making her close her eyes tight. The scream stopped abruptly and Kale wished that she was somewhere else, sitting on a beach with her toes in the sand, staring at the ocean waves. Footsteps pounded toward her. She almost mistook them for the pounding of her pulse in her ears. Someone was running. Kale opened her eyes and peered over her desk just in time to see a young blonde woman stumble and fall just outside her office door. There was blood in her hair, on her clothes, on her skin. She had been shot. But, she hadn’t died.

Kale’s body reacted, suddenly shedding the invisible weights that had slowed her down before. Her breaths were no longer slow. They were panicked shallow breaths that didn’t draw enough oxygen. She started to see spots, but her body moved as if on autopilot. She crawled to her door, to the woman laying just inches from it. She got a look at her face. The woman was quiet, but awake, aware and in pain. It was the young receptionist, Kelly. Her eyes were pleading. Kale grabbed her by the arms and as quietly as she could dragged the woman into her office, leaving a blood trail. She stowed Kelly near the wall and shut the door as much as she could without latching it. She didn’t want to risk the noise of the latch drawing attention. If the door did open, Kelly would be covered by it. It would buy the young woman a few more seconds on her life. Maybe she could use them to pray.

Kale retreated behind her desk. She listened to Eli’s words in her head. She was in the optimal spot. If the shooter walked in straight, she would have the drop on him. Her body was shaking and the grip on the gun felt unsteady and slick with sweat. Knock it off, Kale. Focus. Breathe! She looked at Kelly who was still silent. Her eyes were darting back and forth, terrified and in agony. Kale brought her shaky finger to her lips before readjusting her grip on the gun. She took a deep breath and waited. Her heart felt like a pinball against her ribs. Each beat echoed in her ears like she was underwater and running out of air.

The thud of heavy footsteps penetrated the fog that had started rolling through Kale’s senses. Kelly heard it, too. Her body jolted and her eyes became even wider, more panicked. Kale willed her body to stop shaking as she crouched down. Her hand trembled as she raised the gun, ready to do what she had to do. She was terrified and the panic threatened to take hold of her body, rendering her useless to Kelly and herself. The black spots in her eyes returned. She blinked but they remained. She was going to die. She wasn’t going to make it.

Calm, Kale. Remember what I taught you. Breathe, Release, Aim, Slack, Squeeze.

Eli’s voice washed over her as the footsteps got closer. She relied on her training with Eli. She relied on her senses. He had always told her she had a knack for detection. She listened. The heavy footsteps were a man’s. He was wearing boots. He was big which meant a chest shot might not necessarily stop him. The footsteps were closer. Kale could almost see the man in her mind, following the blood trail Kelly left straight into her office. He was right outside her door now. Kale’s heart felt as large as a basketball, knocking her forward and back with each beat. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the gun in her hand. Her finger hovered outside the trigger guard of the weapon until she heard the man’s hand slide along the wooden door, pushing it open slowly, like a predator. Her finger slipped onto the trigger as she opened her eyes.

The man filled the doorway. He was large, muscled and most importantly, calm. He was not enraged. He was not out of control. He was composed. He was dressed in a dark shirt with cargo pants. He had a handgun in his hand, equipped with a long silencer. He had another hand gun stowed in his waistband. His face and pants were red with blood splatter. He was looking at the ground. Time seemed to stand still as Kale watched him track the blood trail to Kelly. He took another step into the office and Kale placed her front sight on his head. The back sights of the weapon had just leveled with the front when Kelly let out a blood curdling scream. Kale blew out her breath and squeezed the trigger. She felt disconnected as she watched the gun recoil and retrain on its target. Her finger squeezed the trigger again and the mountain of a man crumpled to the floor, a halo of blood immediately surrounding his head and inching its way toward Kale.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t think or speak. She didn’t hear anything else after that. Not Kelly screaming, not the sirens, not the footsteps of a group of police officers systematically clearing the office building. She watched completely emotionless and detached as the blood from the man’s head reached her, seeping between her toes and staining her skin. She didn’t comprehend what had happened and she couldn’t figure out where all the blood was coming from. Her eyes wouldn’t work. Her ears could only hear the ocean waves of the beach she was sitting on where he toes were dug into the warm sand.

Then, she was violently ripped away from her paradise and staring down the barrel of a rifle listening to someone screaming at her angrily. She blinked and tried to focus, all the noises rushing back to her at once. Screaming, sobbing, torturous cries of pain. The metallic scent of blood mixed with gunpowder and lead nearly suffocated her. She made herself look up and saw the man holding the rifle on her was dressed as a police officer. He was still screaming at her. She could hear his voice but not his words. She blinked again, staring at the rifle, trying to get her mind to formulate the proper response. Suddenly the rifle was pushed away from her and a man who was not in a uniform was in front of her. His eyes were ice blue. The rest of the room’s colors faded away as she looked at the man’s eyes. They were kind. They were the only thing she could focus on. The man was saying something, but she didn’t hear him. His hands were on hers. They were warm and she suddenly realized she was cold. She finally looked down, away from his eyes. He was taking something out of her hands. A gun. There was blood everywhere. She had shot someone.

Chapter One

SIX YEARS LATER

David Malcolm had never wanted to step foot back in Cincinnati another day in his life, but orders were orders. He thought that by running away to the FBI in Virginia he would be able to get away from the shambles his life had become. For the most part, he was right. He had a great life in Virginia. A little boring, but not so bad. He had a little apartment that was the perfect size for him alone. He didn’t have to worry about what women would think of it because he was married to the job and he didn’t often bring women back to his apartment. He had probably brought someone back three times in the past few years. He preferred to be alone. His solitude was calming when the job became too stressful. His apartment complex had a gym and that was about all he needed.

Being back in Cincinnati felt a whole lot like visiting hell. His family was there, but at the moment, most were not talking to him. He had fled and not looked back for six years after all. He knew the second he stepped foot in the city she was going to find out and most likely make his life miserable for however long he was forced to stay. David had gone so far as to ask the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Agent Conrad to reassign him. After all, Cincinnati had its own office and was more than capable of responding to a call for help from the locals. ASAC Conrad had told him to man up and get to work. David didn’t even really comprehend why the feds had been invited to the rodeo. There was nothing federal about the case. Two murders didn’t make a serial killer. Locals didn’t like to share, as he well remembered. He had once been on the other end telling the feds to go fuck up somebody else’s case and leave his alone.

ASAC Conrad hadn’t briefed him too much, only saying that the murders were connected. He had given him the files and told him to go play nice with the locals. He was going to be meeting up with another agent from the Cincinnati field office. They had asked for David specifically because he had been a Cincinnati Police Detective. David thought that was an excellent reason to disqualify him from the assignment. But, there he was in the Cincinnati FBI office, reading through files on two murders that didn’t really seem related to him. He had been in Cincinnati for two hours and already he felt his body rejecting it. He physically couldn’t sit still as he wondered just how long it would be until the shit hit the fan. He had run from her but in the process he had left everything else behind as well. His brothers had even stopped calling to tell him that he was an asshole for leaving their mother and not saying a word to her for years. They didn’t know the whole story and he wasn’t about to tell them.

David tried to focus his distracted mind on the file material. He would need to sound somewhat informed when he met with the team of detectives that were investigating these murders. He was a fed after all. That meant any type of weakness or lack of understanding would be blood in the local shark water. He shook his head, trying to clear it of all personal thoughts. This was business and he was being childish about it. He needed to focus, get down to work and figure it out so he could get the hell out of dodge. An agent approached him in the temporary office in which he was assigned.

Agent Malcolm? he asked in the doorway.

David stood up and extended his hand. Yes. You must be Agent Andrews.

Doug, he replied, giving his hand a firm shake.

David.

They nodded at each other and Andrews sat down across from him. Did you get a chance to review the cases?

I’ve been doing just that. I can’t seem to see the connection or why they called us in, David told him. He scanned the reports again and all he could come up with was that the victims’ names and faces were slightly familiar.

The first victim was a white female, 32 years old, worked as a secretary and was a single mother of two school aged children. She had been found in her vehicle strangled to death by the seatbelt. Her name was Veronica Watson. The crime scene pictures were well done but David preferred to see crime scenes in person. He was not a fan of coming in second string. Veronica had been found quickly so there was no real discoloration of her skin or effects of decay. She looked pretty despite the wide red mark covering her neck. Her makeup wasn’t smudged and her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail with barely a strand out of place. Had she even struggled? David wanted to get a look at her nails to see if she had used them against the perpetrator.

The second victim was also a white female, 30 years old who was a daycare teacher. She had no children of her own and was a newlywed. Her name was Natalie Androckis. She had been manually strangled and found inside a gas station bathroom. The crime scene pictures showed that she had struggled hard. Her hair was disheveled, she had defensive marks on her arms. Her skirt was hiked up around her waist and she was not wearing underwear, but the report stated that there were no signs of sexual assault. They were not ruling out the possibility that the suspect was sexually motivated however, due to the state of the victim. There was a close up of Natalie’s neck which showed clear finger impressions. She has lost control of her bladder as she died. A puddle of urine pooled between her legs. It was a depraved and barbaric way to die and it angered David thoroughly.

There was a week between Veronica’s murder and Natalie’s murder. Other than strangulation, David just wasn’t seeing a connection big enough to bring in the FBI. Veronica was blonde; Natalie was brunette. The women had different occupations, different lives. The investigating officers had been thorough, checking to see if the women used the same grocery store, gym, restaurants, etc. They had nothing in common.

You don’t recognize them? Andrews asked.

David looked up, startled. Should I?

You worked a case with both of them for a short while.

David looked at the names again, looked at their faces. Something nagged at him but he couldn’t place it. He shook his head. I’m not getting it.

It was about six years ago. It was an office shooting. I’m told you mostly did paperwork on it since you were just about out the door to the FBI, Andrews explained.

David was instantly transformed back to that day. It was one of the worst scenes he had ever witnessed. He had been out with his partner getting lunch and bullshitting about how he was as good as gone to Virginia when the call came in. Dispatch had been calm as they advised every officer in the area of an active shooter in the office building that housed a law firm. He and his senior partner Detective Jake Rodgers had dropped everything and ran to their car. Dispatch kept relaying updates about the shooters whereabouts as he stalked his way through the office. The chilling part that David would never forget was, as dispatch keyed up to relay information, the officers on the other end could hear the screams coming from the 911 call filtering through the mic. He had never felt so helpless in the car, speeding toward the building, listening to innocent people being shot down.

By the time they had gotten there, the responding officers had created an entry team. David and Jake had gone in behind them, following along as they cleared each room. He had counted the bodies as they went. They had found six women shot dead like animals. By the time he and Jake had located the last one, they heard screaming. One of the officers was screaming Drop the gun! over and over again. David and Jake ran toward the sound finding the officer inside a small office, pointing his rifle at someone that they couldn’t see. There was a dead body partially in the doorway, blocking most of the tiny office. Jake had looked behind the door and announced that he had a live one. The officer with the rifle was still giving commands. David had pushed his way farther into the room, intent of giving the shooter a dirt nap when he realized that the officer had a young woman at gun point.

She was surrounded by blood, even sitting in it. He couldn’t tell if she was injured or if the blood was coming from the other two people in the office. She was clutching a Glock and her eyes were glassy as though she wasn’t all there. She was looking at the officer’s rifle as though she didn’t know what it was. He had pushed the officer’s rifle out of her face and crouched down to her level, getting blood all over his shoes and the cuff of his pants. He hadn’t cared. Her eyes had focused on him as he told her that it was ok. He spoke in a low soothing voice. She stared at him like he was the only person in the room. He gently reached toward her, fully expecting her to flinch or flail at his touch, but she didn’t move a muscle. He slowly pulled the gun from the death grip she held on it.

Kale Michaels.

That was a name he had never forgotten. David looked up at Andrews. Fuck, they were the survivors, he whispered. Fuck.

"The locals think