Chapter 1

BEING A state trooper was a lot like being a lone wolf. Fillian O’Connell’s days were often spent on traffic duty or patrolling the backroad areas of Pennsylvania, and this day was no exception.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Greene, but your neighbors hadn’t seen you in a few days, and they were worried.”

Mrs. Greene leaned on her cane and kept adjusting her head like she was trying to see him. Those big clouded eyes told Fillian just about all he needed to know. “I forgot to plug in my phone, and now I can’t find it.” She sounded lost.

“Would you like me to help you?”

She stepped back to let him inside the house, which was fairly clean, if a little dusty, and he began looking around. “Do you remember when you had it last?” He checked around the living room and then went to the small dining room. The old table and chairs were neat and set in place, if extra dusty. She probably didn’t use that room very often any longer. The thought only reinforced his impression of Mrs. Greene’s loneliness.

Fillian continued looking in the pin-neat kitchen, where he found the phone on the floor. “I found it, Mrs. Greene.” He reached around the trash can at the end of the counter, picked up the phone, and set it on the counter, plugging it into the cord that lay there. Then he returned to where she stood in the living room. “I plugged it in for you, and it’s on the kitchen counter.”

“Thank you, young man.”

“It will take a few minutes for the phone to come up, but you should be good now.” He smiled, not knowing if she could see it or not. “You have a good day.”

“Would you like some coffee?” Mrs. Greene asked.

“No, thank you.” One of the rules was that you never accepted food or drink, even from a harmless elderly lady—no matter how good a cup of coffee sounded at that moment.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” she said.

Fillian left the house, pulling the door closed behind him with a sigh before returning to his cruiser and reporting in that he was done with the wellness check and that everything was okay. Those were the best kind of calls.

Too bad he didn’t get them very often.

“Roger,” Dispatch responded. “We have a domestic disturbance call at 1897 Wilson. It’s about twenty minutes from your present location, but you’re the closest officer.”

“Roger.” Fillian pulled out of the drive. He waited until he was away from Mrs. Greene’s so he didn’t startle her before flipping on his lights and siren and taking off over the country road, heading west to the edge of his territory out toward Newville.

“Details have been sent to you,” Dispatch said. The screen in his car showed the address as well as the information gathered from the call. “It’s a small grouping of three houses, and one of the neighbors heard breaking glass through an open window, as well as yelling.”

“I’m en route,” Fillian acknowledged and stepped on it.

“Backup has been requested,” Dispatch informed him. Fillian went as fast as he dared, his siren wailing as he concentrated on getting there in one piece. His heart pounded, senses heightening along the drive.

Fillian had been a state trooper for about eighteen months. He’d cut his teeth out in Beaver County, but when an opening was posted for the Carlisle area, he’d applied to be closer to his family. There had apparently been quite a bit of interest, and Fillian was a little surprised that he got the posting. Granted, while he worked out of the Carlisle State Police post, he was hardly ever there and spent much of his time in the rural areas of Cumberland and Perry counties. Still, at night he went home, and he spent one evening a week with his mom and dad—when they were in town, anyway.

He pulled up to the address in question with full lights and sirens, turning into the drive as the front door to the house opened and a man ran outside in a pair of jeans and little else. He jumped off the steps and dove between the house and the bushes as a shot rang out from inside the house.

Fillian braked to a stop.

“Shot fired,” Fillian reported. “ETA on backup?” He kept low and watched the bushes where the man had gone. There was no movement, and Fillian hoped to hell the man was down on the ground and out of the line of sight and fire.

“Come out of the house with your hands on your head,” Fillian said through the car’s loudspeaker. He cracked open the far door and got out, using it as a shield. “This is the state police.” His radio beeped, and Dispatch informed him his backup was minutes away. Fillian’s best course of action was to stay where he was, but damn it all, he didn’t know where the other man was or what he’d do next.

The shot had come from inside the house, which meant that the shooter wasn’t the bush guy. But was the man in the bush the victim, or another assailant trying to make a run for it? Fillian figured it was likely the guy hiding in the bushes was a victim, but he wasn’t sure. Fortunately, a second and then a third unit arrived. They pulled in next to him, making a wall of cars.

“What’s the situation?” Wyatt Nelson asked. A fellow trooper, he had been the first one to welcome Fillian.

“Possible victim hiding around the house and at least one shooter inside. Single shot fired,” Fillian reported just as another shot pinged off the front of Fillian’s patrol car.

Fillian flipped the microphone back on. “Think about what you’re doing. Take a breath and calm down. All you need to do is put your gun down and come out with your hands on your head. None of us wants to hurt you.” He kept his voice calm and spoke as clearly and gently as possible. “The back door is covered as well as the front. There is nowhere to go, so come out, hands on your head, and let us try to help you.” He waited for a response.

“Just get the bastard to show himself,” Williams, the third trooper to arrive, said. “I can get a shot at him and this will be over.”

“Calm down and be quiet,” Wyatt hissed. “No one is shooting anyone if we can help it.” He shook his head. Williams had a reputation for aggression that was going to get him in trouble. Fillian was glad that Wyatt handled him.

“You won’t shoot?” a man called from inside the house. He sounded shaky and scared all to hell.

“Put the gun down and come out with your hands on your head. We won’t shoot as long as you aren’t a threat.” Fillian watched the front door as it opened and a single man came outside. He had on a pair of jeans, a flannel shirt, and a loose pair of old boots. He had his hands on his head as instructed. “Lie down on the ground, slowly, hands where they are.” Fillian swallowed hard, hoping this incident was going to end the way it looked. Once the suspect was on the ground, Fillian sighed. “Stay where you are. The man in the bushes, stand slowly, hands on your head.”

A man about Fillian’s age with messy brown hair and pale skin emerged from the shrubbery near the corner of the ranch-style house. He was shaking. Williams hurried over to him while Wyatt approached the man on the ground, cuffed him, and then searched him before getting the suspect to his feet and moving toward the patrol car.

“What’s your name? Is there anyone else inside?” Fillian asked the shaking man as Williams approached with him.

He shook his head. “I’m Gregory Montrose.” He seemed to get control of himself and shook less now that he knew he was safe. “It was just Lawrence Little and me. I was doing some work for the guy, repairing some of the outlets that were faulty. He decided he was interested in something other than my electrical work, and when I refused, he went crazy. Lawrence ripped off my shirt and pinned me to the floor. I managed to get away and threw a vase at him. The asshole was strong and probably on something, because he just kept coming and I couldn’t get away. I finally made it to the front door as—”

An explosion ripped through the afternoon. Fillian crouched low, and Gregory went right down to the ground. What had been the house was now a fireball, sending debris everywhere. Fillian’s ears rang as he looked up from where he’d crouched behind the car door.

“We need fire assistance, now ,” he told Dispatch. “The house has exploded. Nearby structures are in jeopardy.”

“Get that suspect out of here,” Wyatt called.

Williams pulled the suspect up from the ground again and got him into the back of the car before backing away. The heat from the fire was intense as Fillian got Gregory off the grass and into his car. He closed the doors and reversed out of the drive and onto the road, getting the car away from the extreme heat.

“Are you all right?” He parked behind a truck along the side of the road near the end of the drive.

“Yes. Thank you. My ears are ringing.” Gregory crossed his arms over his chest. “Can I ask, aren’t you Fillian O’Connell, and didn’t you grow up on Baltimore Street?” Fillian nodded, trying to place the other man. “I grew up next door.”

Flashes of memory settled into place. “Yes…. Gregory.” They had never been close, even though they’d lived next door for years. He and Gregory had gone to the same school, and their properties might have been next to each other, but they could have been worlds apart. An eight-foot-tall fence had separated the properties, and it might as well have been the border to a hostile country. Their parents hadn’t gotten along and rarely spoke. Fillian remembered the view from his bedroom window, overlooking Gregory’s backyard with his sparkling swimming pool and a lawn filled with games, toys, and bicycles—things Fillian could only dream of.

Growing up, he had resented Gregory and his family so damned much. They seemed to have everything, and Fillian and his family barely made ends meet. He remembered Gregory getting a bike when he was six and another when he was eight or nine. They were always brand new. Fillian’s first bike came from a church rummage sale, and he knew his mother had scrimped to be able to afford that.

He cleared his throat to try to wipe away the trip down old resentment road. He had a job to do, and he needed to stay on task. “Is this your vehicle just ahead of us?”

“Yes. Would it be okay if I got another shirt? I know you need a statement and stuff from me, but….”

“Of course,” Fillian said as sirens sounded. Gregory got out of the vehicle and hurried to the truck. Fillian watched him, noticing for the first time how slender and handsome Gregory was, not that he was supposed to look at things like that while he was on duty. Still, he was trained to be observant, and it was difficult to put those skills on hold, especially when there was something so enticing to look at.

By the time the fire trucks arrived, the fire had spread to the two nearby homes, which were quickly evacuated before they became fully engulfed. Fillian helped direct traffic while the fire department extinguished what was left of the three homes. Additional police units arrived, with one escorting the suspect back to the station while Fillian and the others did their best to control the flow of traffic while he kept an eye on Gregory, who sat in his truck.

After an hour, the fires had either been put out or had burned themselves to nothing. Water sprayed from the various trucks, dousing the last of the flames. Fire crews made sure the fires were out, and Fillian got a chance to talk with Gregory to get his statement.

“I’m an electrician, and the house had a number of electrical issues that I was hired to fix by the property owner. The guy who attacked me is apparently a renter, and he seemed squirrelly at first, moving with me from room to room, watching what I did like I was going to steal something from the shit piles he had filled the house with.”

“Was he a hoarder?” Fillian asked, writing down his answers.

“Oh yes. And the longer I was there, the more tense and creepy he became. I had just a few more outlets to fix when he attacked me. I was almost done and would have been gone and—” Gregory’s voice broke. “He seemed to go crazy, and all I could do was try to get around all the crap in the house. When I fell over some of it, that’s when he grabbed my shirt. The buttons popped as I tried to get away—” He began to shake.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’re here, and he’s in custody.” Fillian continued making notes. “Tell me about the crazy or obsessive behavior. Give me as much detail as you can.” He continued taking notes as Gregory told him about the condition of the place and how angry the suspect got when Gregory moved things to get to the outlets.

“The guy was off his rocker. He yelled at me for moving an empty box from the area I needed to work in. There was another box of what looked like restaurant ketchup packets in the living room that I asked him to move. And there were tons of boxes of just weird stuff.” Gregory seemed a little breathless.

“Why didn’t you just leave when you saw how bad the place was?” Fillian asked. It might have seemed like a callous question, but it was one he needed to ask. And he needed to ensure Gregory wasn’t involved.

“Because I needed the job. It was a full day’s work, and I was being paid full scale. I have two kids at home, and my parents had agreed to watch them for the day, so I figured I could really make some bank with this. Then I turn up in a rat’s nest overseen by a crazy person… but I still needed the money.”

“I’m sorry,” Fillian said. “At the very least, you were able to get out of the house. Did you have any indication that he seemed to be a danger to himself or intended to blow up the property?”

Gregory shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so. He seemed intent on holding on to everything inside, including his box of ketchup packets. I would think that the house burning would send him over the edge because he lost everything inside. So if you want my opinion, I don’t think the fire was something he set. The house was in bad shape, and it’s possible there were gas issues. I didn’t smell anything when I was inside, but I was intent on my work and just getting out of there.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your help.” Fillian spent a few moments reviewing his notes, making sure he had a record of everything Gregory had said.

Gregory nodded. “Is there anything more that you need from me? I need to get home soon. I have to pick up my niece and nephew from my mom’s and get them home and fed.”

“Are they Arthur’s kids?” Fillian asked. He remembered Gregory having a brother a few years older than them. He used to have parties around the pool, and Fillian would watch them from his bedroom window. He never got an invitation to come over, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t long to be included.

“Yes.” Gregory seemed a little more relaxed. “He and his wife were on a business trip to Europe two years ago. Arthur was the director of product development for an AI-based gaming company. They were over in Germany working with some of the development staff. He took Stephanie with him, and they spent some time in Italy after he finished the business. Arthur was driving one evening, and the roads in that part of the country are very steep. He was going too fast and didn’t make a curve.” Gregory lowered his gaze. “Both he and Stephanie were killed.”

“I’m so sorry,” Fillian said. “I really am.” He cleared his throat. “I have your address and telephone number. If we need additional information, I’ll call.” He kept hoping he’d think of more questions to ask just so he’d have a little more time with Gregory, but he was done, and Lord knows there was going to be a ton of paperwork for him to fill out.

“Okay.” Gregory turned back toward his truck. “Oh, I had a toolbox inside the house. I had to leave it behind. Is it possible to have that added to the report so I can make a claim with the insurance company? There were some pretty expensive pieces of equipment in it that I’m going to have to replace.”

“Sure,” Fillian said, adding a note. Then he watched as Gregory turned and walked to his truck.

“Nice-looking guy,” Wyatt said from next to him, and Fillian found himself nodding before he could think about it.

“Not that it matters,” he said softly, thinking it was unlikely their paths would cross again, and what a shame that was.