Shelter for Martina Read online

  Shelter for Martina (Police and Fire: Operation Alpha)

  Bluegrass Bravery Book 3

  Deanndra Hall

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  About the Author

  Also by Deanndra Hall

  More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books

  Books by Susan Stoker

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2019 ACES PRESS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Dear Readers,

  Welcome to the Police and Fire: Operation Alpha Fan-Fiction world!

  If you are new to this amazing world, in a nutshell the author wrote a story using one or more of my characters in it. Sometimes that character has a major role in the story, and other times they are only mentioned briefly. This is perfectly legal and allowable because they are going through Aces Press to publish the story.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I might have assisted with brainstorming and other ideas about which of my characters to use, I didn’t have any part in the process or writing or editing the story.

  I’m proud and excited that so many authors loved my characters enough that they wanted to write them into their own story. Thank you for supporting them, and me!

  READ ON!

  Xoxo

  Susan Stoker

  To S.S.

  They may not know where you are,

  but you’ll never be lost

  in the hearts of those who love you.

  Introduction

  This book is loosely based on an actual disappearance that took place in Graves County, Kentucky, on or about March 29, 2018.

  On March 28, a young man we’ll call Adam disappeared into the woods in a rural area. He had contacted his mother and told her he had taken several pills and was going into the woods to die. Having had violent encounters with him in the past when he was armed, he had been deemed an officer safety risk. Due to that determination, the sheriff’s office in that county decided not to go into the woods to look for him until daylight. Putting unarmed civilians, namely firefighters and local volunteers, in the woods with a person known to be violent was something they were not willing to do.

  On March 29, a young woman we’ll call Betty was reported missing by her parents. That evening, her abandoned car was found near the area where Adam disappeared, impounded, and searched by deputies. Two other deputies went to the largest town nearby to interview an individual about information regarding the whereabouts of Adam’s biological father, whom we’ll call Carl. At the same time, another individual was being interviewed regarding Betty’s disappearance.

  A search was completed on March 30 for Betty by the sheriff’s department in the county where she was deemed missing. On that day, Carl met with deputies in the general vicinity where Betty was allegedly seen by Carl. He reported that he and Betty had ridden a four-wheeler into the woods, gotten stuck, and stayed there the rest of the night. According to him, they left on foot the next morning.

  An unnamed individual was asked by the sheriff’s office to conduct an independent search. This individual had extensive knowledge of that particular area, having been raised nearby and having spent an enormous amount of time hunting in those woods. While Carl and the deputies searched for the four-wheeler, the unnamed individual located it and reported its location to the deputies. He also reported that there was only one set of footprints around the four-wheeler and one set of footprints coming out of the woods. That information was not revealed to Carl.

  Facts confirmed Carl’s account of the incidents leading to Betty’s disappearance did not match the physical evidence at the scene and there was no proof Betty had ever been in the woods or that area. There was also evidence of a small fire. In that fire law enforcement located two cellphones that belonged to Carl. They were collected and analyzed.

  Once the four-wheeler was recovered, everyone left the woods, with a promise by Carl that he could leave and return to the sheriff’s office later for an interview.

  At the time Adam went missing, it was not known that Betty was missing, but when the missing person’s report for her was taken, an investigation began immediately. Persons of interest were named and evidence was collected. In under 24 hours of the report being taken, deputies and a private citizen were in the woods looking for Betty. Several individuals were also interviewed. A person of solid character reported that Betty was in the county and near her car earlier that week, but not in the area that was claimed by Carl, and that was a day earlier than Carl reported they’d gone into the woods. No evidence exists that Betty was ever in the woods.

  In an interview the evening of March 30, Carl said that when he last saw Betty, she was walking south on the highway nearby and he was walking north, and he claimed that was the last time he saw her. A search warrant was issued for her home in another county and executed, the search lasting until the following day, March 31.

  On the night of April 1, Adam walked out of the woods. He was taken to the hospital for hypothermia and dehydration, then taken to the sheriff’s office. Adam gave his own account of Betty’s disappearance, as well as his own. He also claimed the items found in the woods were carried there by him and he lost them.

  Of interest is the fact that the FBI contacted the sheriff’s office and offered to assist. After reviewing the case, they admitted the sheriff’s department was doing everything they would have, and the Kentucky State Police reviewed and signed off on the efforts as well.

  To date, the sheriff’s office in that county has collected 39 pieces of evidence and processed them, and continues to work to locate Betty. And they have vowed to never stop looking.

  The sheriff’s department would like to close the case. Her family would like closure. Her young children would like to know what happened to their mother. And a small rural community wants answers. Even a Dateline story didn’t help. Will we ever know what happened to her?

  This book is based on the incidents described above; however, names, locations, and details have been changed to protect those involved. Any actual information used was gleaned from open and public records, as I have no personal knowledge of the case. I am not a law enforcement professional. I do, however, have the utmost respect for those men and women who protect us, so if any of my procedural details are erroneous, I apologize. This was written purely for entertainment, and I hope it is taken as such.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my betas, Maggie and Tami, to my proofer, Emmy, and to my long-suffering husband, who reads every one of these before anyone else does.

  About the book

  What’s worse than a den of liars? A den of lying relatives.

  That’s what Kentucky State Police Detective Albert “Bud” Griffin finds when
a young woman goes missing in Ohio County. Local law enforcement seems far more concerned about the last two people she was seen with, a recently-acquainted father and son team who are notorious liars, not to mention they’re particularly bad at it. After losing her husband and another daughter, Renita Anderson’s mother, Martina, is desperate to find her. Having lost his wife to cancer, Bud finds the kind of love and passion with Martina that he never thought he’d find, and he promises he’ll find her daughter.

  He soon realizes there are members of the community who don’t want the young woman found. At a chance meeting in the woods with Texas Parks & Wildlife game warden Conor Paxton, the younger man makes some observations that confirm Bud’s suspicions—everyone Bud’s dealing with is lying except for Martina. The versions of Renita’s disappearance from the last two people who saw her don’t match, and he’s not surprised. Threats are levied, shots are fired, and it all points to someone who’ll be impossible to go up against without help. To his surprise, the best help he gets comes from the most unlikely individuals—one with two legs and one with four.

  Built on an actual ongoing 2018 case in far western Kentucky, Bluegrass Bravery: Shelter for Martina is filled with devotion, passion, mature bedroom antics, and enough treachery, betrayal, and evil to fill the Green River Bottoms. Someone will take a bullet. It’s only a matter of time.

  Chapter 1

  Eyes darting at every sound, he waited in silence, the big gun shouldered. Movement on the left caught his eye, but he didn’t turn, just followed with his gaze. As soon as the creature stopped, he swung slightly to his left and pulled the trigger.

  BOOM! Birds rose from every branch in the woods, but the animal in front of him lay dead. Thank god. One less of them. When he reached it, he toed it with his boot, then took one of the garbage bags he’d brought with him and wrestled the carcass into it. He’d take it home and bury it with all the rest.

  Unfortunately, the chances that it was the right one were slim, but Albert “Bud” Griffin didn’t care. He was damn sick and tired of them carrying off chickens, neighborhood cats, and even small dogs. The bigger pets fought the coyotes, and often lost. One neighbor had even been forced to put his Labrador retriever down because of its injuries sustained in a fight with one of the nasty canines. Being loaned out around the state to posts that were short a detective had seemed like a good diversion, but it was clear his community and neighborhood out in Robards needed him. That moving around would have to stop.

  He left the woods, one hand holding the shotgun he’d shouldered and the other gripping the garbage bag he was dragging behind him. He’d no more than laid the shotgun on the front seat of the truck and tossed the bag into the bed when a gray car pulled up. “Hey, Bud!”

  “Hi, young‘un!” he answered. He loved calling the younger troopers that. It made them recognize his tenure and age, and that was something they should do anyway. “What are you up to?”

  Trooper Tyler Bridges grinned. “Patrolling. Got a call of a gunshot out here. Guess that was you, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Get one?”

  “Yep.”

  “Snatching chickens?”

  “Yep. Among other things.” The younger man wrinkled up his face in disgust. “I’m determined to keep them away from the neighborhood. One of my neighbors has a little granddaughter who’s just two. I can’t imagine what would happen if one of them wandered up while she was playing outside.”

  “Yeah, that wouldn’t be good at all. Have you by any chance seen our favorite person out here today?”

  Bud knew exactly who he was talking about. “No, thank god.”

  “Yeah. His mama called the sheriff’s department to come out here. Said he was crying and carrying on, told her he was going to take a handful of pills, walk into the woods, and never come out.”

  “Oh good lord. I hate to say this, but we should all be so lucky,” Bud ground out through clenched teeth. He knew exactly who Tyler was talking about. Marty Burgess was a pain in the ass of every law enforcement officer in that part of the state. He was surly, angry, unpredictable, usually hopped up on some kind of drug, and worse yet, he had weapons. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to have them. Felons legally couldn’t possess weapons. It seemed somebody had forgotten to give Marty that little detail. No one wanted to encounter him unless they absolutely had to.

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Oh, well, if you see him, know they’re looking for him. Have a great day.”

  “You too, young’un. See ya around.” He watched as Tyler pulled away in the steel gray state police cruiser. The young trooper gave him a little wave, and Bud waved back.

  Helluva way to spend my day off, he thought as he dug the hole out in the back of the scrub pasture and dumped the coyote’s body into it. Instead of throwing dirt into it, he dumped some lime on it, threw a tarp over it, then secured the tarp with four concrete blocks. He’d throw the dirt in over it when he had a few more carcasses to add to the hole. Why waste a perfectly good hole with one dead coyote when you could get ten in there? Hunting for them was open and with no limit. You see it, you shoot it, and he wouldn’t mind shooting every one of them in those woods.

  After dinner that evening, he sat down and turned on the TV. The ballgame was shit—the other team ran away with it in the second half—and by the time it was over, he was too. One glass of bourbon later, he was ready for bed.

  Bud lay there, staring at the ceiling in the darkness, and willed Becky to be there beside him. Of course, she wasn’t. God, he hated cancer. It had taken his mother and his aunt, but he’d never dreamed it would take his wife. She’d been diagnosed when she was thirty-seven, and she’d even been declared in remission at one point, but then it had returned with a vengeance. Her last few months … no one should have to suffer that way. No one. I’m forty-seven, he told himself. There’s no one out there for me. I should just forget about that and concentrate on my job and the kids. Their son, Blake, and his wife, Maeve, had two small children, Maddie and Sammie, and their daughter, Riley, had one little boy, Critt, short for Crittenden, the county Riley lived in. He’d been against Riley’s marriage to Dimitri at the beginning because of the difficulty he knew they’d have as an interracial couple, but Dimitri had won him over. His son-in-law was smart, funny, skilled with a rod and reel, and loved Riley and Critt. Dimitri was a great dad, and Bud’s daughter-in-law, Maeve, was another daughter to him. I have family. That should be enough.

  But sometimes in the night, when his broken heart cried out, there was no one to soothe it. Worse yet, he feared it would always be that way. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on.

  “This is KSP Post Sixteen dispatch. Unit seven twenty-three, do you copy?”

  Bud picked up the mic on his radio and pressed the button as he drove down the highway. “Unit seven twenty-three responding.”

  “Unit seven twenty-three, please proceed to Fordsville Jiffy Mart. Repeat, please proceed to Fordsville Jiffy Mart. Requested by unit nine eighty-two.”

  “Roger, central dispatch. Unit seven twenty-three en route to Fordsville Jiffy Mart.” Fordsville was a wide spot in the road in Ohio County, and he was very familiar with the area. He had a nagging feeling he knew why he’d been called there, but he was hoping to be wrong.

  When he pulled up in the parking lot, he was greeted by at least three other KSP cruisers and half a dozen Ohio County Sheriff’s Department cruisers, but unit nine eighty-two, Detective Atkins, was nowhere to be found. Apparently he didn’t want to be bothered. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mumbled to himself as he got out of his car and headed toward the knot of people standing near the side of the highway. “What’s up, gang?”

  One of the deputies, Arlen Cole, and a trooper, Eldred Michaels, turned and greeted him. “Missing person,” Eldred announced.

  “Let me guess. Marty.”

  “You got it,” another deputy answered, and he turned to see Brett Farley standing there. “Mama called this
morning and said he didn’t come home the other day.”

  “I ran into Trooper Bridges yesterday, so I knew she’d called in. How long has it been?”

  “Two days now.”

  “Well, shit.” Bud folded his arms across his chest. “You know he’s holed up in some girl’s house, drinking beer, shooting up, and watching porn on TV.”

  “Yeah, we know, but his mother thinks he’s a saint,” Arlen answered.

  “Okay. Got something for me?”

  Eldred shrugged. “Just wanted you to walk into the woods and see if there’s anything we didn’t catch.”

  “Lemme get my boots and I’ll stomp around out there a bit.” As soon as he’d slipped the big rubber knee-high boots on, Bud headed into the brush and walked around for a while.

  Nothing. There was nothing there, no signs of Marty, no signs that anyone had been through there, nothing. “I’m going back to the post. Think I’ll take that back road up there,” Bud said, pointing up the hill at the side of the lot where they’d entered. “Anybody been up there?”

  “Dunno,” Arlen answered. “But if you see him, let us know.”

  “Oh, I’ll most certainly do that,” Bud said with a chuckle, and the other men laughed too. Marty would turn up. He always did.

  Back in his cruiser, he thought about that road. Where did it connect? He was pretty sure he knew, and then he’d have to go down and take a left, and that would take him to … Yeah, he could get back to the post that way. As soon as he started up the car, he turned it that direction and meandered out on the little road.