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over the school policies with you tomorrow—”
    “Wait just a minute.” Dallas shook his head. This was the last thing he’d expected to hear. “Back up. You’re serious?”
    Captain Galyard gave him a look that dared him to question an order. “I wouldn’t joke with you about this, Dallas. Brad’s going on medical leave, and it can’t wait. I know this is going to be tough for you, but we don’t have time to train a new school resource officer, and no one else in the precinct has any experience.”
    Dallas felt his world turn upside down. The flashback to his last day as an SRO was quick, but no doubt complete. The actual event hadn’t taken much longer. With one gunshot, Steve Waverley’s baseball hopes were gone, and Alek Beeson was dead.
    This wasn’t in the deal, God. I agreed to come back to protect and serve. I said no kids. No schools. We had an agreement.
    What was he thinking, arguing with God? He’d already tried that, and God had led him to Antelope Springs, a quiet rural town in northern Colorado. What could happen here? He shook his head.
    “You’re trained, you have invaluable experience and we need you there, Dallas….”
    Though his head was nodding, Dallas wasn’t really absorbing any of the conversation. After a few minutes, he pulled himself out of his fog. “Does anyone else know what happened in Phoenix?”
    “It’s nobody’s business but ours. There is nothing in your personnel file on it, if that’s your concern. It’s just for a few weeks, then school will be out for the summer. Hopefully, Johnson will be back on the job in the fall. I’m here anytime you need to talk. Anytime, night or day, and I expect to hear from you.”
    A few weeks. Surely I can hang on for a few weeks.“I’ll make it work.” He stood to leave.
    “Unless it’s unusually busy tonight, leave as soon as you get Miss Matthews’s statement. School starts at 7:25 a.m., so Johnson would like to meet with you at 6:30 a.m.”
    “Yes, sir,” he muttered. At least the captain didn’t expect him to work a double shift.
    He called Kira from the station, hoping he could make it a quick deal, get her over here to write up her statement so he could finish the report and be done with it. No such luck. He stopped into Sergeant Shaline’s office again and let him know he wasn’t able to reach her.
    “I guess you’re driving to Fossil Creek, then, aren’t you? If that doesn’t produce any results, you might consider putting out a BOLO for her,” he chuckled.
    “Yeah, that ought to build a few bridges between us and Social Services, wouldn’t it?” Dallas replied, shaking his head. The last thing he wanted tonight was to chase the woman down. He had made every attempt to get her here already.
    Thirty minutes later he was surprised to find a security gate at the entrance to her upscale village of Victorian style town homes. Looks like they pay social workers a lot more than they do cops these days.He parked in the visitors lot, wound his way on foot through the streets to her condo and rang the bell. No answer. Why am I not surprised?
    He pulled out her release form from her ride-along and dialed the number listed for next of kin, only to get the Office of Protective Services, again. This time, though, he followed the instructions to reach an after-hours operator. After he’d explained the situation, the woman put him on hold for what seemed like forever.
    “Officer Brooks,” the operator finally announced, “Miss Matthews hasn’t been at work for the last three days.”
    “She’s sick?”
    “Don’t know. I just know she’s been out.”
    “Thanks. Do you have an emergency contact for her?”
    “You’d have to call her supervisor tomorrow for that.”
    “Yeah. Thanks.” Dallas knew it was ridiculous to believe the worst, but he couldn’t take that chance. The DEA hadn’t arrested Mickey Zelanski yet. What if, for some idiotic reason, he’d come after Kira?
    She hadn’t returned his calls,