Taking Chances: Melanie's Story — Cheryl Obrien

Melanie Keys worked as a nurse and met Allen Denver, a handsome and capable police officer. It took Allen a year to impress her enough to get her to agree to marry him. They loved each other very much, but Melanie worried often about the dangers he faced being a police officer. A year later she was pregnant with their first child. Allen was the exuberant father when he found out during a sonogram appointment that they would have a daughter. Everything in their lives seemed to be falling into place. On a very nice spring morning Allen woke his wife and kissed her goodbye before he left for his early morning jog down the city streets. She pulled the covers over her head and went back to sleep. That morning changed her life. Allen was gunned down and not in the line of duty. The police opened the investigation and days later they closed it with no suspects and no reasonable answers as to why the investigation just stopped. Hurt and feeling betrayed, Melanie made the decision to leave the city and protect her baby by living an isolated and peaceful life far away from the people and the place that had stolen her husband from her. This is her story of how a stray dog and his owner altered those plans and pulled her out of hiding.