Blind Trust (32 page)

Tom strode around the house, glancing in windows, then yanked on the metal screen door at the side of the house. It fell off its top hinge, and before he pushed open the inside door, the reek of animal waste bit his nostrils. A dilapidated table and two chairs sat in the center of a floor layered in years of dust and raccoon dung. But man-sized scuffs across the dust-covered floor leading into the adjoining hall betrayed a recent intrusion.

“This is Detective Tom Parker. Anyone here? I just want to talk to you.”

A skittering inside one of the kitchen cupboards answered his call, nothing more. Holding his breath against the oppressive stench and dust, he moved from one room to the next, checking closets. There were definite indications someone had wandered through the place, but nothing to suggest anyone was living there. Tom grabbed the stair rail, glanced up the open staircase, and tested the bottom step.

His cell phone rang. He cocked his head toward the top of the stairs, thinking he'd heard movement. The phone rang again. Seeing his dad's name on the screen, he punched it on. “Yeah, Dad. What is it?”

“I was listening to the police scanner. An ambulance was just dispatched to Kate's house.”

His pulse torpedoed into hyperdrive. “Did you catch any
details?” Giving the stairs one last fleeting glance, Tom hoofed it back to the door.

“No, but I'm on my way over now.”

“Thanks, Dad. I'll be right there too.” Tom bolted outside just as a motorcycle roared up the overgrown driveway.

Tom took cover behind a porch pillar, his hand settling on his gun.

The bike swerved to a stop at the foot of the porch, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Hold it right there,” Tom shouted.

The driver yanked off his helmet, revealing dark hair and blue eyes Tom would know anywhere—Jarrett King, the mayor's son. “What's going on, Detective?”

Leaving his weapon in his holster, Tom refastened his sport coat. “What are you doing here?”

“My girlfriend lives next door.”

Right. Patti Goodman. How could he forget, after catching the pair nosing through Kate's house a little more than a month ago? Was a month all it'd been? Tom glanced at the yellowing fields of early September. Seemed like a lot longer with Kate avoiding him most of the time.

Jarrett tucked his helmet under his arm. “I saw the car at the end of the driveway and got curious.”

Tom started toward him, peeling a business card from his wallet. “The neighbors called in a possible squatter. Has Patti mentioned seeing anyone hanging around this place?”

“No.” Concern rippled Jarrett's brow. “Are we talking kids or someone she needs to be worried about?”

“I don't know yet.” Tom handed him the card. “I have an emergency I need to get to. If you notice anyone around the place, give me a call.”

“Will do.” Jarrett yanked on his helmet and wailed out of the driveway before Tom's long strides ate a quarter of the distance.

But instead of turning south toward Patti's, Jarrett turned north. So why had he really happened by?

Outside her house, Kate spun from the departing ambulance to a car screeching to a stop behind her. Tom's car. Her heart leapt to her throat at the sight of him climbing out, looking as handsome as ever with his dark hair newly trimmed. She swallowed the thought of how she used to enjoy inhaling its clean, fresh scent. “What are you doing here?” she blurted, although his dad's arrival two minutes after the ambulance's should have prepared her.

Tom's blue eyes sparked as if she'd asked in Swahili. “A 911 call to your house, Kate?” he said, exasperation oozing from every word. “Where do you think I'm going to be?”

Her heart made another traitorous leap. She could always count on him to watch out for her. If only his protectiveness hadn't cost her so much that just the sight of him made her feel the loss swallowing her all over again.

His gaze traveled up her paint-splattered clothes. “What's going on?”

“Oh.” Pricked by the thought of the plants he didn't know she had, that he didn't know existed, she waved her arm mindlessly toward the house. “Nothing you need to worry about. Patti was helping me paint and fell and broke her leg.”

“I'm sorry.”

Kate dug her car keys out of her pocket. “I need to go to the hospital.”

“You might want to clean up first.” She jerked from his touch on her cheek, then felt foolish when he presented a lemongrass-green-smeared fingertip.

She swiped at her cheek with her shirtsleeve, trying to ignore the flutters triggered by his touch.

He jutted his chin toward Patti's car blocking hers in the driveway. “If you give me the keys, I can move her car out of the way for you while you change.”

Kate glanced helplessly down the now-empty street and groaned. “Patti took her purse with her.”

“No problem. I can give you a lift to the hospital,” he said, sounding far too happy about her problem.

“Uh . . .” Not a good idea. If her insides were already doing gymnastics, a twenty-minute car ride together would be pure torture. She'd probably end up confessing to digging up the plants and everything.

And he'd take them away, just like he took her dad, and she'd never figure out what was so special about them, let alone gain enough pull to get her dad back. She shifted from one foot to another, squinting at her blocked car. “Aren't you supposed to be working?”

“I'll take an early lunch,” he said, sweetening his it's-no-big-deal shrug with a wink.

Oh, she was in big trouble.

Tom's father emerged from the house. “I emptied your paint tray into the can and sealed it up and washed your brushes in the basement.”

“The basement?” She swallowed a gasp, but Tom's eagle eyes still narrowed.
Not good.
When Keith arrived and volunteered to clean up her paint supplies so she could follow Patti to the hospital, she hadn't thought about him going
downstairs and possibly noticing the grow lights on in the fruit cellar too.

“Yeah, I didn't think you'd want me cleaning paint in your kitchen sink.”

“No, of course not.” Realizing she was fluttering her hand way too nervously, she pressed it to her side. “Thank you.”

Keith gave Tom a look she couldn't read, but that made her stomach churn. Did he know? Would he tell Tom? “Um . . . I'll just go get changed real quick.” She hurried inside, dead-bolted the door behind her, and raced downstairs. Her pounding heart roared in her ears as she opened the fruit cellar door. At the sight of the grow lights still burning, she blew out a breath.
Thank you, Lord.

She charged back upstairs and snuck a peek out the front window. Tom and his father were in deep conversation.
Okay, that might
not be good.
She quickly washed and changed and raced back outside. “Ready,” she said, breathlessly.

The smile that crinkled the corners of Tom's eyes as he held open his passenger door for her sent a too-nice zing right to the center of her chest. Oh, boy.

He hadn't even turned the corner before diving into the questions she'd dreaded. “Dad said Patti was at the bottom of the basement stairs, but all the paint and brushes were upstairs. So why was she going downstairs?”

“Uh . . .” Kate wished she knew. She clutched her thighs to still her fidgeting hands. Tom was far too adept at reading her body language. He was bound to suspect she was hedging. Patti had no business going downstairs. Maybe she was just going to turn off the light, like she'd said, but Kate wasn't sure she believed her. “I guess I accidentally left a light on.” She tried not to squirm as the word
accidentally
came out of her mouth.

Tom glanced from her lap to her face. “Hey, it's not like you pushed her. It's not your fault.”

Softening at his caring tone, she tried to relax, except one look at his deep blue eyes and her anxiety only morphed into guilt over how nice he was being. Of course it was her fault. She was harboring a fugitive plant in her basement and not telling him about it.

He reached across the seat and squeezed her hand. “I'm glad
you're
okay. I was afraid GPC had gotten to you.”

She stiffened at his touch. GPC
would
be after her if they knew. And Tom would have a hairy canary fit if he knew.

“Kate, you have to know that I'm doing everything I can to figure out a safe way to reunite you with your father.”

“I know,” she mumbled, feeling even worse that he'd misread her reaction and taken it personally. But she couldn't explain. Instead, she gave his hand a quick squeeze and then pulled away, retreating further to her side of the car. She'd been deprived of her dad her whole life, for safety's sake. Now that she knew he was alive, she intended to do whatever it took to be reunited, safe or not.

Tom parked near the ER, and as he guided her toward the entrance with a gentle touch to her back, she tried not to think about the last time they'd visited the ER—the night Vic attacked her in the woods, the night he rammed her father's car over a ravine, the night she learned the truth Tom had been hiding from her.

A soft cry escaped her at the memory of the precious few hours she'd had with him before they'd whisked the father she'd thought dead for twenty years into hiding yet again. As if he'd read her thoughts, Tom's hand rubbed soothing circles on her lower back.

She arched away from his touch, willing her anger at the unfairness of it all to dispel the impulse to turn into his arms. She didn't have time for a pity party. Patti needed her.

The ER doors slid open and the bright lights hurt her eyes. Jarrett, looking way too pale, pushed through the door separating the waiting room from the patients.

Kate ran to him. “Is she okay? How did you know she was here? Have you talked to the doctor?”

“I called him when you were changing,” Tom whispered.

Jarrett raked his fingers through his hair. “The doctor said she has a displaced fracture, and because of the swelling and pain, they may need to put her under to set it. First they're sending her for a CT scan of her head. She hit it pretty hard.”

“This is all my fault.” Kate sunk onto a chair along the wall. “As soon as she told me how dizzy she'd been feeling, I should have told her to rest.”

“You knew she was dizzy?” The urgency in Jarrett's voice made Kate's heart race. “Did she suspect what caused it?”

“She said maybe low blood sugar.”

A nurse carrying a clipboard joined them. “Are you Kate? Miss Goodman said you'd be able to tell me the policy number for your work's medical insurance.”

“Oh, yes.” Kate dug into her purse and produced the card. “The group policy number is on the top. I guess you'll have to call for her personal number.”

The nurse tapped her pencil in a quickening staccato as she studied the card. “You work at the research station?”

“Yes.”

“Doing the same sort of research as that woman who recently died from drinking her own herbal tea concoction?”

Kate sprang to her feet. “Daisy was poisoned! How—”
Tom's heavy hand on her shoulder stifled the indignant retort she'd been about to blast the nurse with.

“Of course, I'm sorry. I had read in the papers that poisoning was the new theory,” the nurse said apologetically. Kate had to dig her teeth into her bottom lip not to shout, “It's not a theory!”

“I just thought,” the nurse went on, “that if she drinks different herbals, they might explain the dizziness, since she said she had it before she hit her head.”

“I thought the doctor ordered blood tests,” Jarrett cut in.

The nurse handed Kate back her card. “Yes, but if you can think of anything she might've consumed that could explain the dizziness, please let us know.”

As the nurse walked away, Tom pulled up a seat beside Kate. “This scenario sounds too uncomfortably like your friend Daisy's.”

Kate's heart pummeled her ribs. “You think someone poisoned Patti?”

“No, I—”

“Daisy had complained of dizziness a few times before . . .”
Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh.
No.

Tom gently clasped her arms. “It's okay. Take deep breaths.”

“It's not.
It's not!
” Kate whipped free of his hold. “What if they poisoned Patti to get to me?”

Sandra Orchard
is an award-winning author of inspirational romantic suspense, whose novels include
Deadly Devotion
and several Love Inspired Suspense titles, including two Canadian Christian Writing Award winners and a
Romantic Times
Reviewers' Choice Award winner. Sandra has also received a Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense.

In addition to her busy writing schedule, Sandra enjoys speaking at events and teaching writing workshops. She especially enjoys brainstorming suspense plots with fellow writers, which has garnered more than a few odd looks when standing in the grocery checkout debating what poison to use.

Sandra lives with her husband of more th
an twenty-five years in Ontario, Canada, where their favorite pastime is exploring the world with their young grandchildren. Learn more about Sandra's books and check out the special bonus features, such as deleted scenes and location pictures, at www.sandraorchard.com. While there, subscribe to her newsletter to receive subscriber-exclusive short stories. You can also connect with Sandra at
www.facebook.com/sandraorchard
.