Blind Trust

by Sandra Orchard

  “Really?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked. I do know how to paint.”

  “No, I—” Kate motioned her in and relocked the door. “I just assumed you’d be hanging out with Jarrett. You two have been inseparable lately.”

  Patti shrugged. “A girl’s got to spend some time with her girlfriends. Right?”

  Kate nodded, speechless. Patti was her assistant, her co-worker. She’d never really thought of her as a girlfriend. A shadow crossed Patti’s eyes, and a niggling suspicion struck Kate that there was more to the visit than a little altruistic bonding.

  Kate shook off the thought. Goodness, she’d grown as cynical as Tom! “I’d love some help. Thank you.” She led the way to the empty room. “I laid old bedsheets over the carpet so I wouldn’t have to worry about paint splatters.”

  “Smart idea.” Patti grabbed the stepladder and set it up along the far wall. “I can do the top and bottom edges with a brush if you want to handle the roller.”

  “That would be awesome.” Kate poured half of the lemongrass green paint into the paint tray, then set the can on the ladder’s holder for Patti’s easy access.

  Patti started in immediately, saying little, except that she liked the color.

  Kate loaded her roller and concentrated on making long, smooth strokes. “You seeing Jarrett later?”

  Patti shrugged.

  “Did you two have a fight?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Patti said. Only her brushstrokes grew jerky, as if it was exactly like that.

  A real girlfriend would commiserate with her. But Kate couldn’t. She’d be happy to see the pair break up. She didn’t trust Jarrett. It was too coincidental that he’d started dating Patti at the same time Kate took her on as a research assistant, especially when his mayor father was so set on helping GPC partner with the research station.

  Patti jabbed her brush into the paint can and glanced Kate’s way. “Whoa. You might want to wear a ball cap. You’re speckling your hair green.”

  “Red and green. Terrific. I’ll be all set for Christmas.” Kate set down her paint roller and ran her palm over her long waves. Yup, she could feel little wet spots.

  Patti muffled a giggle.

  “What?” Kate pulled away her green-smeared hand and groaned.

  “At least it’s not speckled anymore.” Patti returned to her painting, still chuckling.

  Kate went to the bathroom and washed out the paint as best she could, then squashed a ball cap over her hair. By the time she got back to the bedroom, Patti already had the top of three walls edged. “Wow, you paint like a pro!”

  “Thanks.” She climbed down to move the ladder and swayed precariously.

  “Watch out!” Kate dropped her roller and lunged for the ladder, scarcely stopping it from toppling, along with the can of paint.

  Patti stumbled off the bottom rung and struggled to recover her balance. “I’m sorry.” She pressed her palm to the side of her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I keep getting these bizarre dizzy spells. Last night I tripped up my porch steps.”

  “No harm done, but you really should see a doctor. Have it checked out.”

  Patti dropped her hand and straightened. “I don’t think it’s that serious. Probably just low blood sugar or something.”

  “Then let me get you a glass of apple juice.”

  Patti retrieved the roller Kate had dropped on the bedsheet. “That’s okay. I can get it. How about you finish edging the top of the wall and I’ll take over the roller?”

  “Okay, but”—Kate pried the roller from Patti’s hand and set it in the tray—“first get yourself that juice. There’s a bottle in the fridge.”

  Patti saluted and headed down the hall.

  Kate climbed the ladder and continued painting where Patti had left off. But when Patti still hadn’t returned by the time she reloaded her brush for the fourth time, she called out, “You okay?”

  When she didn’t respond, Kate dashed down the hall. An empty juice glass sat on the table, but Patti was nowhere in sight. Kate skidded to a stop at the top of the basement stairs beside the kitchen. “Patti?”

  Halfway down the steps, Patti whirled at her name. “Ahhh!” Her arms windmilled, and for a sickening millisecond the sheer panic of knowing she was going to fall and not being able to stop herself blazed in her eyes. She tumbled backward, catching her heel on the tread, and slammed her head on the cement floor, half her body sprawled on the steps.

  She shifted awkwardly and her screams escalated.

  “Don’t move!” Kate raced down. “You might have broken something.” Oh, no. Kate swallowed the bile that stung her throat at the sight of Patti’s badly broken leg. She was lying at such a horrible angle. Kate prayed her leg was all that was broken.

  Patti collapsed back against the floor. “I can’t believe this. I saw you’d left a light on, and”—she gasped for air in short, painful sounding gulps—“I was just coming down to turn it off for you.”

  Kate’s gaze shot to the fruit cellar, her breath caught in her throat. The door was closed like she’d left it. But no light that she could see seeped around the edges.

  Was Patti lying? Had she really gone in? Had she seen the plants?

  The abandoned Potter farmhouse sat a quarter mile in from the road. Tom Parker parked at the end of its overgrown driveway, not willing to risk busting an axle to save himself a walk. He checked his gun in his shoulder holster and shrugged into his sport coat before climbing out. Calls about a squatter weren’t normally his territory, but he had a hunch this particular squatter might be the missing teen he’d been trying to track down.

  He scanned the horizon for any sign his arrival had been noticed. The young Conner family, who’d made the call, lived north of the property. Their youngster stood on a tire swing, pointing Tom’s way. Shading her eyes, Mrs. Conner followed the direction of her son’s finger. Tom waved, then radioed dispatch to alert them, in case Mrs. Conner mistook him for another trespasser thanks to his unmarked car.

  A weed-infested field lay south of the Potter house, bordering Patti Goodman’s property with its six-foot high walled perimeter. If this squatter wasn’t his missing teen, he could be someone scouting out the wealthy estate she’d recently inherited.

  Too bad it was Saturday. Questioning Kate’s research assistant about any suspicious activity she might have noticed on the adjoining property would have been a great excuse to stop by Kate’s work.

  A sense of sadness crept over him, followed by the memory of her parting words: “There is no we.”

  He kicked the dirt. Yeah, wake up and smell the weeds. Stopping by wouldn’t change anything. If he weren’t the only connection to her father—as tenuous as that connection was—she probably wouldn’t talk to him at all. Never mind the danger he believed she might still be in.

  Despite his certainty that GPC must have recovered the plants Vic Lawton stole from her father, the pharmaceutical company was still vying for a stake in Port Aster’s research center. And Lawton’s murder proved that they didn’t leave loose ends.

  He returned his attention to the task at hand. Multiple bicycle-sized ruts through the grass confirmed someone had been around. He scoped the area for any evidence he might be walking into more than he bargained for, like some gang’s hideout. A cool breeze whispered through the timothy fields. A murder of crows, perching on a dead tree, cawed noisily as if to warn of his arrival.

  But no shifting shadows at the windows betrayed a response to the birds’ alarm call.

  He tried the front door. It held fast, and from the look of the crusted edges, it hadn’t been opened in years. He peered through the dirty window. An old sofa, its stuffing puffed out the corner, sat in the otherwise bare main room. A staircase with ratty carpet curling on the treads stretched to the second level. In the dim light, it was impossible to tell if anyone had traipsed across the floor recently.

  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.”