Random Acts

by Alison Stone

  What if the intruder found her?

  Standing on the threshold of the bathroom, she held her breath, listening. Nothing.

  She tiptoed from the relative safety of the bathroom into her bedroom. She scanned the shadowy room, desperate to find something…a weapon. Her gaze landed on the familiar shapes lined up on her dresser, a row of swimming trophies, many draped with first-place ribbons, all dusty from years of neglect. Hurriedly, she untangled the ribbons from the tallest trophy and slid it off the dresser. Its weight felt oddly comforting in her hands. If it came down to it, could she use it? The thought made her stomach queasy.

  Danielle tried to swallow, but couldn’t muster enough saliva. She opened the bedroom door—the hinge was blessedly silent—and peered out into the hallway. Long shadows played tricks on her eyes. In a burst of courage, she stepped toward Gram’s room. A dark form lunged toward her. A scream died on her lips. She raised the trophy with both hands over her head. The intruder was faster. Strong hands captured her wrists.

  “Whoa, take it easy.”

  Patrick’s familiar voice seeped into her brain. Her body went limp from relief. His grip eased. “I could have brained you. I thought you were the intruder.” Her words came out in breathless gasps. “You scared me to death.”

  “I told you to stay in the bathroom,” he said, his tone that of a man who expected to be obeyed. He released her wrists, apparently convinced she was no longer a threat.

  “I have to check on Gram.” Danielle clung to the trophy and swung away from him. She reached Gram’s bedroom and switched on the light. Danielle squinted her eyes at the blinding brightness. Gram lay on her side, a hand near her face blocking the light. She stirred at the commotion.

  Danielle’s hand flew to her mouth and tears of relief filled her eyes.

  The room was thrown into complete darkness before she had a chance to talk to her grandmother.

  “No lights.” Patrick stood in the doorway, his low voice contained a warning. “The side door facing the driveway was wide open.”

  “What is Patrick doing here?” Gram sounded confused, tired.

  “Gram,” she whispered, trying to temper her concern, “everything’s okay. Stay here.”

  Patrick clutched Danielle’s upper arms and leaned in, his breath whispering across her cheek. “Stay up here with your grandmother. I’ll check out the house.” His hard expression didn’t allow any room for argument.

  Sweat trickled between Patrick’s shoulder blades as he made his way through the house. He was acutely aware of his surroundings.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he adjusted the grip on his gun. He peered around the corner to gain a better view of the kitchen. From this perspective, he couldn’t see the side door.

  The sound of something banging in the kitchen had him on high alert. He held his gun at the ready. All his training, all those years in Iraq, came into play. With laser-like focus, he sidled along the wall into the kitchen. A cold breeze skittered across his damp skin. The side door yawned open, the wind slamming it against the counter. Keeping close to the wall, the counters, he edged through the room, anticipating the unexpected. The wind rustled the leaves on the big oak trees in the deep yard just beyond the driveway. Patrick kicked the door shut.

  He did a quick canvass of the house and was convinced whoever had been here was long gone.

  When he returned to the kitchen, he found Danielle standing in the center of the room, staring at the door. “Anyone could have reached in through the broken pane and unlocked it.” Her thin frame visibly trembled under the moonlight streaming through the windows. She wrapped her arms around her middle. An inexplicable urge to pull her into an embrace swept over him. He wanted nothing more than to comfort her, to tell her everything would be okay. But that wasn’t his place. He had a job to do.

  Maintaining professional restraint, he strode over to the door, the glass crunching under the soles of his shoes. “A lot of older homes have doors like this. I see it all the time. People don’t want to believe the times have changed. Crime has no boundaries.”

  The sound of a quiet gasp made him spin around. Danielle’s pink mouth formed a perfect O as she buckled in pain. Patrick’s arm snaked out and grabbed her. “Stop.” He stretched across and flipped on the light. Shards of glass littered the floor.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Danielle whispered. She lifted her foot. Little drops of blood added a garish hue to the yellow-stained linoleum.

  The color drained from her face. He slipped one arm around her waist and guided her toward the kitchen chair. “You okay?” She looked different from the polished businesswoman he had seen in the light of day. In cotton sweats, hair mussed from sleep and no makeup, Danielle reminded him of the girl he once knew. The tomboy next door who he had grown to care deeply about.

  She shrugged and scooted back in the chair. Clutching her foot with both hands, she leaned forward for a closer look. Her face immediately twisted in disgust and she clamped her eyes shut. She sucked in a breath and lowered her foot, leaning back as if to gain some distance. “I’m not very good with blood.”

  “Let me.” He waited for a brief second for some acknowledgment. Without opening her eyes, she nodded her acquiescence.

  Patrick’s hands felt warm on her icy foot. The pain was a distraction from her embarrassment. How dumb to walk across the glass-littered floor with bare feet. In her defense, it had been dark.

  A tingling started in her fingertips and threatened to race up her arms. If she didn’t get ahold of herself, her stomach would revolt and her head would be spinning in no time. Focusing on something specific outside of herself had been a little trick she had learned to rein in her panic. She glanced down at her foot as Patrick pressed a paper towel to the wound to stem the flow of blood. Her stomach turned queasy.

  She pressed her eyes closed again and let her mind drift. An uncharacteristic thought flitted across her brain—I wish my toenails were polished. A smile pulled at her lips. She suddenly felt fourteen again. Patrick Kingsley, the coolest senior at Mayport High School, was crouched at her feet tending to her injury.

  A nervous giggle escaped her lips. “Remember the time we played touch football and I stepped on a prickly weed?”

  Patrick lifted a brow, never taking his focus off her foot. “You howled like a banshee.”

  “Did not.”

  He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Did too.”

  Danielle rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  Her attention drifted back to the gaping hole in the door, a few shards of glass poked out of the wood frame. Tendrils of panic snuffed out the brief moment of levity. “What do you think happened here?” She felt a slight tug on her foot.

  “Got it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Patrick pinching something both translucent and smeared with blood. She knew better than to look. He seemed a tad too excited about his success.

  Danielle wrestled the nausea clawing at her throat. “Can you toss it in the garbage, please?” She really needed to toughen up. She was such a wimp when it came to blood and guts.

  “It’s worse than it looks.” Patrick stood and glanced around. “Any Band-Aids? Gauze, maybe?”

  “Gram keeps a first-aid kit up there.” She pointed to the cabinet over the fridge. The same place her mother had hid the liquor.

  When he opened the cabinet, sure enough, he found the kit. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see any liquor. Why would she? Her mother—and her vodka—had disappeared a long time ago. Exactly seven days after they had arrived in Mayport for—in her mother’s words—a fresh start. Apparently Mom wanted a fresh start sans kids. The room seemed to close in around her.

  She turned her focus to Patrick. His gentle touch as he cleaned her wound was a testament to the kind of man he was. Closing her eyes, she held the tears at bay. Hands down, this was the most humiliated she had felt in years.

  “Sorry,” he said when she flinched. His voice was soothing, calm. She felt his
eyes on her. “Does it hurt?”

  Danielle pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her foot didn’t hurt nearly as much as her pride.

  He patted her knee, much like a big brother would reassure a little sister. Lucky her, she thought drolly. She tilted her head, studying him as he wrapped her foot in gauze. His square jaw was dark with whiskers. Creases at the corner of his eyes, slightly whiter than the rest of his tanned face, suggested he smiled a lot. Over the past decade and a half he had grown from a cute boy into a handsome man. A yearning for something—a missed opportunity perhaps—swept over her. She blinked a few times, shoving aside the fleeting thought. Why waste energy exploring such useless emotions?

  Patrick glanced up, a smile in his eyes. “I think you’ll live.”

  “Good to know.” She pushed a hand through her hair, realizing for the first time she had a major case of bed head. Lifting both hands, she pulled it back, wishing she had a fastener.

  Patrick stood up and walked to the door. He opened it wide, studying its trajectory. “I’m going to call this into the station, but I’m wondering if the wind blew it open.” Something in his tone told her he was grasping at straws. He cut her a sideways glance. “Do you know if you locked the door tonight?”

  Danielle searched her memory. Locking the doors had been second nature in Atlanta. But here in Mayport? “I can’t be sure.”

  “I know this door sticks.”

  “It’s hard to open and you really have to force it shut.”

  “Exactly.” With a gloved hand, he cleaned the remaining shards of glass from the wood frame. “Strange.” He seemed to be thinking out loud. “The door had to hit the counter pretty hard to send glass across the kitchen floor. And only this one pane broke.”

  “The pane closest to the lock.” An unnerving thought took root. Had someone broken into the house tonight?

  He turned to meet her gaze, his green eyes penetrating in their intensity. He pulled his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans. “Let me call this in. Just to be sure.”

  “Okay.” Her throat felt parched.

  His hand came up in a hold-on-a-minute gesture as he spoke to the person on the other end of the line. Something in his eyes suggested he wasn’t completely forthcoming. What was he hiding? Her eyes drifted to the broken window. A chill permeated her bones.

  Chief Parker answered on the second ring, his voice gruff, presumably from sleep. “Hey, Chief,” Patrick said, then he mouthed to Danielle, “I’m going to take this outside.”

  Patrick stepped onto the driveway. He crossed one arm over his chest, his thin shirt no match for the chilly night air, a sharp contrast to the warm spell of the past few days. “This might be nothing, but I can’t take the chance.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Danielle hadn’t followed him outside.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m at the Carson home.”

  A groan sounded across the telephone line. “And there’s a problem?”

  “Can’t be sure. The back door was open. Might have been the wind.”

  “But you don’t think so?” Chief Parker seemed to trust Patrick’s instincts. And the respect was mutual. Upon returning to Mayport, Patrick immediately had related to his boss, also a single father of a now-grown son.

  “I’m worried it’s related to Jenny’s activities last night.” Patrick paced in a ten-foot area of the driveway, trying to keep warm and gather his thoughts.

  “No way. Billy doesn’t know why she was at the bar last night. She got skittish and ran off before she made a buy. Remember?” Frustration was evident in Chief Parker’s tone. Getting Billy Farr, a suspected drug dealer, off the street was high on the police department’s list of priorities. And having their sting operation fizzle last night had been a huge disappointment.

  Patrick stopped pacing and his fingers tightened around the phone. “I don’t like it. We should have never allowed Jenny to serve as a drug informant.”

  Silence stretched across the line. This had been a bone of contention between the men. “Jenny Carson made her own choices.”

  “She was backed into a corner.” Patrick bit back his frustration.

  “Do you need an investigative team over there?” Chief Parker cut to the chase.

  “No, I’ve got it covered.”

  “Okay. And Patrick,” Chief Parker said, his tone softening, “we followed protocol last night.”

  “I know.” Patrick replayed the events in his mind’s eye. Last night, from a crowded parking lot across from the bar, he had personally watched Jenny get into her car and drive home. He’d followed at a safe distance. Nothing had indicated anyone had suspected anything. He had made sure she had gotten safely into the house and locked the door behind her. He was a man of his word.

  But how had Jenny ended up in a car accident after she’d made it home? And why did he feel like he had personally let Jenny down? A nagging guilt pricked his conscience.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll have a car go by Billy’s bar, see who’s around.”

  “I’d appreciate it, sir. I want to make sure no one’s targeting Jenny.”

  Something niggled at the back of his brain. Had Jenny somehow tipped her hand and become the target of a ruthless drug dealer? But why break into her home when Jenny wasn’t there? His heartbeat kicked up a notch, the way it did when he was working the elements of a case, much like a puzzle, and the pieces wouldn’t fit. Did Jenny have something the intruder wanted? If there had been an intruder.

  The screen door slammed. Danielle stood in the driveway, feet stuffed in sneakers with the backs pushed down. At his questioning expression, she raised the dustpan in her hand and said, “Cleaning up the glass.”

  “Thanks,” he said to his boss and snapped his phone shut.

  “Everything okay? Is Jenny in some kind of trouble?” The moonlight reflected in her trusting eyes.

  “Let me take this.” He lowered his gaze and took the dustpan from her, his fingers brushing the soft, cool flesh of her hand. He flipped open the blue lid of the garbage tote and dumped the broken glass. It landed with a sharp clatter.

  “You didn’t answer me. What did you mean when you said you wanted to make sure no one was targeting Jenny?” Danielle came up behind him and placed a hand on his back. Its tenderness coiled around his heart, melting his resolve. He was glad his back was to her.

  He straightened his shoulders and slammed the lid shut. He turned around and forced a smile. “It’s standard protocol in a suspected break-in to determine why a certain house may have been targeted.”

  Danielle crossed her arms and lifted her shoulders up to her ears. Her teeth began to chatter. “Do you think this house was targeted?”

  “You never know. Maybe with the accident someone thought the house was empty. An easy target.” He couldn’t reveal Jenny’s involvement as a drug informant for fear of further jeopardizing her safety. Or Danielle’s.

  Why did he feel like a liar?

  Dear God, please forgive me.

  The Protector lifted his fist and drove it down onto the counter. A red cloud of anger colored his vision. “Do I have to do everything myself?” Spittle flew from his mouth and landed on the boy—not a man, a kid, a failure—standing in front of him.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then where is it? Explain to me exactly why you went into the Carson home like a bull in a China shop? Did you want to get caught?” The Protector curled his fingers into tight fists and ground his teeth, resisting the overwhelming urge to pummel the kid’s face.

  “No, sir.”

  As if of its own volition, his hand came up and punched the kid in the sternum. The younger man stepped back, bent over and gulped in uneven breaths. Disgust washed over the Protector. “Oh, stop being a wimp. Stand up straight. Be a man.”

  The kid stood, narrowing his gaze a fraction. The Protector glared in return. “Are you defying me?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No one defies me.�
�� He thumped the kid’s forehead with his index finger. “I run this place. You understand? And if you plan on sticking around, you better shape up.”

  “Yes, sir.” The kid squared his shoulders.

  That’s more like it.

  The kid cleared his throat. “Give me another chance. I know I can find it.”

  The Protector studied the younger man’s face. He had such high hopes for him. But maybe he wasn’t cut out for this after all. What a disappointment. “Another chance…” he hissed. “I don’t know if you deserve another chance.” He lifted his open hand and watched the object of his disgust flinch. He cupped the kid’s cheek and tapped it a few times gently. A deep chuckle escaped the Protector’s lips. He knew psychological warfare was just as crippling as physical. Maybe more so.

  “Please, please…I’ll get it next time.” A flash of determination sparked in the kid’s eyes. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

  Not one for reassurances, the Protector shrugged. “I’ll decide soon. But either way, if they find her phone, you’re the one going down.”

  Chapter Five

  It was midafternoon before Patrick had the back door replaced with a more secure one without a window. For good measure, he also had the deadbolts replaced on both the front and back doors. Satisfied, he offered to drive Danielle to the hospital. After last night’s excitement, Gram claimed she was too tired to leave the house, content to sit and visit with a friend from the church who had stopped by. Patrick suspected Jenny’s condition had taken a toll on the elderly woman.

  Once at the hospital, Patrick hung back as Danielle walked into Jenny’s room. She went immediately to the head of the bed and smoothed her hand across her sister’s hair. The silence grew heavy between them. He searched for comforting words but settled on something else entirely. “How’s your foot?”

  Half of her mouth tipped in a small grin. “Fine. I was a bit of a drama queen. Show me blood and it’s all over.”