Shades of Truth

by Sandra Orchard

  Kim lovingly stroked the hair from her father’s face and then lifted her gaze to Ethan’s. Her devotion to her father shone in her eyes. Her lips trembled into a wavering smile. A smile that didn’t pretend to be happy about what she’d asked of him, yet reiterated her gratefulness to him.

  Her trust gripped his emotions and wouldn’t let go. Everything in him wanted to spare her family from more heartache.

  But he couldn’t compromise justice because he had feelings for the suspect’s sister.

  At 2:00 a.m. Kim walked the perimeter of the yard for the first nightly check. The spotlights reflecting off the clouds gave an eerie glow to the night sky. From somewhere in the blackness beyond the fence, a deep-throated croak made her jump.

  Terrific. If she was startling at bullfrogs, she’d be a nervous wreck in no time. She tugged on the first lock to ensure it was secure, and then shone her flashlight on it to make sure it was Hope Manor’s. A couple of years ago, a gang had cut the locks in the middle of the night and replaced them with their own. The switch went unnoticed, and the next day they’d had a jailbreak on their hands.

  Tonight, the thought of who might get in—not who might get out—had her flashlight skittering from bush to fence to tree.

  The grainy image of Derk that Ethan had shown her had been twenty-five years old. He’d had long hair and pierced ears, but otherwise had very generic features—no cleft chin, no beak nose, no telltale scar on his cheek. Cut the hair and lose the earrings and he’d look like the old guy at the video store or the guy hawking hot dogs at Harbor Park. Or the guy from the hospital. She couldn’t be certain.

  Her light beam flicked across the walls of the new workshop—the culmination of Dad’s concerted efforts to bring in trade-skills training for the boys.

  Her heart crunched. When Darryl’s connection with the drug ring came out, the manor would never survive.

  Lord, I don’t understand why You’ve let all these things happen. I thought this was the work You wanted me to devote my life to.

  A scripture whispered through her mind. All things work together for the good of those who love Him. Except, she couldn’t imagine what good God would bring from the ache gripping her heart. The instant she’d begged Ethan not to arrest Darryl, she’d wanted to bite back the words, sickened that she’d asked him to compromise his duty. But she’d panicked at the thought of Derk going after Darryl and of what Darryl’s arrest would do to Dad.

  Now she couldn’t shake from her mind the pained look on Ethan’s face when she’d thanked him.

  Ethan had tried every angle he could think of to urge Darryl to talk. Nothing had worked. Finally, Ethan did what he should’ve done in the first place. Never mind that Kim would probably never speak to him again. Darryl had left him with no choice but to break cover and haul him down to the police station.

  Taunted by Kim’s thank-you, Ethan paced the stuffy interrogation room, while Darryl sat as mutely as he had before his arrest.

  “I want to help you,” Ethan said for the hundredth time.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not talking.”

  “Look, for Kim’s sake, I’ve viewed your involvement in this whole affair as coerced, but I will see you prosecuted to the full extent of the law if you don’t start cooperating.”

  “You don’t get it,” Darryl exploded. “I don’t care about myself. I deserve whatever’s coming to me. But if I talk, Derk’s threatened to…” Darryl’s voice broke.

  “To what?” Ethan demanded, getting in Darryl’s face.

  “Hurt Kim!” Darryl’s hands fisted. “He sent Blake to run her off the road. The call I got that morning—that was him. He said if I didn’t cooperate, next time the car wouldn’t miss.”

  Images—stomach-turning snapshots of female victims—paraded through Ethan’s mind. And ripped a hole through his chest.

  Was this how Darryl felt every breathing moment?

  Ethan hauled in a breath. “Why didn’t you tell Kim she was in danger?”

  Darryl slammed his fist on the table. “If Kim had so much as an inkling of why I refused to go to the police, she would have been at the station in a heartbeat. She won’t risk the lives of others to protect herself.”

  “But you will?”

  “To protect her. Wouldn’t you?”

  Ethan jerked back. Around Kim, he couldn’t seem to keep his head. Every once in a while, in the middle of playing Ping-Pong or shooting hoops with the residents, he’d look up and find her watching him. And for a moment, he’d lose himself in the sparkle of her eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners when she smiled. Would he do anything to protect her?

  Yeah.

  Ethan straddled the chair facing Darryl. “Tell me where to find this guy, and I’ll make sure he never lays a finger on Kim. In the meantime, she’s safe at the manor. No one’s getting in or out. And—” Ethan checked his watch “—in a few minutes, I’ll head over there myself to pick her up. We’ll put her into protective custody.”

  “No!” Darryl’s gaze snapped from Ethan to the two-way mirror behind him. “Derk will know. He’s got eyes everywhere.”

  Half asleep, Kim stood at the glass doors of Hope Manor’s main entrance and watched for the school board’s white utility van. With only three other staff on duty this early in the morning, she, as acting supervisor—and the only scheduled staff member with a key to the exits—had to meet the school-board courier and escort him to the classroom. He came every weekday morning to exchange a bag of GED exams and test packets with the one the teacher set aside for him.

  Once he left, she only needed to brief the incoming shift, and then she could finally call Ethan and find out if he’d caught Derk. She had to admit that he’d responded to her revelation about Darryl better than she’d hoped. She’d half expected him to haul her brother to jail on the spot. His willingness to hold off took a bit of the sting out of his disappointment with her.

  The blush of morning tinted the sky above the trees. Kim glanced at her watch. Five thirty-five. The courier was late.

  Kim rested her head against the door and closed her eyes. Somewhere along the line she’d gone from wanting to help Ethan find peace with his past to wanting him in her future, which made his disappointment in her hurt way more than it should. Unlike Nate, with Ethan, she felt cherished and valued and safe.

  A rumbling motor rattled the glass door. She lifted her head with a start.

  A van with the school board’s logo pulled to the curb.

  Kim pushed open the door, her mind still on Ethan. The ache in her heart intensified. She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but in three short weeks, she’d fallen in love—in love!—with a man who, by his own choice, seemed determined to be alone.

  The driver approached, cap pulled low over his face. Staff never asked for ID. After all, the guy drove a school-board van. But something about the way he clutched the red vinyl pouch seemed off.

  Kim yanked the door back.

  The guy caught it and, wedging his body through the opening, drilled her with familiar beady eyes.

  The guy from the hospital. His eyes just like those in the photo. Derk’s!

  Kim fumbled for the button on her walkie-talkie.

  Derk kicked it to the ground.

  Backing toward the inner set of doors, she patted the air with her palms. “Take it easy. What do you want?”

  He drew a gun from the bag, a silencer screwed to the end. “You.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Derk pointed his gun at her heart, and Kim’s scream froze in her throat.

  Her gaze darted from door to door of the glass-enclosed entranceway. She was trapped. She’d never be able to fit her key into a lock fast enough to make a run for it. And at this range, he couldn’t miss.

  She didn’t dare antagonize him
. When she didn’t return, someone would come looking for her. Except…as acting supervisor, she wasn’t expected to return to a unit.

  And the day staff wouldn’t be in for another twenty minutes.

  Somehow she had to stall him.

  “Why—” she started to ask, but the word came out weak and quavery. Swallowing the terror balled in her throat, she tried again. “Why do you want me?”

  “No questions.”

  A male voice came over her walkie-talkie. “Kim, I need you on unit two. ASAP. Over.”

  Injecting a calm she didn’t feel into her voice, Kim said to Derk, “If I don’t answer that call, staff will come looking for me. Is that what you want?”

  He motioned the muzzle toward the walkie-talkie. “Tell him you’ll be a few minutes. Nothing more.” He chambered a bullet. “Understand?”

  Her mind scrambled for a way to clue the staff into the emergency without alerting Derk.

  Cautiously, she moved toward the walkie-talkie he’d kicked across the floor. If she used the word now, staff might recognize the standard emergency call. But dare she say where she was and risk his retaliation?

  Derk caressed the trigger, and she trembled so badly she almost dropped the walkie-talkie. Depressing the talk button, she said, “I can’t come now.” She paused for a fraction longer than needed. “I’ll be a few minutes. Over.”

  Immediately, Kevin came back with, “Where are you?”

  She pressed the talk button a second time, but as she opened her mouth, the butt of the gun hammered toward her head. Screaming, she ducked and tackled Derk like a linebacker going for the kill. The gun bounced off the bulletproof glass and raked across her back.

  He flung her off him and she landed in a heap against the door.

  She tried to rise, but her knees buckled.

  Derk grabbed the gun, then her arm, and hauled her to her feet. “Open the door,” he said, pushing her toward the exit.

  Confused that he wanted out, not in, she fumbled with the keys, stalling as long as she dared, hoping someone would come, praying whoever did wouldn’t be greeted by a hail of bullets.

  Derk snatched the key ring from her hand, unlocked the door and shoved her out ahead of him. She cast a look toward the parking lot, but Darryl wasn’t there yet.

  No one was.

  With one hand on her arm and the gun pressed to her back, Derk prodded her toward the van.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “To teach your old man a lesson.” He jerked her other arm behind her back.

  Wait. That meant he must’ve pocketed the gun. She reared to knock him off balance, but he might as well have been a stone wall.

  He cinched her wrists tight. “Nice try.” He shoved her into the back of the utility van.

  Her shoulder bumped against something spongy. In the dim light she made out the outline of a body. She recoiled, screaming.

  “Quiet or I’ll do the same to you.” Derk slammed the door.

  The person on the floor of the van groaned. Kim walked on her knees to his side. The man’s hands and feet were tied and he had a gag over his month. His panic-stricken eyes reached out to her. This had to be the courier whose van Derk had hijacked.

  “If I’m the one you want, why don’t you let this guy go?”

  Derk laughed. “I’ll give it to your old man. He sure raised a couple of bleeding hearts.” Derk dragged open the side door, yanked the courier out and shoved him into the trees. Climbing into the driver’s seat, Derk said, “When you see your dad, be sure and tell him what a nice guy I am. Unlike him.” Derk snorted. “We were supposed to be friends. Did he tell you I took him in when his old man threw him out on the street? And how does he repay me?

  “By forgetting me, that’s how. He gets religion and pats himself on the back for his good deeds, but did he ever lift a finger to try to help me? No.”

  “But he didn’t know what happened to you. Not until your case went to trial.”

  Derk shifted the van into gear. “If he hadn’t let that bitty old woman out the bank door, I wouldn’t have had to shoot the guard in the first place.”

  “You never had to shoot anyone.” Bile scorched Kim’s throat. How could this man ever have been Dad’s friend?

  She scanned the dim interior of the van for something she could use as a weapon. Derk had one hand on the wheel and one hand on the gun in his lap. She didn’t dare try to knock him out while they were moving. If he lost control of the van, she’d be mincemeat. But if she could catch him off guard the next time he stopped at an intersection, she might be able to make a run for it.

  “I wanted your old man to see what it felt like to be betrayed,” Derk went on. “I never expected your brother to play along. But I gotta admit, corrupting the preacher-warden’s son was the sweetest irony.”

  Kim winced at the sick pleasure in the man’s voice. His thirst for revenge had driven him beyond reason. This was the kind of guy Ethan dedicated his life to taking off the street. No wonder he’d been furious that she hadn’t divulged her suspicions of Darryl sooner. And even before that, how could she have thought it was okay not to admit that the guy in the SUV had been to see her dad?

  Ethan had a job to do—an important job—and she’d compromised it. If she’d confided in him immediately, this creep might already be behind bars.

  “Yup, this sleepy town has been lucrative. That’s for sure. Too bad your brother couldn’t keep his mouth shut.” Derk slammed on the brakes.

  Kim toppled face-first into the metal ridges of the floor. Her tongue pinched between her teeth and pain rocketed through her mouth. She tasted blood.

  “Now I’ll have to move on and set up shop somewhere else.” Derk accelerated again.

  Kim’s chin raked across the gritty floor. Rolling onto her side, she curled into a ball and tried to bring her tied hands under her feet to her front. The van veered around a corner, driving her into a sidewall. She braced herself against it and worked her way back up to her knees. What now?

  With her hands anchored behind her back, she’d never be able to swing a weapon hard enough to be effective. And without having her arms for balance, she doubted she’d be able to kick the back of his head. Escape was her only option.

  If she could get the rear door open, she could drop out the next time the van slowed. Keeping her eyes on the rearview mirror, she edged toward the back of the van.

  “Yup, by the time the police figure out where I live, I’ll be long gone. But I couldn’t leave without keeping my promise, now, could I?” he said, his voice syrupy.

  Her brother’s plea flashed through her mind. This isn’t about Dad anymore. She gasped. Darryl knew. He knew Derk would come after her.

  Derk’s hollow gaze met hers in the rearview mirror. “Where’s your God now, eh, girlie?”

  “Beside me. Always,” she said, defiantly.

  Irrationally, her thoughts went to Ethan. Why hadn’t she had the courage to tell him she loved him?

  Derk snorted, and when his eyes returned to the road, Kim saw her chance. She craned her tied hands toward the door.

  The van jerked to a stop.

  Kim toppled, twisting her shoulder just in time to save her face from another meeting with the floor. She bit back a yowl of pain as she scrambled to regain her footing. From the corner of her eye, she saw Derk drive the stick shift into Park and grab his gun.

  She got to her knees just as he swung it toward her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Back pressed against the door, she reached blindly for the handle.

  Derk’s stocky frame blocked what little light she had as he rose and advanced toward her.

  A hysterical scream caught in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Sh
e didn’t want to die. Not here. Not like this. Straining against the ties cinched around her wrists, she tried desperately to work the lock.

  Derk grabbed her chin and dug his fingers into her cheeks. “I said, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Tears filled her eyes. Please, Lord, save me.

  The latch gave and the door fell open, taking her with it. The instant of euphoria ended the moment her back hit the pavement. The air whooshed from her lungs. Gravel bit into her spine. She faced the sky, blue and endless, but the smell of exhaust overpowered the smell of freedom.

  Her thoughts returned to Ethan. Lord, if this is my time, please don’t let Ethan blame himself, she prayed.

  And the last thing she saw was the butt of Derk’s gun spearing toward her head.

  Late. Ethan swerved onto the drive that wound down the hill to the manor, grinding into second gear. He shot a glance at the parking lot. No sign of Kim yet.

  Whoa. Was that a foot?

  He braked sharply, his heart clenching with dread.

  Pulling his gun, he slipped out the passenger door and used the car for cover. He pointed his gun at the roadside foliage.

  “Police, come out with your hands up.”

  A muffled groan rose from the clutch of goldenrod and long grasses.

  “I said, come out with your hands up,” Ethan repeated, scanning the vicinity for signs of a sniper.

  A bound and gagged man struggled into view, but Ethan couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t being baited. He edged around the car, every sense on high alert.

  The man wrestled to his knees, his eyes pleading for help.

  Ethan moved in low and swift and dragged the man into the backseat of the car, then tore the duct tape from the his mouth.

  “He’s got the girl,” the man yelled.

  Ethan’s stomach dropped to his knees. “What girl?”

  “From the manor. I’m the school-board courier. Some guy stole my van and then kidnapped a girl.”