Trust No One

by Barbara Phinney

  Not if she was a suspect herself, though.

  She shut her eyes and slumped against the well-worn windowsill and listened to the officers leave. As if they would believe her. What would Nick do if she did blurt it out? It wasn't hard to tell he was a volatile man. Announcing that he was in league with Jamie might set him off. She might be signing Mark's death warrant. Or her own.

  And now Nick knew she had no place left to hide.

  * * *

  "Get some things together while I put your tapes in a bag. You can look at them later." Nick had watched Mark carefully examine all the tapes as he searched for some sign of tampering. Since Mark hadn't taken any of them, they must be clean. But if someone had handled them, they could have recorded something of importance on one of them. Sure it was a long shot, but worth checking out. Someone had rifled through them.

  Turning to Helen, he could see she was on the edge of collapsing. She had to get moving, do something, however mindless it might be, or she'd end up in hospital.

  He didn't want to take her back to the shelter, but where could she go? Someone had been here and at her mother's house.

  Helen shuffled past him and automatically, Nick drew in a deep breath, remembering the way she smelled that night on the couch. Had it only been last night? It didn't seem possible. Tonight, she smelled slightly of warm soap. Nothing erotic and yet the strong memory weaved itself into his conscious thought.

  He resisted the aching urge to catch her and hold her. Strength didn't drain from one person to another by way of an embrace. Besides, how strong was he, himself? He'd screwed up a vital undercover investigation and then the same day, tried to make love to the woman who was the key to the entire operation, whether she knew it or not. Now, a day later, the very scent of her warped his perspective of this investigation and if he wasn't careful, he'd jeopardize what had been salvaged of the whole operation.

  "Where are your plastic bags?" he asked her gruffly.

  She turned at the door to her bedroom. Her eyes were clouded, like her fear and pain were simply too much to bear. "Um. In the second drawer in the kitchen."

  He found some neatly folded grocery bags where she'd said and pulled one out. Back in the living room, he dumped the tapes into it. Would she bother to look at them? There was only the slimmest chance that they held anything but childhood memories. And in her state of mind, right now, Helen might not be able to watch them without breaking down.

  He should watch them, instead. Excuse me? No, thanks. That kind of work had a bit too much of an intimate feel to it.

  They'd been intimate enough.

  Hefting up the bulging bag, he turned around in time to see her return. She carried a small overnight bag.

  She'd changed as well, from the old baggy clothes to a pair of beige slacks and a lightweight sweater.

  "Got everything?" he asked.

  "Yes." She grabbed a coat from the tiny closet at the top of the stairs. They said nothing on their way to the shelter. Nick pulled to the curb on the other side of the street, his seat belt keeping him firmly in place. No, he wasn't going to kiss her again.

  "What are you going to do now?" she asked, cutting into the silence with her urgent whisper.

  "Go home. It's getting late." Not really, but this time of year, it could be either nine at night or well after midnight. It all looked the same. He turned to her. "They'll find Clive Darlington, don't worry. It won't take much to get him talking. He's got a list of priors as long as this street and knows that unless he plea bargains, he'll be looking at ten years behind bars without parole."

  "Thank you." Then, her face still grim, she said, "Don't forget my mother."

  "I won't. Look at those tapes and call me." He wanted to sound gruff, professional, but he wasn't sure it was working.

  "What am I supposed to look for?"

  "I don't know. Blank spaces, snow on the tape. Anything out of the ordinary." He doubted she would buy the fact that the tapes were making the hair rise on his arms, a sure sign that something was amiss.

  "All right." She shifted her gaze away from his face as she shoved open the door. She seemed detached, distant.

  She still didn't trust him, damn it. He touched her arm as gently as he could. "Helen, trust me. Please?"

  Wide, wary eyes met his, blinking him into focus. "Jamie said that to me once when he bought me a new VCR. And later, he told me he wanted to see me dead." She swung away from him, and climbed out hastily. Without looking back, she slammed the door and headed across the street.

  Nick pulled a face. There was no way he could tell her the truth and set her mind at ease, but to be equated with that scum Cooms ate like acid in his stomach. He glanced down at the floor of the truck.

  The tapes. She'd forgotten them. He grabbed the bag and threw open his door, fumbling with his seat belt as he called out, "Helen!"

  She was halfway across the street when she turned.

  "The tapes." He held up the bag as he walked toward her. It had recently rained and the pavement between them was shiny and slick. The harbor air smelled cool and moist.

  An engine gunned to life, slicing the quiet dark of the street like a hot knife through butter.

  Nick turned.

  Dark early model sedan. Tinted windows, no headlights.

  He registered all the details in a millisecond. Then, seeing the reflections of the streetlights whip past the hood and windshield of the car, he registered the horrible, immediate danger they were in.

  Someone was going to run them over.

  Chapter 6

  Helen heard Nick's cry at the same time she felt him slam into her. The scream of an overrevved engine drowned out her gasp as she and Nick toppled into the narrow space between two parked cars. The bag of videotapes swung past her to slide under the rear car.

  She hit a bumper and twirled as the rubber strip chafed against her cotton pants. There was a sickening, all-too-close scrape of metal on metal and she collapsed into the wet corner where pavement met curb. The car in front of her rocked dangerously as it absorbed the collision.

  Nick fell on top of her, his legs and arms splaying out so as not to hurt her. Over his panting breath, she heard the sound of a car backing up and then the angry scream of peeling rubber.

  Nick leaped up and raced out to the road. Still slumped on the short step of the curb, she turned to see him staring at the disappearing car.

  "What happened?" It was a woman's voice and Helen lifted her head to blink against the high wattage porch light. Hurrying across the short lawn was the volunteer from the shelter.

  "A hit-and-run," Nick answered curtly.

  The woman gasped. Helen scrambled to her feet. She rubbed her thigh where it had connected with the bumper. Thankfully, it was the only place that hurt.

  "Helen!" The woman hurried over. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. Thanks to Nick. I didn't even see the car." She tried to smile for him, but gave up after the first wobbly attempt.

  Nick remained grim. "You didn't see the car because it didn't have its headlights on."

  She swallowed. That meant this hit-and-run was a deliberate attempt on her life.

  "Call 9-1-1," Nick ordered the volunteer. "The police will want to have a look at this car." He walked over to the car they'd hid behind and bent down. Helen followed him.

  The rear door was scraped and dented, with long, dark scratches marring its gleaming white exterior.

  The volunteer took Helen's arm and steered her into the shelter. Helen straightened. She could walk by herself. "I think they should impound that car for evidence."

  "I only hope they catch that guy." The volunteer offered a small smile. "That's my car."

  * * *

  Inside, an hour later, Helen finished her second cup of herbal tea. She'd already spoken to Mark again, but her statement was useless. She hadn't seen the car that tried to hit her.

  Nick spent most of the time outside and Helen could only guess he was helping Mark. The volunteer a
lso stayed outside, coming in periodically to report on the photographer's arrival, or when an investigator chipped samples of the hit-and-run vehicle's paint from her car, or other important things that seemed to sail over Helen's disoriented head.

  Finally, Nick strode into the shelter. Helen was surprised he was allowed to do so, but under the circumstances…

  "Let's go," he told her.

  She pulled her jacket close around herself and folded her arms. "Where?"

  No place was safe. Not her own home, not her mother's.

  "My house."

  Helen swept the room with a cautious glance. They were alone, no volunteer to quietly remind her of the many women who had returned to their boyfriends, their lovers, the men they feared and who had forced them to hide. Such reunions rarely worked out to the woman's benefit.

  Mercy, where had everyone gone?

  She stood, finding some miraculous shard of strength she hadn't realized she had. "Why should I go to your place, Nick? Answer me that." Her voice dropped. "For all I know, you're the one arranging all of this crap. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where I live. And you knew where this shelter was—"

  "I'm a cop, remember," he snapped.

  Anger boiled up inside of her, but she only glared at him. "We both know what you are, Nick. You want me to trust you? You may think I'm stupid to get involved with Jamie, but I'm not so stupid to trust a cop who says he's one thing but really isn't that at all."

  She watched some indefinable emotion crawl over his face. Pain? No, it was more like frustration. He should be frustrated if he was trying to convince her that he meant well. Crooked cops don't mean well.

  Nick drew in a seething breath. "Yes, you were foolish to get involved with Cooms. And to stay involved with him. You knew what he was like."

  "No, I didn't know at first. To me, he was merely the man who'd rented out a warehouse to Globatech. He was kind to me at first." She shook her head. "Our relationship was supposed to be casual. For a while, it was. But I don't do relationships. I put in an honest day's work and I visit my mother regularly. And speaking of her, it's time we started looking for her more actively. Surely we can suspect foul play by now! Mark will and can help, you know. He is the cop. One of the good guys."

  She wanted to threaten him. She wanted to warn him that if he didn't help her find her mother, she would tell Mark the truth about him. But her bravado had limits, especially as she watched his expression move from frustration to fury.

  The chair felt good when she sank back down into it.

  Nick leaned forward, his knuckles hard and white on the clean, bare kitchen table. "What do you think Mark should do to find your mother? He just told me she's not at any of the hospitals and she didn't leave the country. Is there something you haven't told us that might help us find her?"

  His eyes glittered menacingly and she dropped her gaze to her fingers as they clenched each other.

  "I'd say Mark has his hands pretty full right now, Helen. Maybe you'd like to go home with him, since you don't trust me." His voice turned sarcastic as he slapped his forehead. "Sorry, I forgot. Mark isn't going home tonight. He's got two homicides and a hit-and-run on his hands and he's not even a member of the Saint John Police Department. So you can imagine how much overtime all those other officers are putting in."

  She blinked up at him. "If Mark Rowlands is a member of the Lower Cove police, why is he involved with a Saint John homicide?"

  Nick shifted back, surprise hitting his chiseled features. There was a distinct pause before he spoke, and Helen listened to the quiet ticking of the clock on the wall above her while she waited for his answer.

  He pushed himself to standing—no, towering over her. "DiPetri's body washed up on shore just inside our town limits. The tide must have dragged it out. Mark's the investigating officer and is—" he hesitated "—loaned out for it."

  "But I already told him what I saw." She didn't want to talk about that horrid day. She still couldn't get out of her mind the image of the gun pointed at the back of poor Tony's head. Shuddering, she peered up at Nick, feeling her strength slowly replaced by a bone-aching fatigue. "Jamie killed Tony. That's the end of that investigation, as I see it."

  Nick sighed impatiently. "The file isn't closed yet. And Cooms has been murdered now, too. The two police forces have to pool their knowledge to sort out this whole blasted mess."

  "Does that mean I'm a suspect, too?" Her voice, barely a breathy whisper, cracked at the end of her question. She ached suddenly, her heart tightening.

  Again, the silence rang out as she waited for his answer. "Not as far as I know," he answered, finally.

  She scraped together the last of her bravado. "Then Mark could ask one of the policewomen to come home with me."

  Nick's expression softened, but only slightly. If she hadn't been close enough to smell the remains of his aftershave and see the tiny lines that radiated out from his eyes, she would have missed that softening in his expression. "Helen, I know you don't trust me, but I'm going to ask you to, okay? The police here have their hands full. Not just with Cooms and the mess he made, but don't forget, the city goes on and other crime will continue. Please, trust me just this once. Will you come home with me? I promise you'll be safe and first thing in the morning, we'll put more pressure on those searching for your mother."

  She blinked again at him, this time to stop the tears from forming. Her insides melted from a heat deep inside of her. It was a good thing she was sitting down. Her knees turned to warm jelly, her body betraying her with a wash of needful desire. Nick looked sincere. Mercy, he looked like he cared so much.

  "Helen?"

  She blinked him back into focus.

  "Will you come home with me?"

  He should have asked if she really trusted him. Yes, she did. She may be crazy, but she did trust him. Hadn't he just saved her life?

  Before the trust could seep away like her bravado had, she nodded to him.

  * * *

  It seemed like nearly the entire evening had passed before she was allowed to leave. Not only had Mark and that other officer shown up, but also when Nick finally led her outside, she discovered several extra police cruisers parked outside.

  "Why are there so many police?"

  Nick took her arm after they weaved their way through the parked cars. "It's because of the women's shelter being so close. The police don't want to take any chances."

  Several officers looked up with unabashed interest. Embarrassed, she dropped her head. How did it look to them? she wondered. They saw her as Jamie Cooms's girlfriend, a woman who'd fled without reporting a murder. She'd been so weak.

  Nick helped her into the truck before closing the door and walking toward Mark. The officer glanced her way as Nick approached.

  Should she have told Mark this time that she'd seen Nick on several occasions with Jamie? Tears blurred her eyes. She trusted Nick, didn't she? That was why she was going home with him. He'd help her find her mother, wouldn't he?

  Was she crazy to trust him? First, she'd been betrayed by Scott Jackson, who still wandered free, no doubt having spent all her money. Then by Jamie, the man who'd agreed to keep things casual, until she witnessed his horrible crime.

  Was the third time a charm? Or did bad things really come in threes?

  A dull ache throbbed behind her eyes. She needed to eat and sleep. She couldn't help her mother in this state and Momma definitely needed her help, wherever she was.

  Nick returned to the truck. He twisted around in the seat as he fastened the belt. "I asked Mark to come by in the morning to discuss what's happening with your mother's disappearance."

  Relief poured through her. "Thank you."

  His face was dark in the shadow of the yellow streetlight behind them. Without saying another word, he started his truck and pulled away from the curb.

  * * *

  Nick couldn't believe how much the guilt ate at him. Never before had he been bothered by his lies. Or
by his need to withhold information. Keeping information to himself was necessary to his job and therefore his life and the lives of several other undercover cops.

  But tonight the lies bit at his insides like week-old coffee. He drove in gnawing silence, trying to concentrate on the slick city streets and glares of oncoming traffic. There was simply no other way around this. Though Nick believed Helen innocent of any involvement with Cooms's activities, that didn't give him license to tell her everything.

  The road ahead darkened as they approached the stretch of highway that joined Saint John to Lower Cove. To his left, the utter blackness of the tidal flats made it feel like he was driving into oblivion. Thankfully, the landscape grew into low, scrubby hills as they closed in on his home.

  He stole a glimpse at Helen beside him. At least Mark would drop by tomorrow to discuss the details of Connie Eastman's case. That would make Helen feel so much better, maybe even trust him. He had to be thankful for that.

  His house was dark and undisturbed. He swung his truck around to face the rain-slickened rock, his headlights cutting through the misty night. All quiet.

  "Home sweet home," he muttered half to himself.

  Helen scrambled out and strode to the front door. Nick followed after he locked his truck. Inside his house, he threw off his coat and headed to the woodstove. It seemed like ages since he'd been home more than two days in a row. He'd been gone on his undercover work, renting a small condo in the city for his cover, and now, coming home should have felt good.

  But it didn't. He had Helen here, a woman who could save his career. A woman whose body had tempted him nearly to the point of doing something so totally wrong, it still struck him hard in the chest.

  And he was still suspended.

  The paper he'd balled up and thrown into the stove caught fire in a blaze that roared up the stovepipe, puncturing the dark with flickering jabs of light. He turned around to find Helen slumped on the couch.

  The same couch. Still, the image of her, her head thrown back, her body flexed, her female scent…