Trust No One

by Barbara Phinney

  Walking over to the video machine, she grabbed the tape and shoved it in. Behind her, Nick picked up the remote control and turned on the TV.

  The tape started with January, as all the others had. Her parents had been particular about chronicling her life. This one began with a sleepy thirteen-year-old girl celebrating New Year's Eve with half an ounce of champagne in 7UP. Helen sank down on the couch, letting her mind drift back to last night. Nick had told her he wasn't her white knight, and as if to prove it, he'd taken her upstairs and made love to her.

  But he'd hesitated as he'd leaned over her naked body. She'd forced him to finish what they'd started.

  Then this morning, he was the knight back on his horse riding off to search out the dragon.

  She let her head fall back to the soft cushion behind her neck. Across the room, Nick sat on the edge of another less comfortable chair, his whole attention focused on her at her most awkward. His hair fell into his eyes and he brushed it away as if it were a trivial annoyance.

  Good heavens, did she really want a white knight? If so, she was looking in all the wrong places. Scott wasn't anywhere near one. Jamie had been kind to her, gentle even, sometimes, until she witnessed the other horrible side of him. Had she really wanted him to be her white knight?

  No. She wasn't looking for a gallant savior. That would mean she wanted commitment.

  Nick leaned forward, frowning at the TV. He was no white knight, either. No man who could fool Jamie could be a chivalrous Prince Valiant. Nick was a cop who'd been suspended.

  She cut off her own thoughts. Why was he suspended? All he'd told her was that he broke some minor rules. Not filled in some forms or something.

  "Nick?"

  He turned his attention to her. "Yeah?"

  "Why were you suspended? What exactly did you do? What forms didn't you fill out?"

  He narrowed his eyes. "Did I say that?"

  "Yes, I'm surprised you don't remember."

  He glanced back to the TV. Helen could see out the corner of her eye that she was now celebrating a birthday, laughing with her school friends, blowing out fourteen flickering candles on the cake her mother had made.

  She turned back to him. "Did you lie to me, Nick? It's okay. I understand. It's just that you say you're no white knight, but here you are, even before breakfast, right after we made love, searching for answers."

  She heard Nick's heavy sigh. He stood up and walked into the kitchen. She listened to him as he poured out two mugs of coffee. When he returned, he handed her one.

  "It wasn't a lie. Just not the complete truth."

  She frowned at him as she accepted the steaming mug. He sat down on the couch beside her and while he was carefully placing his own mug on the coffee table in front of them, he glanced up at the video.

  Piano recital. Helen knew it followed her birthday. It had followed her birthday for the last ten years' worth of videos. Playing softly from the TV were the slightly stilted strains of "Für Elise." She'd never managed to play that tune correctly.

  Nick turned to her. "I didn't fill out some trivial forms, but that really wasn't what got me suspended." He stopped, as if waiting for the difficult moment to pass. "I laid a beating on Tony DiPetri about an hour before he died. Cooms had told me to do it."

  A shiver danced down her spine, despite the heat rising up from the hot coffee. "Jamie and Tony were best friends once. Why did you do it?"

  "I was undercover. Sometimes you do things you don't want to do. Sometimes you break the law." He shut his eyes.

  "Why did Jamie want you to beat up Tony?"

  "He said DiPetri had screwed up and needed to be reminded who was in charge."

  "And you believed him?"

  Nick opened his eyes and met her stare evenly. "Helen, I didn't believe anything Cooms said unless it had been proven to me. Cooms was testing me. He was pissed off at DiPetri and he knew damn well that he was going to put a bullet in the back of the man's head within an hour. He purposely got me involved. To strengthen my commitment."

  The taste of coffee soured in the back of Helen's throat. She put the mug down, trying to focus on the reason she'd brought up this terrible subject. "And your chief found out that you'd broken the law and suspended you?"

  Nick shrugged. "Whether I broke the law or not is debatable. But he interpreted it as such."

  "Was that the autopsy report you were looking for this morning?" She quirked up her mouth. "I couldn't help but overhear. I'm sorry."

  He paused before answering. "Yeah, it was. But it seems to have gone missing."

  "Maybe it's gone to Saint John. They are the ones who are handling the undercover operation, after all."

  "Maybe. Actually, we had a copy and Saint John had one, and the coroner has the original. It's odd that ours would go missing."

  She nodded. "Maybe the chief has them. After all, one of his own men is involved in the investigation. Surely, he's trying to help you. Or at least is interested."

  He held up two fingers. "Two men were involved. Mark was doing some backup work for me. Checking stuff out, acting as liaison."

  "Is that normal?"

  "For Mark, yeah. He always gets stuck doing that stuff. He knows the regs inside and out. In fact, he was even in charge when the chief took his wife down to the Caribbean for a second honeymoon this summer. Too hot there for me. Anyway, Mark would make a good chief."

  He sounded sad. Not bitterly so, but in a frustrated, despondent way. Not that she blamed him. He must feel pretty ineffectual right now. She ached to take him into a warm hug, but opted for a small smile, instead. "Your chief was just protecting your butt, you know, by suspending you."

  Nick chuckled. "I wouldn't have used the word 'butt.'"

  Helen smiled back, a small, watery smile. "It's as strong as I get, I'm afraid."

  "That's okay." He reached out and flicked a short tendril of hair over her ear. Her heart squeezed tightly at his almost pained expression. He wouldn't have used that silly little word. Maybe he was right. He wasn't a white knight. Did that also mean he was wrong for her?

  Nick's hand froze by her ear as he swore softly. Helen glanced up into his face, but his attention was focused on the TV.

  She turned and faced it.

  Gone was her awful piano recital. Taped over it was something she'd never seen before.

  Chapter 12

  Helen leaned forward, away from Nick's still hand. What was going on? The scene on the video was grainy, shot from high above and showed several people dressed in evening wear.

  It stopped. Suddenly, the taped played the young Helen again, finishing the last few painful measures of "Für Elise."

  Nick lunged for the remote control, hit rewind until he found the start of the taped-over section.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "It looks like a video clip from a surveillance camera. Taken at some kind of cocktail party. Do you recognize it?"

  "I'm not sure." She studied the tape, shaking her head slowly. "Wait! That's at one of Jamie's restaurants. In the back room, I think."

  "You're right. At the party I went to." Nick stared at her, his handsome, even features tightened into a harsh frown.

  Helen turned back to the TV. "No. Pause the tape." Nick did as she asked. "See, at the top corner? That's me!"

  "So. You were there that night. I saw you."

  She glanced at him. Another time, that revelation might have frightened her. But not now. Now she felt…a rush. Even the attraction that had terrified her once didn't seem to compare to the thought of him watching her. Her face heated up.

  He looked away, at anything but her. "I only caught a glimpse of you. All I saw was long hair."

  She touched her short mop in understanding. "No. It wasn't that night. I'm wearing the wrong dress. The night you saw me I had on my newest dress. The only formal thing I own. The night this was taped I was wearing a black dress I've had for years."

  "When was this taken?"

  Helen peered at t
he TV. "Shouldn't surveillance tapes show the time and date?"

  "Normally, they do. I'm guessing this one is a private tape. Do you remember the date?"

  "That dress is very light and I'm not wearing a wrap. It must have been during the early summer when we had that warm spell. I haven't worn it since."

  "The date?" he hedged.

  The tape ran on and Helen watched herself move back out of the line of the camera. Frustrated, she shook her head. Jamie had dragged her to several different parties. "Early June, I think."

  "Do you recognize anyone there?"

  "Of course." Helen scratched her head. "Umm, there's Tony. And Clive Darlington by the door. He was Jamie's shadow for a while. And I ran into my boss, Mr. Parker, there, too, that evening. If I remember correctly, he didn't stay long. I don't think I know the others' names. Just their faces."

  She shivered. There was something creepy about watching herself on a surveillance video. She looked so short compared to all those big, broad men that Jamie called his "friends." There was a feel to the tape like there had been to that last tape of Princess Diana. Jerky, casual, yet tragic.

  The piano recital abruptly returned. "It was obviously Jamie who did this. But why would he tape this short section over the middle of my piano recital? Besides the obvious fact I was massacring one of Beethoven's finest pieces."

  Nick chuckled. "I thought it was pretty good. But then again, I can't carry a tune in a bucket." He sobered. "We can't assume Cooms taped it."

  "Why not? He was the only one who insisted on watching my tapes. And there couldn't be too many people who knew about the camera, either. Jamie could be quite secretive when he wanted to be. And it is his restaurant."

  Nick replayed the tape several more times, pausing it and peering at it at different points. After it ran through for the fourth time, he shut off the machine and headed for the phone.

  "Who are you calling?"

  "Mark."

  "Why? Did you see something I missed?"

  * * *

  Nick hit several buttons on his cordless phone before answering. He listened carefully to the quiet, insistent ringing. No answer. Mark should be in bed right now, after pulling the graveyard shift. He was a light sleeper and always answered the phone. Had something happened? Had Ron Mills taken a turn for the worse while in intensive care? Or had he regained consciousness and was right now talking to the police?

  He never felt so impotent in his life.

  Furious, he slammed down the phone.

  "At least this answers the question of why Jamie gave me the VCR."

  He turned. She was beside him, a thoughtful expression marring her gentle features. Those pouty lips were pursed now, smooth and thinner, but no less kissable.

  He shook away such distracting thoughts. "What do you mean?"

  "Jamie gave me the VCR as an excuse to watch those tapes, which in itself was an excuse to find some boring section on one of them to hide that segment he'd videoed. He probably figured I wouldn't miss it."

  He found it hard to keep with her train of thought. "Go on."

  "Well, we both knew Jamie. He always considered himself smarter than everyone else. I wouldn't be surprised if he considered hiding the taped section in plain sight to be absolutely brilliant on his part. That segment of tape was important enough for him to steal the tape, probably after I fell asleep, record over it and return it."

  "He didn't return it. He hid it in your mother's house."

  "Don't you see? He must have felt it was too dangerous to leave it at my place. Maybe someone would have gone searching for it there. I hate the thought that he broke into my mother's house to hide it there, but he must have considered it necessary. I mean, I told several people he gave me a new VCR."

  "A cheap knockoff."

  Helen shrugged. "It worked."

  "He gave you the VCR because it was of no use to him anymore. He'd smuggled cocaine in it." Nick watched her swallow, regretting that he had to expose her to the truth.

  "I guess," she said. "But Jamie often killed two birds with one stone. And he liked to think himself quite intelligent and a step ahead of everyone else."

  "Which leads us back to why he bothered to keep this section of surveillance tape. These people, I bet, will all be ID'ed as known persons in the drug trade. And I'm not talking about the druggie on the street. But nobody's doing anything illegal here. Hardly blackmail stuff."

  He shook his head. Something wasn't adding up. Each and every hair on his arms was at full attention. Even the fine ones at the back of his neck stood up rigidly. Something was on that tape and he couldn't see it. The angle of the camera made ID'ing some of those people difficult, especially those who stood almost directly underneath it.

  He looked down at the phone in his hand, feeling his stomach protest the delay in breakfast. And Mark wasn't around, either. Nick could use an extra pair of eyes here.

  There was the autopsy report, too. He could call Sandra again to ask her if she'd received it yet, but he didn't want to put her in the position where she would risk her job, in case the chief was there.

  Mark was his logical choice, but where was he?

  Nick placed the phone on its cradle and walked into the kitchen. "Let's scramble up some eggs. I'm tired of thinking on an empty stomach."

  "And then what?"

  Nick threw open the refrigerator door. He didn't know what was next. But the tape needed to be taken into Saint John. Except something didn't feel right about that decision. Going into this investigation, Nick had known that the possibility existed of there being a crooked politician involved, or worse, a cop on the take. Was that why he hesitated?

  But someone in Saint John should be able to recognize a few more people on that tape. "We go into the city," he finally said.

  Helen didn't answer. He grabbed the carton of eggs and looked up at her. "Don't worry, I'm not dropping you off at your aunt's place. But I can't leave you here, either. We're going to take the tape into the station. Someone more familiar with the city's elite might be able to recognize a few people."

  Helen relaxed. "Thank you. Maybe we could stop by the hospital to see how Ron Mills is."

  "We'll call from the police station. I'm a bit reluctant to let you roam the streets. Remember, there's a hit-and-run suspect out there."

  Helen took the eggs he was lifting out of the carton and began to break them into a bowl. "Do you think it was Clive?"

  "I don't know. We'll see if the police have been in touch with his parole officer. Maybe he knows where Clive has been."

  The sun chose that moment to break through the thinning layer of rising fog, lighting the kitchen as it did. Yeah, Nick decided. Darlington's parole officer may be able to help and surely one of the veteran cops could put names to some of those unfamiliar faces.

  And Ron Mills must still be alive, or else Mark would have called.

  But above all, Nick would find a copy of DiPetri's autopsy report.

  The sun hit his face as he moved to dump his cold coffee into the sink. Out of all those things he needed to do, the report seemed the most important, but he wasn't going to analyze why.

  * * *

  After parking in Saint John, he and Helen strode into the police station. Behind the reception desk, Nick spotted one of the officers who had responded to the shooting at the warehouse. "Hey, Paul, how's things?"

  Paul's face broke out into a wide grin and he walked out into the foyer. "Hi, there, Nick. You look good. Get lucky last night? You sure look like you—"

  The man's face fell when he spotted Helen and the rush of crimson surging up from her neck into her face. "Jeez, sorry, miss," he stuttered out.

  Nick tightened his jaw. He shouldn't have brought her here. He quickly steered her away from the embarrassed Paul. "Sorry about that," he whispered into Helen's softly scented hair. "Paul's mouth is…well, it's a guy thing, I guess."

  She nodded. "It's okay. I wasn't expecting it, that's all." She still looked mortified.
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br />   Nick ran his hand through his hair. Had he really been thinking that Helen could fit into his life? The first time they meet a colleague and she looks like she wants to curl up and die. She wasn't cut out for this lifestyle. He grabbed her arm, hoping the contact with her skin would dismiss the sudden thought from his brain.

  "Here," he said, taking her into a room filled with desks and various people. She looked around like a fawn on a busy highway, he noted. Damn, he didn't have the time to initiate her into his world.

  What the hell had he been thinking of, making love to her last night, getting involved with her?

  Falling for her.

  The truth slammed into him, and he didn't even feel the bustle of another cop as the man steered a handcuffed youth past them.

  He was falling for Helen?

  How could that have happened?

  "Sorry, Nick," the officer who gripped the youth's elbow called over his shoulder. "Hey, who's minding your station? Seems all you guys are here."

  Snapping out of his own shock, he stared at the man. "What?"

  "Who's holding down the fort in Lower Cove? That cute clerk? You guys are overpaid if you can leave the station in her hands." Chuckling, the officer shoved his suspect out of the room.

  Helen touched his arm. "What's he talking about?"

  Nick refused to look at her. "Never mind him."

  "But he said all of Lower Cove's officers were here."

  "Look, Helen, he was being sarcastic. They're all jealous because we have better jobs than they do." He guided her to a vacant seat. "Sit down here. I've got to find someone."

  He had to get away from her. He had to stop thinking of her as his lover, the woman he suddenly cared for more than he cared for himself. The very thought had rattled him. His chest felt tight still and the sudden need for fresh air made him glance wildly about.

  He found Jones, a fellow undercover officer, in a back room. They'd done much of the preliminary set up work for the Cooms case together and Nick gave him a quick rundown of the tape. The guy had loads of computer smarts so Nick asked him to make some decent stills from the segment. To see if he could ID some of the people.

  Warning him it might take a day or two, Jones took the tape.