In His Sights

by Justine Davis

  Kate was too worried to comment on his possessive words, in fact was glad someone else was there with them. “What about Gramps?”

  “He’s helping her dress. I’ll drive them, if you want to meet us there.”

  “You know where the hospital is?”

  “Roughly, and your grandfather says he can direct me there.”

  “Yes, yes he can. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She scrambled to dress, slipping on her sheepskin boots and a heavy coat against the cold. She grabbed up her keys and her cell phone and headed for her car at a run. The hospital was forty minutes away at the best of times, and she knew every one of them was going to feel an hour long.

  She drove through a night of darkness and cold, but neither could match what she was feeling inside.

  “Walter?”

  Rand had been watching the older man since they’d arrived at the emergency room. He’d seen the fear and the worry in the man’s face, but he also thought he’d seen something more. Knowledge.

  “What’s wrong, Walt?”

  The man finally turned away from the swinging double doors that had separated him from his beloved wife.

  “It’s that damned angina again.”

  “Angina?” Rand asked.

  “We knew she had it, but she insisted she was fine, it wasn’t bad, and that we couldn’t afford for her to go on medication,” Walt said bitterly.

  Rand’s gut knotted. He glanced at the double doors himself, wondering if the woman he’d come to like so well would ever come back out.

  “Gramps!”

  Kate’s voice rang out across the lobby of the small emergency room. Rand turned to see her running toward them, her dark hair damp from the moisture in the night air. Worry was clear in her face, and Rand felt the knot in his middle tighten. How had this happened, that he had so quickly come to care about the Crawfords? How had he let it get to the point where just the sight of worry on Kate Crawford’s face was enough to make him tense up and feel queasy?

  “How is she?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Rand said when Walter seemed unable to speak. “There’s a doctor with her now.”

  Kate went to her grandfather and took his arm. “Come, sit down, Gramps. It will probably be a while before we hear anything.”

  Walt made a token protest, but then let his granddaughter lead him to one of the two-person couches upholstered in a muted shade of green. They sat, clinging to each other as they awaited word on the most important woman in both their lives. Rand had to turn away as memories assailed him.

  Needing to do something, he tracked down a vending machine and bought three cups of coffee. It was barely drinkable, but it was warm, and the cup would heat their hands. They thanked him, but it was automatic; they were both sitting with their attention riveted on those double doors that remained stubbornly closed.

  It seemed like hours before a young woman in blue scrubs came through the doors into the waiting room. Both Kate and her grandfather leaped to their feet. The woman smiled and said quickly, “She’s fine.”

  “Thank God,” Walt said, while Kate let out a long, relieved sigh.

  “I’d like to keep her here until morning, just to make sure, but it appears it’s a flare-up of angina. You knew about that?”

  “No,” Kate said.

  “Yes,” her grandfather said, and Kate turned to stare at him.

  “You knew she had it?”

  Walter looked uncomfortable, but nodded.

  “And you never told me?”

  “What could you have done?” he asked, then looked back at the doctor. “She’s really all right?”

  “She will be. But it needs to be addressed. She said she’s not on medication?”

  “No.”

  “She’ll need to see her own doctor, then, and a cardiologist. Soon. She’d do well on a beta blocker, I think, but that’s up to your personal physician.”

  A grimace flicked across Walter’s face, and Rand knew he wouldn’t soon forget the look in the older man’s eyes. And it wasn’t hard for him to guess what inspired the combination of pain and guilt; Dorothy’s husband felt like he wasn’t properly taking care of his wife.

  And right then Rand decided he had to do something about it.

  “Sure, darlin’, we can do that.”

  Rand smiled at the easy drawl of Valerie Hill, the head of Redstone’s personnel benefits office. The woman was a born-and-bred Texan, and proudly clung to the accent despite over two decades in California.

  “Thanks, Val,” he said.

  “I’ll get started on it right away. We should probably be able to pull it together by the weekend.”

  “Darlin’, you are truly a wonder,” he said, making her laugh.

  His next morning phone call was to his boss to check in. There were several clicks as the call rang through, so he knew something was up. But still, he was surprised when instead of Draven’s voice he heard the clipped, brisk tones of St. John, Josh Redstone’s right-hand man.

  “Draven’s on assignment,” he was informed. “I’m taking over for him as your contact.”

  “Okay,” Rand said neutrally.

  In spite of the fact that the man made him a bit nervous, he was almost relieved; Draven knew him too well, and had noticed his resistance to the idea of Kate as a suspect. St. John, despite being omnipresent at Redstone and seemingly nearly omniscient, wasn’t the type to ask bothersome personal questions.

  And right now Rand knew he was in big trouble in that particular arena.

  “He left some information here for you. I’ve e-mailed it.”

  “All right,” Rand said, wondering if the answer to his question about Kate’s finances was there. And whether he was going to be happy with what it said.

  “Anything to report?”

  “Not yet. Whoever it is is very good, or on the inside. Or both.”

  St. John didn’t comment. It wasn’t necessary, since they both knew Josh would have little mercy on the perpetrator of an inside job.

  “Anything else?”

  “Ship me out some night-vision binoculars. And I may need that tracking device, but I’ll let you know.”

  “It will be ready.”

  Rand disconnected and smothered a yawn. He’d awakened early to make his calls, and that, after the late night at the hospital, had left him extra tired. But he had promised Walt he’d drive him to pick up Dorothy so that Kate didn’t have to take off work. He glanced at the clock. 8:15 a.m. They’d said she’d be released at eleven. Maybe he could go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

  First, he’d check for that e-mail, though. He connected his laptop to the Redstone mainframe and downloaded his e-mail. He was relieved to see the e-mail from St. John was only the report on the kids, Mel and her boyfriend Derek, which held nothing unexpected, just routine teenage difficulties. Nothing about Kate yet at all.

  He laid back down on top of the quilt so he wouldn’t go to sleep too deeply. At least, that was the theory, but he was quickly asleep, soundly enough to dream. And for the first time in a very long time he dreamed of Donna, and the day she’d walked out of his life, telling him they’d made an awful mistake, trying to base a relationship on the adrenaline-induced attraction they’d developed when he’d pulled her and her daughter out of that African civil war that had broken out while he was there to secure a Redstone airstrip.

  Mandy.

  Her sweet little face, with those huge chocolate-brown eyes that had burned their way into his heart. He had adored that child, and thought about her every time he saw a blond little girl with brown eyes.

  He woke up wishing he’d never tried to sleep. That had been the first time in his life he’d thought himself truly and forever in love. In truth, it had been the only time. It seemed like a lifetime ago. But looking back, he didn’t know how much had been real and how much had been the adrenaline of escaping death together. He’d eventually come to realize Donna had likely been right, that there hadn’t been eno
ugh to build on. But he still missed little Mandy, wondered what she was like now, and if she ever thought of him.

  And, he thought as he shook himself awake, he remembered what it had felt like to fall in love. And there was no similarity to whatever he was feeling about Kate Crawford. He wouldn’t be that foolish. Surely he wouldn’t.

  A glance at the clock told him he’d gotten a little over an hour, though, and that was better than nothing. He’d feel better as soon as he shook off the grogginess, he told himself, and sat up to pull on his shoes.

  If only he could shake off the lingering images from the unexpected dream as easily.

  There were, Kate thought, many reasons for her to feel unsettled, over and above the thefts here at work, which she still had no answer for.

  Gram, first of all of course. That had been a scare she could have done without, and learning that they had known of this condition and not told her was even more upsetting. She simply had to find a way to improve her grandparents’ financial situation.

  Maybe she should move back into her old room at the house. That would save her rent, which, while not huge, would make an immediate difference. She’d miss her little cottage, but nothing was worth the people she loved most doing without the medical care they needed.

  Problem was, there was no way she was going to live under the same roof as Rand Singleton. The man was simply too cute, too sexy and too young. The sooner he moved on, the better off she would be. No matter that her grandparents thought he was wonderful, and that she was a fool for not pursuing his interest in her.

  He is not, Kate insisted to herself, the reason she was so unsettled. At least, he wasn’t the only reason, she amended ruefully.

  She let out a heavy sigh. How had the simple life she loved, the life she’d come back home to live, gotten so complicated?

  She tried to snap out of it, tried to concentrate on her work. She made several calls, ordered the next quarter’s office supplies, requested a quote for having a gasoline tank installed for the delivery trucks and finished her monthly report to her boss. The last one made her wince when she had to include the data on the latest theft and admit they were no closer to solving the mystery of how it was being done than they’d been after the first incident.

  When her phone rang, it was a relief.

  “Distribution,” she said into the receiver.

  “Kate? It’s Claudia. Got a minute?”

  “For you? Sure,” she told their in-house personnel director.

  “I wanted to let you know about this so you can pass it on to your people. We’ll be having the annual health fair next Saturday.”

  “The health fair?” Kate asked, puzzled.

  Every year each Redstone facility set up a day for employees to be tested for various things, or consult with a doctor about things that they had put off, or simply have a basic checkup. And if they then needed a referral to a specialist, that also was handled under the auspices of Redstone’s extended health care plan.

  “Isn’t that normally supposed to be in the spring?” she asked.

  “Normally, yes, but it’s been rescheduled this year. Actually, they’ve revamped a lot of things. Including eligibility. It’s open to family now.”

  “Family?” Kate said, sitting up straighter.

  “Yes, isn’t that wonderful? I’m bringing in my sister, since she’s too stubborn to make an actual doctor’s appointment for her arthritis.”

  “Would that include grandparents?” Kate held her breath waiting for the answer.

  “Of course. I thought of you and specifically asked.”

  “Thank you, Claudia. Thank you so much.”

  As she hung up, Kate was almost shaking with relief. Gram would be able to see the specialist she needed. Bless Josh Redstone.

  After that it was with a considerably lighter heart that she turned to the shipping schedule, which included the next shipment of pumps, set to go out in two weeks. And just that quickly the edge was off her improved mood.

  For a while she simply sat there looking at the date with dread. That one line on the schedule seemed to pulse, to flicker, as if it were taunting her with the inevitability of yet another loss. She rubbed at her eyes, wondering if she was losing her mind over this.

  Shaking her head, she made herself scan the rest of the schedule for the places the updated numbers she had received yesterday afternoon needed to be inserted. After a moment she frowned; she knew she hadn’t put that data in, yet there it was. Mel must have done it, she thought. The data had been on her desk. It wasn’t as if they could keep the shipment a secret; too many people had to know.

  To confirm her suspicions, she called up the stats on the file, and there it was; it had been modified yesterday, about a half an hour after she’d left. She’d have to thank the girl for saving her the twenty or so minutes it took. She went back to the main page and closed the file.

  Her finger froze on the mouse button as an image replayed in her head. Slowly she moved the cursor back to the menu and again opened the stats box.

  She hadn’t been imagining it. She stared at the gray box of details on the file, at the date and time that she had seen without really registering it.

  Her stomach began to churn as she acknowledged the reality of what she was seeing. There was no good explanation for what the data on the computer screen was showing her. No innocent explanation.

  Mel hadn’t just updated the shipping schedule, with the vulnerable shipment on it.

  She’d printed it.

  Chapter 13

  Rand was waiting for her when she got off work. She was startled to see him in the lobby of her building, chatting with the very person she was going to have to confront soon. Mel’s hair stripes were orange today, an almost neon shade that made Kate blink.

  “Hey, here she is,” the girl said.

  The look she gave Kate seemed utterly genuine and innocent, as was the grin on her face when she turned her back to Rand and made a wiggling gesture with one hand that Kate recognized as the universal female acknowledgement of a hot guy. She tried to fight down the blush that threatened to heat her cheeks, and the effort made her voice a little gruff when she spoke to the unexpected visitor.

  “What are you doing here?” Kate asked boldly.

  “Waiting for you,” Rand said, unruffled by her tone.

  “Why?”

  “To take you to dinner. Maybe even a movie.”

  “Cool!” Mel exclaimed.

  “We don’t have a theater,” Kate pointed out.

  Mel rolled her eyes. “So you go to Poulsbo. Duh.”

  Kate shot a sharp glance at her mentee, hoping she would back off. The girl was all business when working, but once she was through for the day she reverted to pure teenager. The girl seemed oblivious.

  “Look,” she said to Rand, “I don’t have time to—”

  “Are you crazy?” Mel said. Then she turned to Rand. “Hey, if she doesn’t want to go, I will. I’d love to be seen with a real hottie.”

  Rand grinned at the girl. “Thanks for the vote.”

  “Any time.” Mel looked him up and down. “Believe me, any time.”

  “If you two are quite finished?” Kate was irked for reasons she didn’t understand.

  “That depends,” Mel said in arch tones. “On if you’re going to be smart and go with him.”

  “I have to get home and—”

  “You have to eat.” Rand cut her off smoothly. “And over dinner we can negotiate the rest.”

  “Perfect,” Mel answered, and with a huge grin and a wink at Kate, she added “You two have fun, now.” She giggled as she walked away.

  For a moment Kate just stared after the girl as she left the building. It just didn’t seem possible that that innocent face and manner could be hiding the kind of duplicity that would be necessary for her to be involved in the thefts. Could the girl really be so blasé to her face and be a thief behind her back? And she knew she was avoiding confronting her because she was afra
id of the answers she might get.

  She turned back to Rand. “Do I need to point out that she’s sixteen years old?”

  Rand’s brow furrowed. “Hardly.” Then realization dawned on his face. “Oh, I get it. I’m too young for you, but too old for her. Make up your mind, Kate.”

  She flushed. It sounded so silly, put like that. But Rand seemed unperturbed, and went on as if they’d not been interrupted.

  “How does seafood sound?”

  It took her a moment to pull her attention back. “Fine,” she said, still absently.

  “Good,” he said, and took her arm.

  She’d just agreed to another dinner with him, she realized. And surprisingly, she didn’t feel her usual urge to try and find a way out of it. Maybe it would calm her down, to have to think about something else. Still, she let her earlier thoughts tumble through her head as he walked her toward the visitors’ parking area where his car was.

  She had thought she would be fixated on her problems the entire evening. Instead, eventually, she found herself actually enjoying the evening. At first she’d only been partially listening to Rand, who was telling her about a photograph he’d taken today of a bald eagle being dive-bombed by a gull with more guts than sense. But as time passed she couldn’t help but get involved in the conversation, and at his prompting told him stories of her childhood here, rambling through the woods and the novelty—for him—of finding otters, deer, raccoons and the occasional bear wandering through the yard of her home.

  He seemed entranced by her beloved Northwest home, and that was enough to encourage her to share more about this place that she so loved. And she asked him more about his own travels, his family, his life, and he answered her with an easy charm that was very hard to resist.

  When she realized that once again she was laughing as often as not, realized that the awful tightness had left her shoulders and the distant throb at her temples had eased, she was amazed.

  And then a feeling of impending torment overtook her as she realized that she liked this man, liked him more than she had liked any man she’d met in the years since her marriage had crumbled.