Betrayed by Trust

by Frankie Robertson

  “I can see that. But why would it be for our house?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Our house. Someone was monitoring our house. And not just someone. The Trust. Kincaid. Nothing happened without his approval.

  A sick feeling churned in my gut. “What kind of monitoring equipment?”

  Dan’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “The XKSD 3000 is a high-end surveillance system. Miniature cameras, wireless mics, and phone intercepts. The whole shebang.”

  “Oh my God! He’s been spying on us? Watching us?”

  “I doubt there are cameras in the house. Even top of the line cameras are pretty bulky. They’d be too easy to spot. The invoice is for the monitoring of seven stations. That probably means cameras covering the front and back, and mics in the house.”

  “He’s been listening to everything we say? For how long? In our bedroom, too?”

  Again the muscle in Dan’s jaw jumped. “Maybe.”

  I flashed on the previous night’s vocal friskiness. “That son of a bitch! I’ll kill him!” My palms stung, and I realized I’d clenched my fists so tight my nails were close to drawing blood. “Why?”

  “Men like Kincaid need to be in control. You wouldn’t let him sequester you, so he put eyes and ears on you instead.”

  “So it’s my fault?”

  “No. Of course not. This is all on him.”

  I was glad Dan was driving. I was so furious I was shaking. I’d have driven off the road. “I’ll show him control. Take the next exit. We’re going back.”

  Dan didn’t say anything; he just kept driving north on the Five.

  “Dan? Turn around!”

  “No, babe. If we confront him, we’ll do it with our heads on straight.” He took the next exit, and in a few minutes we were in Benny’s parking lot. It was still cold and drizzly, and I was glad Dan left the engine running to keep the heat on.

  “What do you mean, if we confront him?” I demanded. “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “We need to figure out what his game is first. We shouldn’t go off half-cocked without a plan.”

  “I thought you already said it. He’s trying to protect me—in a sick, intrusive sort of way.”

  “He could have done that effectively with just the cameras outside. He wants to know who we talk to, and what we say in private. Why?”

  “He doesn’t trust us?” I tried to think past my fury, to remember three months’ worth of conversations. How much had we’d talked about work? Had we’d said anything negative about the Trust or Kincaid?

  “What do you think we ought to do?” I asked.

  “That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it?”

  We sat in silence for several minutes, the rain pattering on the roof, until I reached over and switched off the engine. “I think we should have lunch, then go back to work. Our best bet is to act normally until we can examine our options and figure out what to do about this.”

  “Can you do that?” he asked. “You don’t have much of a poker face, and a minute ago you were ready to rip Kinkaid’s head off.”

  “I think so. I’m working with Kalisa this afternoon so I won’t have to deal with him today, and I go on maternity leave at the end of the week.”

  Dan got out of the car and came around to help me to a standing position. “Maybe you should beg off with Kalisa. She can be way too perceptive.”

  “But she doesn’t read minds. Not like Foxworth could. She told me that’s a very rare ability, and even he could only read a person’s surface thoughts. Besides, our exercises take a lot of concentration. I won’t have time to think about Kincaid and his monitors.”

  “Okay. That will work for today.”

  When he paused, I could see his wheels turning. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “That we’ll need a plan for how handle Kincaid in the future. In the meantime, I’m kind of glad there are cameras on our place. I’ve been working late a lot, and I hate that you’re home alone all that time. I should have thought of it.”

  “What?”

  He held up his hands in the classic don’t shoot gesture. “I’m not happy that Kincaid put them there without our knowledge. And we’re not going to let them continue listening to everything we say and do. I can disrupt the microphone transmissions so the techs think they just lost service. That will give us a few days to think. We’ll eventually have to confront him, but as long as Kincaid thinks we’re in the dark, he won’t be trying to figure out a way around what we want. This invoice was misdirected. You weren’t supposed to see it, and as far as Kincaid knows, you still haven’t. That gives us some time to figure things out.”

  I stopped in my tracks, just outside the restaurant, dread chilling me more than the cold drizzle. “Oh crap.”

  “What’s the matter?” Dan turned back to me, then put a steadying hand on my arm.

  “I left a message for the tech guys about the invoice. I called them first, before I talked to you.”

  Dan’s lips thinned. “Then there’s only one thing we can do.”

  Neither one of us had much of an appetite, but Dan wouldn’t go back to the office until I’d eaten half my turkey sandwich. Within minutes of our return, Jerry, from the tech department called me.

  “You had a question about one of our invoices? Do you have the billing number?”

  Was it my imagination, or did his voice sound a little tense? My heart pounded. I had left the number in my message. Was he playing me, or just being lazy?

  “Yeah. Let me get that for you.” Then I remembered that Dan still had the invoice in his coat pocket. “Damn. I can’t seem to find it.”

  “What was the invoice for?” Jerry asked. “Maybe I can find it that way.”

  “Some alphabet soup of equipment.” I took a deep breath. “The delivery address was smudged. I thought you might be able to tell me what it was.”

  “Well I can’t help until you get that number for me.” Jerry sounded relieved. “Call me back when you find it.”

  “Will do,” I said with false cheer. “Thanks for calling me back.” I hung up and slumped in my chair, burying my face in my palms.

  “You look worn out.”

  I jumped and spun around. Barry lounged against the doorframe, just as he used to do when we were dating. Was that really less than a year ago?

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He didn’t look sorry. His handsome face bore his usual slightly amused smirk.

  “You didn’t. I’m just tired.” What I said was half true. It was getting hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I stood so I didn’t have to crane my neck as much to look up at him.

  Barry eyed my protruding belly. “Good thing your maternity leave starts next week. How’s the little papoose doing?” He stepped closer and put a hand on my stomach without asking if I minded. Evan chose that moment to protest his confinement with a particularly savage kick and Barry’s hand bounced off.

  “Whoa!” Barry stared at my tummy with surprise. “Does it do that all the time?”

  “It is a he. And no, thank God, he doesn’t.” I couldn’t keep myself from adding, “Just when I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Barry’s expression grew surprisingly thoughtful. I wondered if he was thinking that he might have known all the details of my pregnancy if he hadn’t been a prick eight months ago. But he had been, and I was grateful for that. If he hadn’t, I’d be married to him instead of Dan, and he might have gone along with Kincaid’s plans for the baby.

  “What can I do for you, Barry? Can it wait until I get back from the ladies room?”

  “I just wanted to stop by and make peace with you. You’ve hardly said two words to me for months. Soon you’ll be on leave. I don’t guess we’ll see much of each other after that.”

  I hoped that would be true. While I wanted to come back after Evan was born to work part time with Kalisa, I didn’t expect to see much of Barry, who now was often out in
the field on investigations. That was fine with me. Seeing him just reminded me of how duped I’d been by his beach boy charm.

  He must have seen some of that in my face. “It wasn’t all an act, Marianne. I genuinely liked you. Like you. Present tense.”

  I hesitated, wondering where he was going with this. Was it just a case of him wanting what he couldn’t have? That might have been true back when he proposed, but it didn’t seem likely now that I was as round as a beach ball. “Thanks.”

  “I was stupid back then, and I’m sorry I hurt you. Forgive me?”

  Dan stepped into my tiny office behind Barry. His expression was completely neutral, but I saw the slight narrowing of his eyes, and knew he’d heard what Barry had said.

  “Hey there, I just wanted you to know I’m heading downtown to the Hall of Records, but I’ll be back in time to take you home.”

  A feeling of uneasiness curled around me, like the creeping mist in a horror movie. “Isn’t that Cindy’s job?” Dan was a senior researcher. He wasn’t usually sent on paperwork surveys.

  “Yeah, but she got a call, and had to leave early. Kincaid needs this info for a conference in the morning.”

  “There’s no need for you to backtrack,” Barry said. “I can take Marianne home.”

  I didn’t want to accept Barry’s offer, but I didn’t want to make Dan drive an extra twenty miles during rush hour either.

  “Maybe next time,” Dan said, coming to my rescue. “I have to bring back copies of the records, and I’ll be taking one of the Foundation’s vehicles anyway.” Then he met my gaze, and his brow furrowed. “You gonna be okay?” His expression told me clearly that he could see something was bothering me, and he wouldn’t go if I said no.

  His concern for me made me feel safe and protected, almost displacing my odd anxiety. “I’ll be fine.”

  Dan nodded and leaned around Barry to give me a quick peck. “Are you sure?” His hand lingered on my cheek. “How am I going to feel manly if you don’t let me take care of you?”

  I chuckled and kissed him again. “I guess you’ll have to go wrestle a bear or something.”

  “That’ll be enough of that,” Kalisa said with mock severity from the other side of Barry. “You’re making the rest of us jealous.”

  “I’ll see you later,” Dan murmured, giving my arm a little squeeze before he turned to leave.

  That slight touch was as good as a hug, but the warning surged like an icy wind as he left. “Dan, wait!”

  He leaned back around the doorframe. “What? Do you need me to pick up some milk, or something?”

  I had no idea what to warn him about. “Just … be careful.”

  His gaze grew sharp and focused. “I will.” He nodded once, then paused a moment, as if he might say something else, but all he said was, “I’ll see you tonight.” Then he was gone.

  “I gotta go, too.” Barry said, pushing past Kalisa as if he was eager to get away from Dan’s and my public display of affection and cryptic communication.

  I still hadn’t made it to the bathroom. “Me, three.” And I headed to the ladies room before joining Kalisa for our training session.

  An hour later I was pretty happy with my performance at trying to find people remotely. My feeling of anxiety had been overridden as I concentrated on the work Kalisa had me doing. She’d been showing me pictures of strangers, then asking me to pinpoint what city they were in. When she’d started training me months earlier, I’d only been able to locate people about ten percent of the time. Now I knew how to reach for a feeling like balancing on a rubber ball, and my accuracy had gone up to nearly fifty percent.

  “It will be interesting to see if you keep this level of skill after the baby is born. Your superior performance could be hormone related,” Kalisa said.

  I shrugged and stood up from the table where I’d been working. “Maybe this is why my mother always seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. I never could get away with anything.” It was fun trying to exercise all the weird abilities Kalisa was testing me for and training me to use, but it wasn’t that important to me.

  Kalisa chuckled. “Mine, too. But even if you do retain some of these new abilities, they could be unreliable for a while after the birth, until your hormones get back to normal.”

  “I wouldn’t call a fifty percent hit rate all that reliable to start with.”

  “It is compared to what most people can do, especially when you have the whole world to choose from.” Kalisa pulled the maps into a stack and zipped them into a portfolio case. “We don’t need to worry about that. You’ll be on maternity leave for a couple of months, and by the time we start testing you again, your body will have settled down. Then we’ll see where you are.”

  “I’ll probably be back in the butler’s pantry, keying in—”

  A wave of fear struck like an icy tsunami. My whole body went cold. My heart raced and I started shaking.

  Dan! Dan was in trouble.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DAN

  Dan left the Hall of Records with copies of the death certificates of half a dozen people in a zippered courier’s pouch tucked under his arm. All of the deceased had died in the last six months, but none of them had any connection to either the Trust or the Golden Path—at least not as far as he knew. He liked getting out of the office, but there was no obvious reason why Kincaid needed this info for a directors’ meeting in the morning. That was hardly surprising, though, since Kincaid wasn’t in the habit of confiding in him, and as director of the southwestern district the man had a lot of irons in the fire. Dan cut across the grass, stopping at a vendor’s cart on the sidewalk.

  A few minutes later, with a soft pretzel in hand, he paused beside an open trench guarded by concrete barricades, waiting for the light to change. Traffic was thin, and a couple dashed across the street, hand in hand. Most office workers had either already left the downtown area for home or had found their way to happy hour. Marianne would be more than ready to head home by the time he got back to the office. Maybe he should have taken Mackson up on his offer to take her; she tired easily these days.

  Kincaid hadn’t brought up the idea of putting Marianne in protective custody again, much to their relief. She seemed to think the matter was settled, but Dan was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kincaid had an agenda, and Dan didn’t believe for a second that the man was at peace with the current situation, especially since he’d disabled the interior cameras and mics. Sooner or later the director would do something more than monitor them, and Dan was going to be ready. Marianne was his to protect, and no one was going to take her from him. Not the Golden Path, and not Kincaid.

  The light changed. Dan stepped off the curb, and then as in combat, everything happened at once, in slow motion.

  A car raced toward him from the left.

  Behind him, a voice shouted, “Look out!”

  Reflexes honed years ago took over, and he dove for cover.

  Something struck him.

  The lights went out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  MARIANNE

  Marianne?” Kalisa was beside me, with her hand on my shoulder. “Sit down, girl. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I didn’t move. A ghost? Is that what I’d felt? My fear notched even higher. No. Dan isn’t dead. I’d know.

  “I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  Where indeed? I paused for a moment, considering. Dan had been going downtown, but if he was hurt, he’d be taken to a hospital. Ambulances didn’t always go to the closest hospital. Where would they take him?

  A feeling of barely balancing on an over-inflated rubber ball made me clutch the back of my chair, but the vertigo I experienced wasn’t physical. Instead of fighting it, I let myself go with the floating, falling sensation just as I did while playing Kalisa’s games.

  And then I knew. “University Hospital.” Experience told me I had a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong, but I didn’t doubt my k
nowledge as I headed out the door.

  I almost ran into Barry. I turned to scoot past him, but my belly got in the way.

  He caught me by the shoulders. “Marianne, wait. I need to talk to you.”

  “I don’t have time!”

  He didn’t release me. “Kincaid sent me. We just got a call,” he said. “There’s been an accident.”

  “I know! Let me go. I have to go to him!”

  Barry shook his head. “Not alone. I’ll drive.”

  We took Dan’s Mustang. The trip to the hospital was a blur, while images of Dan, white faced and bloody, flashed in my brain. I couldn’t tell if they were real clairvoyant visions or just the products of my fear. All I could do was twist Mark’s MIA bracelet and pray. I wasn’t very religious, but now I hoped my prayers would tip the scales in Dan’s favor—even though praying hadn’t helped us find Mark.

  I hated not knowing what the situation was. “Who called about the accident?” I asked as Barry maneuvered the Mustang through traffic. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Probably a bystander. The call went directly to Kincaid. He sent me to find you.”

  I reached for the now familiar floaty feeling that I got during Kalisa’s experiments, trying to learn how badly Dan was hurt, but I couldn’t find it. The only thing inside me was fear and a driving urgency to get to him.

  Evan felt it too, violently kicking and punching my insides, and I started rubbing my belly, trying to sooth him. “Shh. It’s all right, baby. Daddy’s going to be okay.” I hoped I was telling Evan the truth.

  The baby settled, but I continued stroking my belly, and crooning to my little one. “It’s all right.”

  Barry glanced over with a peculiar expression on his face, and I realized I’d been saying all that aloud. I didn’t care. Dan and I talked to Evan all the time now, since we’d picked out a name.

  Barry pulled into a ten minute parking spot near the emergency room entrance. He was slow to realize I needed help getting out of the car, but after a second he came around and assisted me with surprising care and competence. I didn’t like that he kept a hand on my back as I waddled through the automatic doors and up to the triage desk. It felt possessive, but I didn’t have time to set him straight.