by Mae Nunn
“Well, Amos won the flu lottery this year, because he’s got it all.” Heath pointed to the large shopping bag stuffed with sheets. “Better get these washed and back up to me. I have a feeling the night shift in the infirmary might be a busy one.”
Olivia’s spine slumped as a visible shudder passed through her body. Heath hoped it was a sign of concern and not illness. If this tough lady started sinking he’d have to find a way to call for backup. And if he did that after less than two days on the case, he’d never hear the end of it from the guys in his unit. He felt a twinge of shame for his selfish thoughts.
“I’m sorry about this, Heath. If you want to change your mind and help out downstairs, I’ll trade duties with you.”
“Nope.” He grabbed the handles of the paper bag, turned her around and marched her as best he could toward the door. “Go take care of your business. Being up here only increases the chance you’ll come down with it, too.”
She pointed toward an old-fashioned black phone mounted on the wall. “If you need anything, give us a call downstairs. Just press the pound sign and it’ll ring at the front desk and in the kitchen. Nothing’s off-limits up here, so make yourself at home.”
“Got it. Now get away from these germs.”
At the door she paused. “Heath, I need to ask you for another favor. The Bible says that when two or more are gathered in God’s name, He is present. Will you agree with me in prayer?” She dropped the paper bag and held both hands outward, like a child needing the comfort of touch. “Please?”
He’d watched her every move for almost twenty-four hours. Her nature was the antithesis of his. She was a giver and everything she did was out of concern for others. How could he deny her such a small request? Heath pressed his palms to hers, and tried to ignore the electricity where his fingers and Olivia’s touched. She squeezed his hands, bowed her head and he did the same.
“Father God, Your mercy is new every day. You are bigger than our needs, bigger than this illness, bigger than our worries. I pray Your healing powers upon Bruce and Amos, I plead Your protection over everyone else in the shelter and I praise You for Your boundless love that no one can fathom. Thank you, Lord, for sending Heath to Table of Hope at a time when You knew I would need his help. He is a blessing and a treasure. In the sweet name of Jesus we pray. Amen.”
Heath was fortunate that Olivia turned and hurried down the stairs instead of waiting for his reaction to her prayer. There was a pumpkin-size lump in his throat, and he couldn’t have spoken in his own defense if a SWAT team kicked in the door.
He wasn’t worthy of her kind words, but he was grateful for them. She thought his presence at Table of Hope was somehow God’s doing. How hurt the sweet lady would be when she learned the truth. Olivia certainly wouldn’t call Heath a blessing if she knew he was about to trespass on her private space, searching for clues to her guilt.
Or her innocence.
It was several hours before Amos and Bruce were asleep at the same time and Heath was free to poke around. He gently probed Olivia’s personal belongings, careful to leave everything as he found it. He admired each piece of original art before checking for anything secured to its backside. Remorse over violating another person’s privacy was an unfamiliar and unsettling feeling. He’d like to ignore the new emotions that had crept into his mind and stirred his heart since he’d crossed the threshold at Table of Hope. But overlooking hard facts had never been his style.
And he couldn’t pretend there was nothing to be suspicious about when he spotted the old-fashioned hope chest in the back of Olivia’s closet with its cedar lid fastened tight. If nothing was off-limits, as she’d said, why the need to keep something under lock and key when it was already buried out of sight?
Heath rifled through the drawers of the small kitchen and bathroom for something to pick the antique lock. He was generally a fair locksmith with a letter opener or cuticle scissors but every effort proved frustrating in this case. Too much probing would cause damage to a piece that might be a family heirloom. His search warrant didn’t mention anything about being careful, but this was Olivia’s private property, after all.
“What is wrong with this picture?” he grumbled. Caring about a person under suspicion created too much drama.
“Help me.” Bruce’s cry was weak.
Heath backed out of Olivia’s closet and turned into the hallway to find the man prostrate on the floor only halfway into the bathroom.
Oh, Lord, help me, too! Heath had little time to consider whether or not his short prayer would be welcome in heaven. But he was certain his presence would be welcome in the bathroom.
He pushed up his sleeves and went to work.
Olivia stood alone in the kitchen, absentmindedly drying the last of the soup bowls while she prayed.
“Abba Father, this is the first night since we opened our doors that I haven’t had someone to share worship with me. Please rest your healing hand over our staff and place a hedge of protection around Heath. We are so grateful You sent him to us. May Your will for his life be undeniable in the hours he’s at Table of Hope. Amen.”
A thump and scraping noises drew her eyes toward the ceiling. She wasn’t accustomed to sounds of movement overhead. Her stomach quivered each time she thought of poor Heath all alone with two very sick men to care for. But he was a healthy guy who’d been immunized against the seasonal bug, and he was so insistent.
What choice did she have anyway? Her other residents were doing all they could, but the evening had been an uphill battle. Velma made it through check-in, all the while complaining about a throbbing head and an aching back. Nick’s tired eyes and constant cough caused him to miss class and crawl back into his bunk, ostensibly for a nap, but he hadn’t been seen outside the men’s dorm for hours.
Another muffled thump rattled the kitchen ceiling. She hoped it wasn’t one of her friends collapsing on the floor of her tiny apartment. Olivia was thankful she’d found someone to spell Heath, who was bound to be worn out by now. When she’d asked for client volunteers to help with dinner, several regulars who’d had flu shots were identified. One of them was Dick Sheehan. He’d been a medic in the Army and said he didn’t have any problem caring for a couple of sick guys for a while. She’d sent him upstairs to relieve Heath a few minutes earlier.
The intercom phone buzzed.
“This is Olivia,” she answered.
“What do you know about this guy?” Heath’s voice was muffled, as if he was covering his mouth.
“You mean Dick?”
“That’s who he claims he is, anyway.” His suspicious nature was raging.
“I have no reason to believe otherwise.”
“You shouldn’t let strangers up here in your home,” Heath barked. “He could be an axe murderer for all you know.”
“And so could you!” she bit back. “Look, you have to rest eventually. Dick says he has medical training, so let him help for a while.”
“I hope he’s trained in getting pain relievers and orange juice down a guy’s gullet and then cleaning up the stuff that won’t stay there.”
Olivia dipped her chin and covered her eyes. Sooner or later illness was bound to hit the shelter and she just had to deal with whatever issues came along with it. Right now getting Heath to follow her instructions was the issue.
“Heath, that’s all the more reason for you to get away for a little bit. Come on downstairs and have something to eat.” She stood her ground.
“Ugh. My appetite went out the door with the first bag of trash.”
“At least let me make you a peanut butter sandwich.”
She waited for his acquiescence, wondering if his reluctance had to do with food or with leaving Dick in her apartment. Either way, Heath needed to take a break.
“Hello?” she prompted.
“I’ll be down as soon as I give Sheehan instructions and I’m convinced he can handle things for a while.”
She hung the receiver back on the hook an
d felt her lips curl into a smile. His servant’s heart was emerging and he was being the hands of Christ whether or not that was the original purpose for Heath’s days at Table of Hope.
She came out of the pantry several minutes later to find his brown eyes glaring at her from the kitchen doorway.
“Perfect timing! I’m finished in the kitchen and ready to start Bible study.” Olivia bit the inside of her lip to hold back laughter at the way his jaw sagged in disbelief.
“What do you mean Bible study?”
“You know exactly what I mean. As soon as dinner is cleared away we always meet in the big room for worship and study.”
“Even with the sick folks we have upstairs, and all the work we need to do down here?”
Olivia’s heart danced against her ribs at Heath’s use of we, as if he felt like part of the staff.
“This place is in crisis,” he insisted.
“And that’s why we need to take a moment to ground ourselves in God’s grace and mercy. All good things come from Him and He’s our rock in times of trouble.”
Heath closed his eyes, gave his head a slight shake of disbelief and then fixed his gaze on her again.
“I get it, Olivia. Faith is a big deal to you and I admire that. But sometimes we have to adjust for reality.” He swept his palm outward to indicate his surroundings. “You can’t require people to crowd into a room that might be filled with germs.”
“The only ones required to participate are you and me and both of us have already been exposed to the flu.”
“What about your front desk girl and that kid at the back door?”
“I’ve sent them both to bed. If they’re not better in the morning, we’ll move Nick upstairs with you and I’ll call a local church about finding a volunteer to take Velma in for a few days.”
Heath released a loud sigh. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”
“No, I don’t, but God does.” She dropped her apron into the laundry hamper and squeezed a clear blob of hand sanitizer on her palm. “Now, grab that covered dish with your soup and sandwich and let’s go see what His Word has to say about the Fruit of the Spirit.”
He picked up the tray, sniffed at the soup beneath the cover and nodded approval. “I think you’re right, I do need to eat. Maybe it will improve my disposition.”
Heath caught her smiling behind her hand.
“Go ahead. Laugh. I know I’m a grouch. I admit that I didn’t possess much of that spiritual fruit when I got here yesterday and what little I had is long gone.”
“And that’s why Jesus said, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’”
“Since you’re gonna quote Scripture at me anyway we might as well go to the big room and get comfortable. I’ll need a strong cup of coffee to help me swallow another dose of religion.” His comment wasn’t exactly music to her ears but at least he was cooperating.
What more could a girl want from a man who was practically sweeping her off her feet?
Chapter Nine
During his years undercover, Heath had spent many a night in discomfort.
Like the time he lay for hours in a ditch, still as death beneath a pile of leaves. An unexpected drug purchase went down a few feet from his face, but he couldn’t blow his cover and raise his head. The only parts of the dealers he could identify were their lousy shoes!
More aggravating was the costume party where he was staked out in a Spider-Man outfit, mistaken for some reveler’s college friend and forced to do the hokey pokey to avoid exposure. When you have two left feet, that’s what it’s all about!
Even so, Heath couldn’t recall a night more uncomfortable than the one spent in Olivia’s apartment. Nick’s fever shot up at midnight so he packed a small bag and moved upstairs to sleep on another roll-away. Every forty-five minutes Heath attended to one man or the other, and in between he groped about Olivia’s small home as quietly as possible.
Rummaging through her personal things made his conscience ache in a way he hadn’t known possible. It was akin to rifling through a woman’s handbag, something his mom had once said was the ultimate invasion of privacy. As he explored each nook where drugs might be stashed he found himself repeating the final passage from the night’s teaching.
The Lord detests lying lips, but He delights in men who are truthful.
Heath basically lied for a living, so that Proverb rolled over him like water off a duck’s back. But it grieved him to think Olivia’s integrity could possibly be for show, either a cover for herself or the father who’d abandoned her. Women had that weird thing about wanting to believe in their fathers, no matter what sort of creeps they’d been. It would be just like Olivia to forgive Dalton Wyatt, but would she compromise herself and become an accomplice in his crimes?
Heath doubted that either of his sisters lost much sleep worrying about redeeming their murdering old man. Part of what he’d told Olivia about losing his parents had been true. He just hadn’t proffered the important detail that his mother had died at the hands of his raging father, an act of violence that turned three kids—not just one—into orphans. Heath’s adoptive parents must have thought he carried a bad seed that they needed to smother with faith. From his earliest memories they’d involved him in church activities, but it never felt natural to him as it did with Olivia.
His insides churned and squirmed. The discomfort had little to do with the three sick stomachs in the apartment and everything to do with his night of searching for clues. Each time he came up empty-handed he breathed a sigh of relief, blotting out the idea that Olivia could be implicated, much less guilty.
Heath felt something special for her. If he knew what love was like, he might even say he loved her. But it was too soon for that, wasn’t it?
He struggled to force the thoughts from his mind and concentrate on the job. Then, just before dawn, Heath hit the jackpot.
Returning to the bathroom closet where Olivia stacked sheets and towels, his fingertips grazed a lump of plastic he was certain hadn’t been there earlier. Reaching deeper he grasped the article, whispered “Come to Papa,” and pulled it from behind the recently laundered items. The quart-size, heat-sealed bag contained hundreds of green tablets Heath recognized as Ecstasy. The junk had been a club favorite since the eighties. Thankfully, it had taken a dip in popularity, but in recent months it was back with a vengeance and more dangerous than before, since it was often laced with very addictive meth.
As he stared at the poison in the bag, his heart thumped out the answer. Dick Sheehan. He had to be the source of this stash.
“Oh, use your head. It can’t be that easy.” Heath cautioned himself against a rush to judgment. He was looking to find guilt apart from Olivia and he knew it. The truth was that she’d personally handled the laundry and had been the one to restock the linen closet.
Still, Sheehan had been quick to offer help that gained him entry to Olivia’s place for several hours.
It was time to pay a visit to Biddle and check out some mug shots. It would be easy enough to get fingerprints of everybody who’d had access while Amos, Bruce and Nick were passed out. Or Heath could simply lift prints off the sides of the porcelain commode while nobody was hugging it. Might as well run each man through the computer as long as he was going to the station. That would help cut this job short before Heath got any more exposure to sick folks.
Or went any further down the dangerous, dead-end road that seemed to be leading to a head-on collision between his heart and Olivia Wyatt’s.
Olivia stacked bowls in the cabinet and then ran her towel over the counter to soak up any last drops of dishwater. She’d hated offering cold cereal on a freezing morning, but with her staff dropping like mercury in the thermometer outside, it was the best she could do. If it came down to it, their clients could eat corn flakes and sandwiches until the flu ran its course. At least folks would be fed, if not well fed.
“Good morning.” Heath stepped inside the k
itchen, causing her weary pulse to race. Bundled up beneath several layers of clothing, he headed straight for the coffee station. He dropped his backpack on the counter and reached into the storage shelf for the small stash of to-go cups.
“Everybody’s finally asleep at the same time upstairs. You think Sheehan would cover for me again for a few hours?”
“I’m sure he would.” She didn’t dare mention Heath’s change of heart over Dick’s trustworthiness. “At breakfast he offered to stick around all day and help since we’re shorthanded. You seem to be headed somewhere.” Olivia tried to sound casual when she was anything but calm. The last thing she needed was to have Heath bail out on her.
She was shaky from lack of sleep, worried sick about the condition of her residents and worn out from running breakfast service alone. She was close to the breaking point, something she hadn’t felt since her father took off.
“I gotta go get some fresh air and pick up some stuff at a drugstore.” He kept his hood pulled forward, his face hidden from her view. He was intentionally avoiding eye contact. Was it really possible that he planned to walk out the door and never come back? Maybe he was going over to the police station to tell Detective Biddle that county lockup was preferable to the conditions at Table of Hope.
“Heath, nobody would blame you if you looked into other community service options.”
His chin popped up, and the dark hood shrouding his face fell away as he impaled her with eyes that seemed offended.
“Is that what you think of me? That I’d take off and leave you to deal with this mess by yourself?”
The fatigue that Olivia had been fighting back finally spilled past her resolve. She pressed the damp towel to her eyes with both hands and gave herself over to a sob.
“Hey! Don’t do that,” Heath said with a comforting tone.
His footsteps thumped across the linoleum. He was so close she could hear the rustle of his clothing. Surprise shuddered through Olivia’s body when strong arms settled cautiously around her shoulders and folded her to his chest.
