It was the Ace of Spades.
She’d been tricked.
Not that she doubted the veracity of Danny’s waffle story. She certainly remembered the announcer interviewing that little girl, and Danny’s body language had revealed emotion that would’ve been difficult to fake. But he’d deliberately drawn out the telling of his tale, because…because…well…damned if she knew why he’d done it.
“Aren’t you going to try my waffles?”
Oh.
Reeling her in with his gift of gab, in much the same way he might bait and hook a slippery criminal, the skilled detective had gotten her to sit down with him at the table. And he wanted to keep her there a while. He wanted her to eat. The realization that she’d been manipulated triggered a rush of blood to her face.
“Do you really care how Bella works?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Studying his face, she was struck by the unfiltered kindness in Danny’s eyes, and it occurred to her that his innocent ruse was entirely different from the way her brother usually dealt with her. This was a far cry from slipping a valium into her cocoa in order to get her to sleep. Danny hadn’t really manipulated her at all. He’d merely distracted her from worry, shared a very real part of himself with her, and sought to prolong his time in her company. In short, he’d behaved like a friend. Least she could do was answer his questions about Katie and the vaccine.
“Are you wondering if Katie needs Bella?”
“Yes. She’s already been vaccinated against cervical cancer, so I thought maybe—”
“No. This is different. Bella only prevents one form of breast cancer—the kind associated with a specific gene mutation. It’s called BRCA.”
“How do you know who has the gene?”
“There’s a blood test. Anyway, the vaccine targets BRCA and uses special messenger RNA to repair the malfunction that leads to cancer. If a woman doesn’t have the gene, she doesn’t need Bella.”
He leaned forward, attentively. “Should Katie get checked to see if she has the broken gene?”
“Not until she’s older. Bella hasn’t been tested on, or approved for teenagers. But you should keep it in mind for later.”
She pushed her waffle around on the plate while Danny wolfed down his breakfast. When a motorcycle buzzed down the road outside, her heart jumped in her chest, and her fingers spasmed painfully around her fork.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to halt an onslaught of thoughts, which tumbled like a poorly constructed row of dominoes. New memories mixed with old hurts. She remembered her father, she thought about baseball, she remembered her mother, she thought about Garth. Just now she’d practically leapt out of her skin at the sound of a motorcycle. Last night she’d been terrified by the flash of a car’s headlights. And it was only a car.
Nothing sinister at all.
Then a revelation made her breath catch in her throat. Twisting her hands in her lap, she dug her nails into her palms. She wished she hadn’t wasted the past fifteen years of her life searching for escape routes and crossing streets to avoid strangers. Living in fear hadn’t done her any good at all. Fear hadn’t kept her loved ones safe. Fear hadn’t kept the devil at bay.
Another new idea rained down on her, and despite the warm sunlight filling the kitchen, the marrow in her bones froze. A hollow chill, emanating from deep inside, rattled her teeth as her breath hissed out: Maybe it was fear itself that had drawn evil into her life.
She willed her eyes open. Danny was staring at her with a quizzical frown. Swallowing hard, she made her choice. A decision made in an instant, but spawned from years of living scared. She wasn’t going back to that. “Danny, I appreciate your offer of police protection, but I’m afraid I can’t accept.”
As if she’d delivered a jab to his chin, his neck snapped back. “What? Where did that come from?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t follow. Last night you thanked me. Said you appreciated the protection.”
“For Garth. Not for myself. I only let you stay here because I was too tired to throw you out.”
“I see.” Drawing back, he removed his hands from the table and spread his palms over his thighs. His voice grew cool as the empty side of her bed. “Maybe you’ve misread my intentions toward you, Sky. I’m not suggesting I’d be the one to…sleep here.”
“That’s not it.” Danny had been outrageously flirtatious when they’d met, but after the robbery, his behavior had changed. Apart from a few charming gestures, which Sky suspected were accidental and unconscious, he hadn’t made any further overtures toward her.
Danny’s intentions didn’t worry her. It was the physical yearning he inspired in her that she found disconcerting, and worse, the seed of hope for something more even than that. Something she recognized, but refused to name was threatening to push its way up through the rocky soil of her heart.
She didn’t want to feel things for Danny, and she didn’t want the police trailing her everywhere she went. “I don’t want patrol cars cruising my street. I don’t want surveillance. I don’t want a bodyguard. You said it yourself. The Flagstaff police department doesn’t have the resources. What if it takes this…this…animal another fifteen years to strike again. You can’t keep watch over me forever.”
“Not forever. Just long enough to give me a little time to sort this out.”
“No.”
His fist came down on the butcher block. “You’re making a mistake. I know I don’t have any proof yet, but—”
He didn’t understand. “You don’t have to prove your case to me. I’m not a cop, or a judge, or a member of a jury. I don’t need DNA evidence, or Mirandized confessions, or a smoking gun to convince me that something, that someone evil is out there. I’m sold already. These acts of violence were directed. Directed against me and the people I love. In my heart, I know they weren’t random.”
Trapping her with his gaze, he ground out his next words, “Then why won’t you let me keep you safe?”
“Because you can’t. No one can keep me safe. And I refuse to be made a prisoner in my own home. Not again. Not this time.” Searching for a way to make him understand, she reached for a metaphor she knew he could relate to. “It’s like the World Series.”
His eyes continued to hold hers. She didn’t know if he was trying to intimidate her or understand her. “You’re saying you want a return to normalcy?”
The acrid taste of blood seeped onto her tongue. She’d bitten the inside of her cheek. Normalcy, at least in the sense Danny meant, would never exist for her. She’d been a fool to reach out for a normal life with Edmond: The company of good friends, a loving home, the comfort of children.
Happiness.
No, she wasn’t holding out for normalcy. “What I’m saying is I’m tired of running from the evil in the world. Whatever his face looks like, I want to see it. I want to spit in it. I won’t be held captive to fear—not anymore.”
“There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”
“I’m afraid not.” She pushed her plate away. “And now, I’ve really got to go. Just lock the door behind you when you leave.”
“What about your waffle?”
“No time.”
“Hang on. We’re not through here.”
“We are. I’ve got urgent matters to take care of.”
He shoved the plate back in front of her. “Eat your goddamn waffle.”
No, Danny wasn’t like her brother at all—no finesse whatsoever.
“I’d take you into protective custody right now if I could. But I can’t. So I’m asking you, Sky, at least make an effort to take care of yourself. I’m asking you to eat on a regular basis, even if you’re not hungry. I’m asking you to work less and sleep more. Don’t make yourself vulnerable by running yourself into the ground. You want to face down evil, you have to stay strong. Not just emotionally, but physically.” Reaching across the table he rested his hand atop hers. “I’m not trying to bully you. I’
m trying to be your friend.”
“You want to be my friend.”
Untangling their fingers, which had somehow laced together, he jerked his hand off hers and said, “Yes.”
Her hand was still cupped open, shaped to fit his grasp. She turned it palm down and flattened it against the butcher block. “And you want me to eat this waffle?”
He nodded.
The cake on her plate, bloated with butter and syrup looked enormous; her stomach felt shriveled to the size of a pea. Asking that shrunken organ to digest the waffle was like asking a baby chick to swallow a boa constrictor. Well, maybe, just maybe, she was up to the task. Clenching her fork, she jabbed the waffle, lifted it in one dripping mess to her mouth, and ripped a piece off with her teeth. Boa, meet Chick.
“Impressive.” A crooked, satisfied smile appeared on Danny’s face. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She choked down the oversized bite, chasing it with apple juice. Her second bite went down more easily. By the third, she’d begun to savor the sweet sensation of the textured cake dissolving on her tongue. And when she’d finally cleaned her plate, she felt a tiny pang of disappointment. “Waffle all finished.”
“Good girl.”
Danny was right about one thing. She had to prepare herself for the evil that was coming. “What you said before—about staying strong—makes sense. I promise to eat lunch too.”
“Thank you.”
“No. Thank you. For the good advice. But I need more than advice from you. I need a favor…from my friend.”
“Name it.”
Casually, she dabbed the corners of her mouth with a linen napkin. He’d used linen napkins?
“I’ll do anything I can to help you, Sky.”
“Great. Then you’ll teach me how to fire a gun.”
The color drained from his face but quickly returned. “That’s not a half-bad idea under the circumstances. You should learn to defend yourself. I’ll give you your first lesson after breakfast. After all, it’s a beautiful day outside, a Saturday, no reason to let the lawn grow under our feet.”
Immensely pleased with Danny’s unexpected cooperation—her brother always frowned on any attempts she made to empower herself—she said, “All right.” The missing files would have to wait. But there was something else that couldn’t. She pulled a wad of gauze from her jeans pocket and unwrapped an odd looking, miniature brass key with a tubular shaft and nail polish peeling off the rounded bow. “Danny, can you help me out with this?”
“What is it?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I found it taped to the underside of Edmond’s desk.”
“What were you doing underneath Edmond’s desk?”
“Long story.”
He was on his feet and yanking on his jacket. “You can tell me in the car.”
“We’re going shooting right now?”
“Later, after we stop by the bus station.”
Her heart started to pound. “You recognize this key?” She’d hoped, but she hadn’t really believed he would.
“Uh huh.” He reached for the key and held it up for closer inspection. Morning light bounced off the shaft, and he smiled. “I have no idea why, but the guys at Greyhound always paint red nail-polish on the bow of their keys. I’ve seen this baby more than once. The criminal element loves to store contraband in bus lockers.”
“Criminal element?” What in God’s name had her oh so proper Edmond hidden in a locker at the bus station? Hidden from her. Because whoever else he might’ve been hiding it from, she was certain he’d been hiding it from her. After all, she was the one who had access to his safe, and he hadn’t felt comfortable putting it there. The mysterious it. Her mind was blank and her throat was tight. She tugged at her collar and rolled her shoulders to release the tension building in them.
Leveling an inpatient glance at her, Danny pulled on his cap. “We’ve got a lot to do today. You coming or what?”
Chapter Thirteen
Garth did not relish the thought of punishing Sky again. He wished instead to return to the harmony of their earlier days when they’d lived side by side as loving brother and sister. But by her disloyalty, by her outright betrayal of him, she’d decreed her own judgment. Another fellow in his turbulent state of mind, this sunny Saturday morning, might’ve stormed down the hall until he reached the hospital elevators. But not him; he strode. Fitting one’s behavior to suit one’s purpose, rather than one’s mood, was a simple skill. Surprising, how few individuals had mastered it.
As he neared the hospital lobby, he passed a backlit photo of an aspen grove.
First, Sky had refused his gift to her—his Bella. That had wounded him deeply. Next came her engagement to Edmond, and the wound festered. And now, now she’d thrown in her lot with Benson. The festering wound abscessed. Daniel Benson came as close to being his nemesis as any man ever had. And Sky was fucking the bastard.
He swallowed his saliva, and along with it, a rising current of disgust. He’d warned Sky to stay away from the detective. He’d begged her to settle the lawsuit. But she didn’t listen. She didn’t heed his warning, and now it was out of his hands.
He pressed the up button.
His laboratory space was located on the hospital’s lower level, but he wasn’t headed to his lab. His nostrils flared at the scent of nicotine and stale urine preceding the arrival of a jaundiced woman in slippers and gown. The woman was apparently sick enough to take up a hospital bed but well enough to shove her IV pole outdoors and light up. Recoiling from her, he propped his elbows against the blood-veined marble wall of Flagstaff’s newest hospital and wished to God his Isabella still lived. What was this foul-smelling creature doing, taking up space on the planet, when his Isabella had perished?
Isabella had shown such faith in him. She was the only one who ever had. And he’d created Bella for her: A legacy of good to honor the only truly good woman he’d ever known. A legacy that proved Isabella had been right and the rest of the world wrong. Proved he was worthy of Isabella’s faith in him—of Isabella’s love for him. Nothing was more important than his legacy.
Not even Sky.
More visitors had arrived in the lobby, and now both the up and down buttons on a copper plate between the elevators glowed with promise. An obese man with male-pattern baldness joined the queue. Garth sized him up and pursed his lips, waiting for the inevitable. Sure enough, the moron waddled up to the already lit call buttons and flattened his thumb against the up arrow—as if the elevator would not arrive unless he personally summoned it. Unreasoned and futile as this action was, it was also predictable. And Garth made the most of his ability to predict human behavior. Just as he’d known that Baldy would press that button, he knew precisely how the men and women on the fifth floor Med-Surg unit would react once he set today’s plan in motion.
At last. An ascending car. With a polite gesture, he signaled a woman pushing a stroller to go ahead of him and stepped onto the elevator. “Three please.”
The woman pressed three, and then Cafeteria Level.
“Thank you,” he said, flashing his teeth at her grimy toddler. The boy smiled back, then carried on his play, batting at the string that anchored a foil balloon to his stroller.
“You’re welcome.” Working her drawn face into a pleasant smile, the woman sighed and twisted a gold band on her left hand. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Deep wrinkles marred her cardigan. Garth pictured the woman balling up the sweater for use as a pillow while she dozed, waiting for a loved one, her husband maybe, to get out of surgery.
The elevator boomeranged to a stop, and the doors opened. Stepping off onto the third floor, he turned right. Midway down the surgical department corridor, he paused and butted the heel of his hand against a chrome circle fixed to the wall. When a set of double doors opened, he walked through them and encountered a second set of doors, stamped with the words No Street Clothes Beyond This Point.
From portable shelving, rolled haphazardly agains
t the wall, he selected a size extra-large mint green scrub set and a blue paper hair net. He’d have preferred a close-fitting cap that would’ve made him look more like a surgeon and less like a cafeteria worker, but none were available. He did have a choice of masks, however. An orange one with a plastic eye shield and string ties, or an unshielded blue one that hooked over the ears. He chose the unshielded blue one because orange clashed with mint. He passed on the paper booties. They wouldn’t be necessary. But there was something else he did need. Digging his hand into a cardboard box, he latched onto a couple of green fingers and tugged out two latex gloves. Crammed them in his pocket.
A few yards down the hallway, he ducked into a single-toilet restroom and locked the door. His gaze fell on a handful of cards stacked on the counter below the liquid soap dispenser. The cards were from a local women’s shelter and offered haven to anyone who didn’t feel safe at home. Garth pitched the lot of them into the trash. Social service agencies deluded the public into thinking they did good works, but in reality they did nothing but fuck people over, and the more vulnerable a person was, the harder the fuck.
No one knew that better than he did. If Isabella Novak hadn’t come into his life, the troubled teen known as Garth Yoblanski would’ve lived out his youth as another unwanted, unseen victim of the malevolent system ironically referred to as Protective Services.
But unlike the whores in brown skirts who came before her, lovely Isabella, his angel, was no ordinary social worker. Despite an overburdened caseload, she refused to turn a blind eye to the horrors being inflicted upon him. Instantly comprehending the gravity of his plight, she’d brought his abusive foster family up on charges…and she hadn’t stopped there. Because she recognized his innate potential, his beautiful, tender angel had lifted him up. Delivering him from a corrupt system that had all but digested him into a heap of excrement waiting to be spewed out of its rotten bowels, she adopted him into her own family, and Garth Novak was born.
First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1 Page 12
