Blood Strangers: Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets

by Hinze, Vicki

  The elevator door creaked open. Stepping out, she cut through the rows of parked cars, passing right by her own vintage Mustang. Even with the rain, walking the few blocks to the hospital would be quicker than driving. Safer, too. Rain brought out the worst in downtown drivers.

  What could he possibly want?

  Her knees went weak. Stop it, Gabby. Stop thinking. You don’t have the answers. You never have had the answers for anything to do with him. Just follow the drill. Suck it up, stuff it down, and get to the hospital.

  Lightning flashed a jagged streak in the night sky. Thunder crackled and rolled, echoing between the tall buildings, and Gabby stepped outside, into the crazy cold and rain.

  On the sidewalk, she hugged the overhangs to stay out of the sharp wind. Raindrops stung her skin through her coat. No wonder Fitch had come in soaked. If the rain kept up, pouring down in bucketsful, the streets would flood.

  At the corner of Perdido and LaSalle, a VIP alert pinged her mobile. She fished her phone from her handbag and spotted a new text from Shadow Watcher.

  Rushing across the street, Gabby ducked into the row of concrete archways built into the first story of an office building, and then read the message.

  TROOP CALL. Amber Alert issued on Cally Jean Smith. 13. Birmingham, AL. Stranger abduction. She’s in extreme danger, troops. Need all hands on deck. You know the drill. Time to suck it up and stuff it down.

  Mist whipped in through the open arches and gathered on Gabby’s face. She shielded her phone with a cupped hand. Two of the six Troop Search and Rescue members replied, then Gabby responded. “Gate Keeper OOC,” she whispered as she keyed in the acronym for out of commission. “Sorry, SW. Medical emergency. Call in backup.”

  Another ping followed immediately. A private text to her from Shadow Watcher. “You hurt, GK?” she read.

  She keyed in her response. “My father. Stroke. Headed to hospital now.”

  “You do what you need to do there. We’ve got this. Prayers are with you and your dad.”

  Dad? Gabby’s throat constricted. Her father had never been a dad. She couldn’t imagine him in that role. In a sense, that’s what had led her to join the Troop Search and Rescue with Shadow Watcher five years ago. She had no family. No friends. No home life or support system or anyone to rely on. She had work. A job she was grateful for and good at, but it was work she didn’t enjoy. And she needed more. Wanted more. What more, she didn’t know, but something . . .

  At her computer one night, she’d gotten an Amber Alert and decided to use her computer skills to help look for the child. She noticed the Troop Search and Rescue group and they noticed her noticing them. They watched each other but didn’t interact until Gabby found a live feed of the missing girl and her abductor. The group always sent their data to Shadow Watcher, so she forwarded her sighting find to him, too. He took it to the authorities, and they found the girl. Safe. Returned to her mother alive.

  Gabby had been elated, and for the first time in a long time, (if ever was too brutally honest to admit even just to herself), she felt connected and fulfilled. She had found a purpose.

  In the weeks that followed, they found another child, and then another. Finally, Shadow Watcher messaged Gabby and formally invited her to join Troop Search and Rescue. They’d been seeking missing kids ever since.

  Everyone in Troop Search and Rescue retained their anonymity and everyone had an assigned role. Shadow Watcher collected data from the investigators, compiled and disseminated it to the appropriate authorities. Gabby was the Gate Keeper, keeping watch and covering the group’s backs. The other four troop members, ThumpIt, Ferret, Hunter and TreasureSeeker, were investigators with different special skills. Whenever human traffickers were involved and exposed, the risks to the group exploded. So far, Gabby had kept their digital footprints light, masked and their identities protected. “Thanks, SW.” She typed in her text and got a quick response.

  “Let me know how it’s going. If you need anything, yell.”

  “I’m fine.” She answered by rote. “Thanks again.”

  “That’s not lip service, okay? I mean it.”

  Gratitude spilled warmth into her. She didn’t even know his real name and he still reached out to her in ways no one else ever had. Afraid if she shared anything more, she’d blubber like a fool, she limited her response to an emoji smiley face, then added, “GK going dark.”

  For some reason, breaking the connection to Shadow Watcher proved difficult. Her finger hovered above the screen, and she had to make herself tap Send. Absurd, really. She had never relied on anyone else. Yet as distant as the anonymous relationship was, a bond existed between them. Within Troop Search and Rescue, they worked most closely together online, and she innately trusted him. At least, more than she trusted anyone else, which honestly wasn’t saying much. It was kind of crazy really, considering she knew nothing about him. She wasn’t even a hundred percent sure he was a man, though he came across as a man in his approach and in the way he phrased and framed things. The other group members used the male pronoun to and about him, not that any of them had actually met him, either. But her feelings toward him . . . he had to be a guy.

  Grateful she had been spared from explaining her relationship with her father for the second time that night, she stashed her phone, whispered a quick prayer for his recovery and then prayed Troop Search and Rescue found Cally Jean Smith and returned her home to her parents safe and sound.

  How disappointing that only now have you prayed for your father, but a child you’ve never met, you pray for immediately.

  Gabby rebutted the prick at her conscience. Cally Jean was a child and in extreme danger. He was an adult and getting professional care.

  He’s your father.

  Boom. Got her on that one. Gabby sighed and kept walking. She should have prayed for him right away. Guilt swam through her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to pray for him; she often did. It was him wanting her to come see him now that surprised her so much. His summons knocked her back on her heels and she still hadn’t recovered her balance. She didn’t know what to do with all the emotions it conjured.

  Stop thinking, Gabby. Start there. She clenched her jaw. Just follow the drill. Suck it up, stuff it down, and get to the hospital.

  “Right.” She stepped through the last open arch back out into the driving rain. “Right.”

  Chapter Two

  Tulane Medical Center

  8:30 p.m.

  A nurse from the station escorted Gabby down the hall and then into her father’s room. Seeing him looking so frail and far older than his sixty years shocked her into clenching her hands. His skin looked as gray as his hair, which was tousled, and the right side of his face drooped. Her eyes burned and her throat went tight. What she had expected, she wasn’t sure, but this . . . wasn’t it. He looked old and fragile and—

  “I’ll let Dr. Adams know you’re here.” The nurse sent Gabby a reassuring look, then left the room and closed the door.

  The silence was deafening. Gabby wasn’t sure what to do, and for the millionth time, she wished just once things between them could be easy.

  Her father pushed at the sheet and blanket covering him, working his left hand free. His hospital gown slipped down on his shoulder, but it was his hand that had his attention. He stared at it.

  Gabby followed his gaze. He held a piece of paper clenched in his fingers. Her name had been scribbled on it. “Do you want me to read that?” she asked. When he nodded, she reached for the paper, her hand trembling, then read the words.

  “Help me.”

  Bewildered, an odd uneasiness rippled through her and turned the taste in her mouth bitter. Their gazes locked. “Help you with what?”

  No answer.

  “Do you need the nurse?”

  He tried but couldn’t answer. The words refused to form.

  “Blink once for no, twice for yes,” she said. “Can you do that?”

  He blinked twice.

  �
�Do you need the nurse?”

  One blink.

  “The doctor?”

  One blink.

  She studied her father’s angular face, then his eyes and doubted her own. Fear burned in their depths. She’d never before seen her father afraid. “Are you in pain?”

  One blink.

  “I know you’re frightened,” she whispered, stepped closer to his bedside. “You are, aren’t you?”

  He blinked twice.

  Okay, that was progress. Surprised he’d admitted that much, she pushed for more. “Of dying?”

  Two blinks.

  Normal under the circumstances, and she could offer him some reassurance. “The nurse told me you’re stable,” Gabby said, inching a little closer still. “And Dr. Adams expects you to recover so—”

  He interrupted her with a series of fast blinks.

  What was he trying to tell her? She gave herself a second, then began again. “You’re not afraid of another stroke.”

  One blink.

  Why that terrified her, she couldn’t say, but it did. “Did more happen to you than the stroke?”

  He gave her a wide-eyed stare.

  Not a yes or a no, which meant what? “You’re afraid something more will happen to you? Something not related to the stroke?”

  Two blinks.

  Each one hit her like a ton of bricks. “Are you afraid someone is going to try to hurt you?” With his business associates, that likely was a fear he lived with all the time.

  He hesitated as if torn between revealing his thoughts and not revealing them.

  “You are,” she guessed. “You’re afraid someone is going to hurt you.”

  Wide-eyed, not agreeing or disagreeing. Something close but different. Something not personal . . . After she’d graduated college and moved to her apartment in the Garden District, he’d taken an early retirement from his job in lieu of being laid off. The company had been upper-level management heavy and he’d volunteered to go. He’d started a little company, keeping books for elite heavyweights. Though they paid well, many had shady reputations. She’d advised him against getting involved with them, especially with George Medros, the worst of the bunch, but only in her mind. Not that her relayed spoken opinion would have mattered to her father anyway. “Is this about your business?” she asked.

  Two blinks.

  “You’re afraid one of your clients will hurt you?”

  Two blinks.

  “Why?”

  No response.

  She grappled with the disclosure, trying to puzzle it all out. “You’re hardly a risk to any of them.”

  One blink.

  The hair on the back of her neck lifted. “You are a risk?”

  Two blinks.

  Spotting a notepad on his tray-table, she held it so he could write and put the pen in his hand. “Tell me why.”

  He avoided her eyes and scrawled a few words. “Know 2 much.”

  The reason for his fear became abruptly clear. Diminished capacity and too many secrets. It made sense. The weight of having enemies like George Medros settled heavily on her shoulders. “What can I do?”

  He pointed to the first note. Help me.

  “How?”

  With his index finger, he pointed at her, scratched the pen to paper, then showed her. “Do my work.”

  Her scalp tingled, and the sensation slithered down through her whole body. He was aligned with every crook in the parish, and he wanted her to do his work? He feared they’d hurt him, so he wanted her to cover for and protect him? Knowing not one of them would hesitate to hurt her.

  Oh, God, this is so unfair. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  When she reopened her eyes, he pointed to another note he’d scribbled. “Go. Think. Come tomorrow.”

  “Do you want police protection?”

  One blink.

  She nodded. “All right. I’ll be back after work tomorrow.”

  He raised his hand and shooed her, let out a garbled, “Go.”

  So, he willingly puts her life in jeopardy and then shoves her away. Gabby stiffened her back, chiding herself for being even mildly surprised, and then left the room and closed the door.

  The nurse who’d escorted her in seemed surprised to see her in the hallway. “You’re leaving?” She frowned. “But Dr. Adams . . .”

  Gabby didn’t slow her steps but hastened them, moving toward the elevator. “Tell him I’ve been dismissed.”

  Chapter Three

  Handel Security, Inc.

  9:40 p.m.

  Gabby walked back to her office for her car. By the time she trudged through the downpour to the parking garage housing her Mustang, the water on the streets stood ankle-deep. The short drive to her Garden District apartment was treacherous and, when she finally arrived, her shoes were wrecked and she was more drenched than Fitch had been. And freezing cold. Opting for warmth over food, she skipped dinner and headed straight for a long, hot bath.

  Soaking up to her neck in the deep tub, she couldn’t keep her mind out of overdrive. What exactly had her father meant? Help me? You do my work? Stuffing down feelings of betrayal, of his willingness to cost her everything, she tried to bury the potential impact of his request on her and center her focus on his issues. Which client, which work had him so afraid?

  Maybe he was just confused. Her heart preferred confusion over his sacrificing her and her future and reputation, his betrayal and his disregard for putting her in jeopardy. His neurons could be misfiring and everything in his brain be jumbled. Yet he hadn’t come across as jumbled. He had very clearly tagged work as his worry and flatly denied his health spurred his fear. That meant he was either more than confused—who wouldn’t be worried sick after a debilitating stroke? —or he’d been threatened by one of the shady characters he called clients. Had someone threatened to kill him?

  The truth struck her way down deep. It would take something that bad for him to turn to her for help.

  Too agitated to stay in the water, she toed the drain plug, emerged, dried off and slipped into a knee-length t-shirt, then headed to the kitchen. Over the years, she’d overheard him on the phone often enough to know he knew better than to associate with those kinds of people. When he’d taken them on as clients, it had struck her as completely out of character. She had studied her father from a distance her whole life and she never had known him to cross the line between right and wrong. So why had he aligned with them?

  She hadn’t been able to make sense of that at the time, and she couldn’t now.

  After filling the tea kettle and setting it on the stove to heat, she retrieved a jar of Earl Grey White Tip tea from the cabinet. Maybe she was wrong. She spooned four teaspoons into the teapot, then reached into the cabinet for a cup. Maybe he was like them, and he did a superb job of hiding it. That pretense would be easy short-term, but long-term? Not so much.

  The kettle whistled.

  Gabby poured the boiling water into the teapot, inhaled the aromatic steam. Or maybe he’d panicked at being forced into early retirement and had done the first thing he could find to make decent money. But if he’d had money problems, she didn’t know about them. She’d never noticed anything like past due bills in the mail, or food being short in the fridge, or anything to suggest he wasn’t financially secure. Yet considering the strain in their distant relationship, would she notice? Would he permit her to notice? Not then, and certainly not now that she wasn’t living under his roof. He could be wealthy or nearly broke and she’d have no idea. That’s the way he not only wanted it but had insisted it be her whole life.

  When the tea had steeped, she filled her cup, snagged it and her phone, and then curled up in her favorite living room chair near the front window. Let it go. You’ll never figure him out. Just suck it up, stuff it down, and wait until tomorrow. He’ll tell you what he wants you to know then.

  Good advice but easier said than done. His fear was real. And though they were strangers, they were blood.

  Make yourself cra
zy then.

  No, she needed to think of something else. Someone else. Shadow Watcher came to mind and stayed. He was the closest thing to a friend she had, and he was just shy of a stranger. Outside the thunder moved closer, the relentless storm seeming to gather in intensity. Unfortunately, it mirrored the storm building within her. Do something.

  She texted Shadow Watcher. “Any luck finding Cally Jean Smith?”

  “Not yet,” he responded. “We have a fresh lead. Possible sighting in Huntsville. Troops are checking it out. How’s your father?”

  “The doctor says he’s stable.”

  “But?”

  She wanted to tell him. To talk over the situation. But she’d never before confided in anyone else. Well, aside from her aunt, Janelle. Just once Gabby had spoken openly to her mother’s only sister and look how that had turned out. She’d come to New Orleans, given Gabby a book of recipes for handmade soaps and lotions and oils that once had belonged to her grandmother, promised she’d bring Gabby to her home in New York for a summer visit, and never had been heard from again.

  Gabby still had no idea what she’d done wrong to keep her aunt from returning. But she’d learned the lesson of keeping her issues to herself. She didn’t have much of a relationship with Shadow Watcher, but she wasn’t willing to risk losing it by dumping her problems on him to discuss. “I’ll know more tomorrow,” she said, equally determined not to lie.

  “Stable is good. Is he talking?”

  “No, but he’s writing a little.”

  “Complaining or doing the drill-sergeant routine?”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “He didn’t complain to me.”