Broken Trust

by Jill Williamson

  “There was no evidence of Jessica being involved. They’ve questioned her, but she didn’t know anything.”

  That was a relief. Jessica was a nice lady. “What’s going to happen to Kimbal?”

  “Don’t know. He said he turned in what you gave him. He doesn’t know you came to me with your concerns and a copy of the real file.”

  “Where does he think it came from?”

  “He was led to believe it was downloaded from the Mission League server when it was first seen. Let’s keep it that way. Don’t talk to him about anything related to the Mission League or this case or any case. Try to keep your distance until I tell you differently. And if you have a problem, come to me or one of the Mr. Sloans.”

  “You suspect Kimbal of something?” I couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “A man is innocent until proven guilty, Spencer. Remember that.”

  Yeah, yeah. “What about the vending machine?”

  “Someone is going to look into it.”

  Yeah. Someone was. Me.

  REPORT NUMBER: 16

  REPORT TITLE: I Go On a Pseudo Date

  SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond

  LOCATION: Cornerstone Christian Church, 980 N. Elm Street, Pilot Point, California, USA

  DATE AND TIME: Wednesday, July 18, 6:51 p.m.

  I went to youth group on Wednesday night, just to see Grace. That meant stomaching Sherry’s presence, but she didn’t bother me as much as she used to. I was so excited to see Grace I arrived twenty minutes early. Pastor Scott put me to work by sending me up to the kitchen to fetch three ice blocks for tonight’s game. As I was heading down the hall, I overheard Mr. S in Pastor Muren’s office saying something about Nick.

  Yes, I know it’s rude to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help myself. Mr. S and Pastor Muren talking about Nick? It might have had something to do with my investigation.

  “I think it’s best if he stays home again,” Pastor Muren said. “Before someone gets hurt.”

  “I don’t think Nick would intentionally hurt anyone,” Mr. S said.

  “I do. I still think he let Spencer fall off that cliff.”

  My stomach slid down into my shoes.

  “Lukas was there,” Mr. S said. “He swears he and Nick did everything they could. It was an accident.”

  It was, I told myself, thinking back, replaying the moments before my fall. It wasn’t like Nick could have made it rain.

  “It’s terrible, being suspicious of my own son,” Pastor Muren said. “But I’ve seen too many things. He’s on a dangerous path.”

  “HQ wants him to stay,” Mr. S said. “This is his last trip with us. His year to co-lead Diakonos Team. Give him that chance, Eric. Let’s see if he steps up. No matter what he’s done, he could still do the right thing.”

  “I wish I had your faith,” Pastor Muren said.

  “Pray. God will give it to you.”

  The door moved, so I darted down the hall toward the kitchen. I waited in there a good five minutes, then dug out the ice blocks and lugged them down to the youth room, wondering if the main reason Eric Muren didn’t trust his son to come with us to Alaska had something to do with a vending machine in the park.

  ****

  I set my alarm that night for three a.m., and when it went off, I went and collected my homemade webcam. I told myself that I’d go to bed and wait until tomorrow to check the footage, but by the time I got home, I was so excited I couldn’t wait. I plugged in the USB DVR and started scrolling through.

  I found Nick in the third hour of my recording, which would have been the first day. He filled the whole machine, Hot Tamales included. I wondered if he knew what was in those little boxes or if he was oblivious. I should try and follow him—see where he picked up those cases of candy he pulled around on that hand cart.

  Yes, I’d do that tomorrow.

  ****

  The next day I drove over to the Muren residence with plans to follow Nick to his vending job. His car wasn’t parked outside, though. I was sitting there waiting for him to get home when I got two texts, one right after the other. The first was from Jessica Wells, asking if she could drop by some of my stuff that I’d left at the agency. Though Jessica was not being charged with any crimes in conjunction with Ron and Anita Sayle, she was, unfortunately, out of a job. I texted her back a “yes” and gave her Grandma’s address, then started my car.

  The other text was from Grace, who said she needed to return some library books and asked me for a ride. I reminded her that I wasn’t allowed to drive her around, but since the library wasn’t all that far from her place, I offered to come over and walk with her. Plus there was a Fosters a block from the library, so I figured I could try and buy her some ice cream, too.

  Pretty slick, huh?

  I had a date.

  At least that’s what I was calling it.

  Grace likely saw it as another chance to gather info on her red card assignment.

  Jessica texted that she was heading over, so I told Grace I’d meet her in a half an hour, then drove home. Jessica arrived about ten minutes after me. I met her at the door.

  She greeted me with a smile. “Hi, Spencer.”

  “Hey.” Should I invite her in? I didn’t know how to act in this scenario.

  “I’m so sorry your internship got cut short.” She handed me a bag with my hoodie, some earbuds, and a blank notebook that I’d never got around to writing in. Then she started digging in her purse. “Ah-ha. Here.” She handed me a crumpled sheet of paper. “I wrote you a letter of recommendation. You can give this to your teacher and hopefully get full credit for the internship. And if you ever need a reference for a job, put me down.”

  “Thanks.” That was very nice of her. I read the recommendation and, man, this woman loved me. Guilt fell heavy then. “I’m sorry you lost your job.” Because it was my fault for finding evidence that her bosses were crooks.

  “No worries, Spencer. Thanks to you, I got hired over at the Re/Max office. Now that I can build a blog and make flyers from it, that is.”

  I laughed. “That’s great. I hope you like it there.”

  “I think I will. How you doing with your uncle’s move?”

  “What move?” Instantly I realized I’d spoiled his lie.

  Her brow crumpled in confusion, lifted to sorrow, then shifted to anger. “You know, that’s fine. Really. He was a little full of himself for my tastes. But let me tell you something, Spencer. You like a girl, you tell her so. You don’t like her, you tell her so. Don’t play games. Don’t mess around like she doesn’t have feelings. Because she does, and it’s just plain rotten to pretend her feelings don’t matter.”

  I swallowed the offending awkwardness. “I’m sorry.”

  She pursed her lips. “Don’t apologize for him. Just be a better man, okay?” She patted my arm and walked away.

  I felt bad. Kimbal had always seemed like such a stand-up guy. I hadn’t talked to him since the morning after he’d taken my footage. The Sayles had been arrested, so I had no way of knowing whether or not he would have managed to override Prière and change my assignment.

  Maybe he was moving. Maybe that’s why he’d been acting so weird.

  I texted him—Jessica says your moving? Where to?—then climbed in my 200-degree car and drove to Grace’s. It was so hot, I was tempted to stick my head out the window like a dog just to get some cooler air.

  I had just parked my car under a shady tree when my phone buzzed. Kimbal.

  Not moving. Just wanted to let her down easy.

  Well, that settled that. He was a jerk. Pilot Point wasn’t so big that he’d never run into her. What a stupid thing to do.

  Not that I would know anything about breaking up with a girl properly. The only time I’d tried had been with Sherry, and she still hated me, so…

  “What are you doing?”

  I just about jumped out of my skin. Grace was standing on the passenger’s side, peeking in the window. “
Reading a text from Kimbal,” I said.

  A smile lit up her face. “I scared you.”

  “Startled me. I don’t scare easily.”

  “Sure.”

  I got out and took a deep breath. The coolness of the shade was heavenly. I flapped the bottom of my T-shirt a few times to get some airflow up where my shirt had stuck to my back. So. Much. Better.

  Grace and I headed for the library. Since her arm was still in its sling, I carried her books like some kind of 1950s guy. The longer I walked with her, the more I noticed how short she was. At six feet four inches, I was taller than most men. And Grace? She was shorter than some children. Usually the intoxication of her presence made me forget all about that, but walking silently beside her now, it made me feel obvious, like I was a giant beast stalking some little girl.

  “So what did you do last weekend?” she asked.

  Because she was a spy and was only hanging out with me to write reports. I thought I was cool with it, but at the moment, it ticked me off. “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “But why? Why do you care what I do?”

  “Why are you mad?”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “It’s just, you’ve got Eli and the cheer team to worry about. I’ve got my rehab. We don’t need to tell each other everything we do.”

  Silence stretched between us. I felt like a jerk yet completely justified at the same time. How did that work?

  “Can I tell you something?” she asked.

  Ah, this was it. I’m supposed to be spying on you, Spencer, but I can’t because I love you and want to trade my Miami Heat hat for your Lakers one. I took a deep breath. “What’s up?”

  “Thanks for what you did—what you’re doing,” Grace said. “For my dad.”

  Oh. “Yeah, it was nothing.”

  She stopped and looked up at me, eyebrows low and serious. “No, I think it’s helping him, Spencer. He’s finally starting to get it. He apologized to me and my mom yesterday. He’s apologized before. He’s always apologizing. But not like this. It was one of his AA steps. He’s actually doing them. And it’s because of you.”

  I couldn’t deny that her words made me feel good, but I couldn’t take credit either. “I just drive him there. He’s got to listen and decide to change for himself.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying thank you, okay?”

  “Okay. Well, you’re very welcome.”

  She kept walking, so I followed alongside. “I know you think your visions were about saving me,” she said, “but I think they were about saving my dad. I think God wanted to help him.”

  A rush of anger filled my body with heat. She thought God would allow her to get beat up so that her dad would stop being a jerk? I gritted my teeth and fought to stay calm. The longer I was calm, the more Grace’s words replayed in my mind.

  Why wouldn’t God want to help Grace’s father? Because if the man got help, then Grace and her mom would be better off, too. Plus he probably cared about Mr. Thomas too. “For God so loved the world” and all that.

  “Maybe God wanted to help your whole family,” I said.

  She bumped against my side. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  Well, I liked the sound of that.

  ****

  We returned Grace’s books, and on the way back, I steered us past Fosters Freeze. Grace accepted my offer to buy us ice cream. Once we had our cones, we headed back toward her place, totally silent now as we ate. Too silent.

  “What kind did you get?” I asked, even though I’d been standing there when she ordered and already knew she got cookie dough.

  “Cookie dough. Want a bite?” She looked up at me with her big, blue eyes, and I became a soppy glob of melting ice cream.

  “Okay.”

  But she didn’t lift her cone to me, she turned and ran.

  I frowned, watching her go. She reached a bus stop, stepped up onto the bench, then turned back to face me. “Over here.”

  Ah. I walked to the bench. We were now about the same height. She held her ice cream to me, and I took a bite, feeling really embarrassed, for some reason.

  “It’s good, huh?” she asked.

  I nodded, trying to swallow and still look cool.

  “What’d you get?” she asked me.

  “Chocolate brownie.”

  “Can I try it?”

  I looked at the stump that had once been my ice cream cone. “There’s not much left.” I held it up so she could see.

  She took hold of my hand, leaned forward, then took a slow lick from the top. “Mmm.”

  I almost dropped the cone.

  She let go and held out her hand to me. “Help me down?”

  I grabbed her hand with my right. She hopped off the bench and started walking, still holding my hand.

  Oh, man! Oh, man! We were holding hands! You know what that means…

  It means she likes me.

  She swung our hands back and forth, and I tried not to move too much outside of normal walking, not wanting to do anything that might break the moment.

  She let go suddenly and ran up to the window of a clothing shop, studying the display. “Those boots are so cute!”

  The front door to the shop opened, and a woman walked out, shopping bag in hand. My head turned, following dark skin and hair and a tall and slender body.

  Kimatra. She didn’t see us. Walked the other way.

  “Hey, Kimatra!” I said.

  She turned in a professional, runway model pivot, swinging her shopping bag in an arc. Holy figs, she was hot. And she still didn’t look a bit pregnant. It had been three months since my first vision of her. I didn’t know anything about pregnancy, but it seemed like that was enough time for…something.

  She recognized me and smiled. “Spencer, hello.”

  I scrambled for what to say. Mention her one-gig acting job and ask if she still talked to Brittany? Drop a hint that I was on to the whole vending machine, drug distribution act?

  “Kimatra, this is Grace,” I said, motioning to her. “Grace, have you met Nick’s girlfriend?”

  “Hello,” Grace said. “Do you shop here often? Those boots are great.”

  And then the girls abandoned me to go look in the window, effectively shoving me out of the conversation. Kimatra pulled an A-shaped purple dress out of the shopping bag and showed Grace, who went nuts over it.

  “Isn’t this a great dress, Spencer?” Grace asked, holding it up to herself. She was so short, it dwarfed her.

  “It looks like a dress for a pregnant woman,” I said, raising a brow at Kimatra.

  Kimatra and Grace looked at each other, then burst into laughter.

  “Boys never understand fashion,” Grace said, handing back the dress.

  Kimatra folded it back into the bag, said, “See you guys later,” and strutted off as if the sidewalk was a Paris runway.

  I just stood there, watching her go. Confused.

  “Spencer? You okay?”

  I looked down at Grace. She already knew about my gift of prophecy, so I risked the truth this time. “I, uh… I’ve had a few visions about Kimatra having a baby.”

  “That’s why you said that about the dress?”

  “Only because that totally looked like a pregnant woman dress. I’ve been wanting to warn her. Maybe she should break up with Nick, you know? I also think she’s somehow connected to Anya.”

  “The woman in Japan?” Grace’s voice went a little high-pitched.

  I nodded. “And I think she only started dating Nick to get him to spy on me.”

  “Nick has been spying on you?”

  No. He really hadn’t been. “I think that was the plan at first, but then things changed.”

  “Because she fell in love with Nick.”

  Eww. No, I’d been thinking that things changed when she’d gotten Nick to help her stock vending machines with drugs, but I wasn’t going to tell Grace that.

  “
Maybe you’re right,” I said. Kimatra sure seemed to like Nick.

  “I am right. Spencer, you can’t save everyone, but it’s sweet that you try.” She took hold of my hand again and dragged me back to the store. “Come and see these boots. I think I need them.”

  REPORT NUMBER: 17

  REPORT TITLE: Truth Hurts

  SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Nicolas Muren

  LOCATION: Kimatra Patel’s apartment, 86 N. Poplar Street, Apt. #208, Pilot Point, California, USA

  DATE AND TIME: Wednesday, July 25, 5:12 p.m.

  After work on Wednesday, Nick swung by Taco Bell for dinner and ate in the car as he drove to Kimatra’s place.

  She met him at the door. “How was your day?”

  “Boring.”

  She leaned in to kiss him, but he limited it to a quick peck. “Got any gum?” His breath likely stank after three bean burritos.

  Kimatra went to sit on the couch. “In my purse.”

  Nick found her purse on the kitchen counter. He dug through it and spotted the pack of gum under a box of Hot Tamales. After putting hundreds of those into vending machines every day, he deserved some. He opened the candy and dumped some onto his palm.

  A handful of the red capsule-shaped candies slid out, along with a small Ziploc bag filled with white powder.

  Nick’s mouth went dry. “Um… Kimmy?” He held up the Ziploc. “What’s this?”

  She glanced from the Hot Tamales box in Nick’s right hand to the Ziploc in his left. Her eyes registered understanding. “It’s nothing.”

  “It looks like drugs.”

  “Uh, yeah,” she said in the tone of “duh.”

  He moved his mouth, wishing words would come out. His foggy mind finally managed, “I thought we were done with this. We don’t want them to have that hold over us. Your grid marks are finally fading, and if I get caught with stuff like this, I’ll—”

  “I’m not going to use it.” She huffed, rolled her eyes. “I just had to make sure it was there.”