Betrayed by Trust (12 page)

Four months later, early August

W
hat do you think of this one?” Janna held up a pink onesey embroidered with a heart and the words, “Daddy’s Girl.” The two of us were enjoying a Saturday afternoon shopping trip, something we’d done too seldom in the last few months. We’d already made a stop in Mother’s World, a maternity clothing store, now we’d moved on to Baby’s World.

“I’m having a boy,” I said, but I took the tiny terrycloth outfit from her and smiled. I could just imagine how a little girl would wrap Dan around her finger.

“Have you decided on a name, yet?”

“Evan, for Dan’s grandfather.”

“You never know,” Janna said. “Those tests are wrong sometimes. You might have to call her Evangeline. They told my sister she was having a girl. She got everything in pink. Her husband had to return a ton of stuff before they brought Charlie home from the hospital.”

I didn’t argue, even though it wasn’t just the ultrasound that told me I was having a boy. I knew. “Okay. I can always use it as a baby gift for someone else.”

My friend had already moved on. The bell on the door jangled announcing a new customer as Janna held up a box with a picture of a woman with a band across her chest and a bottle dangling from each breast. Big blue letters labeled it a hands-free breast pump bra. “Are you going to need one of these?” Then she looked past me and her eyes widened.

I turned to see Barry standing behind me, looking slightly horrified. His gaze darted from the box to my chest then back to the box before he finally looked me in the eyes.

“Uh, hi,” he said.

I didn’t want to be rude, but couldn’t stop myself. “What are you doing here, Barry?”

“I was on my way into the office and I saw your car. I thought I’d stop and get you a baby gift.” He picked up a teddy bear from a display. “What do you need?” He glanced at Janna, who was openly listening to every word.

Baby’s World was not on the way to the office from Barry’s place, and what was he doing going in on a Saturday? I frowned at his clumsy lie and started meandering away from Janna. Barry followed. When we were out of earshot, I picked up a set of baby monitors and held it in front of me like a shield. “Are you following me?”

Barry took the box from me. “No. I came to give you a heads up.” He lowered his voice. “Dan may be doing some overtime for a while. There was an explosion at the headquarters of Le Premier Industries. Lucius Altesse was seriously injured.”

A chill shivered down my spine. “Conrad?”

Barry’s gaze sharpened. “You have feelings for him?”

“What do you care?”

“He was a target, Marianne. A sperm donor. You don’t know him.”

And what did that make me? An incubator? “He was nice. I’d hate to see him killed.”

“He’ll have to die for junior there to inherit Aldwyn.”

I rubbed a hand over my tummy. “Preferably not until junior is old enough to handle it.”

Barry shrugged.

“So? Was Conrad there?”

He shook his head. “He was supposed to be, but he was late. At least that’s what we’re hearing.”

A horrible thought made me feel a little queasy. “It wasn’t the Trust, was it?”

Barry shook his head. “I doubt it. That’s not the way Foxworth works.”

“Thank goodness.” I didn’t want to work for an organization that would resort to murder to achieve its goals.

“But the Path will probably blame the Trust anyway.”

“All right, Marianne. Hold this,” Kalisa handed me a metal model of a horse that was also a coin bank. “Do you get anything from it, like who it belongs to?”

As usual, I tried to open myself to whatever I might sense. As usual, I felt nothing. It was just an interesting and cold piece of metal. “No. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She spread a map of Oregon on the desk in front of me. “Now take one hand and move your fingers slowly over the map and tell me if you feel anything.”

I was seated at her desk in her bright and sunny office. I did as she asked, running my fingers back and forth over the paper, a few millimeters above the surface.

After Dan and I had returned from our interrupted honeymoon, Kincaid had added training my nascent psychic ability to my duties. I no longer had free time for playing
Adventure
. When I wasn’t logging invoices and other data into the computer, I was with Kalisa being tested, or honing my intuition. Kalisa had tested me to see if I could see remotely, if I could predict the sequence of Zener cards both in isolation and with a partner, and if I could move small objects with my mind.

Almost universally, the tests were a bust. Whatever ability I had was elusive, apparently centered only on events that affected me directly. Kalisa wasn’t discouraged, though, and she always had something new to try. The map test was meant to find objects and people from a distance.

Once again, however, I didn’t detect a thing. My fingers reached the bottom of the large map without any hint of finding the owner of the bank. I dropped my hand into my lap. “Sorry. Nothing.”

“That’s fine. Try this one.” She pulled another large map out of the stack. This one was of the state of Washington.

I half closed my eyes, putting myself into a kind of unfocused, there-but-not-there, state. I wanted to feel something, to have something to show for all the time we’d been working, but I didn’t want to imagine a result that wasn’t real.

A distinct sensation pulled my fingertip to the paper as if it were drawn by an invisible magnet. “Oh!” Excited, I opened my eyes, and then frowned, disappointed. My hand had drifted from Washington to the stack of maps off to the side. My finger was stuck on a city in British Columbia.

“Does that invalidate the test?”

Kalisa frowned. “No.” She rummaged in a drawer, then pulled out a huge, detailed street map of Vancouver. She unfolded it, then put it in front of me, replacing the previous one. “Try this.”

Without thinking, I put aside the metal horse so I could use both hands to run over the street map. Kalisa’s brows rose, but she didn’t say anything.

I glanced at the horse and shrugged. “I don’t need it for this.” I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.

I repeated the test with the city map. Within a few seconds both of my index fingers were drawn to the same place, and as they zeroed in on the intersection of two streets a wave of dread washed over me. I stiffened and drew back.

“What is it?”

“Something bad is going to happen there.”

Kalisa frowned again, but took note of the location I’d pointed to. “Do you know what?”

I bit my lip. The feeling I’d experienced was cold. Deadly. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was going to happen. “No.”

“Can you try?”

I spread my hand over the place where the sensation was strongest, but all I felt was a sense of utter cold. There was nothing useful for me to hold on to. I fisted my hands on the map. “What good is being psychic if it doesn’t give me enough information to do anyone any good?”

Kalisa patted my hand. “I think that’s enough for one day.”

I pulled my hands away from the map, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiety. “That didn’t have anything to do with who owns the metal horse, did it?”

Kalisa shook her head. “I don’t know what that was about.”

I returned to my desk. The feeling of dread lingered, hanging over me, and I caught myself staring into space more than once, the cursor on my computer screen blinking impatiently.

Two hours later, an all staff meeting was called in the boardroom. Formerly the Victorian mansion’s parlor, the boardroom’s wood paneling, Lincrusta ceiling, and art deco wallpaper had been carefully restored. Brass and crystal chandeliers reflected in the polished wood of the long conference table. A dozen of the top staff sat in the padded leather chairs. One of those sitting was Barry. He’d been promoted two months earlier to assistant chief of the chapter’s department of field investigations. His attempt to foul Foxworth’s plans for me hadn’t hurt his career in the least. The rest of us stood around the periphery, overflowing into the dining room through the open pocket doors. I chose a spot along the wall behind Barry so we wouldn’t have to look at each other for however long this meeting lasted. An all staff meeting was rare, and most of those present looked at their neighbors curiously, asking if anyone knew what was going on.

When Dan arrived, he made his way through the crowd to my side. He stood close, but didn’t put his arm around me. I wanted, as much as possible, for people to regard me as a fellow professional, not as his wife. It was getting more difficult to dress for the office since I’d started having to wear looser clothes a month ago; there wasn’t a lot of career-oriented maternity wear out there. Tony, the head accountant, glanced over his shoulder and saw me, then stood and offered me his chair. A beat later Barry started to rise, too.

I wanted to say no thanks to Tony’s offer, I was only five months pregnant, not an invalid, but Dan pushed me forward with a slight pressure on my back. I didn’t want to sit next to Barry, but I accepted Tony’s offer rather than make a scene.

When everyone had crowded into the room, Mr. Kincaid joined us. The group fell silent. Into the quiet our director said, “An hour ago, while on a trip to our Vancouver office, Mr. Foxworth was killed.”

I was glad now that I was sitting down. Was this the danger I’d sensed on the map of Vancouver? My “feelings” usually only related to events that affected me. Foxworth had guided the Trust for over a decade with a sure, but nearly unseen hand. How the Trust weathered such an abrupt and unexpected change in leadership would certainly affect me, but not very directly. My course had been set months ago.

Kincaid paused for a moment to let the news sink in. “The cause of death has not yet been determined, but poison seems likely.” He lifted a hand to quiet the exclamations that news excited. “The Vancouver director believes the Golden Path may be involved.”

Should I have told someone about my premonition during training? Maybe if I had, Foxworth would still be alive. But I hadn’t known that the Chairman was in Vancouver. I couldn’t have connected the dots.

Kincaid looked around the room, meeting the eyes of several department heads, and mine as well. Did his eyes narrow when he looked at me? “I encourage you all to be alert, but not fearful. There is no reason to believe there is any general threat to Trust employees. In the meantime, until the board of directors elects a new Chairman, the Trust will be guided by Mr. Anders of the Helsinki office, Mr. Scogg of London, and myself.” He thanked us all for coming and then left the room.

After a moment of silence, a dozen conversations broke out as coworkers turned to their neighbors to share their shock. Barry stood, met my eyes briefly, then left without saying a word to anyone. I was glad he didn’t try to speak to me. I waited in my chair as the room slowly emptied, then rose. Dan had waited for me. He took my hand, then frowned. His fingers felt wonderfully warm, so mine must be like ice.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I started to say I was perfectly fine, that I didn’t need coddling, but I shivered and felt my fingers tremble in his. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that if I had done more, Foxworth would not have died. “No. Would you take me home?”

“Of course.” Dan put his arm around me, and I didn’t complain.

We were on our way out, when Bettina intercepted us. “Mr. Kincaid wants to see both of you in his office.”

“Do you feel up to it? I’ll take you home and explain later, if you’re not,” Dan said.

His concern made me feel warm and cherished, not diminished as a member of the weaker sex. I didn’t particularly want to climb three flights of stairs to fence with Kincaid, but I wasn’t shaking anymore. “No. I’m fine now. Let’s see what he wants.”

Dan didn’t look happy, but he didn’t object.

Kincaid’s office was still the same, all dark wood and heavy furniture. At least this time Barry wasn’t sitting in one of the chairs scowling at me. The director gestured for the two of us to be seated.

“Kalisa told me about your training session,” he said without preamble. “As far as we know, you’re the only one who stumbled on any information at all. Aside from location, did you experience any other input?”

I wished I had. “No. I’m sorry.”

“I’d like you to try again. I’d like to see if you can get some indication of who or where the responsible parties are.”

“Marianne isn’t feeling well. We were on our way home,” Dan said.

“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I doubt I’ll be able to help, but I’d like to try while I might still be able to do some good.”

Dan’s jaw muscles jumped, but he didn’t argue.

“Excellent.” Kincaid ushered us out of his office and down one floor to Kalisa’s brighter room.

Kalisa already had the map of Vancouver spread out on her desk. I sat in front of it, with my hands to either side, trying to empty my mind of nervousness. Mr. Kincaid stood behind my right shoulder, Dan behind my left, Kalisa in front, twisting her fingers. Their concern and hunger for results rolled off them in waves, like the ocean battering the shore.

I glanced at each in turn. “Perhaps you all could take a couple of steps back?”

They did as I asked, and that gave me the psychological space to ignore them. I half-closed my eyes and thought of Mr. Foxworth, of his ability to scan the surface thoughts of my mind. How had someone gotten close enough to poison him? Perhaps the person delivering the fatal dose hadn’t known what he was doing. The assassin could have poisoned Foxworth through an unknowing dupe, who might still not recognize his part in the murder. Had just one person wanted Foxworth dead? Or was it a conspiracy?

How many people should I be looking for?

I decided to look for just the person who had been closest to Mr. Foxworth, before his death. If we could find that person, he might be able to lead us to the source of the poison.

I ran my hands back and forth over the map, not quite touching. All I knew was that the person I was looking for had probably intended no harm to Mr. Foxworth, otherwise the Chairman would not have been taken off guard. That person was probably just as horrified and saddened by Foxworth’s death as nearly everyone else who’d witnessed his death. That didn’t seem like enough to go on, but it was the best I could come up with. I cleared my mind and let my fingers roam over the streets of Vancouver.