Deadly Devotion (24 page)

“That’s a great idea.” Kate studied her list of suspects, wracking her brain for a clever way to prod the killer into revealing himself. She picked up her teacup and took a sip. A few drops dribbled from the bottom of the cup onto her paper. As she dabbed the paper with her napkin, her gaze fell to an item she’d scrawled in the margin.

Her breath caught.

People’s actions, snippets of dialogue, seemingly unrelated goings-on suddenly made perfect sense.

Tom took a seat in the back corner of A Cup or Two and waited for his dad. The place was surprisingly busy for midafternoon. He recognized most of the patrons as locals, but the table by the door boasted a group of bell-bottomed drifters with psychedelic orange-and-green tie-dyed T-shirts straight out of the seventies.

He stretched his neck left and then right in a vain attempt to work out the kinks. Without an active case to justify the use of surveillance teams, he’d handled the last two nights on his own. But no matter how many angles he looked at Daisy’s case from, he had nothing. Not on Brewster, not on Darryl, not on Edward. Nothing that would stand up in court anyway. And no leads on who’d posed as Gordon Laslo.

If Daisy’s killer hired a drifter to play the part of Laslo, Tom might never track him down, unless they got lucky with the fingerprints they lifted from his affidavit.

No, he needed more than luck. He needed divine intervention. Kate needed his protection more than ever, but she was
still too furious at him for dragging her in for questioning to realize that the guy who tried to frame her for Daisy’s murder might try something worse.

At least she’d agreed to let Dad stay on as her bodyguard.

Hank sprawled into the seat opposite Tom and set down a frothy mug of some sort of specialty coffee.

“Since when do you drink froufrou drinks?” Tom quipped to cover his surprise that Hank had stopped the cold-shoulder treatment. The iceberg between them had gotten so frigid, Tom had debated wearing a hat and mittens to the office.

Hank took a sip of his drink, then circled his tongue over his lips, collecting the froth left behind. “Mmm, mmm. Carla got me hooked on this stuff. It’s really good.” He jutted his chin toward the counter laden with teas. “Better than tea that tastes like weeds.”

Tom chuckled and at the same time caught sight of Kate sitting with Julie at a table in the center of the shop. Kate’s gaze slid from Hank’s face to his coffee before veering back to Tom. She nodded when their eyes met, but her tight smile suggested she didn’t approve of the company he kept.

Not that he should be surprised. She’d already pegged him as Hank’s coconspirator once. The softening he’d seen in her attitude toward him, after his desperate search for a bomb in her car, had apparently been short-lived.

Hank must’ve sensed the direction of his thoughts. “Have you talked to her since you brought her in?”

Tom swallowed the last of his coffee and slapped the mug onto the table. “Yeah.”

“I take it she’s still mad?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Tom clenched his jaw and fought the urge to lash out at Hank.

“Hey, if you like her that much, I’ll have a talk with her. Let her know I—”

“No.” Tom lowered his voice. “Thanks. You’ve done enough.”

Hank let out a snort and dropped his gaze to the mug he was twisting in his hands. “I owe you an apology. Two, actually. First for messing with your, uh, love life. Carla overheard what I said about your last girlfriend.”

“Zoe wasn’t
my
girlfriend.”

“It doesn’t matter. The point is, Carla reminded me of all the times you stood by me in high school when . . . well, you know.”

“What’s the second apology for?”

“The night before last. I know you were trying to do right by me. I gotta admit that after Adams found the marijuana leaf, I scoured the woods around Dad’s place too. But it was clean. What I’m trying to say is, I didn’t act like much of a friend and I’m sorry. I know you’re true blue.”

Tom’s jaw slackened as he stared at Hank. Hank, his high school chum. Hank, his boss. Hank, the man he suspected of covering up his dad’s illegal activities. Was the admission a ploy to throw Tom off the scent? An appeal to his loyalty? Or a genuine gesture?

Questioning his friend’s motives left a bitter taste in his mouth. “That’s okay.”

Hank half smiled, a look Tom recalled from their teen years—whenever Hank thought he’d gotten away with something. For now, that was probably a good place for Hank to be.

Tom’s dad straddled the chair between Hank and Tom. “Can you believe how packed it is in here today?”

Tom winced at the sight of how many more people had
poured in without him noticing. This business with Kate was making him sloppy. A detective couldn’t afford to let his personal life interfere with his job. Maybe Hank had done him a favor.

Kate’s gaze drifted to his table again, and the kick in his heart said he didn’t want Hank doing him any favors. Too bad she didn’t have a tea to cure stupidity. He could have used some of that. Tom followed the direction of her gaze as it tracked across the shop. Behind the counter, Darryl and his wife were engaged in a heated discussion. Dark circles shadowed Beth’s eyes, and she appeared to have lost some weight. Apparently, her claim that she’d been sick the night he’d spotted her following Kate hadn’t been entirely a lie.

Hank’s dad approached the two and made a T sign with his hands.

As Beth reached for the brown paper bag in Al’s hand, Tom gauged Hank’s reaction.

If he was wary of his dad’s actions, Hank didn’t show it. He downed the last of his coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I gotta go. Dad and I are going fishing. Nice to see you again, Keith.”

“You too,” Dad nodded. “You should buy a box of Beth’s donuts to take with you.”

“Good idea.” Hank shifted his attention to Tom. “You on the night shift?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bring you in a fresh grilled perch.” He winked. “See ya later.”

Dad hitched a thumb toward Hank’s departing back. “You two seem to be getting along again. Have you written him off as a suspect?”

“Nope.”

Edward stood at the counter chatting with Molly, who glowed under his attention. For her sake, Tom hoped Edward had been straight with him.

Hank interrupted the lovebirds’ tête à tête, apparently asking for donuts as Dad had suggested, because Molly folded a piece of cardboard into a box and picked up the tongs. Al Brewster joined Hank and pointed to the tray of jelly-filled donuts.

“Well . . .” Dad drummed the tabletop, a satisfied lilt in his voice. “Looks like all our suspects are here.”

Tom snorted, remembering Kate’s suggestion that they stage a sting. His gaze skittered past Al, Darryl, and Edward. “Only person missing is Gord.”

“You don’t seriously consider him a suspect in Daisy’s murder?”

“I have as much reason to suspect him as anyone else.”

“Then why haven’t you brought him in for the thefts at the research station?”

“Let’s just say I’m keeping my options open.”

Dad tipped his chin down, his gaze on Kate.

Julie’s fiancé, Ryan, now shared Julie and Kate’s table, and the volume of their discussion rose by the second. Julie’s face flushed as nearby patrons started to take notice. Kate, her red hair tied in a ponytail that bobbed with her animated gestures, seemed oblivious to the audience they’d attracted. She slapped her hands on the table. “I’m telling you, Daisy was murdered.”

The entire room hushed, and like one person everybody turned to look at Kate.

She surged to her feet, her attention fixed on Ryan. “And I know who did it. Do you hear me?”

Tom choked on his coffee. What was she doing?

At the counter, Darryl, Edward, and Al gaped at the spectacle. Not one of them looked uneasy about her declaration. But Hank . . .

Hank stormed toward her, his face streaked with rage.

Kate suddenly clutched her throat. Her mouth opened and closed in frantic, jerky movements. But no sound came out.

Tom’s throat constricted at the sight of Kate’s glassy, too-large eyes. He rushed past Hank, circled his arms around Kate’s waist, and dug his fist under her rib cage, thrusting hard to dislodge the blockage to her airway.

“Epi,” she squeezed from her throat, then slumped in his arms.

Tom’s muscles quivered uncontrollably as he eased her onto a chair and helped her hunch over the café table in her fight to pull in a breath. “Someone call an ambulance.”

Julie ripped an epinephrine pen from Kate’s purse and thrust it into the air. “I found it.” She scrambled around the table and rammed the injector into Kate’s thigh.

Tom’s heart stopped for a long, painful moment, then careened against his ribs like a runaway car when she gasped. He smoothed the hair away from her ashen face. Dark shadows rimmed her closed eyes. Her breaths came in shallow gasps.

Rubbing her back, he struggled to keep his voice calm.
“You’ll be okay. Breathe nice and easy. The ambulance will be here in a few minutes.”

Hank met Tom’s words with a frown. He snapped shut his cell phone and in a low growl said, “Both ambulances are tied up on other calls.”

“We have to get her to the hospital now,” Julie said with an urgency that had Hank scooping Kate into his arms before Tom could object.

“We’ll take her in my Jeep. You can ride with her in the back.”

The crowd parted, making a path to the door. Tom reached for Kate, but his dad laid hold of his arm. “Let Hank and Julie take her. You need to figure out if this was deliberate.”

Tom jerked back, but Dad tightened his grip.

“What if Hank’s behind this?” Tom hissed through clenched teeth. “What if he—?” The thought of Kate at Hank’s mercy snatched Tom’s breath.

Julie grabbed Kate’s purse and told Ryan to follow in his van.

“I’ll go with Ryan and keep an eye on Hank. You do your job.” Dad’s stern tone slammed the brakes on Tom’s racing heart. If this wasn’t an accident, someone had to stay behind and analyze the crime scene. And with Kate’s life in the balance, he couldn’t think of anyone he’d trust to do the job.

His gaze shot to the front window. Outside, Hank set Kate into the back of his Jeep. Julie climbed in on the other side. Hank wouldn’t do anything to Kate with Julie in the car and Ryan on his tail.

Tom dragged in a breath. “Okay, go.”

Dad squeezed his shoulder. “She’ll be okay. You focus on
figuring out who wants to shut her up.” He strode out the door and the crowd burst into chatter.

Tom raised his hand. “May I have your attention, please? Before anyone leaves, I’d like to talk with each one of you and find out what you saw.” Hopeful no one would balk at the request that he had no legal authority to enforce, he turned toward Kate’s table to first secure the evidence.

Darryl righted the chair Kate had toppled when she collapsed. Molly had collected the abandoned mugs onto a tray and was wiping off the flowered tablecloth.

“Leave those.” Tom tempered the harsh command with a quieter, “Thank you.”

Molly’s hand stopped midwipe. She shot a questioning look to Darryl, who motioned toward the counter.

“That’s okay, Molly. You can go back to the till.” Darryl turned to Tom with a mixture of chagrin and alarm. “Sorry. I suggested she clear the table. Do you think this was deliberate?”

“That’s what I plan to find out.”

“I sent my wife upstairs.” Darryl’s thumbnail carved a groove into the top of the wooden chair. “She’s pregnant, and it’s high-risk. She shouldn’t have been down here in the first place. I’d been trying to convince her to go upstairs and lie down when Kate cried out. This upset could jeopardize the baby.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

His thumb abruptly stopped its fidgeting. “Because you told everyone to wait here.”

“Okay, that’s fine.” Tom didn’t like the idea of letting Beth out of his sight, especially when Darryl’s cooperative attitude tasted a little too syrupy, but he could hardly justify having
the woman dragged back to the shop. “Any idea what Kate might have ingested that had hazelnuts in it?”

“No, our beverages don’t have nuts in them. I don’t think any of the baked items do either.” Darryl swiped at the already spotless counter, clearly anxious to avoid making eye contact. “I can ask Beth to pull out the ingredient lists if you want.”

Molly walked to a rack that displayed an assortment of bagged teas. “We have a vanilla hazelnut dessert tea.” She picked up a box and showed it to Tom.

“Kate wouldn’t have used that tea,” Edward cut in. “She always makes her own blend from the loose stuff.”

“I’m just saying we have something here with hazelnut in it. Residue could have been left on a spoon or cup or something. I had a guy in my college class who was so allergic to peanuts that if another student had peanut butter for breakfast and breathed in his face, he’d have a reaction.”

Darryl took the box and put it back on the rack. “All our mugs and cutlery go through an industrial dishwasher. A residue wouldn’t get left behind.” His look—defensive, defiant, adamant—suggested that visions of lawsuits and public health inquiries paraded through his mind.

“Who else knew about Kate’s allergy?” Tom asked the group in general.

Molly slid a tray of dirty mugs through the kitchen’s pass-through window. “Kate wears a medic alert bracelet. Everyone who knows her has probably asked what it’s for.”

“Really?” Edward poured himself another cup of coffee. “I never noticed she wore a bracelet.”

Edward’s apparent lack of concern for Kate’s recovery coupled with this denial reinforced Tom’s suspicions. “But you knew she had the allergy?”

“Sure, Daisy probably told me. I don’t remember.”

“We don’t even know if her reaction was to hazelnut,” Darryl countered. “For all we know, she may have reacted to something that’s never bothered her before.”

Tom pulled out his notepad and pencil. “Molly, do you know what herbs she had in her tea today?”

“Not a clue, sorry. She makes a different blend almost every time she comes in here. But she’ll tell you exactly what she put in. She’s very careful and insists that everyone should know what they’re drinking.”

“Apparently not careful enough,” Al Brewster muttered from where he’d tucked into his box of donuts at a nearby table.

Tom ground his teeth so hard his jaw ached. How could the man be so callous? Hearing Kate fight for air had shaken him, and he wouldn’t relax until he knew she was out of danger. The only way to make that happen was to figure out who wanted her dead.

He never should have allowed her to investigate Daisy’s death. The moment he’d realized she was onto something, he should have . . . His pencil snapped under the pressure of his grip.

He yanked the phone from his belt and thumbed in his dad’s number. Voice mail picked up on the first ring. He punched in the number for the hospital next, and reception connected him to the ER nurse.

“Hello, this is Detective Parker of the Port Aster police detachment. I need a status report on the condition of Kate Adams.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Privacy regulations forbid us from giving out that information over the phone.”

“I’m a police officer.”

“I’m sorry. I still can’t help you.”

“Is Chief Brewster there?”

“Yes, if you’ll hold a moment, I’ll get him for you.”

Tom interrogated Hank’s dad as he waited for the chief to pick up.

“Brewster here.”

“How’s Kate? Does she know what triggered the reaction? Who does she think did this?”

“As far as the doctor is concerned, she shows no lingering symptoms of an allergic reaction. But she hasn’t regained consciousness.”

“What? Why?” The steady beep of a heart rate monitor sounded in the background.

“They’ve run blood tests, but the results will take some time. If she doesn’t come around, they’ll admit her for observation.”

“I want her under around-the-clock protection.”

“Protection? She reacted to something she ate.”

Everyone in the café had their eyes fixed on Tom, searching his face for some indication of what had happened. He turned his back to them and pitched his voice low and urgent. “Someone tried to kill her. Do you want a second homicide in this town in as many weeks?”

“Is that what people are saying?”

“Saying? We all saw it!”

“Tom, you’re too emotionally involved here. I don’t want you speaking with anyone else. I’ll be right over.”

“I want Kate under guard.”

“Your dad is here. That’ll have to be enough.”

Tom snapped shut his phone. Drew in a breath.

The room fell silent. All eyes on him. Their anxiety, a thick blanket of smoke, stinging his eyes and choking off his air.

“She’s stable,” he announced and everyone burst into applause.

Having heard what they’d been waiting for, people soon grew restless.

Tom visualized where his suspects had been in the moments leading up to Kate’s attack. She’d already been at her table when Hank’s dad arrived. Edward and Molly had been busy mooning over each other, but Kate would have gone between them to pay for her drink just as Hank had when he’d ordered donuts. Edward easily could have slipped a pinch of crushed hazelnut into Kate’s tea while Molly kept her distracted.

Tom raised a hand to gain everyone’s attention. “We still don’t know what triggered Miss Adams’s attack. So I’d like to get everyone’s name in case we have questions later. And if you noticed or heard anything that you think is significant, please stay behind.”

Three blue-haired ladies bustled toward him, all talking at once.

Darryl brushed by him and said, “I’ll take down the names of those who want to leave.”

As Tom recorded the ladies’ accounts, his attention strayed to Darryl, who was assuring people that the shop had stellar health and safety standards. From the expressions on the patrons’ faces, more than a few weren’t convinced.

Tom might have felt sorry for him if his very presence weren’t suspect. By his own admission, Darryl routinely tinkered in his second lab until well past six o’clock.

Hank stepped into the shop and scanned the dwindling crowd. His eyes narrowed when they zeroed in on Tom taking down Mrs. McGuire’s statement.

Too bad.
Tom wasn’t going to sacrifice Kate’s safety to
pander to Hank’s PR concerns. Mrs. McGuire might have seen something significant.

Or perhaps that was exactly what Hank was afraid of.

Hank’s dad, seemingly uninterested in the hoopla, sat alone at a back table. Powdered sugar from a jelly-filled donut dusted his beard. He popped a last morsel into his mouth and dug into his box for another.

If he’d slipped something into Kate’s tea, he didn’t appear worried about being found out.

Hank strode Tom’s way, and Tom quickly thanked Mrs. McGuire for speaking with him.

“What are all these people still doing here?”

“Waiting to be interviewed.”

“This was not a deliberate attack against Kate.” Hank raised his hands. “Folks, you may all go home. Miss Adams is fine. She had an allergic reaction to something she ate.”

The scrape of a chair broke the responding silence. Mrs. C pressed her fingers into the table as she stood and drilled her gaze into Hank. “Who killed Daisy Leacock?”

Red splotches crept up Hank’s neck. “Miss Leacock’s death was self-inflicted. At best, an unfortunate accident. Her friend is simply having a hard time accepting that fact.”

“Seems to me we’re having too many unfortunate accidents in this town. Seems to me someone wanted to shut Kate up because she’d gotten too close to the truth. Seems to me—”

Hank lifted his hand traffic cop style. “Miss Adams collapsed mere seconds after claiming she knew who killed Daisy. Hardly enough time for a supposed murderer to act, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I want to know who she thinks killed Daisy.”

“Yes. Who?” The question buzzed through the crowd.

“Rest assured we will investigate Miss Adams’s allegations, but we won’t slander anyone’s good name by repeating unsubstantiated rumors.”

Tom surreptitiously watched Edward’s and Darryl’s reactions to Hank’s announcement, but their expressions betrayed no signs of guilt, only concern. Tom’s attention snapped to the table where he’d last seen Al Brewster.

The man was gone.

Tom panned the windows, his pulse racing. Al’s rusty pickup was nowhere to be seen. He dialed his cell phone to alert his dad to Al’s disappearance.
Come on, Dad, pick up.

“As for what happened here today,” Hank continued, “as I said before, Miss Adams simply had an allergic reaction to something she ate.”

“A little too coincidental, don’t you think, Chief?” Mrs. C challenged.

Hank’s mustache twitched. “If you think you saw something suspicious,” Hank said to the crowd in general, “you are welcome to give Detective Parker your statement. Otherwise, you are all free to go.” He must’ve heard Tom’s quick inhalation and sensed his intention to intervene, because Hank cut him off with a pointed glare.

For a moment or two, no one moved, as though no one wanted to be the first to leave. Then, to Tom’s surprise, Mrs. C let out a loud harrumph and stomped toward the door. He’d thought she’d stick around so as not to miss anything. The others, whispering feverishly, took their cue from Mrs. C and followed her out.