Deadly Devotion (25 page)

Al Brewster, fishing hat askew and still zipping his pants, ambled out of the bathroom. “Where’d everybody go?”

“Home.” The tightness in Tom’s neck and shoulders eased
fractionally. With his prime suspects all still here, he could delay his visit to the hospital a few moments longer.

“Our fishing trip’s off.” Hank shoved a chair under one of the tables. “Thanks to Adams’s theatrics, I’ll be spending the rest of the afternoon doing damage control before the entire town starts ranting that we have a killer on the loose.”

Darryl handed Molly an empty tray and motioned to the tables littered with mugs and napkins. “Do you think there’s anything to Kate’s allegations, Chief?”

“No.”

Tom’s anger flared, and apparently Hank’s brusque response raised more than just Tom’s ire.

Edward slammed his mug onto the counter. “How can you say that when you stood there and promised those people you’d investigate? My aunt did not kill herself, and she wasn’t careless enough to make tea from toxic plants. If you’d stop worrying about public opinion for half a minute, you might actually get some real police work done and solve a case.”

Whoa. Tom hadn’t expected a spurt of righteous indignation from a man whose character was weaker than herbal tea.

Molly rushed to Edward’s side. “It’s okay, Edward. You need to let this go. The police know what they’re doing.” The pleading note in her voice suggested that she feared Edward would be fingered if the police reopened the case—a possibility that seemed to have slipped Edward’s mind.

Edward brushed off Molly’s attempts to calm him. “Who does Kate think killed my aunt?”

“She hasn’t regained consciousness long enough to share her suspicions. But I have no reason to suspect foul play in the death of Miss Leacock, or in Miss Adams’s health crisis.” Hank twisted the tip of his mustache between his fingers.
“The doctor suspects she is simply overwrought from the death of her friend.”

“That’s crazy. Her roommate had to give her an epi injection.”

When Hank just shrugged, Tom pulled him aside. “What if we were wrong? What if Leacock was murdered?”

“The case is closed,” Hank said with finality.

“After Kate’s pronouncement, do you really think the town will accept that answer?”

“The town has no choice. The case is closed. Find out who Miss Adams suspects and put her theory to rest. The mayor wants these wild rumors snuffed out before the weekly paper goes to print.”

Tom slammed shut his car door and trudged to the front of the hospital. A frosty north wind bit at his skin, much like the worry gnawing at his insides over how to keep Kate safe.

Whether or not her allergic reaction was from a deliberate attempt on her life made little difference. If Leacock’s killer believed Kate knew who he was, chances were he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of her.

Bile scorched Tom’s throat. Had his lapse of support, however short-lived, pushed her to the edge of reason? If she’d been thinking at all, she would have known that declaring she knew who killed Daisy was tantamount to saying, “Come and get me.”

He yanked open the door of the building. A kind of constrained chaos reigned. Impatient-looking visitors crowded around the elevator doors, their gazes fixed on the numbers
above—none of which were changing. Tom bypassed the bank of elevators and pushed through the door to the east stairwell. A bare bulb lit the windowless cavern. Paint peeled from the ceiling. His shoes squeaked on the worn marble stairs, the sound echoing off the cement walls.

This old hospital had too many entrances and too many blind corners where someone could lurk unnoticed, waiting for an opportune moment to act.

He needed more than his dad standing guard if he wanted Kate protected.

As Tom reached the third floor, he spotted Julie and Ryan arguing outside Kate’s room.

When Julie saw Tom, her tense stance relaxed. “Detective, I’m so glad you’re here. I didn’t know what to do.”

He rushed toward her. “What’s happened? Is Kate—?”

Julie laid a hand on his arm. “She’s still unconscious and I don’t want to leave her, but Ryan and I are supposed to be at our last premarital counseling session with the pastor, and we’ve already rescheduled it three times.”

Tom expelled a relieved sigh that Kate’s condition hadn’t taken a turn for the worse. “You go. My dad and I will make sure she’s safe.”

“Do you think she’s in danger?” Ryan interjected. “That this wasn’t an accident?”

“I think it’s a possibility.”

“Then Julie shouldn’t be here at all.”

Julie clutched her fiancé’s arm. “She’s my friend. I can’t abandon her.”

Tom scanned the empty hallway and lowered his voice. “Has Kate shared any of her suspicions with you?”

“There was Darryl, of course. At first she thought the
police chief was involved, then Edward.” Julie twisted a tissue in her hands. “But if she still thought it was him, why didn’t she let you arrest him? It makes no sense.”

“She never mentioned anyone else?”

Julie shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes.

Ryan pulled her into his arms. “Kate will be okay. Parker won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Ryan’s right. You two go on. My dad and I will stay with her.”

Tom stepped inside the darkened room. Fingers of light pried past the edge of the drawn curtains, sketching eerie shadows on the wall behind Kate’s bed.

Her face lay turned toward the window, her hair spilled across the pillow. An IV bag hung from a pole and dripped clear fluid into her arm. She seemed so vulnerable.

Tom’s chest ached just to look at her.

“The doctor said she’ll be fine.”

Tom startled even though he’d been aware of his dad’s presence. He moved closer to the bed. “Has she shown signs of waking?”

Dad rose and pushed a chair toward Tom. “Not yet.”

Tom stroked his thumb across Kate’s knuckles. His emotions had been in a whirlwind ever since she’d stormed into the police station. Her spirited, never-say-die attitude had triggered more adrenaline rushes in two weeks than he’d had in two years with the FBI.

“Any of your suspects act nervous or suspicious after we took Kate away?”

“Hank seemed more nervous than anyone, but that likely had more to do with his leadership being questioned by a few of the more vocal patrons.”

“What about his dad?”

“We only talked for a minute. He acted clueless about who Kate and Daisy even were until I mentioned the intern. Then he went on and on about how lazy the kid was. Al’s either a first-class liar or he had nothing to do with Daisy’s murder.”

“What about Edward and that other fellow?”

“I’m not ready to rule anyone out.”

Dad nudged aside the curtain and peered at the street below. “I take it you couldn’t convince Hank to post a guard outside her room?”

“No, but I’m not sure I’d trust whoever he chose anyway. Protecting his image is more important to him than protecting Kate.”

“But you don’t think he’s covering for his dad?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’ve done nothing but chase hunches this entire investigation.”

“Sometimes hunches are all a detective has to go on.”

The uncharacteristic mollycoddling verged on patronizing, and Tom fought the sudden urge to stuff a rolled bandage into his dad’s mouth. “At this rate the only way we’ll nab Daisy’s killer is if he comes after Kate and we catch him in the act.”

“So that’s what we’ll do.”

Tom’s foot kicked out, jolting the bed. “No, we won’t. This is Kate we’re talking about. I won’t let her be bait to catch some lunatic because I messed up my job.”

“I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Dad, you can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day. She should be in a safe house.”

“She’ll never agree to that. She’s supposed to be Julie’s maid of honor in another week and a half.”

“She will if I tell her how much danger she’s in.”

“Do you think she would have tried to hunt down the killer in the first place if she was worried about herself?”

Taking a deep breath to keep from saying something he’d regret, Tom stroked a strand of hair from Kate’s face. So soft, his heart stuttered. Her eyes were scrunched closed as if she was in pain. He gently brushed his fingers across her cheek. “Kate, can you hear me?”

Her breathing rate sped up, and his heart crunched against his ribs. Had he destroyed her trust so much that the sound of his voice now frightened her?

Tom folded himself into the chair next to her bed and clasped her hand between his. “I want you to know how sorry I am that I doubted you.”

Her hand remained unresponsive to his touch.

Overwhelmed by the need to explain, he said, “I want you to understand that my doubt wasn’t personal. It’s just that when I was with the FBI . . .” He paused, feeling foolish telling her the story when she was unconscious, but an inner compulsion pushed him to continue. “I learned the hard way that you can’t always trust the people you think you can. You see, my partner fell in love with a woman who turned out to be a spy.

“I tried to warn him, to give him a way out, to convince him to have nothing more to do with her. He’d saved my sorry hide more than once. I owed him that much. He agreed to stop seeing her, but a few days later I spotted them talking in a mall parking lot. At first I thought maybe he was trying to catch her in her lies and bring her in. But when I confronted him, he told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Tom closed his eyes, and everything about that moment flooded his senses. Once again he stood on the sun-baked
tarmac, sweat dripping down the back of his neck, the screech of seagulls piercing the air as they swooped between cars scavenging for food. And the icy look in Ian’s eyes froze the blood in his veins.

“I tried to reason with him, but he walked away.”

Kate’s eyes scrunched tighter, and Tom’s insides clenched with them.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this now. I guess I want you to understand why I can’t risk letting you stay here. If I’d reported my partner’s liaison like I should have, he might still be alive.

“But I didn’t, and my partner died in a car explosion from a bomb planted by the woman he’d trusted more than . . .”

The blast echoed in Tom’s ears. The ghostly force knocked the wind from him the same way it had that day when it threw him off his feet and debris showered down in a fifty-foot radius around Ian’s car. His partner hadn’t had a chance.

But Kate did.

And Tom wouldn’t use her as bait to lure the killer into striking again.

Tom motioned to his dad to follow him out of the room. “I want you to stay here and keep her safe until I get back. I’m going to find her doctor and see how soon we can move her.”

“Okay, but she won’t be happy.”

“I’m more concerned about her being alive than happy.”

“I’m sorry about your partner, son. With losing your mom, well . . . I didn’t realize there were other reasons you’d come home.”

“That’s okay, Dad. It’s not something I had wanted to talk about. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to tell Kate. Except I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

Dad squeezed Tom’s shoulder. “I understand. You go do what you have to do.”

The nurse on duty suggested Tom ask for the doctor at the ER.

As Tom stepped off the elevator on the main floor, Beth ambled toward him, carrying a potted plant. “Detective, hello. Have you been in to see Kate? How is she?” Beth’s voice wobbled, and worry laced her swollen red eyes.

“She’s sleeping.”

Beth stepped back at the gruff edge in his voice. “But she’s okay? I mean, they wouldn’t let me go up to see her if she wasn’t. Right?”

Tom looked from the plant in Beth’s hand to the other hand resting on the bulge at her midriff—not the hand of a killer. “I’m sure Kate will be happy to see you.” He hurried toward the ER, intent on getting permission to move her before anyone else decided to pay her a visit.

Nausea whirled in the pit of Kate’s stomach. She flung off the hospital blankets. “I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean?” Keith cranked up the head of her bed as if her state was as fragile as they’d let Tom believe.

The dreary room intensified the illusion, fooling even her. Scarred walls closed in on her. Antiseptic odors bit at her nostrils, but worse than those, the memory of the anguish in Tom’s voice stung her eyes.

“Did you know about Tom’s partner? He trusts me, and I’m betraying him. Just like his partner did.”

“We’re protecting his job. It’s not the same thing at all.” Keith caught and held her gaze. “This way Hank can’t accuse Tom of setting this up. Besides, you heard him. Tom never would have agreed to your plan. Frankly, I’m surprised he risked leaving your side at all. That pained look you faked really got to him.”

Kate rolled onto her side and drew her knees to her chest. “I wasn’t faking. I feel sick about deceiving him.”

“Trust me. He’ll understand.”

The phone rang once—the signal from the station nurse that someone was coming.

Keith stuck his head into the hallway. “It’s Beth. Pull up those sheets.” He met Beth at the door.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t expect to see anyone else here. How is Kate?”

“She hasn’t come around yet.” Keith swept his arm toward Kate’s bed. “Come in.”

Through lowered lashes, Kate watched Beth tiptoe into the room as if fearful of making a loud noise.

She placed a potted yellow dahlia on the bedside table. “How are you feeling?” she said in that overly cheerful tone people use around little kids and sick people.

Kate groaned. She felt like she was the one battling morning sickness, sick over deceiving her friends like this. What would they think of her when they learned the truth?

“Kate?” Worry pinched Beth’s voice.

Kate swung her head from side to side against the pillow as if fighting off the grip of sleep. At least she hoped that was what it looked like, because if she didn’t release her pent-up frustration somehow, the truth was going to spew out of her mouth in all its ugliness.

“The doctor gave her a sedative,” Keith said by way of explanation.

“Does he think she’s been poisoned? From how Detective Parker took charge, my husband said the detective thought someone had deliberately laced Kate’s tea, but the chief said no.”

A new dread squeezed Kate’s throat. If people thought Beth’s tea caused the reaction, her business could suffer. Kate
would never forgive herself if their scheme ruined Beth’s business.

“It’s unclear what caused the reaction,” Keith said evasively.

Beth stroked Kate’s arm. “Well, thankfully, the chief appeased my customers’ concerns. The hint of notoriety might even improve business.” Beth chuckled, but the brightness in her voice sounded forced.

Kate hazarded another peek at her friend.

“I brought you a potted dahlia,” Beth said, smoothing Kate’s blanket.

Her heart lurched. She was certain Beth must’ve seen her peeking.

“Darryl said they were your favorite,” Beth continued in the nervous chatter of someone uncomfortable with silence, and Kate barely restrained the breath from whooshing out of her chest. “He wanted to come by, but he had to run back to the lab to do something. I’ll be so happy when he’s finished whatever project is monopolizing his time lately. He’s running himself ragged.”

“Perhaps you should hire more help,” Keith suggested.

“Oh, Molly has been a huge help in the shop and the apartment. A godsend. We can’t afford anyone else. My husband doesn’t think I know, but I’ve seen the accounts. If I can’t carry this baby to term, we won’t be able to afford to try again.” Beth swayed.

Keith reached out a hand and steadied her. “Are you okay?”

She braced herself against the bedrail. “Yes, I’m sorry. My husband keeps warning me not to overdo things. I’d better not stay any longer.”

“Of course. I’ll let Kate know you stopped by.”

As Beth’s footsteps faded from the room, Kate curled onto
her side and let out a moan. Beth was her friend, and here Kate was about to turn her world upside down.

“You okay?” Keith asked. Concern lined his brow.

“I wish I hadn’t thought up this idea. It could ruin Beth’s business. What if I’m wrong? What if Daisy did kill herself?”

“You don’t believe that.” Keith sunk into the chair next to the bed, his chest deflating like a pricked balloon.

“I don’t want to believe it.” Kate fisted the bedsheets in her hands. “Daisy was the one who showed me who God is. If she took her own life, where does that leave God?”

“Is your faith in who God is, or who you thought Daisy was?”

Sunlight edged its way past the curtains. Kate longed to feel its warmth. She didn’t doubt God. Did she?

Julie had accused her of pushing for this investigation because she couldn’t accept the police department’s findings. Wouldn’t accept them.

Because if she had, that meant Daisy
had
taken her life into her own hands . . . on purpose. “I don’t know anymore.”

Keith patted her arm. “We all face doubts from time to time, but that’s when more than ever we need to go to the source.”

“You must’ve questioned where God was when your wife died.”

Keith’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He closed his eyes and nodded. “I ranted at God, yes, because I knew he had the power to keep my wife alive, and he didn’t.”

Keith smoothed Kate’s sheets and swallowed repeatedly before meeting her gaze again, his eyes red. “I knew Daisy for a good many years longer than you, and I don’t believe she poisoned herself. That’s why I’m here. But even if she did, that wouldn’t change who God is.”

“I know that in my head.”

“But knowing it in your heart is harder. I know.” Keith paced the room. “I figured out a few things this past week. When I was busy feeling sorry for myself, God felt far away, but once I started helping Tom with your case, I started to care about someone besides myself, and I realized God hadn’t moved. I had.”

Keith stopped pacing and faced Kate again. “Don’t get me wrong. I still miss my wife as much as ever, but . . .” Keith plowed his fingers through his hair and looked away. “I don’t know. Maybe this is something you have to figure out for yourself.”

“No. Tell me what you were going to say.”

“Sooner or later just about everyone comes up against a side of God that’s hard for them to accept, like I faced when my Norma died. Some wrestle it out with him like Jacob did in the Bible, while others walk away. You have to decide. Are you gonna trust God no matter how the situation looks? Or not?”

“Yes, I am.” Kate laid her hand on Keith’s arm. “Before I met Daisy, I saw God the way most people see marigolds—something pretty to admire now and again, unaware that one variety offers healing while the rest are counterfeits. Now that I know the truth, I won’t settle for a counterfeit.”

With the doctor’s permission to move Kate secured, Tom strode to his car, intent on arranging a safe house and private nurse before nightfall.

A car roared away—license plate T42. Beth’s. Except Beth wasn’t at the wheel. The driver looked like Darryl.

When Tom ran into Beth in the lobby, she’d been alone. If Darryl came with his wife, why didn’t he visit Kate too?

The image of the potted plant Beth had been carrying flashed through Tom’s mind. It was just like the ones he’d seen at Brewster’s greenhouse. The ones Brewster hadn’t been willing to sell. But . . . something had been off about this pot.

Tom closed his eyes and pictured the gift. Yellow flowers in a green plastic pot, and . . . a fertilizer stick! A fertilizer stick had been stuck in the pot.

A specialist like Darryl would know better than to give Kate a plant like that.

So maybe it wasn’t a fertilizer stick. Kate had said that Darryl was delayed at the airport recently because traces of nitrates were found on his computer keyboard. What if those nitrates
were
from explosives?

Tom sprinted back across the parking lot. His terrorist theory had been right all along. A flower shipment would be the perfect cover for smuggling explosives. Bury the explosives in the bottom of the pots, or in plain view disguised as fertilizer sticks. If search dogs alerted to the scent, the border guards would write off the reaction as a response to the nitrates in the fertilizers.

If Leacock figured out Darryl’s scheme, he might have rationalized it was her life or his. Terrorists weren’t the type to let their supply line be compromised. And with a wife in the herbal tea business, Darryl had access to every imaginable brew he’d care to concoct to dispose of a nosy subordinate.

No one would suspect Darryl’s pregnant wife of delivering a bomb to Kate’s room. Just like no one suspected her of poisoning her customer’s tea. Tom yanked open the hospital door and charged up the stairs two at a time.

He wove around a lady in a wheelchair and practically took out an old man shuffling along behind her. He skidded to a stop outside Kate’s door, and his gaze immediately fell to the potted plant on the bedside table. Not only did it hold a stick of C-4 disguised as a fertilizer stick, but it had an electronic detonator disguised as a moisture meter. The kind of device the Laslo kid liked to make.

“Pull out that fertilizer stick too,” Kate called from the bathroom. “Darryl does that to bug me.”

“No! Don’t touch the stick.” Tom veered around his dad and scooped up the plant. Running out the door, he yelled, “Dad, don’t let Kate out of your sight.”

Tom tore down the back staircase, his heart ready to explode right along with the plant. How could he protect Kate from a friend who hand delivered bombs? Not even Dad had suspected death by dahlias.

Painfully aware that the thing could go off any second, Tom hit the door to the back parking lot at a run, mentally analyzing options.

A Honda Accord rounded the corner of the building and squealed its brakes. “Watch where you’re going,” the driver yelled, adding a couple of colorful descriptors.

If you only knew, buddy.
Racing for the emptiest corner of the parking lot, Tom dodged a cement barrier.

A teen on a skateboard appeared out of nowhere and headed straight for him.

Tom darted to the left.

So did the kid. At the last second, his skateboard swerved right, but not soon enough. He wiped out, ramming hard into Tom’s legs.

The impact sent the potted plant sailing through the air.

Tom dove on top of the teen and covered him with his body.

The pot crashed to the ground. Dirt flew everywhere. The plastic shattered.

Tom tucked his chin to his chest, bracing for the explosion.

The six-foot, 170-pound male beneath him shoved him off. “What is your problem?” Without waiting for a response, the teen snatched up his skateboard and glided off across the parking lot.

Tom’s breath came in gasps as he stared at the crushed dahlia, the scattering of dirt, the innocuous fertilizer stick—no wires attached. The bomb would’ve been ingenious—if it had been a bomb.

Tom pushed his hands through his hair and laughed, his relief making it sound a little on the hysterical side.

In the late afternoon sunshine, with lilacs scenting the air and the sound of children’s laughter mingling with the twitter of robins and orioles, the idea that a rogue terrorist or drug lord roamed the streets ready to pop off anyone who got in their way was pretty unbelievable.

Unbelievable, if Tom hadn’t seen worse.

Much worse.

A black SUV came around the cement barrier. Hospital security.

Great. Tom brushed the dirt off his pants. He probably looked like a psychiatric ward escapee.

The driver pulled alongside Tom and rolled down his window. “What’s going on? We just got a call that some crazy guy was stealing plants from patients’ rooms.” The driver looked pointedly at the dahlia splatted on the cement. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Tom cringed at the thought of how distraught Kate would
be after the way he’d hijacked her flower. Then jolted at the realization that she’d been awake.

The slam of a car door cut through Tom’s rambling thoughts. “Well? What’s this about?”