Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (34 page)

It took a full second for the dead silence beside her ear to register.

“What are you doing?”

Startled, Faith dropped the receiver. By the time she fumbled it out of her hands, the tall, rangy detective was striding across the room. He wasn’t smiling.

She’d been caught. If he wasn’t already suspicious of her, the rush of heat flooding her pale cheeks would be a dead giveaway that she’d been up to something. She had a right to call a lawyer. But somehow, Jermaine Collier didn’t look as if he saw things the same way.

“Who were you calling?” Was that a query or another accusation? When he bent down to pick up the receiver, Faith closed the phone book and slyly tucked it back inside its drawer. She jerked back when he reached across her to hang up the phone. “Well?”

Faith played dumb. No sense drawing attention to her suspicions about Collier. About the technicians in her living room. About this whole, screwed-up, sanity-robbing morning. She rattled off the first lie that came to her. “A friend of mine. We were supposed to have lunch. I was going to call and cancel. Unless you think I’ll be done by noon?”

He scoffed as he straightened the front of his jacket. “You can call from the station.”

No
done by noon,
huh?

Her phone line was dead. But then, she had a feeling he already knew that.

“Okay.” She pointed past him to the doorway. “I’ll just go change, then.”

“Five minutes,” he ordered. “Then we’ll go. I’ll drive you.”

Of course, he would. No sense giving her any freedom. Any autonomy. Any sense of trust or security.

“Five minutes.” She nodded her agreement, but was already thinking ahead. Dr. Rutherford’s advice didn’t end at the lab. She needed to get out of here and find someone who could help her.

But if she couldn’t trust Eclipse security, and she couldn’t trust the cops, where could she go?

With only five minutes to come up with a plan, Faith wasted little time in the bathroom, scrubbing her hands and splashing cool water on her face. In her bedroom, she stripped down to the skin and put on fresh underwear. But as she stuffed her soiled clothes into the paper sack the crime lab had given her, a corner of plain white cotton caught her eye.

Dr. Rutherford’s handkerchief.

A sudden rush of fiery tears stung her eyes and burned in her sinuses. She pulled the wadded handkerchief from the pocket of her slacks and sank onto the foot of her bed. She cradled the unexpected treasure in her hands, lifted it to her nose and inhaled the old-fashioned spicy scent of the man himself.

Faith wept anew at the familiar, grandfatherly smell. One last gift. Folding it neatly into her palm, she laid the cotton square against her cheek. Soft as a soothing caress, it offered her the first bit of comfort she’d known since…

“What the heck?”

Something hard and round was pressing against her cheek. Something inside the handkerchief.

Sweet memories vanished in a heartbeat. Instinctively turning her back to the closed door, Faith stood and unfolded the handkerchief. Inside she found a shiny silver disk, no bigger than a dollar coin. One of Dr. Rutherford’s mini computer disks.

Faith flipped it over and read the distinctive scrawl on the label on the other side. “NT-6. Prototype.” She closed her fingers around the disk and frowned. “NT-6?” She couldn’t recall any project with that code, and she transcribed all of his notes. Was NT-6 something independent he’d designed? Something more top secret than her clearance allowed her to work on?

Was the secret of NT-6 worth killing for?

“Oh, heaven.” Faith clutched her fist to her chest and forced herself to breathe in and out before she fainted.

Dr. Rutherford had stuffed this into her hand and told her to run. Such a tiny little thing. Someone had gone through Rutherford’s office looking for it. They’d gone through his lab. They’d gone through her house.

She glanced over her shoulder, knowing Collier and his men were waiting for her in her living room. Did he know she had this? Did he suspect? Was he trying to protect her until she gave the disk to this Darien Frye that Rutherford had mentioned? Or did Collier want whatever it contained for himself?

“Okay, girl. Think.” She tapped her fist against her forehead, knowing her time was running out. Should she tell Collier she had the disk? Would he think she’d killed Rutherford and Novotny to get it? She shook her head. Her boss had told her to run because he knew she’d be in danger. Collier didn’t make her feel safe.

Never one to fuss with her appearance, Faith rewrapped the disk in the handkerchief and pulled on a pair of jeans. Socks and sneakers followed. She stuffed the disk into her pocket and pulled a teal T-shirt over her head.

She couldn’t go back for her jacket in the hall closet, so she tied a matching sweater around her waist. Slipping her purse strap around her neck and shoulder, she peeked out the window. The backyard was clear.

Thank God her first renovation had been to replace the noisy, sticky, rope-and-sash windows. With a final backward glance to make sure her escape went undetected, she opened the window and raised the screen.

When her feet hit the soft dirt outside, she crouched behind the bare lilac bush and scanned her surroundings. Using her car would be out of the question. The CSI van had parked in the driveway behind her. Adrenaline cleared her mind, making the next few steps in her impromptu plan clear. For the moment.

Her car would be too easy to trace, anyway. Stealth was her best ally.

With Jermaine Collier still ordering his men about inside her house, Faith slipped through the neighbor’s backyard, lost herself among the trees and hedgerows and made her way to the nearest commuter bus stop.

“A
RE YOU KIDDING
? Oh, my God. This is like
The Fugitive!
” Liza Shelton’s brick-red curls bounced around her shoulders as she popped up off her chair and joined Faith on the couch.

Faith buzzed a weary sigh through her lips. There was nothing fun or adventurous about her life spinning out of control. “This isn’t funny, Liza. I think I’m in serious trouble. Will you help?”

“Of course. You got it. This is like the coolest thing to happen to me since Kurt Johansen asked me out.”

Without the luxury of time to think long and hard about her destination, Faith had ended up at her former college roommate’s apartment near the Gateway Arch in downtown Saint Louis. Now she was wondering whether she’d been wise to put her friend in danger. Especially when she had a hard time keeping her facts straight. “Kurt Johansen was a bum. He stood you up.”

“Details, schmee-tails. The campus heartthrob was almost mine.” Liza waved her short red fingernails in the air, dismissing the conversation. “So your boss died. The guard died. And the cops think you killed them? That’s wild.”

If Liza added an
awesome
to the end of that sentence, Faith would have screamed. As it was, she schooled her patience and shared her plan, forgoing any mention of the disk or an unknown party’s murderous interest in it. “I need to borrow your car. I want to get out of town and talk to someone I can trust, so I’m heading west toward Kansas City to meet my uncle up near Saint Jo.” Liza’s eyes started to glaze over, so Faith hurried to give her instructions. “In the meantime, I need you to call the FBI.”

“The FBI. That is so cool.”

Faith exhaled a steadying breath. She and Liza were both only twenty-four, but today she felt decades older than her friend. “There’s a local office here in Saint Louis. The number’s in the phone book.”

Liza nodded. “Right. Call the FBI. Give them your name, mention you have information about Eclipse Labs and tell them you’ll meet them at the Kansas City office.”

Maybe her friend
had
been listening. “Exactly. You can use my car if you need transportation.”

“Are you kidding?” Liza retrieved her purse and fished out the keys to her Ford Focus. “This will the perfect excuse to ask Gabe downstairs in 3A to give me a ride. I’ve been looking for an excuse to get to know him better.”

Faith traded key rings. “Glad I could help.”

“So when are you leaving?”

“Right now.”

N
EARLY FIVE HOURS
later, Faith parked Liza’s red car at a Kansas City convenience store and filled the tank with gas. It wouldn’t hurt to refill her tank, too. She’d called ahead to her uncle’s house on a farm outside of Saint Joseph, Missouri. There’d been no answer, so she’d left a message that she’d be paying a surprise visit. But that was still another hour away.

She carried an armload of drinks and snacks to the center of the store where the clerk was flipping through the channels of the TV hanging above his head. He rang up everything, added the gas and swiped the credit card Faith handed him.

The pudgy man’s frown when he ran the card the first time didn’t alarm her. The fact that he spoke to her after running it a second time did. He held the card up between his thumb and forefinger, finally giving her his full attention. “Computer says it’s been canceled.”

“What?” She only used the card for gas and travel. And she made a point of paying off the balance every month. “That’s impossible. Run it again.”

Her indignant panic went unheeded. “Won’t do no good. The message says I should cut it up. I ain’t saying you did it, but the card was probably stolen.”

Faith blinked away the shock that threatened to paralyze her. Did everyone think she was a criminal? “It’s not stolen.” She pulled out her billfold, searching for her license to back up her claim. “That’s me.”

“Sorry, miss. I’ll need cash.”

She watched helplessly as he pulled out a pair of scissors and snipped the card in two. But that wasn’t what stopped her argument cold. She looked beyond him, above his head to the TV screen that had been tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel.

A familiar photograph from her college yearbook caught her attention from the top right corner of the screen. Brick-red hair. A shade brighter than Faith had seen it just that morning. Liza Shelton. The reporter was standing in front of Liza’s building, interviewing an official in a conservative gray suit.

“Agent Carmichael, what can you tell us about the body?” asked the reporter.

The man identified as Special Agent Rory Carmichael cleared his throat before answering. He recited the information with the cold diction of a heartless man. “Ms. Shelton was found by a neighbor who ID’ed her. Apparently, the victim interrupted a robbery in progress. She was cut up pretty badly according to the Saint Louis police. I haven’t seen the body yet myself.”

“Cut up?” Faith mouthed the words. Her eyes refused to blink. Liza, dead? Stabbed? She was going to faint.

“That’s how it goes.” The clerk had misinterpreted her question. “There ain’t nothing I can do. You have to call the company yourself.”

Glad for the distraction—any distraction—Faith tore her gaze from the image of her friend on the television and dug thirty dollars out of her wallet. If her credit cards had been canceled, handing over that precious cash would be risky. But she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. She just wanted to get on the road, get to Uncle Wes’s. Get someplace safe.

As she gathered her things and grabbed her change, the FBI agent’s words seeped into her thoughts of escape. “The Bureau is involved because Ms. Shelton called this morning with a crime tip. I can’t comment yet on whether the crimes are related.”

“What the heck is on that disk, anyway?” she muttered to herself, wishing someone could give her answers.

“Miss?”

Another death, following hot on her trail. Another senseless death. She stared at the clerk. Would this innocent man she’d spoken to wind up dead, too?
Run.
“Nothing. Thanks.”

Faith spun out of the parking lot and onto the highway, circling north onto I-29. Her hunger was forgotten. Her thirst, forgotten. Her plan to meet with the FBI, turn over the disk and report everything she had seen and suspected—all forgotten. It was all she could do to drive. To stay one step ahead of the faceless killer who had turned her life into a waking nightmare.

But the rolling green hills of northwest Missouri, with its lush farms and tree-studded rivers, had always been a soothing landmark to her. Symbols of home and safety, familiarity and comfort. By the time she’d traveled the long gravel road to her uncle’s farm, she was beginning to hope. Beginning to think that with his sage advice and sheltering arms, she’d find a way to make sense of all this. She’d be strong enough to handle whatever she had to do in order to clear her name and track down a murderer.

As she pulled up to the two-story white house, however, a niggling of doubt filtered in to spoil the last vestiges of hope. The place was deserted. Her uncle’s truck and her grandmother’s car were gone. No farm dog ran out from the barn to greet her. There was nothing but the heat of the early September afternoon beating down to welcome her.

Faith climbed out of her car and headed for the front door. “Uncle Wes? Gran?”

They could be running errands. Gran might have a doctor’s appointment. Wes could be catching pie and coffee at the downtown café. Faith didn’t worry too much about the front door being unlocked. It was one of the peculiarities of country living so a farmer didn’t have to carry his keys into the field, and a neighbor would always feel welcome. “Uncle Wes?”

But as she pushed open the door, her suspicions blossomed into full-blown fear. “Wes! Gran!”

She could barely hear her own voice over the pounding pulse inside her ears. Her grandmother’s antique furniture, the portrait of her parents that had hung above the mantel, Uncle Wes’s gun cabinet—all of it had been slashed. Broken.

Ransacked.

Picking through the memories by rote, feeling the violation of her childhood home—not through her fingertips, but rather through some detached sixth sense that kept her from going completely mad—Faith searched the house. Upstairs and down. The basement. The back porch. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified that she hadn’t found her family.

“How can they do this?” She spoke to the remains of what had once been her grandmother’s spotless kitchen. “How do they know?”