Searching for Secrets (9 page)

Christa nodded from her perch on the edge of her bed as she stuffed toast in her mouth. She swallowed the dry bite. "I'd love it. The doctor says as soon as the swelling in my fingers goes down I can drive, even with the cast and..."

"Whoa. What's the hurry?"

How much, she wondered, did she dare tell Sandra? "I can't stand the idea of needing someone to drive me everywhere."

"It wouldn't hurt you to rely on someone else for just a little while, Christa." Macklin's countenance was serious as she cut up the two sausage links. "Besides, you should take a few days off."

"I'll be fine, really..."

"I said," Macklin arched an eyebrow just as Christa remembered her doing in countless faculty meetings, "a few days off. Maybe even the entire week."

"Since when does the principal talk the teachers out of going to school?" Christa asked, secretly glad to have some time to examine the page of computer gibberish and put her apartment back in order.

"When she's pretty certain the teacher will try to do too much too quickly." Macklin smiled. "You know how you are. You'd be in there tomorrow. Take some time to get used to getting around with the cast. And I noticed you favored your hip when you sat on the bed."

They finally agreed that Christa would go by and see her students Monday afternoon, presuming she felt up to it, and that she would recuperate at home until at least Friday. That was the day of the school's Halloween party. "I'll come as the Tin Man," Christa joked, "my arm is already stiff."

BY THE TIME SANDRA HAD DROPPED HER at Mahaska Springs, Christa was exhausted. It was astonishing how such a relatively small amount of exertion wore you out when you were tired and pumped full of pain medicine. She stretched her feet on the sofa and wiggled her toes under the afghan Sandra had covered her with. Coddling allowed, she had said. Christa would take a short nap, then look again at the confusing numbers and letters on the paper still stuffed in the pocket of the pants Sandra had put in the laundry basket.

She was almost asleep when she heard the soft knock on the door. Maybe it was Kirk coming to apologize for his pig-headed comments last night. She sat up and struggled to kick off the afghan. It would be a day or two before her hip stopped hurting.

Frances and Amy stood in the doorway, faces somber. "We got you up," Frances said, frowning.

"Not really. I was just resting on the couch." Christa smiled at Amy. "Come in. You've certainly had an exciting couple of days."

Amy held out the shoe box she was carrying. "Me and mommy made you some cupcakes." She handed them to Christa as she marched into the apartment.

"Thank you so much. I love treats."

Frances gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and took the box from Christa as she followed her daughter into the apartment. "I thought the least I could do was clean up some of the black goop I know the fingerprint crew left." Christa noted that she held a package of disposable cleaning clothes and a bottle of pine-scented cleanser.

"Really, you don't have to." Christa knew it would be a pointless protest. Though she didn't know her well, she could tell that when Frances King made up her mind about something she didn't stop until she was done. The difference between her and her brother was that she was helpful rather than arrogant.

"You, madam, are in charge of sitting," Frances said as she walked into the kitchen.

"I guess I don't need to tell you where to find the sink," Christa said as she returned to the loveseat. She wasn't used to being waited on, but until this cast came off in four weeks she would have to get used to at least a little assistance.

Amy shrugged. "Not so much. I think they were a little nicer than the bad guys on TV." Frances, scrub bucket in hand walked from the kitchen into the living room and she and Christa exchanged somber looks. "One of the bad guys said nobody would hurt me, and I believed him."

Christa realized she didn't even know how many people had been involved. She didn't want to badger Amy. Kirk would know. Kirk. Not that she would have a chance to ask him. "Did you see my cat?" she asked.

Amy shook her head. "I heard him last night. But we never did see him. Not even when Uncle Kirk and the apartment manager came in here."

"She has a lot of hiding places. Right now, I think she's under my bed." Christa nodded toward the kitchen. "If you go into the kitchen and take that box of dry food off the counter and go in there, she'll come out. Just shake the box a little so she can hear the food."

"Is she allowed to eat in her bedroom?" Amy asked.

"Not usually. We'll make an exception today." Christa found it hard to suppress a smile.

Amy scampered into the kitchen and then down the hall, and Christa turned her attention to Frances, who was carefully washing a fingerprint off the wall just outside the kitchen. "Kirk said they must have worn gloves, because all the prints looked alike; yours, I presume," Frances said. "But the fingerprint crew still checks a bunch of places so they can be sure."

Christa realized the only time she had seen Frances sit down was when Christa instructed her to sit on the sofa before she told her Amy had been kidnapped. "Frances," she said softly, "Amy tells me she used to have a brother. I kept thinking how much worse that must have made yesterday for you."

Frances stopped her scrubbing and stared at the cloth in her hand for a moment before she looked at Christa. "It was horrible. Tim had a heart ailment we didn’t know about." She straightened her shoulders. "I just kept thinking that God would never take both my babies and my Jack away from me. And, He didn't." She looked down the hall. "She came back." Frances' gaze returned to Christa. "I thank you."

"You don't owe me any thanks," Christa said. "I'm the one who was holding her when they grabbed her."

Frances shook her head. "And it was my idea that Kirk take her with him when you and he went up to the school. If I've learned one thing since Jack's death two years ago, and now Timmy's, it's not to look back. I've never deliberately made a choice that would harm my family. Sometimes, bad things happen. I just wish," she paused, "that I could convince Kirk of that."

"I've never been able to convince him of a damn thing," Christa said. The pain medicine must have dulled her senses. I can't believe I'm criticizing Kirk to his sister.

Frances threw back her head and laughed. "I figured you must have pushed his buttons." Still smiling, she dunked the cleaning cloth into the scrub bucket.

CHRISTA TOOK A LONG NAP after Frances and Amy left. Feeling only half awake, she made herself a cup of tea and returned to her living room. It wasn't often she felt so lonely. There were sympathetic messages from other teachers on her answering machine. But there were no close friends to call. And even if there were, it wouldn't be the same as having family. You could go visit their graves and show off your cast. Christa smiled at her attempt at black humor. Her parents were buried less than 20 miles away, but she rarely went to the cemetery.

They were lucky to have been happily married 40 years and to have died within such a short time of one another. Christa was their 'unexpected blessing,' as they put it. Born when her mother was 42 and her father 48, she had spent her pre-school life with adults. Many of her parents' friends were grandparents; there were no shared mornings in a park with friends and their children. But, Christa had no complaints. She had grown used to spending much of her time by herself.

Still, she hadn't planned on being alone all her life. A marriage like her parents' was a blessed experience, but Christa didn't see any way to find a man confident enough to accept an independent woman. Certainly, Kirk Reynolds couldn't be happy unless he was in charge.

The afternoon sun shone in the window behind the couch, and she looked drowsily at the strings of numbers and letters on the now-wrinkled sheet sitting on her lap. The first line was 11 8 4 21 23 15 4 17 * 17 4 23 15 * 5 4 17 14. The second line was in all capital letters--I L G E K D C K D. Nothing made sense. For the time being, she assumed the asterisks were there to group numbers in some way. Why? There were eight numbers in the first group, so they couldn't be a phone number. At least not a U.S. phone number.

She heard the main door to the apartment building swing open and listened to see if the person walked down the steps to the ground floor level on which she and Frances and Amy lived. No such luck. Not that he would come to her apartment anyway. She still hadn't told him about the file she had printed, but she wanted to. Since he was already angry with her, she might as well keep him agitated. It seemed to be Kirk Reynolds' mood of choice.

The ringing phone jarred her. At first she thought it was a crank call. But when the man who claimed to be the mayor told her he had asked the local business community to replace the three computers for her classroom, Christa sat up straighter on the couch. She told him her students had been pleased to win the original three from his office and he asked what they wanted to use them for. She told him about their plans to get Internet pen pals from other countries and their delight in hearing the computer pronounce words in Spanish for them. But that wasn't what she really wanted to talk about.

"Mr. Mayor, do you know where those first three computers came from?" she asked.

He hesitated. "They were from an anonymous donor. I do hate to divulge the individual's identity. Might discourage future generosity, you know."

Christa was less concerned with prospective donations than with the history of the computers, but no amount of questioning would pry the information from him. With growing impatience, he told her his aide would call very soon and tell her when she could expect the new computers.

She recradled the phone, still thinking about the mayor's refusal to say where the computers came from. She shrugged. At least she could tell her students that they would again be able to have computers in their classroom instead of having to go to the computer lab. She supposed she should be happy about that.

KIRK STARED AT THE POLICE REPORT, certain that if he read it again it would tell him more than he knew about last night's events. No prints but Christa's and a couple of his inside the apartment, and the ground was too dry to yield any footprints from the people who fired at him and Christa. Christa. She started all this. No, that wasn't fair. She exacerbated it. She was too tenacious for her own good. Too tenacious and too apt to keep things to herself.

He made a note to run a background check on her. He should know more about her, given her involvement in this case. That’s my only reason for wanting to check, isn’t it?

Kirk returned to the report on Chas Johnson's murder. His prints on the inside of the computer the thieves first tried to steal were the only solid clue. And Chas Johnson certainly wasn't going to tell him anything. Fast Freddy was the last person seen talking to Johnson, but there was no weapon and no way to connect the small-time drug dealer with the murder. Kirk would love to catch the shifty pusher and learn who his supplier was. He was certain Freddy was the one who had sold... "Stop it," he said aloud.

"Thanks," Kirk said, trying to cover the pain in his voice with a curt response. "Did you get that ballistics test yet?"

"That's why I was looking for you." Hadley plopped the file on Kirk's desk. "Of course, you aren't here."

Kirk grinned. The captain had been furious that he had "involved a civilian" in Amy's rescue. He eventually understood Kirk had no other option given the timeframe and the kidnapper's demand that Christa be the one to go to the park. But he was still angry. That was probably one reason he had given strict orders that Kirk was to take several days of 'family leave' to spend time with his sister and niece after their 'terrible ordeal.' Kirk would take some time; he appreciated it. But, first he wanted to find out anything he could about the men who kidnapped his niece. He didn't want them looking for her again. Or for Christa

"What did the bullet tell them?" he asked.

"You were right. A good possibility it's the same gun that killed Chas Johnson," Hadley said. "Can't be 100 percent sure since the bullets we found were smashed into trees or bricks. But it looks pretty good."

Kirk studied the report. He told himself the deep pit of fear in his stomach should really be relief. If he knew more about the crime, he could solve it. But all he really knew was that someone had shot at Christa and had been within a few yards of Frances and Amy. He was not going to lose any more people he loved. He was going to find the people behind this, and Christa Heckertt had better stay out of his way.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHRISTA SLAMMED THE PHONE DOWN, no small feat given that she had to hold the receiver and her pencil in the same hand. All Sunday night she had thought about the mayor's reluctance to tell her where the computers came from. What difference did it make if she knew? She wouldn't go ask the donor for more of them.

When the mayor's aide finally returned her call on Monday he had been just as evasive. What he was pleased to tell her was that a local bank had donated two computers, and a "small retail computer store whose owner wished to remain anonymous" had provided the third. When Christa had pushed to know the third donor, the aide had said the man could not often make such a donation and did not want people to believe he could. Fair enough. Christa smiled. She had a feeling Mr. Watkins deserved a big thank you.

A car honked. Since Christa insisted she was well enough to at least say hello to her students, Sandra had come over during the noon hour to pick her up. Christa knew her fourth graders would be less anxious if they could see their teacher rather than just hear about her injuries on TV. Though Amy's kidnapping and Christa's role in her rescue might seem exciting, the bullet-firing burglar and her fall into the cellar would very much frighten them. As she locked the door to her apartment, Christa hoped she and her students would soon be able to put all of it behind them.