24

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?”

Tom pulled out his identification. “I’m Detective Parker. False alarm.”

The security officer looked over the ID and returned it to Tom. “Anything I should know?”

“Yeah, one of the patients on the third floor may be in danger. We’re taking steps to relocate her ASAP. In the meantime, you can closely monitor all entrances.”

“Who are we looking for?”

“We don’t know.” Tom handed him a business card with his cell phone number scribbled on the back. “Call me if you notice anyone acting suspiciously.”

“You want me to send a guy to the third floor to keep an eye on things?”

Tom glanced at the five-story brick building with more exits than security cameras. “That would be great. Room 308. Thanks. I need all the help I can get.”