Searching for Secrets (11 page)

"Don't know. Not sure I'll be able to get that for you," Hadley said. "Your turn to bribe somebody within the department."

Kirk smiled grimly. "I'll do it later. Listen, I appreciate you checking this for me. I'll take the captain's advice and lay low for a couple days and do more next week."

Kirk picked up the paper Christa had given him. Rather, he thought, handed to him to read. It wasn't likely she had intended for him to leave with her prize. He half expected her to call last night, insisting that he bring it back. He wouldn't have minded a drive back to her place. To check on Amy and Frances, of course. Frances had insisted he stay in his own apartment last night. If he didn't, she warned, Amy would come to believe she was only safe when her uncle was around, and he couldn't always be there. So like his sensible sister.

His hand strayed to the phone. There really was only one person he could work with on this, only one other person who had the same strong desire--albeit for more stubborn reasons--to figure out who had wanted those computers so badly. He wouldn't call; she might tell him he couldn't stop by. He'd just show up at her door.

IT WAS A WARM DAY, so Kirk kept his truck windows partly down as he drove toward Mahaska Springs. You're used to piecing these kinds of things together, he said to himself. Aloud, he said, "Think about what you know." Something linked Chas Johnson to more than the computer components he had tried to steal from the school. Whatever it was had gotten him killed. Or, maybe the data on those computers was so valuable to someone that the penalty for failure to retrieve it was death. What could be that important?

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that Kirk didn't pay any attention to the dark green van that pulled parallel to his truck. He noted he was going more than 10 miles above the speed limit and slowed, glancing in his passenger side mirror as he did so. The last thing he needed was to get rear-ended. Something glinted in the mirror for a second, and he looked out the window.

He slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid the bullet that whizzed across the outside of his windshield. They had been aiming for his head. The drivers of the green van sped up and Kirk put his foot back on the accelerator. With his left hand steadying the wheel as he drove, he reached in his pocket for his cell phone, and immediately dropped it on the floor. "Damn it!" He needed to call for backup and get the van’s tag numbers on the police radio in case he lost sight of it.

He barreled down Dubuque Street, following the van toward downtown. Whoever they were, they were smart to make their move in the uncrowded strip between Interstate 80 and Church Street. He patted the floor near his foot and swerved into the next lane. He'd have to give up on the phone. He honked continually. Maybe he'd attract other cops that way.

The van didn't reduce speed as it entered downtown. Kirk had narrowed the gap to just a few car lengths. The light at Iowa Avenue turned orange. He sped up, looking right and left to be sure none of the university students tried to dart across the street against the light as they so often did. The van raced through the traffic signal as it turned red. Kirk accelerated and blew his horn.

Seemingly unmindful of Kirk's intentions, an old Ford with an elderly man at the wheel began to pass through the intersection. "Stop, you idiot!" It was too narrow a crossing to go around him. Kirk put both feet on the brakes and gritted his teeth as the truck turned 180 degrees and slid sideways toward the driver of the car.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHRISTA WAS TRYING HARD not to focus on Kirk Reynolds. She needed something to take her mind off the handsome, and very annoying, police officer. Despite the cast, she judged her arm to be too sore to drive, so she felt trapped in her apartment. She had never watched a soap opera and wasn't about to start. If she had her computer she could at least work on her lesson plans. She could do it with pen and paper, but she was more accustomed thinking with her fingers on the keyboard. And it would be a lot easier to type with one hand than it was to write when she couldn't use her other hand to steady the paper. She sighed in frustration and reached down to stroke the softly purring Brandy who was asleep at her feet.

She pushed on the remote to watch the mid-day news and caught the end of the lead story. An off-duty police officer had barely missed striking vehicles in downtown Iowa City. He had been in pursuit of someone who had tried to shoot him. The news camera took in the red truck that had almost literally wrapped itself around the utility pole at the corner of Dubuque and Iowa Avenues. Red truck! She strained for a better look. She was certain it was Kirk's, but she couldn't see him among the half dozen or so police officers milling around the truck or questioning witnesses.

The camera pulled back and showed an ambulance driving away. "The condition of the officer, who has not yet been identified, is not yet known."

Tears sprang to her eyes. An image of him holding Amy's hand as they walked together through the school hallway flashed through her mind. She had never met a man who was so sexy and caring at the same time. Bad arm or not, she was driving to that hospital. How hard could it be?

AS SHE ENTERED THE EMERGENCY ROOM, Christa couldn't believe how swollen her fingers had become from 10 minutes of driving. And she had done most of it with her right hand. She stopped at the emergency room information window. "I'd like to inquire about Kirk Reynolds. I think he just came in by ambulance."

The elderly volunteer cocked her head to one side. "We only let immediate family into the treatment area," she said.

Christa thought she looked as if she enjoyed enforcing that rule. "I'm one of his sisters. Frances should be here shortly, if she isn't already." It was the best thing she could come up with on short notice, but it worked.

The woman nodded without saying anything and pushed a button on the wall to her left. A buzzer sounded and the automatic doors swung open. Christa moved through quickly, not anxious to have them bump her cast if they tried to shut prematurely. She looked down a long hallway that had two doors leading off to the right and three on the left. At the end of the hallway was a nurses' station. Several medical staff busied themselves on the phones or with patient charts. A sign pointing down another long hallway, this one on her right, indicated the x-ray and hematology labs were in that direction.

She walked straight and glanced into the first room on her right. It was obviously a treatment area, with what looked to be four curtained spaces on each side. She stooped down. If the room was in use, its only occupants were on the gurneys themselves. "Kirk?" she said, softly. There was no response.

Uncertain, she stepped back into the hallway and was about to go into a room on the opposite side of the hall. From the hallway that led to the x-ray machine, she heard, "I told you it wasn't fractured."

The gurney rounded the corner. Christa thought the orderly pushing it looked as if he would be glad to be rid of his recalcitrant cargo. Hadley looked surprised to see her, then grinned. "The other half of the crime-solving team appears."

Kirk half sat up as the orderly turned the gurney into the treatment room. "You better be able to tell me you took a cab down here," he said.

"Oh, I can tell you that," Christa said. It wouldn't be true, but she could tell him that. She waited in the hallway until the orderly had parked Kirk in his area and left. "Can I come in?" she called.

"Sure," Hadley said.

Christa parted the curtain and looked at Kirk. "From the look of your truck, I thought you'd be in several pieces." She hoped her voice sounded light-hearted. The last thing she needed was for Kirk Reynolds to know how she felt about him.

"Air bag," he said, and propped one elbow under his head so he look more directly at her.

"His head hit the driver's side window so hard that it cracked the safety glass," Hadley said. "He didn't want to get checked, of course."

"Of course," Christa said.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Kirk asked.

"I wanted to see if you were all right," she said, simply. Kirk looked away, and Christa thought she detected a look of confusion on his face. "Fair is fair, you know. You brought me in here, I figured I'd chase your ambulance."

"You only asked if I "could" tell you I took a cab here." Christa smiled at Hadley who was studying her intently. He smiled slowly in return.

Kirk showed no sign of appreciating her humor. "You shouldn't be driving. You wouldn't be able to control your vehicle if you had to stop suddenly."

"I thought you weren't working this week." He sat up, and Christa watched the thin hospital gown slip low exposing part of his bare chest. She stood back a step.

"I was on my way to your place. Now, if you'll step out while I put on my pants, which I think are on the bottom rack of this stretcher thing, I'll fill you in while we head there."

Wordlessly Christa walked to the waiting room. She was glad to have a few minutes to compose herself. He had said he was on the way to her apartment. He was coming to visit? Oh, of course. He was simply going to return the paper he had rushed out with last night. Maybe he had even looked at it and had some ideas about what the letters and numbers might mean. Police work was important to Kirk Reynolds.

Christa sat in a chair by the window and looked at the cluster of cars parked near the emergency room entrance. She made a mental note that, cast or no cast, she had to do a better job of parking between the lines, or it would look as if she was driving drunk. She noticed a slim man in his mid to late twenties walking quickly through the lot. His gaze fell on her car and he came to a full stop. She wondered what could make it so interesting to a stranger. Or maybe he wasn't. She squinted. He was just under six feet tall, and the casual clothes he wore looked expensive, like something Trevor would wear. The long leather jacket alone had to be worth one thousand dollars.

The man gazed from her car to the emergency entrance and resumed walking toward her. Perhaps she did know him. The "Buckingham Elementary School Teacher" bumper sticker certainly would help any acquaintance recognize her car. She glanced toward the door through which she expected Kirk to come. No sight of him yet. Christa stood and walked through the revolving door. The man had left the parking lot itself and was a mere 50 yards away, just across the driveway that ran from the lot to the hospital itself. He looked right, then left, then ahead. As he looked her direction, Christa raised her right hand in a brief wave.

Again he came to an abrupt halt. This time he did not stand to stare at anyone or anything. Instead, he turned on his heel and walked rapidly back to the lot. Christa shivered in the autumn air. She hadn't figured out how to put a coat on over the cast, so she had simply left her house without one. She shrugged and turned around to find herself only inches from Kirk.

"Works for me," Christa said. "I'm not such a good cook at the moment." She handed him her keys and they walked to her car in silence. What had made Kirk Reynolds seem more like a cooperative partner than an adversary? Maybe the bump on the head.

As they drove, Kirk explained the green van and its occupant's apparent goal to shoot him. He spoke so calmly that Christa thought he might as well have been describing one of his cases instead of his own experience. "How many were there?" she asked.

"I don't know. They had deep-tinted glass in the windows. Every cop's favorite thing."

"And I take it this happens so rarely that you think it has something to do with the computer thefts and Amy's kidnapping?"

"So rarely that until I met you I’d never been shot at in almost 10 years on the force. In fact," his smile was grim, "judging from the number of bullets we pulled out of trees and bricks at Mahaska Springs, you've had more bullets fired at you more than I have."

"Remind me not to think of this as a contest," she said quietly.

"Look, Christa," he paused as if he was about to say something that was difficult. "I've been so anxious to keep you out of this I probably haven't asked you for your ideas. And I know for damn sure that I haven't let you in on some of mine. What do you say we put our heads together?"

"I'd say it's about time," she replied.

After they had ordered lunch, Kirk pulled the very wrinkled sheet of letters and numbers out of his jacket pocket. He smoothed it as he sat it on the table. "I was thinking, is there some way we can program your computer so it can do some substitutions for these letters and numbers? You know, all A's become G's, or something."

"You mean look for a pattern, some sort of code?" she asked.

Kirk nodded. "This may just be gibberish, or maybe it's instructions or whatever, something important to these thugs."