Blind Trust by Jody Klaire Read Free Book Online Page A

said. “These ladies were caught up in it. Doc Mayberry
in there?”
    Hal gripped his brimmed hat in the kind of manner that my father
always did. A gesture that showed alarm and annoyance all at once. “Well, you
sure don’t look banged up, but sure thing,” he said after a long silence. “Er .
. . come on up.”
    I looked at Renee who shrugged. She wasn’t going to argue with
skipping the line. I could tell by her “not a word” face.
    We headed into the station as Hal led us down the corridors.
Inside it was kinda like I guessed most police stations looked. Even walking
inside made the hair on my arms try and jump out and dive for cover. It was
never good when I entered a police station—I ended up arrested, escaping, or
getting charged with murder. I glanced over my shoulder at the doorway. Maybe I
should have just waited outside.
    Renee touched my arm and gave it a squeeze. “It’ll be alright.” 
    I tried to smile off the rapidly building need to hurl myself
through the nearest exit. I looked to my right as we passed a set of double
doors. The fire crew were huddled around a table, looking at some kind of map.
I tensed as I felt the panic ripple over me from them. They looked calm but
they were anything but.
    “So, you get hit anywhere?” Hal asked. His twang placed his origin
way more south than where we were now.
    “Nothing too bad,” Renee answered. “But our car has probably ended
up down the mountain somewhere.”
    Hal blew out a breath, took his hat off, dipped his eyes, and
crossed himself. “Yours,” he sighed and led us down the corridor, “and the other
poor souls down there.”
    “Others?” Renee asked, glancing my way. Concern glinted in her
eyes. I was sure we’d been the only ones on the road but with the low
visibility there could have been cars up ahead of us.
    I tried to shake off the flicker of a dream that I’d had that
morning. I had woken up in a sweat, sure that I’d just relived our adventure in
the night. Only now, the deeper we walked into the station, I realized that the
flicker had shown daylight.
    Uh oh. 
    We got to the sheriff’s office before Hal could answer and he
knocked like a school kid on the principal’s door. I could see now that he was
a lot younger than he first appeared. His weather-beaten face aged him a good
ten years but he was young, maybe even younger than my twenty-seven years.
    “Sheriff McKinley,” he said, opening the door. “There’s two ladies
here, they got caught up in it too.”
    We headed into the room and I got a lightning flash of pain down
my left leg. I had to bite my lip not to yelp out loud. McKinley sat on his
desk with a bottle of whiskey in his hand as another guy, who I assumed was the
doctor, prodded at his leg.
    “You got out?” McKinley asked. “Thought I was the only one who
made it.”
    I could sense that Renee was itching to take charge. She was
highly trained in all sorts of emergency stuff and I was pretty sure before CIG
she had been involved in this kind of thing. Not that she’d ever tell me
nothing.
    “That looks more recent than last night,” she said. “We were
caught in the run on the north side of town.”
    McKinley scowled at his deputy. “Then, ma’am. I’m glad your—”
    He howled as the doctor moved his leg and I bit back my own howl.
    “Safe,” he grunted. “But we got a big problem on our hands.”
    “Can we help?” Renee asked. Her mask was slipping away by the
second.
    McKinley eyed her. “You a medic?”
    Renee sighed. “No, sir. I’m a doctor but in psychiatry.” I wanted
to poke her. She was a medic and I was better than any sniffer dog at
finding people who were trapped. I went to speak but she elbowed me in the
ribs.
    “My deputy will show you out,” he said.
    I stepped forward. No way was I going to let the guy suffer like
he was. He had things to do. I knew from meeting his deputy Hal that although
he had a good heart, he was not ready to run a rescue operation.
    “Can