Trust Me (Last Stand #1)(72)
Author: Brenda Novak

She just had to be careful. But all the caution in the world couldn’t make her feel secure. Lorenzo Bishop had managed to get inside her house although she’d been as careful as she could be.

David had put together a file of all the details he’d been able to collect on Bishop—information on his past crimes; his family, who still lived in L.A. and claimed to have had no contact with him for nearly three years; the places he’d worked; the cities where he’d resided; his chronic drug dependency and trips in and out of rehab. But she didn’t know much more about him than she’d known ten days ago, when the shooting had occurred. At least, she didn’t know the one thing that really counted. Had Oliver sent Bishop? Or was it someone else?

She longed to put her doubts to rest. But they were still guessing, despite the fact that David was working around the clock to dig up answers.

They’d been in touch several times since the fund-raiser. They’d talked about her lunch with the mayor and Senator Denatorre, which had gone even better than she’d hoped. The mayor had agreed to speak with the chief of police, to see if they could improve cooperation between TLS and the department; Denatorre had said he’d fully support it. Other than that, her conversations with David always revolved around Burke or Bishop and were never personal. David rarely had anything hopeful to report, and he sounded more exhausted with each passing day.

“What’s wrong?” she asked when she answered his call and he didn’t immediately launch into another work-related conversation.

“I can’t find any connection between Oliver and Bishop.” His voice was filled with frustration. “I’ve dug through six years of high school yearbooks, interviewed hundreds of people, put the screws to the people closest to Oliver, and…nothing.”

“What about his parents?”

“I couldn’t get through to them until today. The mother finally picked up and told me she was going to sue the city for harassment if I didn’t quit leaving messages on their recorder.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked if she’d ever heard the name Lorenzo Bishop.”

“How’d she respond?”

“She didn’t. She hung up on me.”

“And Jane?”

“She broke into tears, saying she doesn’t remember the name but that she doesn’t know what’s up and what’s down anymore.”

It was only four in the afternoon, but Skye had driven home early because she couldn’t face making the trip after dark. She’d needed a reprieve from the gut-gripping fear she felt every night after work, and the bright blue sky and mellow sun of a late-January afternoon had helped.

But now it was growing dark, and the old, clawing fear was stealing up on her again.

“He must not be connected to Oliver,” she said.

“He has to be.”

“Maybe it’s someone else, someone like Kevin Sheppard. He wasn’t happy when I had to turn him away as a volunteer.”

“It’s not Kevin Sheppard.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I checked him out after you mentioned him a few days ago. He moved to Texas and is now living there with his mother. Plus he has no ties to Bishop.”

“What about Tamara Lind’s husband?”

“Layne? Tamara went back to him before Bishop broke into your house. I don’t think he’d bother with revenge and risk going to jail if he had what he wanted in the first place.”

Skye hated that Tamara was once again in an unsafe situation. She’d done everything she could to convince her to stay out of harm’s way. But Tamara wouldn’t listen.

“He hates me, though.”

“He blames you for interfering in his marriage,” David said, “but Bishop doesn’t show up in his life anywhere, either. And he’s a hothead, the type to come after you in the heat of the moment, not the kind of guy who’d hire someone else to do it.”

She opened the cupboard where she’d put the pregnancy test she’d bought three days earlier. Every evening she told herself she was finally going to put her anxiety over that incident with David to rest.

And every evening she talked herself out of it. She was too afraid of what the results might be, had no idea what she’d do if the test turned out positive.

Would she tell David?

How could she? She didn’t see any point in making him more conflicted than he already was. And she definitely didn’t want him to support the child out of obligation. No, if she was pregnant, she’d raise the child on her own.

But that would cause all kinds of changes in her life….

“So who else could there be?” she asked when she realized the conversation had fallen into silence.

“Noah.”

“I told you, Noah wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“I checked anyway.”

“And?”

“You’re right. No connection to Bishop.”

Shutting the cupboard with a decisive snap, she moved back into the living room to make sure she’d lowered all the blinds. After Burke and then Bishop, she always felt as if she was being watched. “That doesn’t surprise me. What about Jane?”

“She doesn’t have the money it’d take to hire someone.”

Skye thought of Jasmine’s dream and the uncanny and possibly coincidental mention of someone named Kate. Although it was a long shot that Jane would conspire to have her murdered, anger and depression sometimes did strange things to people. “But Bishop was a drug addict. Sometimes those people will do a lot for very little.”

“That’s true. I did a cursory check and found nothing, but I’ll look deeper.”

“Thanks.”

Their business was over, but neither one said goodbye. Skye closed her eyes, feeling a poignant longing for the kind of intimacy that would add a new dimension to her life.

When David finally spoke, she understood why he hadn’t ended the call. “Skye, about what happened the night of the fund-raiser…”

She tightened her grip on the phone. “I told you, it was nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I am worried. I need to know if you’re pregnant.”

“No,” she said quickly and hoped to heaven it was true.

“You know for sure?”

The relief in his voice told her what her answer had to be. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I never should’ve put you in that position, especially with everything you’re going through.”