Sandra Orchard - Shades of Truth

Kim’s expression hardened. “I was thinking about the damage that rumors of a hit-and-run by a former resident would do to the manor. I don’t expect you to understand, Ethan. You’ve only been here a day. You couldn’t possibly care about the manor’s survival the way I do.”

The woman was as loyal and compassionate as they came. How could he have suspected her of trying to protect a drug dealer?

“I’m sorry, Kim. I was out of line. Believe me, I want to help you.” More importantly, he wanted to get her out of here before the police connected her—or him—to the shooting. The last thing he needed was a cop unraveling his cover. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

In the meantime, he needed descriptions of the kids vandalizing Kim’s car, because chances were good one of them had shot Blake, or had seen who did. And Ethan needed to talk to them before the wrong cop got to them. Or Kim.

Witnesses in this case had a bad habit of showing up dead.

SHADES

of TRUTH

SANDRA ORCHARD

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

—Isaiah 65:17

To Kate Weichelt, story doctor extraordinaire

and a real-life heroine, who lost her 20+ year

battle with cancer this past summer.

She remains a true inspiration to all who knew her.

Thanks to

My husband, Michael, for his unwavering support

and encouragement. And to my children.

You’re the best!

To Beth Fahnestock, the inspiration

for my heroine’s career and the

untiring answerer of all my job-related questions.

To my critiquers and brainstorming buddies,

Kate Weichelt, Vicki Talley McCollum,

Wenda Dottridge and Laurie Benner for their

encouragement and invaluable suggestions.

To my prayer warriors, Angie Breidenbach,

Lisa Jamieson and Patti Jo Moore.

And most importantly, thanks to my Lord Jesus

for the greatest love of all.

Taking this undercover assignment in Miller’s Bay, Ontario, was a bad idea. Too many reminders of his own screwed-up youth.

Ethan Reed trailed Darryl Corbett, the son of the detention facility’s founder, into the yard full of teenage boys. The mixed teams of staff and residents on the baseball field underscored the center’s buddylike approach to rehabilitation, but the barbed-wire perimeter glinting in the summer sun hammered home the reality.

While Darryl itemized the characteristics that set Hope Manor apart from government-run facilities, Ethan’s thoughts drifted to the reason for his secret recruitment from outside the Canadian border town’s tight-knit police force. Whoever was luring residents into becoming drug pushers had inside connections. Inside the manor. And inside the police force.

At first glance the youths looked like average kids in their saggy pants and oversize T-shirts, minus iPods dangling from their ears and ball caps askew on their heads. But Ethan didn’t miss the hand signals gang members flashed when they thought no one was watching, or the scars on their faces from fighting, or the burns on their skin from initiations.

The facility forbade wearing gang colors, but restrained rivalry was evident in their defiant swaggers and icy stare downs. They tried to look tough, but most of them were cowards who saw nothing wrong with three guys swarming a lone stray, like a pack of wolves circling their dinner.

A foul ball bounced in front of Darryl, who tossed it to the kid on the pitcher’s mound. “Basically, you’re expected to engage the residents in whatever activities interest them. If you’re any good at coaxing them to open up to you and talk out their problems, all the better.”

Ethan grunted. He’d better be good at getting the boys to talk, because whoever was recruiting these kids had neglected to mention short life expectancy in the job description.

An engine’s roar ricocheted off the brick building. Then a scream—urgent, terrified and female—pierced the air.

Ethan’s attention snapped to the perimeter, but a wall of pine trees blocked his view.

“That sounded like Kim,” Darryl said. “My sister.”

Ethan sprinted for the gate and yanked on the lock. “You got a key?”

“No!” Darryl raced for the building.

Ethan pictured the maze of locked corridors between them and the front exit and dug his fingers into the chain link. “I’ll meet you out front.” He bolted up the fifteen-foot fence, crushed the slanted barbed wire in his fist and vaulted over the top. Pine needles scratched his arms and face on the way down. He crashed through the trees, cresting the hill in three seconds flat. Not quickly enough to ID the vehicle squealing away. But soon enough to glimpse the blip of its single brake light rounding the corner. A few strides further, he spotted a woman wearing shorts and a sky-blue jogging tank crumpled in the ditch. Her muddied running shoe lay inches from a tire track carved in the dirt.

He skidded down the grassy embankment still slick from last night’s storm. A hit-and-run outside his newest undercover gig. Coincidence?

Not if Chief Hanson was right and there was a dirty cop taking bribes to sabotage the investigation. A cop that had somehow found out about Ethan’s mission.

Hitting level ground, Ethan broke into a sprint and grabbed for his phone.

Argh! He didn’t have it. A security risk, Darryl had said. A resident might swipe it. Ethan’s gaze shot to the driveway. Where was Darryl? They needed to call an ambulance.

Long chestnut hair hid the woman’s face, and the image of another jogger slammed into his thoughts. Fifteen years later and he could still picture her broken body. Blocking out the memory, he dropped to his knees at the victim’s side.

She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, in remarkable shape, but breathing way too fast and shallow.

“Miss, can you hear me?”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t move.

And the sight of her motionless body—too much like Joy’s—had a stranglehold on his gut. “Miss,” he repeated, more urgently this time. “Can you hear me?”

She fixed him with a startled gaze—luminous, rich green and so undeniably alive it kick-started his heart and sent it hurtling into overdrive.

Kim Corbett squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them, but the dark-haired stranger with the shaky voice didn’t evaporate. His muscular build blotted out the sun, washing him in a halo of light. Kim blinked again, this time noting the rapid rise and fall of the man’s chest, the bunched neck muscles that signaled a readiness to explode into action and, most surprising of all, the look of terror in his dark eyes.

She averted her gaze, swallowed the coppery taste coating her mouth. Ditch water seeped through her shirt and her ankle screamed, but she didn’t feel too bad. Although, given this guy’s worried scrutiny, she must look a mess. She swiped at her mud-streaked hair. “Who are you?”