Blood Strangers: Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets Read online

  Blood Strangers

  Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets

  Vicki Hinze

  Blood Strangers

  Copyright © 2020 by Vicki Hinze

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted, or distributed in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without specific written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher are illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is coincidental.

  Published by Magnolia Leaf Press, Niceville, Florida

  Print Edition ISBN: 9781939016409

  Digital Edition AISN: B08BS5X4MQ

  First Edition 2020, Printed in the USA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Sneak Peek

  Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets Series

  About the Author

  Also by Vicki Hinze

  Don’t Miss StormWatch

  Don’t Miss Breakdown

  FamilySecrets.Life

  WHEN BLOOD ISN’T THICKER THAN WATER

  They say blood is thicker than water.

  I guess it is, until it isn’t.

  There are occasions when at the first sign of trouble,

  family will throw you under the bus . . .

  and then run over you.

  Water then is thicker than the

  bloody roadkill remnants left of you.

  FamilySecrets.Life

  Prologue

  Canal Street

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  Monday, November 23, 10:30 a.m.

  A gruff old man in an expensive suit walked right up to Gabby Blake on the crowded sidewalk. “Helena?” He looked confused, swiped at his gray temple with a blue-veined hand. “No. No, you can’t be Helena.”

  Gabby nearly dropped the grocery sack in her arms. Her heart raced, her body trembled, and her throat went thick. “You knew Helena?”

  He squinted and studied her face. “You look just like my sister’s husband, Rogan. Just like him, God rest his soul.”

  The doors opened on a black SUV parked curbside and two rough-looking men spilled out. They rushed up to the old stranger and grabbed him by the arms. “It’s time to go,” one of them said in a hushed, urgent tone. “Right now.”

  Both men stared at Gabby. “Sorry,” the one on the old man’s left told her. “He forgets . . .”

  Ordinarily, Gabby would be guarded and suspicious, but looking into the old man’s eyes, seeing that things weren’t as they should be was obvious. Dementia, or something like it, she supposed. Bless his heart. “No problem.” She nodded at the newcomer who’d spoken to her. Had it not been for an instinctive warning—something in his eyes, in the way they all looked at her that had gooseflesh rising on her arms and shivers shooting up her spine—she would have asked the old man about Helena. Was it possible? After all this time?

  It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. The man was confused and mentally incapacitated, that’s all. Maybe some Helena had been his wife, or his sister or daughter and Gabby resembled her. He had said she looked like his sister’s husband. The old man must have approached her for some reason like that. He couldn’t have meant Gabby’s Helena.

  Fixing her grip on her bag of groceries, Gabby stood still on the sidewalk, watching the two men guide the old stranger back to the abandoned SUV. “Take me to him. Now.” The stranger’s shout at the other two men carried back to her. “I must see George right now!”

  They spoke softly to him, mumbled words not meant to be overheard, and helped the old stranger into the backseat, then quickly got in and rushed away.

  Gabby shivered. It must be so difficult to be confused and forgetful. And to care for someone who suffered with those challenges.

  Still, wasn’t it odd that of all the people on the street, he’d singled out her?

  It was. Very odd. And yet his Helena had to be someone else. After all these years, the odds of her being the same woman attached to Gabby were statistically off-the-charts impossible. Of course, the encounter had been a simple case of mistaken identity. Those men had no way of knowing her Helena. One looked too young to even have been alive then.

  Thanksgiving was in three days. Maybe the encounter was something mystical, like a spiritual wink from Heaven just greeting Gabby, wishing her a happy holiday.

  Though such a wink hadn’t happened before, it still seemed far more likely than those men running in the same circles as her Helena. Thugs in expensive suits were still thugs. Their paths and her’s never would have crossed.

  The matter settled in her mind, Gabby dismissed it and walked on, eager to get home to prepare her solo Thanksgiving feast.

  Chapter One

  Handel Security, Inc.

  New Orleans, LA

  Friday, November 27, 8:00 p.m.

  Happy 5th Anniversary, Gabby. Good work.

  Peter Handel

  Gabby read the card clipped to a plastic spike in a fragrant bouquet of flowers. The squat, clear vase had been on the edge of her desk when she’d come in that morning. Now, the cold and rainy day had turned into a cold and stormy night, and she sat alone in the IT division of Handel Security, Inc., certain her boss’s secretary, who surely ordered the flowers, had been the only one to recall today was Gabby’s fifth anniversary with the company. Honestly, if not for the flowers, Gabby doubted she would have remembered. Her time at Handel Security, Inc., seemed far, far longer.

  And she had no one to blame for that but herself. What else could happen when you chose a career to please someone else and not because you loved the work?

  Inhaling the sweet blend of floral scents, she stroked the petal of a lavender iris and endured a bitter pang of regret. The saddest part was that her plan hadn’t worked. The attempt to find something she and her father could share through their work hadn’t been any more successful than her other many attempts to forge a common bond with him. Face it, Gabby. In his eyes, you’ll always be worthless.

  An all-too-familiar ache tightened her chest. Having had years of practice, she buried it swiftly then glanced through the rain-speckled window at the blurred city lights and fixed her gaze on the Superdome.

  It is what it is. She had accepted it, truly. She just had to keep reminding herself that she had accepted it and he would never value her at all. Resigned, she turned her attention to work and reached for her keyboard. One more task and Fitch, who worked the IT night shift, should arrive and Gabby would be done fo
r the day. It couldn’t come soon enough . . .

  Half-an-hour later, she’d finished her daily report and minutes afterward, Fitch arrived. Soaked to the skin, he pegged his jacket on the wall-hooks lined in a row near the door. “It’s crazy cold and wet out there,” he said, dabbing at his round face with a paper-towel. Scraps of soaked paper stuck to his graying beard. “You run the sweep?” He smoothed his wet, wind-tossed hair. It sprang back, shooting out in every direction.

  “I did, and I started the backup at 7:30 sharp.” Peter Handel insisted on protocol consistency. About three times a week, Fitch ran ten to fifteen minutes late, which meant Gabby either started the backup for him or she suffered the fallout with him.

  While they rarely physically worked simultaneously, the boss held Gabby ultimately accountable for all things IT. That was a perk of being very good at your job. Having a talented if perpetually late co-worker was a minor drawback. As irritants go, that one was tolerable. Today, she had again covered for Fitch, but not to keep Peter Handel from getting riled up. It was past time he set Fitch straight. Simply put, Gabby felt magnanimous. The boss had sent her flowers—even if he didn’t realize he’d sent them. The gesture was just another insignificant protocol to him, but it was significant to her. In her world, thoughtful and kind gestures from others were both significant and rare.

  “Whew! Thanks, Blake.” Fitch slid onto his desk chair and then scanned his monitor. His jeans were wet from the knees down. “Peter would have docked my pay.” Fitch tapped at his keyboard. “I’ve got the controls . . . now.”

  Biting her tongue, Gabby glanced at her own screen and confirmed the transfer. “Acknowledged.” Looking forward to a hot meal and a long bath, Gabby logged off the system, then reached into her desk drawer and retrieved her handbag.

  As she shut the drawer, her desk-phone rang. Praying it wasn’t an internal or client problem Fitch couldn’t handle, she answered. “IT, Gabby Blake.”

  “Miss Blake.” The man’s voice was vaguely familiar. He sounded weary and tense. “This is Dr. Abe Adams at Tulane Medical.”

  Neither he nor Tulane were established Handel clients. Either could be new, she supposed, and she just hadn’t yet gotten the paperwork. Wait . . . Dr. Adams. She’d seen him in the ER last spring when she’d taken a tumble in the parking garage downstairs. “Of course, Dr. Adams. What can I do for you?”

  “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just spit it out. I do have a duly signed HIPAA release authorizing me to discuss this matter with you.”

  A HIPAA release? That confused her. “What matter is that, Dr. Adams?”

  “Your father was brought in on a 911 call,” Dr. Adams said. “He’s had a stroke.”

  Her heart beat hard and fast. Her father? “Is he . . .?”

  “He’s alive and stable,” Dr. Adams said quickly. “There’s some paralysis on the right side of his body and his speech has been impeded, but he is writing a little now with his left hand, so we are able to communicate with him.”

  “What’s he written?” Did he want her there, or not want her there? Considering he’d kept his emotional distance her whole life, she couldn’t imagine he would want her to even know about this. To actually let her see him vulnerable? He’d hate that.

  Dr. Adams ignored her question and asked one of his own. “Could you tell me, please? Who is Helena?”

  Hearing her name spoken aloud stunned Gabby. Never, not once in all her life, had her father ever uttered the name in Gabby’s presence. “Helena is . . . was my mother.”

  “Was? So, she’s deceased then?”

  “Yes, twenty-eight years ago. She died in childbirth when I was born.” Long familiar pangs of guilt ripped through Gabby and she shifted on her seat.

  “I see. May I ask if your father speaks of her often?”

  “To my knowledge, he never speaks of her.” Gabby stiffened. According to Janelle, the aunt Gabby had met once in her life at age twelve, her father didn’t blame Gabby for her mother’s death. He just couldn’t stand to look at her because of it. Some losses run too deep to forget. “What is it you need from me, Dr. Adams?”

  “Your father wrote down your name and phone number.”

  Which told her nothing. She worried her lower lip, ignored Fitch’s slanted curious looks. He was clearly listening and pretending not to hear. She dropped her voice. “Why? What does he want from me? Should I come to the hospital, or is he just letting me know?”

  “Excuse me?”

  No way could she say that again. The words would clog her throat and she’d choke. She opted for silence instead.

  “You’re his daughter, Miss Blake.”

  “I’m acutely aware of that, Doctor.” She swallowed hard, tempered her tone. “Will he recover?”

  “We believe he will. The first twenty-four hours were most dangerous, but he made it through them without further incident.”

  “The first twenty-four hours?” Surprise streaked up her spine. “When did this incident happen?”

  “Three days ago,” Dr. Adams said. “He was unconscious on the sidewalk—on Canal Street near the river. A passerby spotted him and phoned 911. Until today, we didn’t know who to call. He’s been writing, but until this evening, we couldn’t decipher anything beyond the name, Helena. Confusion is common in these cases.”

  Apparently, Gabby wasn’t an ICE contact in his phone or wallet, or they had been stolen. “He arrived without any identification, then?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Stolen. “And his left side is impacted as well as his right?”

  “Not from our testing, no. Just the right side.”

  “Dr. Adams, my father is left-handed,” she said, cupping her forehead in her hand, her elbow atop her desk. “Why is his writing undecipherable?”

  “After the trauma of a stroke, it can take time for the, er, confusion to dissipate. He’s actually doing well on that front,” the doctor assured her. “Has he had any illnesses or stroke symptoms in recent months? Slurred speech, the inability to form and speak complete sentences, or an inability to smile?”

  Smile? Her father? Not likely. At least, not around her. “I don’t know.”

  “Um, Miss Blake,” Dr. Adams hesitated, then went on. “I don’t want to pry, but have you been estranged? You and your father, I mean.”

  She slid Fitch a covert glance, but his chair stood empty. Relieved at his stepping away from his desk and giving her a little privacy, she blew out a long breath. “We’re blood strangers, Dr. Adams,” she said. “We have been since my birth.” Forcing the pain of that fact out of her voice and infusing it with a strength she didn’t feel took effort. “I’ll come to the hospital if you like, but it would be prudent to first be sure he wants me there . . . for both our sakes. “

  “I understand.” The doctor softened his voice. “May I ask how long it’s been since you’ve seen him?”

  Her face went hot. “Christmas.” An hour in a room together not talking, not looking at each other, was about all either of them could take. A knife couldn’t cut through the tension. It’d be a challenge for a machete.

  “Oh, you live away.” Dr. Adam’s voice lightened. “I’m sorry, Miss Blake. I thought you lived in New Orleans. The area code—”

  “I do live in New Orleans,” she admitted. “You weren’t mistaken.”

  “But it’s weeks until Christ . . . Oh, you meant last yea—“ He stopped himself. “My apologies, Miss Blake.” A long pause stretched into silence. Finally, he said, “I’ve sent a nurse to specifically ask your father if he wants to see you. She’ll return momentarily.” He cleared his throat. “Um, actually, with this virus, we wouldn’t consider permitting you entry into the facility—it’s patients only—but with no identification, we do need a positive ID. Ah, she’s back now, and she’s nodding.” The doctor listened, then repeated. “She asked, and he wrote, ‘Now’.”

  Now. That stunned Gabby. “Very well.”

  Dr. Adams hesitated. “You’ll c
ome to the hospital, then?”

  “Of course.” She glanced at the window. Huge raindrops splattered against the glass and ran in rivulets down the panes like rivers of tears. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “Thank you, Miss Blake. Masks are required, and I personally recommend gloves as well.”

  “Fine.” Gabby hung up the phone. Her stomach fluttered. She demanded it stop and issued herself a stern warning: Don’t make anything out of this. He isn’t going to suddenly become the dad you always wanted when he’s never been the father you needed. People aren’t built that way.

  Fitch returned to his desk with a steaming cup of coffee. “Hey, everything okay, Blake? Sounded like bad news.”

  “Everything’s fine.” She nodded in Fitch’s general direction and walked toward the door, grabbing her coat and umbrella from the hook on the way. “Night.”

  Now. Adian Blake wanted to see her now. Why? Never in her life had he wanted to see her.

  But never in his life had he looked into the face of death.

  That could make a person want to see anyone familiar, even the only living relative he’d tried to ignore her whole life. Couldn’t it?

  She pushed the elevator button. If he still thought he was dying, then maybe. But surely he had been told he should recover.

  Confused and conflicted, she stepped into the elevator, then pushed the down button to the parking garage. The descending motion conspired with her upset and her stomach lurched. She smoothed it with an unsteady hand, absolutely refusing to let his treatment of her make her feel inferior or unworthy. She’d been down that road most of her life and had yanked herself off it. She wasn’t going there again.