Read Online Broken Trust by Shannon Baker - Free Book Online

liked being employed. Not only was she about to start sharing Alpo with Abbey, her isolation was grinding her to a nub of insecurity and craziness. Hadn’t she been seeing the kachina and those damned blue flashes?
    Blue flashes and now Benny.
    His steady gaze seemed to read her doubts.
    “I think I’m going to like it fine. Loving Earth Trust does some great environmental work.”
    He nodded but didn’t act convinced. “What sort of work will you do?”
    Why did he get to ask all the questions? He showed up out of the blue—literally. “What brings you from Hopiland to Boulder?”
    “You.” He said it simply.
    Not weird at all. A little Hopi farmer, aged anywhere from thirty to fifty, who hated to leave the Mesas and his corn, traveling 800 miles to see someone he didn’t know all that well was perfectly normal.
    This was going to be trouble.
    “How did you find me?” She dreaded the answer.
    His eyes twinkled with humor. “It wasn’t hard.”
    Whew. She feared he’d say something far worse —
    “Nakwaiyamtewa told me.”
    —l ike that.
    A punch to her stomach couldn’t have stolen her air with more force. She ought to talk to him, invite him over for dinner, say something polite and normal. All she could do was swivel on her heels and run to the back door of the house.

nine
    Nora pulled into the well-lit parking lot of her apartment complex long after sunset. She located a spot between a beat-up Honda and a rusted pickup.
    The complex had the ambience of a dormitory. Several buildings snugged together in a maze of two-story units with worn shingle siding. A wrought - iron railing lined a balcony that ran along the second story with the apartment s’ front doors opening onto the concrete walkway. Each apartment had a deck on back , and many held bikes and cheap grills. Cars and motorcycles drove in and out at all hours.
    Two twenty-something girls with heavy backpacks carried giant Jamba Juice cups as they chatted on their way to a first - floor unit. A young man whizzed behind them on a bike. He called to the girls and they hollered back.
    Nora sat in her Jeep staring up at the porch light in front of her apartment. The Stress-O-Meter didn’t go high enough to measure her first day of work , and now she must face Abigail and try to be pleasant.
    Fall’s nighttime temperatures brought enough chill that Nora’s fingers and cheeks tingled as she clumped up the metal outside steps to the second floor. Abbey followed acting as if this were any ordinary trip home and not one sending them into a wasps’ nest.
    “With any luck, Abigail will be tucked into the spare bed.” Abbey gazed at her but, as usual, didn’t answer.
    Earlier, the staffers of the Trust checked out one by one while Nora had s tayed glued to her computer screen, studying, searching, printing documents , and trying to understand the different projects and their fund details. Each discovery made Nora’s stomach churn until it felt like a bucket of acid.
    The third - quarter financials Mark sent her bore little resemblance to the numbers on her computer. The climate - modeling program headed by Sylvia LaFever showed the largest discrepancy ; i ts deficit tilted the entire organization into the red.
    No wonder Mark wanted Nora to present the financials he sent , since they showed a much rosier view of the Trust. But Nora couldn’t lie. And when she told the board the truth, Mark would fire he r .
    She’d balanced up as much as possible, printed and collated the copies for the board, and said goodbye to her office. Nora had already calculated the salary she’d receive for just one day — it would barely buy a bag of dog food.
    She sent a fervid prayer to the universe that Abigail would not be in one of her nitpicky moods. Or one of her nagging moods.
    Or, just please don’t let her harp on me about what I wore today, and what food is in the apartment, my furniture, housecleaning abil ity, and just for tonight, let us not discuss her