Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [52]
“Well, then”—he bent down and kissed her again, more gently this time—“I guess that’s a start.”
He held the door for her and she eased onto the cool leather seat, her heart still pounding and her head still swimming.
“I guess we’ll have to go back and pick up your car,” he said as he slid behind the wheel. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“Home,” she told him.
“Home?” He frowned. “Why would you drive all the way back there tonight?”
“It’s only a few hours,” she reminded him, “and besides, my day is going to start early and I have a big dinner date tomorrow night.”
“It figures,” he grumbled, his good mood swinging south.
She laughed. “I volunteer to provide dinner to Father Tim’s shelter for homeless men once a week.”
“They let you cook?”
“Smart-ass. Tomorrow’s my night.”
“Father Tim must be pretty desperate.”
“Please. Anyone can put together a spaghetti dinner.” She rolled her eyes. “But if the truth were to be known, I am having a little bit of help.”
“Ha!”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Selena offered a few jars of sauce that she made last summer.”
“Selena who made the wonderful soup?”
Kendra nodded.
“If her spaghetti sauce is as good as her soup, these guys are in for a treat. Think anyone would notice if I sneaked in for one night?”
“Not a chance. Father Tim will feed anyone who comes and sits at his table. No questions asked.”
“How do you know you’ve made enough, if you don’t know how many will show up?”
“Somehow it always works out that there’s enough.” She shrugged.
“Sort of like the loaves and fishes.”
“Sort of.”
“How did you get involved in that?”
“Through Selena. She met Father Tim when he was first starting up his mission over in Reedsboro to help homeless men and was looking for volunteers. One thing she could do was cook. So she started a program where meals would be served every night of the week and she got others to sign up to take one night. Pretty soon she had enough volunteers to have each person responsible for only one night out of the month. There are beds for a few who have no place else to sleep, and he helps to get medical care for those who need it. There’s a shop there where the men can trade hours of service, working on the house or the grounds, for clothing if they need clothes. Residents get three meals a day. . . .”
“. . . more than I’ve gotten lately,” Adam noted under his breath.
“. . . and there are volunteers to help the men look for jobs. And there are opportunities to earn a few dollars working around the Mission.”
“Father Tim sounds very ambitious.”
“He is”—she nodded—“and very successful. He’s helped hundreds of homeless men over the past few years.”
“Can’t that prove to be dangerous?” Adam asked as he pulled up alongside Kendra’s car on the street near Grace Tobin’s house. “Aren’t some of those men potentially unstable?”
“There have been no problems that I know of. And Selena is a psychologist. She has provided some counseling services over the years.”
“She sounds like quite an interesting woman.”
“She is. Did I tell you she’s psychic?”
“I thought you said she was a psychologist.”
“She is. But she’s psychic, too.”
“For real?”
“The only real one I’ve ever met.”
“Does she read your mind?”
“Sometimes I think she does, though she doesn’t mean to, and tries to hide it when she does.”
“I’d like to meet her sometime. I’ve never met a real psychic. Ask her if she can help us solve this case, why don’t you?”
“It doesn’t work like that with her.”
“How does it work?”
“I’m not really sure. I think things just come to her.”
“Well, see if something will come to her before another woman loses her life, will you?”
“She knows about the case. If she was getting anything on him I wouldn’t have to ask. She’d tell me. She just doesn’t always know. She tries not to know things.”
Kendra thought back on the incident with Lola, and related the story to Adam.
“Someone left a poisoned sandwich in your backyard?” His eyebrows raised.
“It was an accident, I’m sure.”
“How do you accidentally leave a poisoned sandwich someplace?”
“I can’t think of any reason why