Blind Faith - Sharon Sala Page 0,58
killed. It was a big game changer from trying to win her back, then trying to force her to come back.
The fact that she’d been able to shut down Universal Theorem worldwide had obviously scared him. Taking his money in the way she had would only be a temporary aggravation...and she didn’t want him to think she’d kept it. She needed to find a project she knew he would hate, and donate all of that money in his name. Then figure out what kind of safeguard to put in place between them that would make him back off for good.
She could have taken care of all of this years ago, but it would have meant revealing her truth, and that would have turned her into a science project. There would have been people wanting to study her, and countries trying to buy her skills, and her existence would have been hell. The day Charlie Dodge hired her was the day she gained purpose again, and she didn’t want to lose that.
But that was for another day. Right now she had food to pick up and a lost granddaughter to find.
Her order was ready when she got to Whole Foods, and the pickup went smoothly. She dug a Hershey bar from the groceries and took a big bite as she left, opting out of the freeway to drive through the city, taking backstreets and winding her way through neighborhoods to get back to Merlin’s estate.
As soon as she got the car unloaded and everything put up, she put a chicken tortilla casserole in the oven to bake, set the timer and went back to check the latest search she’d been running. When she sat down at the computer and clicked on the screen, she instantly focused. The last search she’d been running had several hits, and there was one that stood out from all the rest.
* * *
If Katrina Delgado had even an inkling that her grandmother was looking for her, she would have been over the moon. She didn’t remember anything about her birth family, and barely remembered her mother.
Her foster families had been good ones and bad ones, and when she aged out of the system at eighteen, she was on the streets of Philadelphia for a whole year before she made a friend who took her in, and then almost another year before she landed a steady job at a pancake house.
She was so grateful to have a job that she went out of her way to be the hardest-working, most accommodating waitress there. Six years later she still was. She caught a ride to work from a neighbor who dropped her off at the pancake house at 5:00 a.m. Then she rode a city bus home alone when her shift was over.
She hadn’t had a boyfriend in two years. The last one went to jail for selling drugs, and she hadn’t known he was doing it. Now she was afraid to trust anyone for fear whatever they were doing wrong would take her down, too.
It was nearing the end of her shift when she noticed it was starting to rain. Just great. It would be a wet walk to the bus stop, but it wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last.
She grabbed a coffeepot and stopped off at all her tables to top off the diners’ cups. A half hour later she clocked out, and was all bundled up against the cold and the rain when Brenda, her boss, called out.
“Katrina! Wait!”
She turned around and saw Brenda running to her with an umbrella.
“You’re going to need this,” Brenda said.
Katrina smiled. “Thanks, Brenda! I’ll bring it back in the morning.”
“Keep it,” she said. “I have another one.”
“Much appreciated,” Katrina said, and popped it open as soon as she got outside, then hurried toward the bus stop.
For once, the bus was on time and she didn’t have to wait long in the rain. By the time she got home, she was cold and shivering.
First thing she did every day was change out of what she called her pancake clothes and throw them in the laundry. Then she slipped into warm sweats and thick socks, and made herself a cup of hot tea.
She was digging through the cabinet for honey to stir in it when her cell phone rang. It was a number she didn’t recognize, but it didn’t matter. Nobody called her, so a wrong number might be the only call she would receive this week.