Saving Face (Mount Faith Series: Book 1) Read online

  Saving Face

  A Jamaica Treasures Book

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

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Barrett

  Book Cover Design: Yorkali Walters, www.theimajination.com

  *****

  Discover other titles in the Mount Faith Series:

  Tattered Tiara (Mount Faith)

  Private Dancer (Mount Faith)

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  Dear Reader

  In Jamaica, way off the beaten path in the cool hills of Malvern, there is a fictional place called Mount Faith. It boasts one of the premier universities in the island. This series is based on the lives of the Bancroft family who all live, work, go to school, or have some contact with the Mount Faith environment. The series consists of eight books. Each book is listed in order below:

  The Mount Faith Series:

  Saving Face (Book 1)

  Tattered Tiara (Book 2)

  Private Dancer (Book 3)

  Goodbye Lonely (Book 4)- Sep 2013

  Practice Run (Book 5)- Oct 2013

  Sense of Rumor (Book 6)- Nov 2013

  A Younger Man (Book 7)- Dec 2013

  Just to See Her (Book 8)- Jan 2014

  Thank you for reading.

  Yours Sincerely,

  Brenda Barrett

  Prologue

  Annette couldn't believe that was it. She gazed at Ryan's scrawny back as he pulled on his clothes and her mind tried to come to terms with the fact that she was no longer a virgin. She had given up her precious virginity for this. The books she had been reading told her that the world would move, her body would shatter in pieces, and she would feel complete. She was not feeling complete. Instead, she was feeling a boatload of guilt and the only thing shattered was her dignity.

  Ryan turned around and stared at her, he was feeling uncertain too. They were both just sixteen, they should have been at choir practice but they had been practicing things of a different kind in his room and now they were staring at each other a bit shell shocked.

  He cleared his throat. "We should get going Mommy, will be home soon."

  Annette widened her eyes in consternation. She had only to find her panties, which was somewhere on his wooden floor and pull down her skirt.

  He had just hiked it up earlier and fumbled and pushed his way into her clumsily. She winced as she got up from the bed. Her purity bracelet was caught on the sheets and she tugged it free.

  Ryan was wearing one too and the irony of the situation hadn't escaped him. They could no longer consider themselves members of the purity club at church. They were no longer set apart by their refusal to conform to societal pressures about sex. They were now just regular fornicators, just like those of his peers who he would sneer at and pity because of their lack of morality.

  "Come on," Ryan said harshly. He was hearing the stern voice of Sister Edna in his ear and his guilt was multiplying rapidly because he saw tears in Annette's eyes.

  How could one act, which lasted nearly a minute, be so devastating? It wasn't even that good. For one moment in time he had felt a rush of release so sweet, and then a slap of guilt so sharp he had rolled off Annette's prone body and turned his back to her.It wasn't even worth it, Sister Edna's voice said in his head. In his mind's eye, he could see his father, who was also a first elder, nodding in agreement.

  Annette wasn't faring any better. She was castigating herself for stopping over at Ryan's. They had been dating steadily for a year and they hadn't gone much past chaste kisses on the cheek and innocent hand holding, until Ryan had gotten it into his head that he wanted to practice French kissing.

  For several weeks they indulged themselves and eventually French kissing led to breast touching. She should have said something because she was not comfortable with the whole direction into newer and sexier waters that they were taking, but she had found it pleasant and besides that was not even what they called heavy petting.

  Today when she came by to get her choir book from Ryan it was the first time she was even coming to his room. It was the first time they had even attempted heavy petting and it was the first time she was having sex. The thought made her shudder.

  Sex wasn't all that it was hyped up to be.Sister Edna, their youth leader, kept telling them to "wait and do it God's way, don't listen to the echoing shouts of the world on the topic," but she had guiltily thought that Sister Edna was bitter in her outlook on sex because she was not getting any.

  How wrong she was. It was not worth it if you felt like this afterward. No way was it worth it.

  "Where's the bathroom?" she asked Ryan. She couldn't look him directly in the face.

  "Through there," he pointed to a door in the passageway. She grabbed her panties and walked gingerly toward it.

  She hurriedly wiped up the wetness between her legs and then she washed her face. There was a chipped mirror above the face basin. She tried to avoid staring at herself but she could see that her neatly combed hair was sticking up all over her head.

  She wished she hadn't done it. She fixed her hair and then washed her face again. She really wished she hadn't done it.

  If only she could time travel. She would just stay at the gate and call Ryan. When he came out, she would have just asked him for the book. She wouldn't have come inside his house. She wouldn't have walked into his room and sat on his bed or watched him while he got ready, or smiled pleasantly at him while he sat beside her, or opened her mouth for that dratted French kiss, or laid back on the bed while he leaned over her. She wouldn't have done any of that.

  Chapter One

  Interim President Ryan Bancroft pushed up his glasses on his nose bridge and gazed over at his senior staff. There were about twenty-five of them that were gathered around the vast boardroom table that was adjoining his new office.

  He flicked imaginary lint off his Armani jacket, put on a purposefully sad expression that he had been practicing in front of the mirror this morning, and gazed at his colleagues.

  "It is a sad occasion." His voice was cultured and clipped. He had cultivated it to have the right inflection and the right phonetic lilt to make the hearer sit up and take notice. For years, he worked on his accent so that it didn't have a trace of idiomatic slant clouding his otherwise smooth speech.

  "Our first meeting as senior staff here at Mount Faith Christian University without our enigmatic and fearless leader." He cleared his throat for the dramatic effect. "We are deeply moved by his sudden passing. Personally, I almost felt paralyzed when I heard the news four weeks ago, but life has to go on, even while we mourn. In the meantime, as you have heard, I have been appointed your president in the interim. Apparently there are three more candidates that are being considered for the job by the board of trustees, so do not get too used to me as your president yet."

  Polite laughter greeted this statement and Ryan paused before he continued. "Today we have a new man among our ranks, a doctor from the Behavioral Center in Florida who is also in the running for president here at Mount Faith. Dr. Taj Jackson."

  Every eye swung to look at Taj who was at the end of the table.

  Taj smiled politely and then their attention was directed back to Dr. Bancroft who cleared his throat impatient
ly.

  "Dr. Jackson will be spearheading the new Psychiatry Center here at Mount Faith, a first of its kind in the island, where they will specialize in addiction and forensic psychiatry. The services will be available to staff and students and there will be an outpatient care. It will also give our graduate students a place to practice and hone their skills.

  If you ask me, I think this is a noble move, Dr. Jackson. I have no idea why you would even want to concern yourself with a position so unexciting as the presidency, with your hands so full at the center."

  Polite laughter greeted that statement again but Taj realized that Ryan Bancroft was not joking; he was looking at him with a serious gleam in his eyes.

  "Well, on to other business," Ryan said while he gathered his papers and looked at the vice presidents and deans that were seated before him. This was what he had worked for and wanted for the past twenty years: the presidency of a university. It was his dream since he first stepped on the grounds of the University. Now that his dream was so close, he did not intend on letting anybody snatch it from him.

  He glanced briefly at Taj Jackson again, the young doctor. The poor lad still seemed to have stars in his eyes. He was just thirty. He remembered this from the dossier that he had collected on him and the two other contenders for 'his position.'

  There was no way he would allow a young upstart, like Taj Jackson, to just waltz into the University and take the plum position that he had been toiling for so long.

  When Edward Carlisle finally had the sense to die, he had been filled with elation, and why not? Edward had just been a figurehead. A dummy president who did nothing to enhance the university, or make it into the institution that it could be.

  He had been content to sit back and go with the old way of doing things: walking around the campus in that vague way of his and doing mostly nothing. But Ryan had plans, big plans for the place.

  He had not spent the last ten years at Mount Faith waiting for this moment to have somebody snatch it from him.

  He made a mental note to thoroughly check out Taj Jackson. The other candidates were not really competition. He would not be leaving his future up to chance. Never again would he do something as stupid as that.

  ***

  Superintendent Garfield Greyson, head of the Area Three Division police leaned back in his office chair and looked at his two best detectives: Harry Campbell and Natasha Rowe.

  "I called you both in here because I have a problem."

  Greyson steepled his fingers. The two detectives were dressed in plain clothes. They had just arrived from busting a drug shipment in the Western side of the island. The Area One superintendent had specially requested them. Those two got results and everybody knew it, including the commissioner of police who had mentioned them in his request for this case. Greyson had hoped that they would not be free because this was a run of the mill kind of case.

  "Have a seat, have a seat." He indicated to two chairs in front of his desk. He had mountains of paper piled on one side and he pushed them aside so that he could see the detectives when they sat down.

  "You must have heard about the president at Mount Faith University suddenly dying of a heart attack."

  The detectives both nodded.

  "It was all over the news," Natasha said.

  "Well, what you may not know is that he was my mother's brother."

  "Your uncle sir?" Natasha asked her eyebrows going up. "But he was young. How old was he again? Fifty?"

  "Yes, my uncle," Greyson tapped his hand on the table, "my mother's favorite brother actually. The Commissioner of Police has taken particular interest in the case because it is a high profile one. He personally handed me the docket for this case and asked if you two were available. He wants a swift winding up of it. The commissioner went over the autopsy report and he has his suspicions.

  I have been going over the autopsy report myself and there is something that is not right about this whole business."

  He handed the report to Harry Campbell. "What do you see wrong with the whole picture, Sergeant?"

  Harry perused the report and his eyebrows raised higher and higher until finally he handed it to Natasha.

  Natasha read it and then handed it back to Greyson. "What are you thinking Sir?"

  "I am thinking murder." Greyson pursed his lips. "My uncle had high blood pressure, according to this report. His blood showed extremely high levels of potassium, otherwise called hyperkalemia, at the time of death. Why would a person who has high blood pressure take so much potassium, enough to knock him out?”

  He shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. I am thinking he was surrounded by several learned persons in the sciences who could inject him with the potassium, knowing that a heart attack would be the result."

  Natasha leaned her head to one side. "The report also said that regular and steady high doses of potassium could cause the problem too."

  Greyson grunted. "And that's why the report says potential homicide. Somebody close to Edward Carlisle was out to get him. Somebody smart."

  He looked at his detectives. "Somebody crafty, but little do they know though that he has a nephew who will not stop until he finds who that culprit is."

  He flung his hand wide. "That school is a Christian institution, founded in the 1900's by Christian pioneers. They would turn in their graves if they knew what the school has come to. They have murderers and thieves, and who knows what else breeding up at that place."

  Natasha and Harry looked at each other, their eyes asking the same thing:is Greyson too emotionally involved in this case?

  Two cases ago he had sent them on a wild goose chase on behalf a friend of his. That had come to naught and they had wasted the department's time and money on a favor for a friend.

  "Er...Sir..." Natasha was the more outspoken one of the two detectives. "Are you sure that this is murder? Maybe your uncle was not diligent with his intake of potassium and he took it in without realizing the damage he would cause himself."

  Harry cleared his throat. "Maybe he was eating too many bananas."

  Greyson growled. "That's nonsense. He didn't like bananas. I know that from my childhood. Do you know we are almost the same age? We grew up together. We still saw each other regularly. I would know if he had been eating too many bananas."

  "And that is why I think we may be pursuing a dead-end here, sir," Natasha said meekly.

  Greyson rapped the desk in anger. "I am done arguing this. It was murder. We are going to find the murderer and bring them to justice. You two," he said pointing at them, "are going back to school. You are going to enroll at Mount Faith University for the semester. You have three months to solve this case."

  "But...but...Sir," Harry stuttered, "how on earth are we to find out the information that we need as students."

  "Figure it out," Greyson said. "You two are my best detectives. If anyone can solve this, you can. Leave no stone unturned, you hear me? A person of my uncle's stature shouldn't go down just like that."

  Natasha swallowed. "Sir, the first semester begins in two weeks! How on earth are we going to get admitted?"

  "Leave it to me," Greyson said, "I still have contacts at the school. I don't need to tell you two that this investigation is top-secret, do I?"

  They both shook their heads.

  "Okay." Greyson waved them off.

  Chapter Two

  Natasha and Harry went to their poky office. They had two green iron desks jammed in there, two identical rusty file cabinets and a fan in the corner that Natasha had taken from home because the AC had a tendency to break down in the hottest months. Not that she and Harry spent much time in the office anyway. They were usually working undercover in one location or the other.

  It was exciting work for Natasha, who had always wanted to go into law enforcement. She had especially liked forensics but could not afford the university fees. Instead, she had done evening classes for over five years and had finally gotten a degree in forensic psychology. Her degree ca
me in very handy with her detective work. She sat in her chair and powered up her computer. They were supposed to be new; a gift from the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica, but they were still slow. She figured it needed a system maintenance but the IT person had not reached their station yet.

  She looked over at Harry. His computer was faster and already he had gotten out his notepad and had started scribbling, looking up at his computer and jotting down points.

  They had been partners now for a year and a half. Harry was a cool laid-back guy who had the kind of face that looked as if you had seen him somewhere before. Natasha had lost count of the number of times that strangers had come up to Harry enquiring about relatives or acting familiar with him, but he had no clue who they were. He was tall and slim, with medium brown skin and a wide mouth.

  Her computer finally came on and she typed in her name and password on the screen.

  "So how are we going to do this?" Natasha asked Harry.

  Harry looked up from his rapid scribbling. "First we research all we can about Mount Faith University."

  Natasha nodded. "I already have some info on the school. I had wanted to go there when I was researching universities to attend. Found them too expensive though."

  "Alright," Harry stopped scribbling, "then we get together a list of suspects. Make the list as exhaustive as possible and then we target them when we go to the school."

  "Which classes are you signing up for?" Natasha asked curiously.

  "It depends on where the suspects are and how close we can get to them." Harry shook his head. All of this would be easier if we had access to faculty. Why couldn't Greyson have given us access to faculty?"

  "Can you teach?" Natasha laughed.

  Harry shrugged. "Of course. I teach down at the gun range when I have the time."

  Natasha giggled. "This is academia, not skill. You need to know theories and give lectures and those kind of things in a university."