Line of Duty

by Terri Blackstock

  “Thanks for coming.” It was all he could think to say to this woman who’d played such a minor part in his life. He couldn’t imagine why she had come. He would have expected her to feign concern from a distance and keep all her Botox appointments.

  “Don’t worry, Danny. You’ll get the best of care. I’m going to see to it.”

  It was awkward, the way she just stood there looking at him, as if she were some stranger who’d been pulled in from the hallway.

  “It’s just so awful about the Icon Building. You’re so lucky to have lived through it, both you and Jill. So many people didn’t, you know. And all your firefighter friends and their wives have been so diligent to be here, even when they have all those funerals to attend.”

  Something tightened in his chest, and he caught his breath. “What funerals?”

  Suddenly Jill was back at his side. Her face was red, and he recognized her anger as she took Clara’s arm and tried to gently push her away. “Honey, she just meant—”

  “What funerals?” he demanded again, louder. “Jill, who died? Did some of our men die?”

  “Honey, calm down.”

  He knew then that she was keeping it from him. They had lost someone. Who had died? Mark? Nick? He tried to rise up, but he couldn’t manage it. “Jill, tell me.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Jill,” his mother snapped. “He’s not a child.”

  Jill shot the woman a silencing look, then turned back to him with tears in her eyes. “I will. I’ll tell you. Just a minute, honey.”

  He watched as she ushered his mother out of the room. He squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the worst news of his life.

  How dare you?”

  Clara spun around and glared at Jill. “How dare I what?”

  “How dare you say that to him?” Jill started to cry. “He doesn’t know that any of his friends died. He has enough to deal with! I didn’t want him to be upset in this condition. It might set him back.”

  Clara looked defensive instead of apologetic. “Well, you should have told me. How would I have known that?”

  “Common sense,” Jill said through tight lips. “Please, just go.”

  “You will not throw me out of my own son’s room!”

  “I’m not throwing you out,” Jill said. “I’m asking you to let me have some time with him to tell him about his friends.”

  Clara backed off then. “Very well. But I expect to see him again after that.”

  Jill watched her prance away, and she squelched the urge to throw something at her. She had to tell him now. She had to go in there and list the friends he had lost.

  She couldn’t do it alone. “Clara!” she called out, stopping her.

  Clara stopped at the double doors leading out of ICU. She jerked her head back, that haughty I’ll-show-you look on her face. “What?”

  “Please ask Mark and Nick and Stan to come in here. Tell them Dan needs them.”

  “So you’re going to crowd his room with those people, but you’ll banish his own mother?”

  Jill didn’t have time for this. “Forget it! I’ll do it myself.”

  “No,” Clara said. “I’ll do it. Go back in there.”

  Jill waited as Clara huffed out. Leaning against the wall beside his door, she told herself that she had to pull together. His mind was probably going wild about his closest friends dying. She should have planned this better.

  Nick came through the doors, Mark and Stan on his heels. “Jill, what is it?”

  “He knows,” Jill said. “His mother let it slip that some of our guys died. We have to tell him who it was. I need help.”

  She led them in and found Dan lying there with his hand over his eyes. Tears ran down his temples, and his face twisted in pain. “Who, Jill? I have to know.”

  “Okay, honey.” She wiped the tears off his face. “But look who’s here.”

  He looked beyond her, and she saw the relief washing over him. He started to cry harder as Mark, then Stan, then Nick surrounded his bed. Mark leaned over and gave him a rough hug, then he reached for Nick. Stan took his hand, squeezed it hard.

  “You guys are okay.”

  “Yeah, you’re the one we’ve all been praying for,” Mark said.

  “Then who?” He looked at Jill again. “Who died?”

  Nick took Dan’s other hand, and Dan looked up at him. “Dan, we lost George Broussard—”

  Dan sucked in a hard breath and covered his face. “Oh, dear God . . .”

  “And Junior Reynolds, Jacob Baxter—”

  “Oh, no.”

  His reaction was just what Jill had feared. She half expected the heart monitor to send out a Code Blue.

  “Who else?” he demanded.

  “Steve Winder and Karen Ensminger.”

  He folded both arms over his face, hiding his anguish from those who watched him. “So many. How could we have lost so many?”

  “But we didn’t lose you, man.” Mark’s voice was broken, hoarse.

  Jill came to him and he folded her into his arms and held her against his chest as he wept. His friends just stood around him, wiping their own tears.

  Finally, Dan let Jill go and pointed up at Stan. “Stan, you find the maniacs who killed all these people, and you make them pay.”

  “The FBI has the case,” Stan said. “But we’re holding three men who might be connected. If they’re not the ones, we will find out who is. And when they do—”

  “I’ve got to be on my feet by then,” Dan said. “I’ve got to be standing when I spit in their faces.”

  But Jill feared that standing would be as impossible a hope as bringing his friends back. She didn’t know how she was going to tell him about his legs.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Clara was ready for a fight when Jill emerged from ICU. But when she saw her tears, and those on the faces of Dan’s friends, she decided that her confrontation could wait. Maybe it wasn’t the time.

  Allie, Celia, and Issie went to comfort their husbands. “What happened?” Allie asked.

  Jill wiped her face with a balled-up tissue. Why that girl wouldn’t use a handkerchief, Clara couldn’t imagine.

  “We told him about the ones we lost. He was very upset.”

  Clara watched Jill go from one sympathetic pair of arms to the next, and suddenly she wished she had kept her mouth shut. Had Jill been right? Had the news set him back?

  “How is my son?” she demanded.

  Jill gave her a grudging look. “He’s sleeping right now.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just trying to keep me from seeing him?”

  Jill just gaped at her, and Clara knew she’d made a mistake. “Clara, I wouldn’t have left his side if he hadn’t fallen asleep. Tears take a lot out of a person, especially when he’s weak to begin with.”

  Clara sat back down. Now she knew Jill was lying. Dan wouldn’t cry. His father would never have allowed it. In all the years that she’d been married to the man, she had never seen him shed one tear. It wasn’t in his genes.

  It couldn’t be in Dan’s either.

  On the other hand, she didn’t really know him as an adult. His level of sensitivity was something she couldn’t gauge. And he had suffered quite a blow.

  But she hadn’t meant to upset him. For heaven’s sake, if Jill hadn’t wanted him to know, why hadn’t she briefed Clara on what not to say? It was absurd, her standing there mute while Clara floundered for something to say. It was almost as if she’d set her up.

  And she resented it.

  “Well, I can see that I’m not needed here.” She got up and slipped her bag over her shoulder. “I’m going home.”

  “To Paris?” Jill’s question was a little too hopeful.

  “No. To Newpointe.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  She started to formulate some kind of tart comment that would put her daughter-in-law in her place, but there was no one here who would appreciate it.

  She wished her husband were still
alive. She could use an ally . . . and a friend.

  Jill stood there with her own friends, their arms draped around her shoulders, as if their strength was what held her up.

  Clara felt suddenly cold. She picked up her sweater, draped it around her shoulders. “If Dan awakens, let him know I’ll be back before the next visiting time.”

  “Clara, it’s okay.”

  She looked back at her daughter-in-law. “What is?”

  “That you told him. He had to know. It’s all right.”

  The fight in Clara withered, and she didn’t know what to put in the place of her anger. Not saying a word, she simply walked away.

  As Clara left the hospital, she felt her own tears pushing to her eyes. Whether they were for her son or herself, she wasn’t sure. But she didn’t plan to give it another thought.

  She had neither the time nor the patience for tears.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Stan Shepherd found the coffeepot as soon as he got to the station and poured a cup that some rookie sergeant had made hours ago. It was too weak, but it would have to do.

  He took the cup to his desk and looked down at the chart he had scribbled on Newpointe Police Department letterhead. His detective’s mind tried to puzzle through the things they had learned about their three Middle Eastern detainees. So far, their alibis had checked out. They were indeed students, and several witnesses said they had been in class that morning when the bombs had gone off.

  “Excuse me. Officer Shepherd?”

  Stan looked up and saw a familiar blonde standing in front of him. It took him a second to remember her name.

  “Amber?”

  She smiled, pleased that he recognized her. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me.”

  “Well, sure I do,” he said, “but I haven’t seen you since you went away to college. What’s that been, six, seven years?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, something like that.”

  Amber Williams was the daughter of two of his friends from church. She’d been raised in their fellowship and had been baptized when she was ten years old. Stan had taught her in Sunday school when she was in tenth grade.

  “Look at you, all grown up.” He pulled a chair up to his desk, and she sat down. She looked nervous.

  “What brings you here?”

  She looked down at her hands. “Uh . . . there’s something that I need to tell you, but . . . is there somewhere we could talk in private?”

  Stan frowned and realized that she wasn’t here for a social call. This was police business. “Sure.” He stood up and looked at the interview rooms at the back of the squad room. One of the doors was open, indicating that it was vacant. “Come right back here and we’ll talk.”

  As he led her back to the room, he reeled through what he knew about the girl. She must be twenty-two or twenty-three by now. Certainly not a kid anymore, she looked like she could be a magazine model. She carried herself with an air of confidence that she hadn’t had when she was younger. But the expression on her face said clearly that something important was troubling her.

  He closed the door and pulled a chair out for her. “So what’s wrong, Amber?”

  She waited for him to sit down across from her. “Detective Shepherd, I probably should have gone to the FBI or the New Orleans Police, but since I know you . . .”

  His eyebrows came together. “Go ahead.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes. “This is hard to say. If my parents found out, they would just die. But I guess they’re probably going to.”

  His mind raced ahead, trying to figure out what she might be getting at, but he couldn’t settle on any one thing.

  “I’ve been having an affair with Donald Merritt.”

  His heart plunged, and he sat up straighter, staring at her. “Donald Merritt, the CEO of Icon?”

  She nodded. “I know it’s horrible. He was a married man and he had children, and I knew better. I really did. But I got caught up in that power thing and all his money. He took me on vacations with him and bought me nice things, set me up in a beautiful apartment. It was like living in a fairy tale.”

  Stan thought of all those Sundays when he’d talked to the girl about Christ. Had her sincerity just been a show?

  She leaned forward, her eyes locking into his. “When he disappeared in the explosion, I was devastated,” she said. “I started thinking this was my punishment for being with him. Maybe his punishment too.”

  Stan shook his head. “Amber, I still don’t understand why you’ve come to me.”

  “Because . . . I don’t think he’s really dead.”

  Stan’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you say that?”

  “Well, at first I was sure he was,” Amber said, “but then when reports started coming out about hidden bank accounts and that so much of his money was missing, that his family didn’t know where it had gone, I started thinking.”

  She got up and began to pace in front of the table. “Okay, he was in a lot of trouble, right? I mean, he was probably going to go to jail. He was waiting for an indictment any day now. Former employees were suing him because their 401Ks had vanished and their severance packages weren’t being paid. Stockholders were suing him because he had cooked the books. And he knew he was in serious trouble.”

  She stopped and turned back to him. “To top matters off, the day before the explosion I told him I was pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” This was getting worse and worse. He thought of her poor parents and the scandal this would bring to their family.

  Her eyes filled, and she looked up at the ceiling. “I was so stupid. I gave him an ultimatum. I told him that I wanted him to get a divorce and if he didn’t tell his wife about us, I would.”

  Stan sat back in his chair and rubbed his mouth with a finger. “So he stood to lose his wife and children, too.” He tried to process it all. “So what are you saying, Amber?”

  She still looked like the little girl he knew—not a harlot or a home wrecker.

  She swept her hair back behind her ear. “Look, I could be wrong. Maybe he really is dead and lying under that building somewhere. But on the news, there were witnesses who saw him running down the stairs. If they got out, then maybe he did.”

  Now it was becoming clearer. “Are you suggesting that he vanished on purpose?”

  She sat back down in her chair and pulled it up to the table, her eyes intent on Stan’s face. “Think about it. If you were in that much trouble, about to lose your fortune, your freedom, your family, everything, and you saw a way out, wouldn’t you take it?”

  Stan stared at her.

  “I think he walked out of that building that day and realized that if he never checked in, they’d think he was dead. I think he’s the one who took the money out of his bank account. It was secret, so he probably thought no one would ever realize it. I think he’s waiting somewhere until everything blows over. They can bury him and we can all mourn his loss, and then he can skip the country and start a new life.”

  “Amber, why would you give yourself to someone like that?”

  She wiped the tears running down her face. “Because I’m stupid, that’s why.”

  “Do your parents know about the baby?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut then and twisted her face. “Oh, that’s the stupidest part! There never was a baby. I lied. I made it up to manipulate him.” She slid her hand down her face. “I know what you’re thinking of me. Believe me, it’s nothing I haven’t thought about myself already.”

  Stan shifted in his seat, then clasped his hands in front of his face. “Well, I appreciate your telling me this,” he said. “It may all be relevant.” He studied her face for a moment. “Amber, do you think there’s any possibility that Donald Merritt could have had something to do with the explosion?”

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, then finally said, “It’s crossed my mind.”

  “Then he was capable of that?”

  “He might have been.”

  He fel
t the urge to throttle her and ask her why it had taken three days for her to come forward. “All right, Amber. I’m going to need some details, and then I’m going to call the FBI, and they’re going to need to interview you.”

  “I understand,” she said. “I was just scared, so I came to you. I thought it might help—your knowing me and all.”

  He shook his head, still reeling. “How did you meet him, Amber?”

  She studied her hands again. “When I got out of college, I couldn’t find a job so I started working for a temp agency. They sent me to Icon. I guess I caught his eye. I was flattered by the attention from somebody so important.”

  In his head he mentally calculated the age difference. It had to be at least thirty years. He’d seen Merritt’s wife and children on the news, and his heart had ached for the pain in their faces. He wished they would never have to know, but it was going to be hard to keep this from the press.

  If Donald Merritt was alive, Stan hoped he was there when they caught him.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Now let’s talk about why I can’t move my legs.”

  Jill froze beside Dan’s bed. “What?”

  “You’ve been keeping a lot of bad news from me.” He took her hand, brought it to his lips.

  There was no indictment in his eyes. Only questions that she couldn’t evade.

  “Let’s just get it all over with,” he said. “Lay all the cards on the table. I promise I won’t kill the messenger. Is this paralysis permanent?”

  Jill sighed and pulled up a chair. “Dan, the thing is, we don’t know yet. You had a spinal cord injury, and they’re giving you drugs to help with the swelling. Until the swelling is completely gone, we can’t know for sure.”

  His face tightened. “So what are my chances?”

  She tried to look hopeful. “Honey, your chances are good. I’ll bet within a few weeks you’ll have all the feeling back, and you’ll be back on your feet. They’re not going to keep you down.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, as if testing the confidence on her face. She must have satisfied him, because the tension relaxed from his face.

  “You look tired,” he said.