Word of Honor

by Terri Blackstock

  “We have to get out,” Dan whispered. Jill started to come up from the floor board, but suddenly, there was one more ram, and the car fell further over the side, its other front wheel suspended in air.

  They heard a siren coming from behind them, and the truck took off as fast as it could go, leaving a trail of black smoke behind it.

  Dan didn’t have time to worry about him. He had to get Jill out of the Bronco. “Climb over the seat and get out the back,” he shouted.

  She was almost hysterical, so he grabbed her hands and made her look at him. “Jill, climb over the seat! We have to get out.”

  She nodded, then got on her feet and crawled over the seat. The left side of the car was bashed in, but there was just enough room to get through. Dan pushed the button to disengage the back door, but it was stuck.

  “Dan, I can’t open it!” she cried. “Hurry!”

  He crawled back, his way made more difficult by his size and the injuries he was just beginning to feel. He felt the car rocking, felt its weight shifting, heard Jill screaming for him to hurry. The police cars screeched to a halt as the Bronco began to bob…

  Finally, with one last thrust, he got the door open.

  Jill fell into his arms as they stumbled out of the Bronco, and clinging together, they watched as it rocked…

  Once…

  Twice…

  Then fell over the bridge into Lake Pontchartrain.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jill couldn’t stop shaking. She sat in the rescue unit as they splinted her swelling wrist—which was, miraculously, the only injury she’d suffered—and watched the highway patrolmen who had converged on the scene, directing traffic across the bridge. An all-points bulletin had gone out on the man who had run them off the road. They had found the beat-up truck abandoned not far from the bridge, but the man had apparently fled into the woods on foot. When they traced the truck, they learned it had been reported stolen early that morning. Police were combing the woods on the other side of the bridge, but they weren’t having any luck. Somehow, the man had gotten away.

  Jill fought back the tears, knowing that if she gave into even one, she wouldn’t be able to stop crying for days. She watched as Dan stood on the edge of the bridge, his arm in a sling. He was in pain, she could tell, and probably had a broken collarbone, but he had refused to let the rescue unit transport him to the hospital just yet. He had too much to tell the police about what had happened, and he was determined to see the man caught. The blue flashing lights of the police cars lit one side of his face as he gave as much information as he could to the police.

  Jill tore her eyes from him. Had she brought this trouble on him? If so, he was going to rue the day he’d ever met her. Hostage situations, car accidents…What would happen next? She wasn’t safe to be around.

  Finally, when Dan was satisfied that he’d told the police everything he could, he allowed the rescue unit to transport them to Newpointe Hospital, where there was a noncritical care emergency room. They couldn’t treat head traumas or gunshot wounds, but they could do X-rays and set broken bones.

  As they rode, Dan pulled Jill close. “You okay?” he asked for the hundredth time tonight. “How’s your wrist feel?”

  “Okay,” she said. “I feel sure I don’t have any broken bones.”

  “Sprains hurt plenty.”

  “I’ll take a sprain any day. I’m supposed to be dead. That guy was after me.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t me he wanted dead? He wasn’t real discriminating in the way he came after us.”

  “It had something to do with yesterday,” she said without doubt. “Something to do with Jerry Ingalls.”

  “You don’t think Ingalls is behind this, do you?”

  She thought it over for a moment. “Why? Because I refused to represent him?”

  “Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s revenge.”

  “Or intimidation to make me give in.”

  Dan wasn’t convinced. “Don’t look now, but that was no threat. I think you and I were both supposed to be dead on the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain by now. If he wanted to make you represent him, he’s not helping his cause.”

  The thought sent chills down her spine. “It’s so confusing. I was with Jerry Ingalls for several hours yesterday. I mean, I know he had a gun to my head, but I just don’t think he’s the kind of person who would have someone hunt me down to kill me.”

  “What about his wife? Do you think she would send someone after you?”

  “No! She was as meek as a mouse. Besides, wouldn’t they know that they would be the number-one suspects? What good would it do them to kill two more people?”

  “What good would it do them to blow up a post office? We’re not dealing with rational people here.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  They rode in silence for several moments, and finally Jill looked up at Dan. “I want to talk to him.”

  “To who? Jerry Ingalls?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I want to find out what’s going on. And I want to talk to his wife.”

  “Why? They’ll just lie. They aren’t going to tell you.”

  “But I’ll know,” she said. “I’ll be able to look into their eyes and tell if they’re lying. I’m a pretty good judge of character. People lie to me all the time. I’ll know, Dan. I’ll be able to tell.”

  “But what point would it serve?”

  “It might give me a clue as to who tried to kill us, and who it is that’s still out there. He failed, Dan, so he may come back and try again. I want to find him before he finds us.” She turned her anguished eyes up to his. “I’m so sorry to drag you into this, Dan. If I were you, I wouldn’t get within ten feet of me.”

  He tightened his embrace and kissed her. “Do I look like I’m afraid to be near you?”

  She steeled her heart against his kiss. “If you’re smart, you are.”

  “Well, I’ve never been accused of being all that smart.”

  She knew that wasn’t true, but he made his point. Still, she didn’t expect him to hang around much longer.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Frank Harper had swum several miles down Lake Pontchartrain by the time he took the chance to look back at the lights flashing on the bridge. Police were everywhere, and he could hear dogs barking and voices yelling.

  Clutching the rifle, he went back underwater and swam farther, then came up at the edge of a campsite. He saw campers with their lights shining through windows, and the sounds of singing coming from a rec building at the back of the grounds.

  Slowly, cautiously, he came up out of the water, thankful it was July. Dripping, he skirted the edge of the lake and zigzagged through pine trees and over downed logs, until he came to the parking lot.

  He went from vehicle to vehicle, looking for one that wasn’t locked. When he finally came upon an unlocked van, he slipped in through the side door.

  The van was plush, comfortable, a good place to get some sleep. First, he had to get it out of here, though. If those cops and their dogs made it this far, the dogs would sniff him out for sure. No, he had to be far away.

  He saw a duffel bag lying on the backseat, and hurried to open it. A man’s T-shirt and some gym shorts and flip-flops were stuffed in there, along with a water bottle and a racquetball racket. Unable to believe this stroke of luck, he laughed out loud and began pulling off his wet clothes to don the dry ones.

  Then he slipped between the front seats and bent down to hot-wire the car. It cranked to life, and he shifted into reverse. Without turning the lights on, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the road.

  He knew they would probably have a roadblock west of the campground, so he turned east.

  As he drove farther and farther from the scene, he wondered if he had succeeded in killing Jill Clark and her friend. He had seen the Bronco go over the bridge and had felt a moment of joy. He turned on the radio to see if there were any reports.

  He f
licked from a country song to a Cajun tune, to Christian music, to a rock sound, then finally came upon the news. He listened carefully through news of the Asian economy, the illness of the Russian president, Congress’s latest bill to pass…

  Finally, they got to the local news out of New Orleans, and he turned it up. “Police are investigating a murder attempt that took place earlier this evening when an unidentified suspect ran two people off of the I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. The driver’s Bronco went over the bridge, but, amazingly, the two escaped before going with it. The suspect, who was driving a stolen pickup, escaped on foot. Police are still looking for the unidentified man, and warn residents in that area to stay inside and keep their doors locked. The assailant is said to be armed. And in other news…”

  Frank Harper slammed his fist on the steering wheel and cursed. So they had gotten away. He would have to try it again, and this time he had no room for mistakes.

  He turned the van around and headed north to Newpointe, hoping he could find them before the police found him.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Newpointe Hospital sent Jill and Dan home after confirming that no bones had been broken. Dan had one arm in a sling and a bottle of painkillers clutched in his hand. He had a dislocated shoulder and some torn ligaments, and the pain of resetting it had been worse than if a bone had been broken. They warned him against working for at least a week.

  Mark and Allie picked them up and took them to rent a car. Jill’s had been towed to her mechanic in Newpointe, and she hoped it would be repaired tomorrow. She was certain that the man who had run them off the road had tampered with her car. She wondered what he would have done if she hadn’t called Dan to help her.

  Dan insisted on driving Jill home in the rental car, since they had both been asked to stop by the Newpointe Police Department to make a statement about what had happened, in case it was related to the post office bombing. As they went back into the station, Jill couldn’t believe she was back for the second time in twenty-four hours.

  “This is becoming a nightly event for you,” Dan said.

  “Tonight’ll be different, though,” Jill said. “I’m gonna talk to Jerry Ingalls before I leave.”

  Dan stopped in his tracks. “Jill, it’s been a long night. Don’t do that.”

  “I am,” she said. “I have to look him in the eye. I have to see if he had anything to do with this.”

  “It’s after midnight. They probably won’t even let you in.”

  “Watch,” she said.

  They found Sid and Stan sitting head to head at Stan’s desk with a couple of the FBI agents from yesterday. They all stood up when Jill and Dan approached.

  “Are ya’ll all right?” Stan asked.

  “We’ll live,” Dan said. “You wanted a statement?”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind. We’ll just move into the interrogation room…”

  Jill hung back. “I’ll give you a statement, Stan,” she said. “But first I need to see my client.”

  “Your what?”

  “My client. Jerry Ingalls. He doesn’t have a lawyer yet, does he?”

  Stan and Sid looked at each other. “Well, no, but…You’re not really gonna represent him, are you, Jill?”

  She took a deep breath. “Let’s just say I need to talk to him before I can commit. But I need to talk to him now.”

  “But it’s after midnight. He’s asleep.”

  “I’ll wake him up,” she said. She waited, chin up, for one of them to make the decision to let her in. “Come on, Sid, Stan. I’ve had a rough couple of days. Give me this, will you?”

  “Are you sure you ain’t gon’ walk in there and pull out a pistol?” Sid asked.

  “Let LaTonya search me. I just want to talk to him.”

  “And then you’ll represent him?” Sid asked.

  “I told you, I won’t commit until I talk to him.”

  Sid shot Stan and the agents a look. “Well, maybe if she does agree to represent him, he’ll finally talk to us. I say we go ahead and let her wake him up.”

  “All right,” Stan said, “but we’re not letting you in his cell. You stand outside the bars and say what you have to say. Dan can start with his statement while you’re doing that.”

  Jill nodded and shot Dan a victorious look, but he only shook his head. “Be careful, Jill. Real careful. Stay way back. Sid, don’t let her get too close.”

  “I won’t,” Sid said. “All right, Counselor. Let’s go.”

  Since Ingalls was the only one incarcerated right now, Sid opened the jail, turned on the light, and allowed her to go in. Sid came in with her and stayed seated in a folding chair at the end of the hallway. She walked across the concrete, her heels clicking irreverently in the night. She saw Jerry Ingalls sound asleep on his cot.

  Anger exploded inside her. For all he knew, she could be dead now. She went to the bars. “Wake up, Jerry Ingalls,” she shouted.

  He stirred and squinted in the light. He saw her and slowly sat up. “What’s going on?”

  “I want to talk to you,” she said. “Get up.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “After midnight. I would have come earlier, but I was too busy giving a statement to the police and getting patched up at the hospital. This may not come as a surprise to you, but somebody tried to kill me tonight. I want to know who it was.”

  He got up and walked toward her. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “Because I have a feeling you had something to do with it.”

  His brain seemed to clear, and a slow frown darkened his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Tell me who’s working with you,” she demanded.

  Jerry only stared at her for a moment, then looked down at his feet. “What did he do?” he asked finally.

  The question surprised her. Was he admitting that he knew who had done it? “He ran us off the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. We barely got out of the car before it went over the side. We’re supposed to be dead right now. I want to know why.”

  Jerry slowly brought his eyes back to hers. “I have no idea.”

  That answer enraged her even more. “Did you have anything to do with this or not?”

  He looked pale, suddenly, as he stepped closer to the bars. He grabbed them in his fists, and she took a step back. “Look, I know you must be shaken up,” he said, “but you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t have a thing to do with it.”

  Her eyes were beginning to fill with angry tears. “Are you threatening me into representing you?” she asked. “Is that what this is about?”

  “No!” he said. “I gotta admit I was disappointed that you wouldn’t, since you said you would. In my life, a person’s word means something.”

  “So it was revenge?”

  “No! How could I do that from in here? I’m not gonna kill you because you broke your word. How would that do me any good?”

  “I don’t know that it has to do you any good. Just like blowing up a post office didn’t do you any good…killing three people and maiming a child.”

  “I didn’t do that!” he yelled at her. “I told you, I was set up!”

  “By whom?” she demanded just as loudly.

  He shook his head and turned away. “Look, I didn’t send anyone to kill you, I didn’t blow up the post office…I need a lawyer, and if you’re not going to represent me, then I need to find somebody else.”

  “I’m not going to represent you,” she said through her teeth. “I don’t represent killers. Especially when they’ve come after me twice.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said, more quietly. “Did I once hurt you yesterday? Did I so much as leave a scratch on you? I could have. We were in there for hours.”

  “So I’m supposed to give you a round of applause and pledge my life and my vocation to you because you didn’t hurt me? Maybe you’re a coward,” she said. “Maybe you don’t like to hurt people when they can look you in the eye. Ma
ybe you prefer to do it differently, like running them off a bridge.”

  “I am in jail!” he yelled, throwing up his hands. “Does it look to you like I could run anybody off the road tonight?”

  “Some people have connections,” she said. “I don’t know how you would have gotten in touch with them or why, or whether there’s some allegiance in this that’s making them help you out, but somebody is trying to kill me. I take that real personally.”

  He went back to his cot and sank down, looking between his knees down at the floor. “Look, I know you don’t believe this,” he said, not looking up at her, “but yesterday I was minding my own business, working at my job, not planning to hurt a single soul, and the next thing I knew I was being charged with terrorism and murder, and now you think I tried to kill you. I don’t know how to convince you that I’m innocent, that I’ve been set up. Maybe I can’t convince you.”

  Her face grew hot as her voice rose. “If someone set you up and you know who it is, why haven’t you given them a name? That’s the only thing that will get you out of here.”

  “There are reasons why I can’t,” he said.

  “What kind of reasons?”

  He looked up at her again. “Reasons that someone like you couldn’t understand anything about. It has to do with keeping promises.”

  She wanted to scream. “I find it amazing that you can malign my character this way, when you are the one accused of heinous crimes. I haven’t blown up any post offices. I haven’t killed anybody.”

  “And neither have I.” He got back up and faced her across the cell. “Look, it occurs to me that you seem to be caught up in this whether you like it or not. All I can tell you is to be careful.”

  “Then you are threatening me?”

  He looked frustrated. “I told you to be careful, and you interpret that as a threat?”