Word of Honor

by Terri Blackstock

  But she wasn’t sure he could fulfill any of hers.

  Frank Harper stole another car. It was like laundering money, he thought. You just kept it moving so no one could ever trace it back to you. With the cars, he just kept swapping them back, and the thefts were blended into the car theft count without anyone ever tracing them to him. When they found them unharmed, they probably assumed some kid had stolen them for a joy ride and never even tried to find the thief.

  When he had found an Accord, he tried, but failed, to locate Jill. As he drove around town trying to find her, he realized that he had probably been paranoid when he stopped following her earlier. Just because she’d been on the phone didn’t mean she had spotted him. In fact, now that he thought back, they hadn’t acted as if they’d seen him, except for the instant in which her friend had looked in the rearview mirror. Now that he ran it back through his mind, he was pretty sure that the man had been straightening his hair. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d been panicked about someone following him.

  No, he had just overreacted. And now he couldn’t figure out where she was or what she was doing. He didn’t know how he was going to get to her in time to kill her tonight, and he didn’t have much time to waste.

  He decided he wasn’t going to waste any of it looking for her. Instead, he would get a message to Debbie Ingalls about how dangerous it was to talk to his enemies. It would be a loud, clear message.

  Doing something—anything—made him feel better than doing nothing, so he drove out of town to Slidell and bought the supplies he would need for the message. Then he drove back to the Ingallses’ house and sat out front, watching for the lights to go out.

  When all had gone out, except for the one in the front bedroom, he began to get ready. Just a few more minutes, and Debbie Ingalls would know what it meant to betray him.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Inside the house, Debbie Ingalls sat in the front bedroom rocking her little girl to sleep. She was lonely, so desperately lonely that she didn’t know how she was going to survive it. She wished that Jerry could call her from jail and reassure her that everything was going to be all right, but she had a strong feeling that it wouldn’t.

  She held Christy close and rocked. The baby was already asleep, but Debbie didn’t have the heart to put her down. She needed the contact, the sweet comfort provided by her children. Seth was sound asleep already, and she didn’t want to experience the silence of the house, nor the fears that kept barreling through her mind. If only she had been able to convince Jill to represent Jerry, there might be hope.

  Leaning her head back on the rocker, she tried to pray, but the words just wouldn’t come. Her heart was too heavy, and her hopes were too thin.

  Then outside, she heard tires screeching as they rounded the corner. The glass at the window shattered as something flew into the room. She screamed and jumped up, knocking the rocker over and waking the child. Christy began to shriek.

  Then Debbie saw it. Some kind of flaming device beginning to lap in flames across the carpet. She screamed louder and ran from the room, closing the door behind her.

  “Seth!” she cried. “Get up, honey!”

  She bolted into his room and jerked him out of bed.

  “Hold Mommy’s robe and follow me!”

  Christy kept screaming, and Seth began to wail. She grabbed the cordless phone as they ran out into the night. Blocks away she could hear the car screeching around corners, fleeing from the neighborhood.

  She took the children to the far side of the yard, then frantically dialed 911. “Someone just threw a bomb through my window,” she cried. “My house is on fire. 203 Spencer. Hurry!”

  The dispatcher told her they’d have someone there quickly, and she pulled her children to the side of the house, in the shadows, so that they wouldn’t be open targets if the person came back. Sitting down on the edge of the yard, she began to weep as her children huddled closely against her.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Dan heard the call on Mark’s scanner as he and Jill were eating dinner with the Brannings, and he and Mark sprang out of their seats. “I’m going,” Mark said.

  “Me, too,” Dan echoed.

  “But your shoulder!” Jill cried. “Dan, you’re on leave until it heals. They aren’t going to let you fight a fire!”

  “I just want to be there,” he said. “I’ll be back when it’s over.”

  Jill and Allie stood at the door with their mouths open as Mark and Dan pulled out of the driveway. “You’d think it was a volunteer fire department and they couldn’t do without them.”

  “Yep,” Allie said. “Welcome to the world of firefighters.”

  “Next time, I’m going to insist they keep that scanner turned off.”

  “Get used to it. Mark has a scanner in both of our cars and in the house. He never wants to miss a call.”

  “But if he’s not on duty…”

  “If he’s not on duty, he’ll overlook the cats in trees. But if there’s ever a fire, he’s outa here.”

  “Even with an injury?”

  “They can keep him from being officially on duty,” Allie said. “But these guys are never really off duty.”

  “And he’s worried about me taking chances.” She came back into the house and locked the dead bolt. “Now what? Do we save their dinner for later, or just throw it out?”

  “Save it,” Allie said. “Always save it. They’ll come home starving to death, and Aunt Aggie doesn’t make house calls.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Dan didn’t realize the call was to Debbie Ingalls’s house until they rounded the corner and saw where the emergency vehicles were. The woman who had fought so hard today on her husband’s behalf was sitting out on the grass in her robe, holding both of her children on her lap. The little girl was screaming, but the boy seemed enamored of the flashing lights and the sirens as the trucks and squad cars pulled onto the scene.

  Dan crossed the yard to Debbie. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She looked at him like he was an accessory to the crimes that had been committed against her. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “What happened?”

  Her voice trembled. “I was rocking Christy, and some lunatic threw a bomb or something through the window.”

  “A bomb?” he asked. “Did it explode?”

  “No. It just scared me to death…it was on fire and caught the carpet on fire, and before I knew it, it had climbed up the curtains…”

  “Did you see what the car looked like?”

  “No,” she said. “I was busy getting the kids out.” Her clipped tone suggested that she wasn’t interested in his sympathy, not after their visit today. It occurred to him that her stress level had been even greater than his and Jill’s, and tonight’s events had only made things worse. Still, in the back of his mind, suspicions lurked.

  Sid Ford and R.J. Albright, from the police department, cut across the yard to question Debbie, and Dan stepped aside. He looked at the house, where the current shift of firefighters worked. He wanted to help, as Mark was, but without the full use of his arm, his presence could actually hinder things.

  Mark came out of the house, no longer hurrying.

  Dan met him at the sidewalk. Lowering his voice, he asked, “How’s it look?”

  “Looks like the fire was confined to that one front room, and we’ve put it out. The rest of the house can be saved. The smoke damage is minimal.”

  “Did you notice the glass fragments where the window broke? Did they fall inside or outside the house?”

  “I saw them inside,” Mark said. “Why?”

  “Just wondering if this was a trick.”

  “Why would it be a trick?”

  “To get Jill’s sympathy. Make us think she couldn’t possibly be involved if someone’s trying to kill her, too.”

  Mark looked over at the woman still sitting on the grass, clinging to her children. “I don’t see her jeopardizing her kids that way.”

&
nbsp; Dan followed his gaze, then shook his head. “No, me either. But I had to consider it.” He looked at Mark again. “So the glass fell inside, huh? Just like she said, something came into the room through the window.”

  “Looks that way. Could have been a lot worse.”

  “Guess so,” Dan said. “Meanwhile, what do we do with her? She’d be nuts to stay here. If it’s the same guy I had a run-in with last night, I don’t think he’s gonna give up that easy.”

  Ray Ford, the fire chief, was just coming out of the building. He wasn’t required to fight fires, either, except when they were understaffed. But like Mark and Dan, he rarely missed an opportunity. “So this is that Ingalls guy’s house?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Yes,” Dan said. “I was just here this afternoon with Jill. Ray, we probably need to help her make some arrangements tonight.”

  “No kiddin’,” Ray said. “I’m a step ahead of you. I already called Susan.”

  Dan wondered what Ray’s wife had to do with this. “What’s she gonna do?”

  “She gon’ get Ben’s room ready for ’em. I’m gon’ take her to my house tonight.”

  “You sure you want her sleeping in your house?” he asked. “I mean, she is the wife of the guy who blew up the post office.”

  “Somebody’s got to do it,” Ray said. “Might as well be me. Besides, she don’t look much like a killer.”

  “They never do.”

  Ray chuckled. “Spoken like a man who got run off a bridge last night.”

  “You better believe it. I don’t trust anybody right now.”

  “Well,” Ray said, “the way I figure it, if she’s what she seems…an innocent victim…then Susan will nurse her back to normal. And if she’s an accessory or even a killer herself, Susan’ll have her baptized by the end of the week.”

  Dan couldn’t help chuckling. He just hoped Susan understood what she was getting into.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Dan’s and Mark’s food was still waiting when they returned back home, and Allie warmed it up for them while they filled them in about Debbie Ingalls’s latest problems.

  “It just shook them up a little. Ray Ford took them home to Susan, and they’ll be staying there tonight.”

  Jill gaped at him. “Dan, who did this?”

  “Obviously not her husband,” he said. “I don’t know why he’d do that to his own family…his own house.”

  “You think it was the guy who ran us off the bridge?”

  “Probably,” he said. “But she didn’t see the car.”

  Jill was silent for a long moment as she stared down at the table. Dan took her hand. “You okay?”

  She looked up at him. “Dan, what if he’s telling the truth?”

  “Who?”

  “Jerry Ingalls. What if he’s telling the truth about not being involved? About somebody else being the one to blow up the post office?”

  “Even if he did, you don’t have to get involved, Jill. It’s not your job.”

  “But somebody has to. I want to know who did this, Dan. I want to get to the bottom of it before someone else winds up dead.”

  “You can do that without being his lawyer.”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “I don’t know. I’m so confused.” She rubbed her face hard, then dropped both hands on the table. “I’m gonna go to the Fordses’ house and talk to Debbie.”

  “Now?” Dan asked. “Jill, it’s pretty late. They might be in bed.”

  “If there aren’t any lights on, I won’t knock. But I need to talk to her one more time.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you out on the street at night.”

  “Me, either,” Allie agreed.

  Jill threw up her hands. “I’m a lawyer,” she said with frustration. “I have to do what I have to do.”

  “All right,” he said, holding up his palms in surrender. “Would you consider…Jill, could I come with you?”

  Frustrated, she looked from Dan to Allie to Mark, then back to Dan. “All right,” she said. “You can drop me off so I won’t have to drive myself. But I’m not making this a habit.”

  He grinned and mouthed the word yes, then took his plate to the sink and rinsed it off. Quickly, he followed Jill out the door.

  Susan Ford opened the door when Jill and Dan got there. “Girl!” She reached out to hug her and brought her right in. “Jill, what are you doin’ out at a time like this? You shouldn’t be out by yourself this late.”

  “I’m not,” Jill said. “Dan is waiting in the car. Susan, I heard about the fire and I needed to see Debbie.”

  “She’s right in the kitchen,” she said. “I been trying to calm her down. We been praying together.”

  Jill’s eyes locked into Susan’s. She fought the urge to ask if Susan thought this could be an elaborate, expensive act. Was it all a play for sympathy? But she knew Susan never thought the worst of people. She would defend Debbie just because she felt sorry for her.

  Jill walked into the kitchen, and Debbie looked up. “Jill! You and Susan know each other?”

  “Honey, everybody in Newpointe knows each other.”

  “Except you,” Jill said. “Nobody knows much at all about you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Debbie said bitterly. “We seem to be the talk of the town right now.”

  Jill saw the tears come to Debbie’s eyes, and she ducked her head, suddenly ashamed of her careless remark. Debbie looked shaken, and it didn’t seem to be an act. The woman looked like she hung onto control by one fraying filament.

  “Tell Jill what happened, Debbie,” Susan said as she gestured for Jill to take a chair.

  Debbie touched her forehead and swallowed hard. “I had put Seth to bed and I was rocking Christy, when all of a sudden something crashed through the window. The next thing I knew my house was on fire, and I had to get the kids out…” Her voice broke off. “If I’d been in bed, or if I’d put Christy down before Seth…He must have aimed for the only room with the light in it, but I always leave a lamp on in there, because she’s afraid of the dark. If I hadn’t been in there, the fire could have engulfed her before I even realized it. It must be the same guy who blew up the post office, but why is he after me now? My husband is taking the heat! I haven’t done anything.”

  Jill pulled out a chair and sat down, her suspicions beginning to melt away. Would Jerry have had someone throw a bomb through his child’s window? Not the man who’d shown her their pictures when he was holding her hostage, and worried what they would be told. Then again, whoever he was involved with could have acted without his approval. “Debbie, do you think Jerry knows who did this?”

  “I don’t even know if he’s being told about it,” she said. “Every now and then they let him call me, but I haven’t heard from him today.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” Jill said. “Do you think he knows who did this?” She didn’t know why she bothered to ask. She fully expected Debbie to cover for her husband at all cost.

  Debbie dropped her face into her hands for a long moment, then looked up at Jill again. “Yes, I think he does.”

  Jill hadn’t expected that answer. “Do you think he’ll tell the police?”

  “I don’t know,” Debbie said. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t tell after the post office was bombed. He has this loyalty thing sometimes. He means to do the right thing. I don’t know.”

  Jill stared at her for a moment. “I’m gonna go talk to him tomorrow, okay, Debbie? I’ll consider representing him.”

  “You will?” Debbie’s mouth fell open, and she gaped at her. “Oh, I’m so happy to hear that.”

  Susan patted Jill’s hand. “Good for you, honey.”

  “I didn’t say I would. I said I’d consider it. I want to hear what he has to say about the guy who did all these things. I want to hear what he thinks about who started the fire in your house. I want to see his face when he says it.”

  Debbie’s eyes were bright with tears. “You’ll see, Jill. You’l
l see that he’s not a killer. You’ll see that he didn’t have anything to do with this. And when he finds out about me and the kids—”

  “When he finds out, if he still won’t tell, Debbie, it isn’t going to look very good.”

  “He has to,” she said. “He just has to.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  As Dan drove Jill back to Allie and Mark’s house, she kept looking behind them to see if anyone was following them. She realized that the killer could follow just as easily in daytime, but for some reason night seemed more threatening. Especially this night, when he had already been active in another part of town. She doubted he had called it a night and gone home to watch a movie.

  But it didn’t appear that anyone was following them. When they got to the Brannings’, Dan walked her to the door and kissed her good night.

  Allie was nursing the baby in her bedroom when Jill came in, so she told Mark good night and went on to Justin’s room to get ready for bed.

  When Allie put the baby down, she knocked and peeked into the room. Jill was sitting on the bed, staring at the air. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  Jill shrugged. “As good as it can be with an insane killer on the loose. I thought they had him locked up, but now it looks like there’s one still out there.”

  Allie sat down in the rocking chair. “I wish they’d catch him before Mary Hampton’s funeral tomorrow. It would go a long way toward healing that family.”

  Jill felt sick. “Are they taking Pete?”

  “No. He’s still on the ventilator; he can’t leave the hospital. Celia’s staying with him while the grandmother and uncle go.”

  “Are you going?”

  “Yeah, I plan to.”

  “I’m not going,” Jill said, looking at her feet. “I just don’t feel safe yet, out in public.”