Broken Honor

by Potter, Patricia;

  Unlike Tag or Mike, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life protecting fat cats or investigating wayward spouses. He wanted the clean air and blue skies and snow covered mountains of Colorado.

  He wanted her.

  How much could either of them give up for the other without eventually destroying each other?

  thirty

  WASHINGTON, D. C.

  Sally woke in stages. Her throat hurt. Her cheek ached. Her world was heavy, foggy. She flitted in and out of consciousness, trying to open her eyes but finding it too much of an effort. She was conscious of a hand holding hers, though. It felt good. Safe.

  Then fear came. Through the fog she saw the large man coming toward her while another held her. Her face stung. Her chest ached. She remembered the pain of the blows. The angry face as she refused to answer questions. She kept saying there was nothing to find. She knew he wouldn’t let her live. She’d seen his face. And their grandfather’s message was the only thing that could pinpoint her murderer, that could save Dustin and the others.

  Rage had twisted her tormentor’s face like some fun house mirror.

  “The police are going to find you in your cousin’s bed,” he said as he raised a needle and plunged it in her arm. “Beaten. Dead of an overdose. He’ll have a hell of a time explaining it.” He smiled. “You’ll feel very good for a few moments,” he said, “but it will be a very few minutes.”

  Dusty. That was the worst of it. Sinking out of consciousness, knowing that Dusty’s life would be destroyed.

  “No,” she screamed hoarsely.

  The hand tightened on her hand. “Sally, it’s Dustin.”

  She tried her eyes again. Part of her didn’t want to leave the cocoon she was in. But now nightmares were intruding. “Dusty?” She barely recognized her own voice. It was hoarse. But it was audible. She was alive!

  Her eyes finally opened. He was leaning over her. “I didn’t tell them,” she said.

  “Tell them what?”

  “Didn’t tell him ’bout … Grandfather’s letter.”

  “To hell with any goddamn letter.” His hand practically squashed hers. He leaned over and kissed her gently.

  Some of the heaviness lifted, but she still felt … drugged. “How …?”

  “Colonel Flaherty and Amy got there, apparently just after they injected you. One of the men who attacked you is dead. The other was shot. He’s in the hospital here. The police want to talk to you as soon as they can. There’s one just outside the door.…”

  Sally felt the fear again. It bubbled up inside, and she thought it might burst inside her like a huge boil. Her fingers clasped his. “Don’t go away.”

  “I won’t,” he said in a tone she’d never heard before. It … quavered. Even trembled. She felt an enormous tenderness that he was so affected. “I really am all right.”

  As if to show him, she tried to move, and then felt as if a sledgehammer slammed across her. She couldn’t stifle a cry. Her face hurt, and she lifted her fingers to touch it. One cheek was swollen and a bandage covered an area near her cheek.

  “God, Sally.…” He started for the door.

  “No,” she said. She didn’t want him to go.

  He returned, but he used her buzzer. In seconds, a nurse was beside her. “She’s awake. That’s wonderful.”

  “She’s in pain,” Dusty said hoarsely.

  The nurse frowned. “She shouldn’t have anything.”

  Sally nodded. She didn’t want anything. Not until she told Dusty what she had to tell him.

  But she couldn’t. The nurse was there, and what Sally wanted to say had to be said in private. She waited impatiently as the woman took her blood pressure, then her temperature, before hurrying out of the small cubicle with its one wall of glass. Intensive care. With sudden horror, she realized how very close she must have come to dying.

  She clutched Dusty’s hand and felt it wrap comfortingly around hers. No more time. She was not going to waste any more time. “I have something to … tell you.”

  “So you said,” he said. “It seems a million years ago. I lived through every one of those years waiting for you to wake.”

  “The letter. I started to tell you. It was behind that painting my father gave me. Not … really a letter, I guess, but an account. It tells something of what happened all those years ago. Hawke Jordan was responsible for much of the … theft.”

  “Much …?”

  “All three of our grandfathers used some items in their personal quarters. The painting, and a few other items, showed up in Grandfather’s personal effects that were shipped home.…” She stopped. “It’s complicated. The letter is in a book in your study.”

  His brows furrowed. “Why did you put it there?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought it would be safe until I was able to show it to someone.” She hesitated. “I didn’t tell … the bastard that hit me.”

  “Ah, Sally. Don’t you know nothing is as important as you are?”

  She tried to smile, but it hurt too much. “I knew he planned to … kill me anyway.”

  He cursed. “I wish I killed him myself.” His voice was so unlike his usual cool, dispassionate one. It sounded … ragged. And fierce.

  She hesitated, then continued, “I told Amy Mallory that I’d found something, then had second thoughts until I talked to you. It could hurt our … your … name.”

  She could care less about the family name. But she knew he did.

  “Do you really think I would risk people’s lives because of that name?” he said wryly, even a bit sadly. “Hell, it’s obviously not worth preserving. I should have seen that years ago when my sister died. I just … bought into the whole damn thing because there was nothing else. At least I didn’t think so then. I thought you were lost to me, and I made my career my life. Only problem was, it wasn’t really my career. It was my father’s and grandfather’s career for me, and I went along with it.” He paused, then continued, “There’s been too damn many cover-ups over these past years.”

  “There’s something else,” she said carefully. Even fearfully. What if he didn’t care that she wasn’t really his cousin?

  He frowned.

  “My mother.…”

  “Your mother?” he prompted.

  “You’re not my cousin.”

  He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “Not a blood cousin,” she added, watching every movement of his face.

  His fingers tightened around hers. “Then … what …?”

  “I came from a sperm bank or whatever it was back then.”

  His mouth dropped open so wide she chuckled. She wished it didn’t hurt so much, but he looked so … incredulous.

  “My … father apparently was sterile. He wanted a child.” She didn’t say that he wanted a child to maintain his place in the family. She had not allowed herself to totally believe that. She couldn’t. She still had difficulty thinking of him as a brutal man, too. But now she had flickers of memories of times he’d brushed her aside. Memories she had locked away somewhere in her mind. “He … took Mother to a fertility doctor.”

  She saw the news register on his face. “She doesn’t know who the donor was, but it wasn’t my … William Eachan.”

  His fingers tightened around hers.

  “Dusty?”

  “It’s taking me a moment to adjust to the idea.”

  “I’ll always love you,” she said.

  “Like a cousin?”

  She hesitated. “Like any way you want.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. He kissed her the way he had kissed her many years ago. With longing and wanting. And passion that he’d always controlled before. She felt every nuance of emotions he’d never allowed to show before. She resented it when he drew away.

  “Come back,” she said.

  “You are sore and hurting and weak, and you’ve just gone through a terrible experience.”

  “I’ll go through an even worse one if you don’t kis
s me again.”

  He did.

  Amy and Irish stopped by the hospital before going to the main police station. Dusty was holding Sally’s hand. She was in a regular room, and though she looked pale and battered, she was smiling.

  “You look much better than the last time we saw you,” Irish said.

  “Dusty tells me you saved my life.”

  “I wish we’d arrived a few minutes earlier.”

  “I’m just grateful,” she said. Amy saw her fingers tighten around Dustin’s. She’d never seen him look so relaxed. Despite wrinkled clothes and unshaven cheeks, he had a glow in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. It was almost as blinding as the one in Sally’s.

  “Dusty just asked me to marry him,” Sally said. “We found out we’re not blood cousins.”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway,” Dustin said. “To hell with convention.” He looked particularly pleased with himself for saying so.

  An ache mixed with pleasure. Amy wanted to sport that same contented expression. But though Irish had been warm and loving today, he’d not mentioned the future. Not today. She’d clung to his earlier words that they would “talk later.”

  There wasn’t much “later” left. She had to leave tomorrow to make her Monday tenure hearing. He was due back to his base. He could no longer claim that he was on leave and “unreachable.” He’d received direct orders yesterday to be back at his post Monday.

  They had one day before returning to their respective lives.

  She looked at him standing there. He was freshly shaven with a razor supplied by the hotel. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing tanned arms except for the patch of white that covered his latest wound. He looked at home everywhere, while she was comfortable only in the classroom. Had been comfortable only in the classroom.

  He had changed that for her. In the past weeks she’d been completely accepted for what she was. Accepted and liked. And respected. Not just for her scholarship. For her.

  He’d given her a lifetime gift. He’d given a confidence in herself she’d never had before.

  She wanted more.

  Dustin stood. He took some keys out of his pocket and wrote a note. “Sally put a document in a book in my study. Graham Greene’s This Gun for Hire. Sally’s sense of humor,” he added wryly. “This note should get you in the house to pick up some personal belongings. I understand it’s still under police guard.”

  “We’ll stop over there before going to the police station. Anything you want us not to say?”

  “Sally’s already told them everything. No need to hold back anything.”

  “Is it going to affect your career?”

  “I think yours is in more trouble than mine. It doesn’t matter to me, anyway. I want more time now that I’m going to marry. I think I want to try to enjoy life for a while. I’m resigning tomorrow, and then will look for a job in a think tank. I’ve been approached by several previously, and they could give less of a damn about my pedigree.”

  “I don’t think the State Department will, either.”

  Dustin shrugged. “I don’t want the hours. I don’t want the politics. I was being pressured by superiors to let Brian Jordan sell very lethal weapons to people who have no business having them.” He smiled slowly, and Amy thought how attractive it was. Not like the man who several days earlier had struck her as so plastic. “I understand that the man Amy wounded, Marcus Kelley, is singing a song. Turns out he’s deputy director of security for Jordan Industries. It was the father who directed things, but the son had to be involved. Both will face a number of charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, and murder.”

  Dustin hesitated, then continued. “I know Irish felt he might have started this. But according to Kelley, he didn’t. A professor found some documents in Amy’s possessions, recognized the name, dug a little deeper, then tried a little blackmail. The documents were never found. The professor must have hidden them somewhere. Hawke Jordan believed Amy must have known about them.”

  Irish put his arm around Amy’s shoulder, holding her tight. He’d known how she felt about Jon Foster, and now he was conveying his sympathy. Some of the terrible sense of betrayal faded.

  She found herself leaning into him. Natural. So natural. But for how much longer?

  It was Irish who broke the awkwardly painful silence. “You’re not leaving, then?” he asked Dustin.

  “Not until she does,” Dustin said. “I’m not leaving her alone again.”

  Irish’s hand pressed a little harder on her shoulder. The same protective stance. She liked that. She also liked being a partner. Just as he had saved her life several times, she’d been able to return the favor.

  “I think we had better go,” Irish said.

  Amy was reluctant. There was so much warmth in what was usually a cold, sterile room. She took his hand and walked to the door.

  General Eachan’s document was in an envelope tucked, as Dustin had told them, in the Graham Greene book. There was a row of Greene books, each a first edition.

  Amy took it but didn’t read it. It belonged to Sally and Dustin. They would return to the hospital once their police interview was over.

  She tucked it in her purse, then they went off to confront the minions of the law.

  The questions got personal. What was their relationship to Sally and Dustin Eachan? They’d answered the questions before, but they did so again. Why had they fled the explosion in South Carolina? Surely an experienced investigator like Colonel Flaherty knew it was the scene of a crime. He could be charged with obstruction of justice.

  The questions went on for hours. Then they got to Brian Jordan. Did they know him? Did they know why he might be involved with murder?

  Amy thought of the document in her purse. Not yet. They could say they found it later. It was Dustin’s call. She realized that weeks ago she would have been appalled at the very idea of withholding information.

  They finally left at six and returned to the hospital.

  Dustin was still in Sally’s room. A policeman was still outside her door. For protection now. She’d answered most of their questions and had identified the wounded man as the one who injected her.

  Amy handed Dustin the document she’d retrieved.

  He read it so quickly that she wondered how he could comprehend it. But then he must read thousands of documents.

  Without a word he handed it to Irish. She waited until Irish had finished and handed it to her.

  It was dated July 4, 1986, and written in a neat cursive hand. On purpose, she discovered. He hadn’t wanted any doubt about who wrote it. It was, he said, an insurance policy for the family.

  To whom it may concern:

  “Forty-one years ago in Austria, I was involved in the capture of a train carrying items looted by the Nazis. The contents were cataloged and kept in a warehouse. Attempts were made to discover legitimate claimants. Few items were claimed and, after the surrender of the German Army, the remaining items were shipped to New York for auction. The proceeds were to go to survivors of the Holocaust.

  I didn’t learn until much later that two trunks of gold never reached New York, along with a number of other items. It was another year, when I returned home, that I learned personal property sent to my home by aides included items from the train, items used in headquarters and my own personal quarters while we were in Austria. It was standard procedure during that time to confiscate household furnishings for official use.

  I was up for promotion for my first star. Any hint of scandal or impropriety would have destroyed my career.

  I said nothing, and that was the greatest mistake I ever made.

  Ten years later, I ran into Hawkins Jordan, who had been sergeant major at the time. He had improved his situation considerably and had joined an arms manufacturer. He seemed to think I owed him special consideration in his bid for an army contract. I refused to give it.

  He then said I had stolen Nazi property, and he could prove it
. He had an inventory of items shipped from my quarters back home. They included a valuable painting, silver, and crystal. If I didn’t make sure he received the contract, he would give the information to the newspapers. I took the coward’s way out a second time, and then I was his.

  I had a detective check on his background. He left the Army in 1946. Until then he was always in debt. Suddenly he was very wealthy. He bought himself into a small arms concern, took it over when the owner died three years later, and apparently put a great deal of capital into it. No one knew where it came from.

  When I learned of the discrepancy—the deep discrepancy—between the items we liberated and those that actually appeared in New York, I went back and checked to see who had access to the warehouse. Hawkins Jordan was among them. Then I found the inventory. It had been altered.

  I called Generals Flaherty and Mallory and told them of my suspicions. They both told me they, too, had found stolen items in their belongings. Apparently, Hawkins had tried to set each of us up. His men were responsible for packing our belongings. He included items we’d put to temporary use in our headquarters building. He’d done it deliberately.

  Mallory had paid blackmail for years, afraid that his career would be ruined. Flaherty had reported the items he found when he’d returned, and thus put himself outside Jordan’s reach. But because the thefts occurred under his command, he was quietly forced into retirement.

  We decided to meet. Before we could, both of them died. One of a heart attack, the other a suicide.

  I looked into their deaths. There was no indication of foul play. I made another poor decision. It’s strange how a human being can justify almost anything. I could ask for investigations and destroy my family’s name and my son’s career. There were both the stolen Nazi items and some questionable contracts I made with Jordan Industries. Or I could checkmate him. He would leave me alone; I would leave him alone. I told him I had insurance, letters that would be mailed if there was any suspicion of an unnatural death. Any accident, and they would be sent.

  He then made another threat. If I said anything, my son would die. I knew from the deaths of David Mallory and Sam Flaherty, Jordan was all too capable of it.