The Guardian

by Marliss Melton

  Toby’s lips thinned. Reaching for his back pocket, he pulled out a rolled publication, prompting Lena to gasp in horror. Jackson could see why. It was the tabloid she wrote for, Crime and Liberty, and today’s cover was a full color photo of Jackson and Toby leaving the mosque together. “Your boss ran his exposé this morning,” Toby added unnecessarily.

  “That skunk!” Bristling with outrage, she went to reach for her phone. “He promised me twenty-four hours’ notice.”

  “Which he didn’t give you because he changed his tune.” Removing his hand from the bottom of the article, Toby revealed the title Undercover Hero. “I guess he realized Ibrahim really was a terrorist, so he hailed Jackson as the hero who saved America.”

  Jackson snorted and Lena sent him an anxious look. “Aren’t you worried about reprisal?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “Ike is big on security. He’s not going to let anything happen to me or my family.”

  Lena held her hand out for the tabloid and Toby passed it to her. “I can’t work for Peter after this,” she declared, shaking her head.

  “All the more reason to take a long vacation,” Jackson prompted.

  To his disappointment, Lena flipped through the article, keeping quiet.

  “I have more bad news,” Toby inserted, recapturing their attention. “I saw it in an interdepartmental alert in my email. It’s about Rupert Davis.”

  Jackson flicked Lena a look. She didn’t seem too startled. “What about him?” he asked Toby.

  “He escaped from custody on the way to Arlington Corrections Facility yesterday. One of his old buddies, incidentally a Five Percenter, unlocked his cuffs. Davis overcame both the security officer and the driver, crashed the transport vehicle, and took off. No one has seen or heard from him since.”

  Still Lena said nothing. She had to be shocked by Toby’s announcement.

  Jackson put his free arm around her. “The authorities will find him,” he reassured her, smoothing a hand up her rigid back. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let him get anywhere near you.”

  The banked desperation in her eyes when she looked down at him made his scalp tighten. “Actually,” she said in a hesitant voice, “you’re going to have to.”

  He searched her gaze. “What the hell does that mean?”

  The edge in his voice made Naomi ease away to look back and forth between them.

  “I’ll tell you later.” Lena glanced pointedly at his daughter.

  “Tell me now,” Jackson growled. “Naomi’s grown up enough to hear.”

  “Fine.” Lena drew a deep breath. “Davis already called me at the crack of dawn this morning.”

  The unexpected news shattered his contentment like an ice pick breaking up ice.

  “I’d given him the number to my throwaway phone the night he attacked me. He says he wants me to meet him on 15th Street South East tomorrow afternoon. In exchange for five thousand dollars, he’ll tell me the rest of his story.”

  Jackson’s anxiety abated somewhat. “Okay, so we’ll alert the authorities, and they can recapture him.”

  “Not until I get the rest of his story,” she said in a soft, stubborn voice.

  Jackson just looked at her. Was she fucking crazy?

  “Curtis Vandaloo’s testimony might not be enough to ensure Davis’s conviction,” she added quickly. “I have to get the rest of his confession. It’s the only way he’ll get life in prison.”

  No wonder she’d fallen silent at his offer to take a vacation. She didn’t know what the future held.

  Defeated, Jackson let his head fall back onto the foam pillow. He briefly closed his eyes.

  Just when he’d thought every issue in his life had been resolved and he’d been blessed by a second chance to put his family above all else, this critical event materialized like a dark cloud to rain on his parade.

  “Fine,” he conceded, breaking the tense silence as everyone in the room held a collective breath.

  Opening his eyes again, he sent Lena a longsuffering look. “But you’re not going into that building without a wire tap, a weapon, five police officers within shouting distance, and me keeping an eye on all of the above.”

  Lena blinked down at him, her brow furrowing. “How are you going to do that? You’re supposed to stay in bed for a week.”

  “My presence tomorrow is non-negotiable,” he insisted.

  Her look of worry shifted into a grimace of gratitude. “Thank you,” she breathed. Bending over him, she rewarded him with a warm, lingering kiss.

  Naomi went perfectly still against his left side, then threw back her head with a shriek of unmistakable delight. “I knew it!” she crowed.

  **

  Ignoring the foreboding that pinched the muscles at the base of her neck, Lena headed briskly toward her appointed rendezvous with Davis, leaving Jackson frustrated and irritable in the passenger seat of her car.

  The staccato of her high heels kept time with her anxious pulse. She reminded herself there was nothing to be afraid of. Knowing ahead of time where Davis had planned to meet her, the police had rigged the place with cameras and hidden officers inside the building. They were as eager to ensure Davis’s conviction as she was, or they would have just nabbed Davis when he showed up. Instead, they were allowing her to speak with him first, in the hopes of eliciting the rest of his confession.

  An undercover cop, disguised as a street bum, trailed Lena within fifty feet. It was he who’d supplied her with the briefcase full of money she carried. She could see no one else on the street but a young woman pushing a shopping cart and an old man sitting on the porch of a derelict row home. Where was everyone at ten on a Saturday morning?

  When the abandoned meat processing plant came into view, Lena’s confidence faltered. The brick monstrosity was a relic from the 1940’s. With its barred windows and boarded up doors, it resembled a prison.

  Davis had instructed her to enter the door closest to the loading docks. It was here that delivery trucks used to offload huge hocks of meat to be sliced up and distributed to grocers.

  The bolt on the door had been sawed in half. With a deep breath, she pushed her way inside. Behind her, the undercover cop lurched to a stop and slid down the wall as if passing out.

  The odor of decay hit her in the face as she waded into the gloomy chamber. Light leaked through the high, dusty windows showing the meat hooks that still dangled from metal tracks. Davis had told her he would be in an office on the second story. Seeing no sign of the officers concealed within the building, she climbed the central staircase on knees that shook.

  “Up here.” Davis’s voice called, echoing in the near-empty office above her and making her long for her micro-pistol. Paying no heed to Jackson’s objections, the police had assured her she wouldn’t need it. She gained the second level and edged into the room.

  Davis sat like a pedagogue at the old desk, his hands resting on the desktop like he owned the place. The sight of him in a grimy T-shirt, his eyes glazed like he’d done drugs recently, knotted her stomach. There was no sign of any hidden cameras, but then she didn’t know what to look for.

  “Shut the door,” he said, watching her carefully.

  The last thing she wanted to do was to close a door between her and her back up. She pushed it tentatively shut.

  His gaze rested on the briefcase. “You got the money?”

  “I only brought half,” she admitted.

  He rose so suddenly from his seat that the chair toppled over backward. “Half?” he raged. “What the fuck, bitch?”

  His violent reaction made her quail, but Lena spoke up quickly so the cops wouldn’t interrupt before she had a chance to elicit his confession. “If you want the rest you’ll have to finish your story,” she insisted.

  “You think I’d try to cheat you?” he scoffed.

  You think? “Your story is essential to my book, Sulayman. Tell me the rest, and I’ll see that you get your money. You were telling me about the school girl you p
icked up. How old do you figure she was? What did she look like?” Lena bit her tongue. Asking too many questions would arouse his suspicions.

  His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why’re you so interested?”

  She was my sister!

  It took all of Lena’s willpower not to back away as he circled the desk. This was her last chance to put Davis away forever. For the sake of all of his victims, not just Alexa, she had to do this. “Because I admire you for what you’ve gotten away with,” she lied. Luckily, her voice, husky with fear, sounded sultry. “You’re a bad boy, Sulayman.” As he stepped close enough to breathe on her, she laid a hand on his chest to ward him off.

  “That’s right, I’m bad,” he growled in agreement. “That’s why I brought you here, bitch. ‘Cause I know you like it rough.” Eyes glinting with excitement, he seized her upper arms.

  “Tell me first,” she begged, sensing that the police would intervene at any minute. “How old was that girl? Just how bad are you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know—fifteen, sixteen.”

  He yanked her to him, and every muscle in Lena’s body recoiled at the feel of his arousal. “You said she proved not to be worth it. What happened?” she persisted.

  “You want to know what happened?” The rough edge of his voice conveyed his impatience with her questioning. “I slapped her hard, like this, and broke her fucking neck.”

  The stinging blow that whipped Lena’s head to one side brought tears to her eyes. The briefcase she still clutched fell with a thump to her feet. A thump in the hallway echoed it, making Davis freeze. “What was that?”

  Without warning, the door exploded inward. The hinges popped loose, and it crashed to the floor, throwing dust into the air.

  Broad shoulders filled the doorway. “Police! Step away from the woman and get down on the floor!”

  Lena moved quickly toward the cops, but with a yank on her hair, Davis caught her back. Quick as a snake, he squeezed her throat, just like at Artie’s.

  “Best back away or I’ll shoot her dead!” Out of nowhere, he produced a gun. The bite of a barrel assured her he wasn’t bluffing.

  Shocked, Lena sought to free herself. With starbursts swimming before her eyes, she heard the cops reiterate their demands, heard Davis threaten to kill her if they didn’t back off.

  This is not the way it’s supposed to end. She pictured Jackson’s reaction at the news that the sting had gone awry. She envisioned her parents’ anguish. I can’t let this happen. Yet, there was nothing she could do.

  Davis backed up, groping for the wall behind him. When he jerked her out of the building into brilliant sunshine, she realized he had pulled her outside onto an old fire escape. Slamming shut the metal partition, he flung Lena aside.

  She barely caught herself from spilling over the rickety, metal railing. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Davis swing his legs over, preparing to jump. The stairs were long gone.

  Two gunshots rang out. In the next instant, Davis landed at her feet, causing the whole apparatus to shudder. The stunned look on his face and the crimson circle spreading on his shoulder assured her that he’d been shot. Seeking the shooter, Lena recognized both the cop dressed like a bum and Jackson—not resting in her car like she’d left him, but propped against a telephone phone pole, clutching his pistol. It was hard to say whose bullet had stopped Davis, but Lena’s money was on her man.

  As she met his harried gaze, tears of relief and gratitude flooded her eyes.

  Jackson shook his head in exasperation. “Can we get on with our lives now?” he shouted up at her.

  Her heart replete with love, Lena gave a watery laugh. As the door separating her from the officers burst open, she shook off the concerns of the uniformed cops and slipped past them. Hurrying through the old building and out the nearest exit, she flew across the patchy grass to arrive at Jackson’s side just as he was keeling over. The wail of sirens grew louder.

  “Here, lie down.” She lowered him gently onto the dirt and weeds and collapsed beside him, trembling uncontrollably.

  “You okay?” he asked with a worried once-over.

  “You’re the one who should be in the hospital right now,” she retorted. He had walked out that morning, against medical advice, without so much as a crutch to help him get around.

  “It’s not my hip,” he assured her. He put his hand over his chest. “It’s the shock of almost losing you. I can’t go through this again, Lena,” he confessed.

  She rolled toward him, laying a hand on the side of his face. “I promise, everything will be roses from here on out.”

  Chuckling in disbelief, he caught her face in his hand and drew her lips to his for a heartfelt kiss. “God, I love you,” he confessed.

  “I love you, too, Jackson.”

  An ambulance screeched to a halt at their feet. Paramedics rushed up to them, but Jackson waved them away. “About that vacation,” he began.

  Epilogue

  With her eyes, Lena followed the dark, graceful figure leading Naomi under the palm trees. Fontana Maddox made a habit of walking down to the beach every evening to watch the glorious sunset. Lena marveled at how much Jackson resembled his mother, if only in physical form.

  “Why didn’t you go with them?” Jackson asked, stepping out onto the patio to join her, cane in hand. He’d healed well over the past month. Physical therapy would begin after their vacation, and soon he wouldn’t need the cane at all.

  A warm breeze, smelling of pineapple and coconut oil tussled Lena’s curls as she turned to smile at him. The frangipani flowers surrounding the patio fluttered in the fading light. Wrapping her arms around him, she savored how solid and real he felt in her embrace. “Because this is our last evening here, and I wanted to spend it with you,” she explained.

  Every day of their week-long vacation, Jackson had made it down to the water to enjoy the beach with them, but slogging through the soft sand twice in a day was still too much for his healing ligaments.

  “I’m sorry.” He sent her a remorseful look. “I should have whisked you away on a vacation where it was just the two of us.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve loved every minute of getting to meet your mother and seeing where you grew up. And I’ve loved having Naomi with us. But a little romance at sunset, just the two of us, is just what the doctor ordered.” She fastened her gaze deliberately on his mouth.

  “I see,” he murmured, rewarding her with the kind of kiss that never failed to promise paradise.

  Desire heated the already sultry evening air as their tongues tangled and the kiss deepened. For Lena, the week had passed in a blur of sensual indulgence and emotional fulfillment. She had never been so happy in her life. The only experiences that eclipsed her happiness by day were the nights spent in Jackson’s arms. Fontana had conveniently placed them in the same guestroom, and Jackson had no difficulty whatsoever maneuvering in bed.

  “Your mother is nothing like your father, is she?” Lena had met Martin Maddox the previous week. Proper and reserved, he’d made her feel like a bug under a microscope. “How on earth did those two meet, anyway?”

  Jackson gestured to the hanging bench suspended from an arbor. “You’ll have to sit for that story.”

  “Okay.” She led the way to the bench, holding it steady as he eased down beside her.

  “I think it was a case of opposites attracting,” he began, using his good leg to swing them back and forth. “My father had just finished law school and was down here with his buddies, celebrating the passing of their bar exams. My mother, who’d worked at the hotel where he was staying, caught his eye. I guess because he was on vacation, he wasn’t as straight-laced as he usually is. In her words, they enjoyed a whirlwind romance, if you can imagine that. When he left a week later, he gave her his address. A month after that, my mother realized she was pregnant.”

  “Oh, dear.” Lena hung on every word.

  “She wrote to my father, hoping fo
r child support,” Jackson continued, “but instead of sending her money, he flew down and insisted she marry him.”

  “Well, that was honorable.”

  “My father is nothing if not honorable,” he replied.

  “What happened then?”

  “My mother returned to the States with him and they tried their best to share a life together, but...” He shrugged. “Like you said, they’re nothing alike.”

  Lena looked away and sighed. “That’s so sad.”

  But Jackson wasn’t finished. “By the time I was two, she realized that much for herself and brought me back to the island to raise me here. My father, being the man he is, made certain she had all the creature comforts she needed.” He waved a hand to encompass the sprawling, white-washed home behind them with its red-tiled roof.

  Lena’s opinion of Martin Maddox rose a notch higher.

  “When I was twelve, my mother decided I should get to know my father better, so she sent me off to live with him.”

  The roughness in Jackson’s voice prompted Lena to wrap her arms around him. “That must have been hard for you,” she sympathized, “leaving your mother behind and all your friends.”

  “It was hard at first,” he acknowledged, “but I’m more like my father than you realize.”

  “If you say so,” she said dubiously.

  “We eventually adjusted. He sent me to a good private school, encouraged me to apply to VMI. I eventually became a Marine Corps Officer, fell in love, got married, and the rest is history.”

  “And they never divorced?” Lena asked, still thinking of his parents.

  “Never.”

  She let herself dwell on the end of his story. “Were you and Colleen as happy the way we are?” Given what Naomi had admitted, she had her doubts, but this was the first time she’d dared to ask.

  “Baby, you don’t ever need to compare yourself to her.”

  “I know. I’m just curious.”

  Jackson sighed. Even in the gathering dusk, there was no mistaking the grief that cloaked him, still. “Colleen was a warm and carefree spirit, like Naomi is. She used to accuse me of being cold. And it was hard for her to tolerate negativity. Everything about my life seemed negative to her—the war, me being gone all the time. It sucked her down. To stay afloat, she drank. And, in the end, it killed her.”