Line of Duty

  Ashley tore one out. “Sorry.”

  Jill smiled and sat down on the bed, face to face, knee to knee with the girl. “Honey, don’t apologize for grieving. It’s natural.”

  Ashley nodded and wiped her nose.

  “Where are your friends, Ashley? I know you have some.”

  “They’re around somewhere.”

  “Have you told them yet?”

  Ashley swallowed. “They know.”

  “How?”

  “The lady at the church was looking for me. She got the number where I was staying and called them.”

  “Do they know where to find you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t really want to talk to them.”

  “Why not? They could help you through it. You wouldn’t have to be so alone.”

  Ashley looked up at the ceiling. “I guess I just figured . . . what if they handle it wrong, you know? Like, what if they don’t understand how important it is and they say something stupid and I lose it?”

  “It’s okay to lose it with your friends.”

  Ashley shot her a look. “You don’t know my friends.”

  Jill took her hand. “You’re right, I don’t know them. But maybe they’d surprise you. Maybe they wouldn’t know exactly the right thing to say. Nobody really does. But they could hold your hand, walk beside you.”

  “Maybe.” Ashley stared down at the wadded tissue in her hand.

  “Would you like me to talk to them for you?”

  Ashley laughed. “Yeah, I can just picture that. You could drop in at the Fixation Tattoo Parlor and tell Chris that I need him. He’d drop everything and come running to rescue me.”

  “Who’s Chris?”

  “My boyfriend,” she said.

  “Doesn’t sound like you like him very much.”

  “Yeah, well.” She tore out another tissue. “Guess nothing feels the same anymore. Four days ago I was just like them. No responsibility, no rules. Just fun. Whatever feels good. That’s our motto. I can’t blame them, really.”

  “How did your mother feel about them?”

  New tears rushed to Ashley’s eyes. “She couldn’t stand them. Thought they were leading me straight to hell. When I moved out to live with Chris and some of the others in this house our friend Eddie rented, she went ballistic. Reported me as missing to the police. They came after me and made this big deal. I went back home, but I didn’t stay.” She sucked in a sob and pressed the Kleenex to her mouth. “I don’ t know why I tried so hard to do what she hated. Why couldn’t I just make her proud of me one time, instead of ashamed?”

  Jill reached across and kissed Ashley on the cheek, stroked her ruffled hair. “I’m sure she was proud, Ashley.” The girl seemed so small, sitting here on this bed. And her grief seemed so big.

  “When’s the last time you’ve eaten, honey?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m ordering some Chinese takeout. It’s a little beneath Clara, but if she’s hungry she’ll eat it. Got any favorites?”

  Ashley shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Then I’ll get a little of everything.” She slid off of the bed. “I’ll call you when it comes. And tonight we can just hang out, maybe watch a movie or something.”

  Ashley looked up at her. “So you’re staying home tonight?”

  “Dan insisted.”

  Ashley gave her a weak smile. “He must be doing really well.”

  “Yeah.” Jill looked at the floor, wondering whether she should tell the girl that he still couldn’t move his legs. There was no need to bring her further down.

  “It’s kind of a miracle, isn’t it, that he’d be buried like that and be one of the few survivors and still be all right?”

  “Yeah, kind of a miracle.” Jill turned and saw the snapshot of Ashley and her mother lying on the dresser. She picked it up. “Is this you?”

  Ashley looked at the picture with her. “Yeah, I was six. They copied the picture at the funeral home so they could use it tomorrow.”

  “Good. That’s nice.”

  “I didn’t have anything recent. That was the best I could do.” She took the picture from Jill’s hand and gazed down at it. “I wonder why my mom didn’t get a miracle. She was a good person. She loved God and prayed all the time. How come some people get miracles and some don’t?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that,” Jill whispered.

  Ashley just stared down at that picture. After several moments, she looked up. “Sweet and sour chicken,” she said. “Can you order some of that?”

  Jill smiled. “I’ll let you know the minute it’s here.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  We’ve been interviewing survivors and witnesses, and so far have twenty-plus people who saw Donald Merritt in the stairwell that day.” Mills Bryan stood at the front of the room, listing the facts on a dry-erase board. “Five say they saw him exit the building.”

  Stan jotted that on his legal pad. The other detectives who’d been assembled from police forces across the region took it all in, each one hoping they’d be the one to find the missing CEO.

  “Guy’s alive,” Sid Ford whispered. “He’s so guilty I can smell it.”

  Stan looked at his friend, the only other detective on the Newpointe force. “Yeah, but don’t forget the three guys we arrested.” They were still being detained in the Newpointe jail. Even though their alibis had checked out, the FBI had instructed them to keep holding them awhile longer, primarily for their own safety. If they let them go, some grieving, angry soul would probably gun them down before they got out of town.

  “It’s critical that we ascertain what kind of bombs these were, where the material came from, how it was detonated. Witnesses may have seen the bombs being taken up and not realized what they were. That’s why we’ve asked for your help.”

  Mills flashed up a slide of the inside of a warehouse that looked to be the size of a football field. “As you know, the rescue effort is still ongoing. Workers are carefully digging through rubble looking for bodies. All of the debris is being moved in buckets and dumped into trucks, and we’re transporting it to this warehouse. We have forensic chemists on the scene, and we need all of you to help sift through the rubble. We’re looking for timing mechanisms, debris from blasting caps, explosive materials. As you know, the parking garage was full, and since the biggest explosion occurred there, there’s quite a bit of metal. We have arson experts searching for metal that may have come from the vehicle that held the explosives.”

  Stan had hoped they needed them to interview witnesses. Digging through ashes was not his idea of important investigative work. But it was clearly needed.

  “I know it’s not glamorous work,” Mills said, “but we can only use trained detectives for this. We can’t take the chance of having any pertinent physical evidence overlooked, and we have to keep a careful log of every single thing that could be important.”

  “I’m in,” Sid whispered. Stan nodded that he was, too. They both had a personal interest in this case, since so many of their good friends had died. But he supposed the others in the room had come for the same reason. To do this, they would have to put some of their own cases on the back burner. But it was worth it if they could avoid another attack like the one at Icon.

  “When do we get started?” Stan asked.

  “You can start right now,” Mills said.

  Stan was ready to get his hands dirty.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Ashley was quiet as they ate. But Clara was not.

  “I think what we should do is to move Dan to another state,” Clara said. “Possibly to Rochester, near Mayo, where the best doctors in the country can treat his paralysis. I won’t accept that he won’t walk again. The right doctors could do the right kind of surgery.”

  Jill had begun to consider taking Dan to a hospital that had made progress in spinal cord injuries. But he would have to be a part of that decision.

  “He can’t walk?” Ashley sa
id.

  Jill touched her hand. “We’re still hoping for the best. It’s early yet—”

  “We have to move quickly, Jill,” Clara spouted. “We can’t just wait.”

  “The doctors are moving,” she said. “I don’t think it will be necessary to move him out of state. This could be a very long process. He should be at home while he does rehab.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Jill, you have to think of him instead of yourself. Maybe it is inconvenient, but if it enables him to get the best medical care—”

  “I think he is getting the best,” she said. “His doctors seem very capable, and they’re consulting with other orthopedic surgeons.”

  “Things are not always what they seem. What do they care if my son is crippled?”

  Jill just gave her a dull look and thought of telling her that she didn’t know why she would spend so much time being anxious over his care now when she hadn’t given it a thought when he was a child.

  But she bit her tongue and told herself that she only had to endure Clara for a while longer. Surely she would grow bored and return to Europe soon.

  When Jill finally retreated to her room, she luxuriated in a long, warm shower. When she got out, she sat on her bed, hugging her knees, and prayed for God to heal Dan’s legs before he realized how serious—and how permanent—his paralysis might be.

  Then she curled up under her comforter and drifted into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Mama!”

  Jill sat bolt upright at the scream and groped for her lamp.

  “Mama, no!”

  Ashley. Her scream was piercing, chilling, and reminiscent of that day on the stairwell.

  Jill ran out into the hall and saw Clara looking out her door.

  “What on earth is happening?”

  Jill threw open Ashley’s door and saw her writhing on the bed, covered with sweat and still screaming.

  “Mama, no! Help! Somebody help!”

  Jill pulled the girl up and tried to shake her awake. “Ashley! Ashley, you’re dreaming. It’s a nightmare, honey. Wake up. Come on, honey.”

  Ashley fought her off, sobbing and screaming, and finally, she opened her eyes and focused on Jill. Her fighting stopped.

  Jill put her arms around her. “You’re okay. You’re here at my house. Remember? You’re with me.”

  Ashley wilted. “It happened all over again.” She sucked in a sob. “I heard that explosion, and we were in that stairwell, and the smoke was filling up . . .”

  “I know, honey,” Jill whispered.

  “. . . and I knew my mother was dead. People were screaming and running down, and some of the faces around us were blotted out because they were the ones who were going to die.”

  Jill held her tighter. She had to protect her somehow. She had to help her banish these memories. She looked back at the door. Clara stood there, hands at her sides, her black eye mask pulled up to her hairline.

  “Would you get her some water, Clara?”

  The woman disappeared.

  Jill looked around for the box of tissues and found it next to the bed. She pulled one out and began to dab at Ashley’s face.

  “It’s okay,” Jill said again. “You and I are probably going to have these dreams for a long time. It was a traumatic thing that happened.”

  Ashley was soaking wet with sweat, and her body shivered as if she was freezing.

  “Oh, I hate this!” Ashley cried, pressing her hand against her forehead. “I hate this so much!”

  “I hate it, too.”

  Clara came back in with the water and handed it to Jill. She sat Ashley up and made her drink.

  “If she had only run with me,” Ashley said when she had emptied the glass. “If she hadn’t stayed to call security . . . I shouldn’t have gone without her, and maybe she would have come. . . .”

  “Don’t do that, Ashley. Honey, you did what she told you.”

  “First time in years.” She sucked in a sob. “I’d rather be dead with her than having to go to her funeral.”

  Jill understood that. If Dan had died, she would have felt the same way. She wiped at her own tears and looked up at Clara. The woman just stood there, watching as if she’d just witnessed a bad wreck. Jill wished she would go back to bed.

  “I’m glad you’re alive, though,” Jill whispered. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  The girl clung to her, hiccuping her sobs, and Jill sat there for a long time, stroking her hair. She couldn’t explain the bond she had with this girl. It was like mother-love. She’d never felt like that before.

  Slowly, the girl stopped shivering and her breathing settled. Her sobbing stopped.

  “I’m okay now,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Go on back to bed. You need your sleep.”

  Jill let her go. “You call me if you need me, Ashley.”

  “I will.”

  Jill kissed her cheek and started to the door.

  “Jill?”

  Ashley’s voice turned her around.

  “What, honey?”

  “She probably didn’t suffer, did she? I mean with the explosions so close to her, she probably died instantly, don’t you think?”

  “Probably.”

  “Because all those hours when we were waiting to find out . . .” Her voice broke. “. . . I just pictured her lying there buried somewhere and suffering all that time. But it probably wasn’t true.”

  “No,” Jill said, “it probably wasn’t.”

  Ashley sniffed and nodded. “Good night.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.”

  When she left Ashley alone in the room, she saw Clara standing near her door, her face pale. “That poor girl,” she whispered.

  The comment surprised Jill. “She’s suffering post-traumatic stress. She’s pretty young to have gone through that.”

  Clara stared at her for a moment. “Do you have nightmares, too?”

  Jill sighed. “I’ve had some. It’s a hard thing to get over.”

  Clara got tears in her eyes. “That must have been horrible for Dan, to feel that building come down on him, to be thrown and buried.” She brought her fingers to her chest. “How in the world did he survive?”

  “God was looking out for him.” But even as she uttered those words, she remembered Ashley’s question.

  I wonder why my mom didn’t get a miracle?

  She regarded Clara. The woman stared into space as if a veil had just been lifted. Jill wondered if she would have more compassion for Ashley now. Would she be gentler with her?

  But she knew better than to expect too much.

  “Well, I guess I’ll go back to bed,” she said. “Do you need anything?”

  “No, dear, I’ll be fine.”

  Jill watched her go back into her room, before Jill closed the door to her own.

  Chapter Fifty

  Jill rose early the next morning, hoping to get to the hospital by the 7:00 A.M. visitation. It would take her forty-five minutes to get there, and she wanted to make sure she allowed for any traffic glitches. Just before she left at 5:30, she looked in on Ashley.

  To her surprise, the girl was already up, sitting on the chaise beside the window, reading.

  “You’re up early,” Jill said.

  Her eyes were puffy and red. Jill wondered if she’d slept at all after her nightmare last night. “It’s a big day,” Ashley said. “My mother’s funeral day. Couldn’t sleep it away.”

  The tragic acceptance in that statement impaled Jill’s heart. She sighed and went to sit on the bed. “You know, I lost my mother when I was a freshman in college, about the age you are now.”

  “What did she die of?”

  “Heart attack. And I remember waking up that morning, the day of the funeral, and the house was teeming with relatives and people were running around getting dressed and chattering like it was Christmas or something. And I remember thinking, this can’t be. I can’t really be going to my mom?
??s funeral. I had this urge to run ask her what I should wear, if these shoes looked all right with this dress. I had never even been to a funeral before.”

  Ashley looked down at the notebook in her hands. “I went to my dad’s when I was five, but I don’t remember much about it.”

  “Well, I’ll walk you through it,” Jill said. “I’ll be there with you the whole time. I can meet you there, or you can pick me up at the hospital.”

  “You shouldn’t come,” Ashley said. “You should be with Dan.”

  “Dan will understand,” Jill said. “Don’t argue, because I’m coming.”

  Ashley let out a ragged sigh. “Good.” She drew in a deep breath and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I know it’s stupid, me needing you like this and all when I hardly even know you. It’s kind of like you’re my angel. The one my mom prayed for.”

  “What do you mean, honey?”

  Ashley turned a few pages in the notebook she held. “Right here,” she said. “It was a prayer. She wrote, ‘Send her godly people who can love and guide her. I’m asking for a miracle, Lord.’” She looked up at Jill. “I guess that miracle would be you.”

  Jill wished she was worthy of that. But God was clearly working in this as he was probably working in the life of every person who’d been touched by that explosion. Miracles didn’t always come as expected or wanted.

  She only hoped she’d have the wisdom to be the answer to Debbie Morris’s prayer.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Dan had grown used to the poking and prodding, but he hated it when they turned him over to examine the incision on his back. It was then that he realized the extent of his paralysis. His arms were still strong and had full mobility, but his legs lay there like lead pipes, too heavy to move.

  Always before, he’d been able to overcome physical problems through the sheer force of his will.

  But this was more serious than anything he’d ever faced, and he realized now that the strength of his will was not going to be enough.

  The physiatrist stood over him next to the thoracic surgeon who had stabilized his spine, moving his legs in various positions and scratching him with instruments.