Line of Duty

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said. “We should have done better.”

  “The thing is, I brought Gordon too, and he’s a sweet old man. He’s easy to be warm to. He looks like any other member of our church. Everybody rallied around him and wanted to cook for him and do things for him. And I’m glad, because he needs it. But they didn’t do the same for Ashley.”

  Dan kissed her hand. “It was the way she looks,” he said. “Our church isn’t used to Goth. Isn’t that what you said she looks like?”

  Nick nodded. “He’s right. She didn’t look very approachable.”

  “I know,” Jill said. “She does look kind of creepy with her hair and lips painted black. She’s not the kind of kid we’re used to in our congregation. But maybe those are just the kind of kids that we should be drawing into church. And for heaven’s sake, once we get them there, we sure shouldn’t alienate them by treating them like they’re outcasts. She came to us just as wounded as Gordon was, probably even more, but I don’t know how to make the church care about her.”

  Nick seemed to deflate with the indictment. “I’m sorry, Jill. It’s my fault. I should have led the effort more. I should have embraced her, pulled her in, made her feel welcome. But you’re right. I was a little put off by her.”

  “She’s a sweet, mixed-up kid.” Jill got up and went to the window, pulled back the curtain to let in some light. “She’s just expressing herself, and she feels so dark. She’s empty right now, in misery. I know a little bit about how she feels because I lost my mother when I was younger, but it was nothing like this . . . so violently, with so many regrets.”

  Nick sank into a chair. “We really messed up.”

  Jill sighed. “It’s not your fault. I’m just saying that we could do better. Didn’t James tell us not to show partiality? If I get her back, we all have to do better. Her life may depend on it.”

  Nick got up and slid his hands into his pockets. “If you get her back, Jill, I can promise you she’s going to be loved at our church. She’ll never walk through those doors and be ignored again.”

  “Fine, but it has to be real,” Jill said. “She’s too smart for anything else. She’ll know immediately if she’s being patronized.”

  “Trust me, Jill. We’ll do it right this time. Find her and I promise we won’t fail her again.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Ashley parked her car as close to her mother’s grave as she could get. She got out and stepped carefully between the mounds, her eyes on the fresh new plot among all the others. Her mother did not have a headstone yet or any kind of marker to let observers know what kind of woman had been laid to rest here.

  But Ashley knew.

  Treading across the grass with her black hair stringing into her eyes, she went to the mound where green sod struggled to take root over the freshly filled grave. She sat down on top of it, hugging her knees, and tried to feel the closeness of her mother.

  But all she felt was the cool breeze.

  Ashley knew that if her mother could speak right now, she would have told Ashley she wasn’t here anymore, that she was dwelling in the house of the Lord, walking on streets paved of gold, and worshiping God like it was church camp, her cup overflowing.

  But Ashley’s cup was empty.

  She tried to formulate words to say to her mother, but it felt silly and fruitless. It was too late to say any of the things on her mind.

  She sat there for a long time, the crisp wind drying the tears on her face as fast as they fell. Finally, she got up, moved to the tree near the grave, and leaned back against it. It was peaceful here. All around her death lay lined up with an order that life did not have. There was no pain in this graveyard, no dread, and no fear.

  Wouldn’t she be better off lying here among them? There was just room enough beside her mother’s grave for her own. She wondered if she would feel close to her, lying side by side with her, all the pain and recriminations ended and put to rest. It felt like her only hope.

  Looking up at the sky, she saw the leaves blowing on the wind. Up north, the trees were probably already bare, but in the south, they still fell. Soon all would be cold and dead.

  She wondered if her mother had been right, if there really was a God, if he looked down on her and cared in the least about the pain she felt right now.

  It was a dilemma. If there was no God, only suffering and then death, then she’d never have hope of seeing her mother again. And there was no point in going on. But if there was a God who cared about her, as her mother believed, then he would have to show Ashley that her life was worth living.

  Right now she just couldn’t see it.

  Ashley returned to her car. She drove around for a while but didn’t know where to go. If she spent the night at her mother’s house, Jill would find her and convince her to come back. She didn’t want to deal with Clara.

  And she didn’t think she could handle being in her own house alone.

  Finally, she pulled her car into a park and hunkered down on the seat to sleep there.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Dan urged Jill to go look for Ashley again when Clara got back to the hospital after lunch. He also asked her to go home to get his tennis shoes so that he wouldn’t have to begin using his wheelchair in his socks.

  Jill drove by the girl’s house and saw her note still on the door. She obviously hadn’t been home. Where on earth could she be?

  She hoped she would find her in Newpointe, waiting on the porch of Jill’s house again, but forty minutes later, when she pulled into her driveway, there was no sign of her.

  Then she thought of Gordon. He was the only other person in Newpointe that Ashley really knew. She doubted she would have gone to his house, but maybe . . .

  She decided she needed to check on him anyway, so she drove across town. Ashley’s car wasn’t there.

  Near tears again, she went to the front porch. The screen door was closed, but the front door was open. Gordon sat in his chair with his casted leg propped up. She knocked, and he looked up at her with delight.

  “Come in, Jill! What a surprise! I thought you’d be at the hospital.”

  “I was.” She came in and gave him a hug. The television blared, but he didn’t turn it down.

  “To tell you the truth, I was looking for Ashley,” she said, sitting down. “She left my house this morning, and I haven’t been able to find her. She hasn’t by any chance been by here today, has she?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her. Can’t imagine her wanting to come see an old man. Is everything all right?”

  “I don’t know.” She let her gaze drift to the television set. It was another news broadcast about the Icon Building. They came frequently and rarely offered new information. “She’s pretty depressed,” she went on. “I’m a little worried about her. But how are you?”

  He chuckled and patted his stomach. “I’ve never been better taken care of in my life. All those sweet people from your church have been coming by, bringing me food, warming things up for me. I haven’t hardly had to even get up from this chair. It’s unbelievable how good they’ve been to me.”

  She smiled. “I’m sure they’re getting as much out of it as you are.”

  Donald Merritt’s picture flashed on the screen, and their attention shifted to the set.

  “. . . Sources tell us that the FBI is still investigating Merritt’s disappearance. Speculation abounds about whether the Icon CEO really died in the bombing. Some say he may have had a part in planting the bombs that killed so many people. The latest death toll is a hundred and fifty-three.”

  Gordon picked up the remote control and turned it off. When Jill looked at him, his face was red, and his hand shook as he threw the thing down.

  “If anybody deserved to die, it was Donald Merritt,” he said through his teeth. “Instead, he’s probably off sipping margaritas somewhere and spending my retirement money with half a dozen of his cohorts.”

  Jill thought of the man she’d been deposing the
morning of the bombing. Yes, he was a jerk, all right. He had no regard for his employees’ retirement or for the stockholders who had supported him. But was he a killer? A thief maybe, but she found it hard to believe he could deliberately murder all those people. And if he’d known that there was a bomb in the building, wouldn’t he have missed that meeting?

  No, she couldn’t imagine that he had anything to do with it. But she knew Gordon wasn’t going to buy her defense of the man.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Before going back to the hospital, Jill went by a cell phone company and bought two new cell phones to replace the ones she and Dan had lost at Icon. When she was back in her car, she called to check on Dan. Clara answered and handed him the phone.

  “Hi, honey. I just wanted to let you know that I’m on my way back. I’ll be there in about forty minutes. I got a new cell phone, so if you need to reach me you can use the same number as my old one. I replaced yours, too.”

  “No need to hurry,” he said. “I have physical therapy again at three, so I’ll be busy at least for the next couple of hours. Take your time.”

  Jill knew he didn’t want her there when he was struggling. “Is your mother going to stay?”

  There was a heavy pause, then, “I hope not.”

  She smiled. “Just tell her what you told me. That you’d rather do it alone. She’ll understand.”

  “Did you?”

  Her smile faltered. “Sure, I did.”

  “It’s not you, you know. I just have a problem with pride. Guess it’s a guy thing.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to explain it to me.”

  She heard voices, then Dan said, “Well, they’re here. Guess I’ll let you go.”

  “Okay. I think I’ll run by the office for an hour or so. I’ll be back by the time you’re finished.”

  Dan hung up, and Jill turned her car around and went back to her office. Maybe with the resources she had there, she could come up with a plan to find Ashley.

  Her secretary, Sheila, sat at the front desk with her feet propped up, reading a Ladies Home Journal and talking on the phone. She caught her breath at the sight of her boss, dropped her feet, and tossed the magazine aside. “I got to go,” she told whoever was on the other end of the phone. “Incoming.”

  Jill rolled her eyes. Sheila was so dramatic. “Hi there,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you’d be in today.” Sheila got to her feet and came around the desk. “Good grief, you look like death warmed over. You ought to be in the hospital, not your husband. How is he, anyway?”

  “He’s as well as can be expected.” She knew it was an evasion, but she didn’t feel like going into it now.

  “You’re not honestly going to try to work this afternoon? I mean, it’s okay if you don’t because I’ve postponed all of your meetings for the next week or so.”

  Sheila was efficient, even if she did drive Jill crazy. “I appreciate you handling everything.”

  “Hey, no problem.”

  “I just came in to work on a case for a friend,” she said, “a girl whose mother was killed in the bombing.”

  “So is it going to be a full day?” Sheila asked. “I’ve been knocking off at about three o’clock.”

  Jill bristled. “How about staying until five today, since I pay you for a full day?”

  Sheila shrugged. “No problem. I’m just happy I have a job. If you’d bought the farm the other day, I’d be out of work.”

  Jill shot her a dull look. “It was that thought that kept me alive.”

  She went into her office and closed the door behind her. She had thought of firing Sheila a number of times for her flip attitude and smart-aleck remarks. She had even managed to do it a time or two. But no one could help her run the small legal office better, so Jill had always wound up keeping her on.

  Jill sat behind her desk, where she got her best ideas, and flipped through the phone book of the church where Debbie Morris’s funeral was held. They’d said that they had contacted Ashley’s friends when they’d been looking for her. She wondered if they still had the number.

  She called the church and waited as the secretary did her greeting mini-speech. “New Way of Life Community Church, where the love of Christ is a verb instead of a noun. Annie speaking. May I help you?”

  Jill wondered if she’d written the greeting herself. She hoped the pastor hadn’t penned it. “Yes. This is Jill Nichols. I’m a friend of Ashley Morris—”

  “Yes, Mrs. Nichols! I met you at the funeral. Ashley’s living with you, isn’t she?”

  “Well, that’s why I’m calling. Ashley took all her things and left my house this morning, and I’ve been trying to find her. I was wondering if you still had the numbers of any of her friends.”

  “Hold on, hon. Let me give a quick look through my Rolodex.”

  Jill waited, praying that she found something.

  “Okay, hon. I have a number here. It’s the house where she was living before her mama died.”

  Jill wrote the number down and thanked her. Quickly, she dialed it.

  Someone picked it up, and she heard loud music blaring in the background. “Hello?”

  Jill decided not to identify herself to the girl. “May I speak to Ashley, please?”

  “We haven’t seen Ashley,” the girl said in a sleepy voice. “She, like, strung out after her mother died, and she hasn’t been around.”

  “You’re sure she hasn’t been there today?”

  “I’ve been here all day, lady. But she may have gone by to see Chris at work.”

  “Where is that?”

  “At the Fixation Tattoo Parlor,” the girl said. “She works there too, but she hasn’t been in in a week. Chris is probably there now, though.”

  Jill decided to go by there instead of calling him, since she feared he might not be honest with her if Ashley was with him. She looked it up in the phone book and got the address.

  It took forty minutes to get back to New Orleans and fifteen more to navigate her way to the tattoo parlor. She finally found it—a tiny hole-in-the-wall with a neon sign flashing over the store. On the windows were dozens of images that patrons could have permanently etched on their skin.

  She stepped into the small shop that smelled of cigarette smoke and rubbing alcohol. No one was out front, but she heard music playing behind the beads that hung over the door to the back part of the store.

  “Hello!” she called to the back.

  She heard someone curse, then Chris, the young man Ashley had spoken to at the funeral, came scuffing out. “Hey. Sammy’s busy doing a tattoo, but you can use the time to pick out what you want. Do you know where you want it?”

  Jill cleared her throat. “Uh . . . I didn’t come for a tattoo, actually. I came to talk to you. Chris, isn’t it?”

  He finally looked at her. “Yeah. You’re the one who was with Ashley the other day at the funeral.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Chris, have you seen Ashley today? I really need to get in touch with her.”

  “No. She hasn’t exactly shared her life with me since what happened last week. It’s almost like she blames me for it or something. I can understand her being strung out about her mom and everything, but she doesn’t have to, like, turn her back on me and her friends.”

  “She’s really mixed up right now. So she hasn’t been by here at all?”

  “No. I wish she would. Besides missing her, I want my money back.”

  “What money?”

  “She owes me thirty bucks,” he said. “I wouldn’t be that worried about it if she was around, you know, but when she vanishes like this, it makes me mad. I really need it.”

  If Jill hadn’t understood Ashley’s reluctance to contact him before, she did now. She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and jotted her cell phone number on it. “If she does contact you, would you ask her to call me, please? It’s very important.”

  “Yeah, sure. If I see her.”

  Jill started to le
ave.

  “Hey, if you find her,” he said, “tell her to call me too, will you? Tell her it’s only right after all we’ve meant to each other.”

  As Jill went back to her car, she prayed that the girl wouldn’t get tangled up with him again.

  Before going back to the hospital, she went by Ashley’s house again. The note was still there. She added her cell phone number to it, hoping Ashley would use it.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  I can do it.” Dan shook off Dallas’s hands and tried to move himself into the wheelchair. As weak as he was from his injuries, the strength in his muscular arms should have made it easier.

  But it wasn’t. It required sideways movement, and with no help from his legs at all, it was like bench-pressing two hundred pounds in the wrong position.

  “Come on, Dan. You can do this. You’re practically trained for it. You have the strength.”

  Sweat ran into Dan’s eyes as he struggled to move himself. His arms shook, and his body felt as if it was sliding . . .

  Dallas hurried to correct him, then repositioned him on the bed.

  Dan thought of giving up, but he couldn’t. He had to move forward. He couldn’t just lie flat on his back for the rest of his life.

  “Come on, Dan. Don’t give up. You’ve come this far. Yesterday you couldn’t even sit up. Now you’ve got your balance. And you’re lucky, man. You’ve got good hip control. A lot of paraplegics don’t have that. And your abs are tough, which helps a lot.”

  Dan found it hard to be grateful for those things.

  Finally, gritting his teeth, his arms bulging with the effort, he managed to grab one arm of the chair and reached for the other one behind his back. Slowly, he put himself into the chair.

  “Way to go, Dan! That was great!”

  “I told you not to patronize me,” he gritted. “Couple weeks ago I was bench-pressing two-eighty. Now I have trouble lifting myself.”