Word of Honor

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Dan called a taxi, and Jacob Baxter, a fireman who moonlighted with his cab, picked him up. They were halfway down Jacquard when he saw the traffic bottlenecked up ahead. He leaned forward on the seat. “What’s going on up there, Jake? You know?”

  Jacob rolled down his window and leaned out to get a better look. There were police lights flashing up ahead, and one cop was directing traffic toward a detour. “Don’t look like a wreck. Looks like they’re all at that convenience store.”

  “You got a scanner in here?

  “Yeah, but I don’t use it with customers in here.”

  Dan shot him a look. “Turn the thing on, will you?”

  Jacob reached under the dash and turned the scanner on, and immediately they heard the police activity. “Subject has escaped on foot in the wooded area east of Jacquard, south of Le Fleur Boulevard.”

  “He got away again? What’s the matter with you people?”

  “R.J. was first on the scene and claims he didn’t go after him because he had to see about Jill Clark.”

  Dan’s hands hit the dashboard. “Jill?” He looked at Jacob. “Something’s going on with Jill! Let me out here. I’ll run the rest of the way.”

  “But you didn’t pay me!”

  He reached into his pocket, got his wallet, and threw it at Jacob. “Take what I owe you.” Then he took off, running between cars, zigzagging in and out of bottlenecked traffic, trying to get closer to the convenience store that seemed to be at the center of the crisis.

  “You forgot your wallet!” Jacob yelled out the window. “Dan!”

  But Dan ignored him, reached the yellow line at the center of the road, and began to run as fast as he could.

  He reached the block that was roped off and jumped the crime scene tape. An ambulance was on the scene, its lights flashing, and he saw Sid Ford standing at the back of it as they loaded someone in.

  His heart threatened to leap out of his chest as he tore around the ambulance. “Jill! Where’s Jill?”

  He saw that the person on the gurney was a big, burly man with a bloody nose, and he turned to Sid and grabbed him. “Where is she, man? Where’s Jill?”

  “I’m here, Dan.”

  He swung around and saw Jill coming around the ambulance. She was in one piece, unharmed, and he grabbed her and crushed her against him. He felt her weeping as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he held her so tight that he lifted her feet from the ground. “Are you all right? I thought you were hurt, or worse. I didn’t know…”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “He came after me, Dan. He was in my car, and I was driving and didn’t know it…. He was going to kill me…But that man, that truck driver, he saved my life…”

  Dan couldn’t let her go. He closed his eyes and kept holding her, his hands stroking her hair and his face pressed against her neck. “Jill, I love you. I thought I’d lost you. I’m so sorry…so sorry…can you ever forgive me….?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  It was the most beautiful word he’d ever heard. He loosened his embrace and looked at her, wiped the tears on her face. He didn’t even realize he had tears of his own until she reached up and wiped his. “Jill, that Lisa thing was just childish revenge…I was mad at you about the hotel…”

  “You were right about the hotel…He could have gotten me there if he’d wanted to…It was foolish…”

  “But the date was just a stupid whim, and the minute I was with her I knew how miserable I was going to be, and I left her sitting there in the restaurant…like a real jerk…but all I could think about was getting back to you and making things right. I didn’t know you were almost killed…”

  She touched his lips with her fingertips. “Shhh. It’s okay. I’m just so glad you’re here. I thought I was going to fall apart.” She breathed in a sob. “You feel so good.”

  He tightened his embrace of her again, and made the decision that he was never going to let her go.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Jerry Ingalls was lying on his bunk when the main door opened, and he heard them bringing someone in. He sat up and looked between his bars. The moment he saw Frank Harper, he sprang to his feet. “Frank?”

  As they passed his cell, Frank held his arms over his head, as if protecting himself.

  “Frank! It’s me, Jerry!”

  Frank slowly dropped his arms and peered at his friend over them. “Jerry?”

  “Yes, it’s me!”

  They both stared at each other, surprised, as the police officer unlocked another cell and let Frank in, then locked it behind him.

  “Frank, are you all right?” Jerry asked through the bars.

  “No!” Frank yelled, his voice echoing off of the cement block walls. “They hunted me down like an animal, then beat me and brought me here.”

  In the dim light, Jerry tried to see evidence that Frank had been beaten, but saw none. His scraggly hair was wet, evidence that he’d had the usual shower they insisted on before processing new inmates. He doubted there had been any beating, unless Frank had put up a fight.

  “I almost had her,” Frank yelled. “I almost got her. I was gonna follow her to wherever she was going, but then the Lord gave her into my hands. She left the car unlocked and went to talk to somebody, and I just left the car I was in and slipped into her backseat, as bold as you please. She didn’t see me when she got in. I could have just put my hands around her throat, but the car was running out of control. I was gonna wait till she stopped.”

  Jerry frowned. “Who are you talking about?”

  “You know who,” Frank said. “Your lawyer lady. The one you’ve told so much. The one who’s part of the whole government scheme…”

  Jerry shook his head. “Frank, I didn’t tell her anything. Anything she knows she’s found out on her own. And she’s not part of some conspiracy.”

  “We had a covenant. You were supposed to keep your end.”

  “I did keep my end,” Jerry said, grabbing the bars between their cells. “But you didn’t keep yours. Especially when you targeted my wife and children.”

  “Only because she’s in on it with your lawyer!” Frank shook his head frantically. “I can’t sit still for people betraying our freedoms. Somebody’s got to do something. I thought I could count on you, but I learned. I’ve known all along, since Nam, that someday you would betray me.”

  “Frank, it’s been twenty-five years. I haven’t yet betrayed you. I kept the covenant all these years, just like you taught me.”

  “But you told them. You told them that night, when you held her hostage, you told her everything. I knew you had, because they were after me, and they wouldn’t have known about me if you hadn’t told them.”

  “I didn’t tell them, Frank. You’ve got to believe me. That’s why I’m sitting in jail. They think I did it.” He tried to calm his voice. “Frank, why did you set me up that way? Why would you get me to drive you to the post office, and not tell me you were gonna blow the stinking thing up?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to stop me,” he said. “I had to do it. And once you were involved, I knew you would help. You were committed because you owed me, and you owed your country.”

  “Why did it have to be done?” Jerry demanded. “Why that post office?”

  “Because of the captain. He betrayed me, too. After I was decorated, he handed me over to the enemy. He knew.”

  “Frank, Cliff Bertrand put you in the hospital. You needed to be there. The man was retired from the service. He was just working, earning a living. He didn’t do anything to you.”

  “He was in on it. I had to get him out of the way.” Frank got up and came close to the bars, grabbed them and leaned close to Jerry. “I had to get him out of the way so that I could get on with the important work. We have to make our mark, Jerry. We have to get out of here and finish the job. We have to hit other federal buildings, like that guy did before in Oklahoma. We have to take them out, before it’s too late
. The Viet Cong are part of this. They’re on our soil now, infiltrating the government. You think the war is over, but it’s not. It came home with us.”

  “You blew up a post office and killed three people. Wounded a little boy. He’s an orphan now, Frank. His mother died. He’s five years old, grieving with a fractured skull and who even knows what other injuries.”

  Frank’s face seemed to change. “I tried to save him. I told him to go outside. Where is he now?”

  “He’s in the Pendleton Hospital in New Orleans, scared to death and no doubt in serious pain. One minute everything is fine, the next minute he’s in the hospital and his whole life has changed. How can you think you’re the good guy in that, Frank?”

  “Every war has casualties. You ought to know that.”

  Jerry moaned. “Frank, you ran two people off of a bridge, and almost blew my wife and children up…Those people didn’t have anything to do with communism, Frank! Do you realize what you’re doing? This is not you. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re not making sense.”

  “I’m making more sense than you with your cute little house and your freshly cut lawn, and that little wife…”

  Jerry shook his head. “Frank, maybe you need to go back to the hospital.”

  “I ain’t going back to the hospital,” he said. “I’m a free man. They can’t hold me there forever. Bunch of fascists. I got away, and I’m never going back.”

  “You got away? You told me you were released. Frank, did you escape from there? Is that what happened?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I don’t have to be a patsy for this communist country. I’m not going to be theirs anymore.”

  “Frank, we live in a republic. We’re not communist.”

  “Yeah, but if they win the war it’ll be communist. First it was Cambodia, now…”

  “We’re not in Vietnam, Frank, we’re in Louisiana, and there aren’t any communists around. This is not war!”

  “It is war!” Frank shouted, kicking the bar. “Everything is war.”

  Jerry backed away from the bars and sank helplessly down on his bunk. It was no use. Frank was too far gone. Jerry knew Frank had been mentally disabled since the mine had exploded, but he’d never realized the severity of it until now. “Frank, you need help. Medication. You need that hospital.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me that another bomb won’t fix!”

  Jerry felt nauseous, and his heart ached with a deep, abiding sadness that his friend had come to this. “Frank,” he said quietly, “you must be tired. Why don’t you get some rest?”

  “I can’t sleep here,” Frank said. “What if we get ambushed? What if they’re out there?”

  “They’re not,” Jerry said, “but just in case they are, I’ll stand guard while you sleep.”

  “You will?” Frank asked suspiciously. “You won’t let me down now, will you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “We have a covenant, you know. I carried you between the pieces. There were dead bodies everywhere, blown to bits, and I came back for you when you were bleeding to death. I carried you through, with bullets flying and mines exploding. You have to protect me. What’s yours is mine.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Jerry said sadly.

  Frank went to his bunk and lay down on the top of the covers, without taking off his shoes. “I know I made you mad, what I did to your house and all. But I never intended to hurt anybody. It was just a little fire bomb. I knew she’d have plenty of time to get the kids out. It was just a warning.”

  Jerry looked up at him over his fingertips. “A warning about what?”

  “Not to talk to anybody else. I wanted her to realize she couldn’t do that.”

  “But we swore to protect each other’s families, Frank. We had a deal.”

  “And that’s what I did. I protected her.”

  “How?”

  “I stopped her before she went too far.”

  “That’s not the agreement, Frank. That’s not what you promised. I trusted you with them.”

  “I didn’t hurt them, I swear. They’re not hurt, are they?”

  “No, but they’re scared to death, and my house is damaged…”

  “But they’re not hurt, are they?”

  Jerry sighed heavily. “No, they’re not hurt.”

  “See there?” He got comfortable on the bed. “Now you keep watch. I’ll just get a few winks, and then I’ll guard.”

  “Okay,” Jerry said.

  It wasn’t long before Frank Harper was sound asleep, and Jerry could hear him snoring rhythmically.

  Jerry muffled his mouth and began to weep. This man had saved his life so sacrificially, so heroically, when he was minutes from death. Frank Harper had run into a firefight with no regard for his own life, had thrown Jerry over his shoulder and had rushed him to the medics as bullets shot past him. He had gotten him safely to the gurney that would take him to the helicopter.

  Then, as Frank had backed up and let the copter take off, the wind had knocked him back. He had caught himself with his hands…. directly on a mine. Jerry had never been able to forget the sight of that explosion that had almost killed his friend. He had lost several fingers and shattered his skull, and his brain had never recovered. How could he stop repaying? His friend was sick, and he didn’t need to be in a jail cell or out on the street. He needed to be safe…medicated…

  He knelt down beside his bunk and began to pray that Frank would get help before the justice system sealed his fate.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Jill wanted to kiss Sid Ford when he told her Frank Harper had been caught. Now she felt comfortable going back to her home, taking a shower, eating from her own kitchen, and lying in her bed for the first time in days. It was heaven. She’d never realized how precious her own home was.

  She checked on Celia once before going to sleep, and was told that the baby still had not come. She tried again in the morning, and learned that Celia was still in labor. She decided to head for the hospital, anyway, with the hopes of visiting Pete if Celia hadn’t delivered yet.

  She drove to New Orleans, thankful that she didn’t have to look over her shoulder for Frank Harper anymore. She was back in Dan’s good graces, and he’d already asked her to hold tonight open for him. Things were looking up. Funny how much things could change in twenty-four hours. Yesterday she had been a basket case melting into tears at the slightest thought of Dan. Today she was floating.

  She stopped along the way and bought Pete a gift. When she got to the hospital, she was told that Celia had just been taken to delivery. The baby should be born in mere moments. Unable to contain her excitement, she went to the waiting room and saw that Mark and Allie were waiting there. Aunt Aggie, she was told, had been with Celia and Stan all night. “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  “An hour or so. Poor thing. It’s been a long night for her.”

  She sat down. “Does Stan know about Frank Harper?”

  “Yep. But he’s a little distracted.”

  Allie went with her to Pete Hampton’s room, and they found his grandmother sitting beside his bed, and the child lying under the ventilator mask. She walked in and smiled at the little boy. “Hi, Pete. How’re you doing?”

  He lifted his hand in a weak wave.

  “Miss Celia’s up here having her baby. Did you know that?”

  He nodded.

  “She came by when they first checked into the hospital,” his grandmother said.

  Jill leaned on the rail of his bed and smiled at his grandmother. “How are you holding up, Mrs. Lewis?”

  She could see the remnants of grief on the old woman’s face. “I’m doing fine. A good night’s sleep would do me a lot of good…”

  “It’s been a long week,” Jill agreed.

  Allie went to the other side of the bed and stroked the boy’s hair. “So how’s he doing? Are they going to take him off the ventilator soon?”

  “Not for a while,” his grandmother sai
d, and the lines of worry grew more pronounced on her face. “He’s not breathing right on his own yet. There’s no telling how long he’ll need it.” Tears burst into the old woman’s eyes, and she turned her back to the boy so he couldn’t see.

  He didn’t have to see. He carried his own pain. He looked off in the distance, his eyes vacant, troubled…

  “I just wondered if you knew that the man who did…this…is in jail?” Jill asked.

  The child looked up at her, suddenly interested. He held up his hands and pointed to his fingers.

  “Yes, he was missing some fingers, just like you told Stan.”

  He nodded.

  She knew the vacant look in his eyes reflected the thoughts that crept through his mind, thoughts of his dead mother and the explosion that had put him here. She reached into her bag and pulled out a gift she had bought him on the way here. It was a Game Boy with a Mario Brothers game inside.

  His eyes widened.

  She wished she could see a smile break through all the tragedy on his face. “Do you have one?”

  He shook his head.

  She handed it to him, and he turned it on. His eyes brightened instantly. He showed it to his grandmother with great interest.

  “Well, I’ll be,” the old woman said. “Jill, you shouldn’t have.”

  Jill looked down at little Pete, and saw that, at last, he was smiling through that mask. It was such a little thing, she thought. She wished there was something more she could do.

  Celia still hadn’t had the baby when Jill returned to Newpointe. She went to the office, revelling in her new freedom from Frank Harper.

  Sheila was already there. “Sheila! I didn’t expect you to be here.”

  “I thought I’d come back and catch up on some things, since your friend is locked up,” she said, picking up a stack of files and heading for the file cabinet.

  “He’s not my friend,” Jill assured her.

  “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about him throwing bombs through the window or trying to set the place on fire.” She began to file the folders. “You know, you really have the jinx syndrome.”