Courageous (6 page)

Shane’s neck was splotchy red. Adam had seldom seen him so upset. “Sure wish you’d been there with Sarge and Koos. I could have used you. I had my hand slapped for doing my job! Never mind the risk I took sticking my head up in an attic where two armed felons might have been waiting to blow me away. Never mind the fact that there wouldn’t have been a chase if he hadn’t run and that we confiscated the drugs he was carrying.”

“Are you getting a reprimand?”

“Yep. An official written reprimand. Goes in my file. If that file gets thick enough, someday they can dismiss me. That’s great for morale, isn’t it?”

As they pulled up to a stop sign, Adam said, “You know, Murphy gave you the opportunity. You could have claimed you warned him. It would have been your word against Jamar’s.”

Shane shrugged. “Well, sometimes the truth hurts; in this case it hurts my record. No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”

Adam clenched the steering wheel tightly as he drove. “Just because Jamar ran doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been armed. I mean, as you warned him about using nonlethal force, what would have kept him from taking you down with lethal force?”

“I
definitely
needed you in that room. The PIO is hopeless. Sergeant Murphy just sits there because Koos answers directly to the sheriff, and I end up being the bad guy. It’s not as fun being a cop as it used to be. It’s not only that the streets are more dangerous. Nowadays, we have to be so worried about what the public thinks. And the criminals and their attorneys. And the PIO. Seems like nobody’s on the side of the guys patrolling the streets.”

“You’re preachin’ to the choir.”

“And I wonder if one day me having to think twice before I use reasonable means to subdue someone will give him just enough time to kill me.” He turned to Adam. “Or you.”

Chapter Seven

After a long day, Nathan savored the welcome aroma of lasagna and garlic sourdough bread enveloping him as he opened his front door.

Nathan rounded the corner to the kitchen and saw Kayla, wearing her favorite yellow V-necked tee with black slacks. He grabbed her from behind, one hand on each side of her waist.

“Nathan Hayes! What’s wrong with you? You’re lucky I didn’t have a meat cleaver.” She turned and embraced him.

Life hadn’t been easy the last few years, but at least their marriage was doing well. Even though he hadn’t grown up in a house with a great marriage, or any marriage at all, he was determined that he would have one and that his children would experience the benefits.

Though they’d been in town only three weeks, Kayla made the house more like a home every day. Pictures were already hung on the walls as if they’d been there for years. She was already engaged with church, at the kids’ schools, even volunteering at the Pregnancy Resource Center, where she counseled girls in crisis. Every day was an adventure for five-year-old Jordan, who loved the new house. Baby Jackson seemed unaffected by his carjacking adventure. Every family member seemed content.

Except one.

Jade, age fifteen, was the exception. And Nathan didn’t know how to help her make the adjustment.

About 8 p.m., after dinner, Jade stepped into the hallway in jeans and layered gray and pink tank tops. What registered with Nathan simply as “teen music” pushed its way out of her room to the far reaches of the house. Jade’s iPod had slid to a watery demise in the bathtub, and now the whole family was being subjected to her musical tastes.

“Turn that down,” Kayla called from the kitchen, where she was clipping Jackson into his high chair.

Jade returned to her bedroom and lowered the volume approximately one half decibel.

“I think your mother meant for you to really turn it down,” Nathan said, reaching to the CD player’s dial and lowering it to half volume.

As he walked out of the room and turned toward the kitchen, Jade gave Nathan her default expression—half-frustrated, half-indignant. For Nathan it was a sad change from how she’d responded to him as a little girl, celebrating his arrival with shouts of “Daddy’s home!” and hugging him long and hard. Nathan had never expected Jade to become so distant. She’d been angry about the move to Albany. She knew her friends in Atlanta had been heading down the wrong roads, but still she resented this “fresh start.”

Nathan opened the refrigerator and grabbed a cup of yogurt, thinking more about Jade than what he was doing. Sometimes he wondered if he was losing his daughter.

A minute later, the sounds in the hallway said a fight was brewing. Jade’s voice was shrill: “Mom, tell Jordan to leave me alone! He won’t stay out of my room!”

Nathan heard Jordan’s high-pitched five-year-old voice. “I’m not bothering her!”

“Yes, you are!”

Kayla marched down the hallway, holding a jar of baby food and a spoon. “Jordan, I told you five minutes ago to go brush your teeth and get your pj’s on. Do I need to get Mr. Pow-Pow?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then let me see you moving in that direction.”

Jordan ran across the hallway to the bathroom, stuffed T rex in hand.

“And, Jade, don’t stay up all night texting that boy. We need to know more about him before you even
think
about developing feelings for him.”

“What boy are we talking about?” Nathan asked, stepping down the hallway, eating the last spoonful of yogurt.

Kayla answered as she opened the baby food jar, “Another saggy pants boy is interested in Jade, but this time he’s seventeen.”

“Mom! He’s
not
a sagger. And it’s no big deal!”

“It is when you’re fifteen.” Turning to Nathan, Kayla took his empty yogurt cup and tucked the jar into his hand. “Hold this; I gotta change Jackson’s diaper.”

Nathan assumed Kayla’s place outside Jade’s room. “Did you meet him at school?”

Jade stepped into the hallway and stood across from Nathan. “Yes. He’s nice. His grandmother goes to Mt. Zion.”

“Good for his grandmother. Does
he
go to Mt. Zion?”

“I think so, maybe, when she takes him.”

Nathan heard the implicit
if you really must know.

I really must,
he thought. “It’s not his grandmother who’s texting you, and I don’t expect her to think of taking you out.”

The phone rang. Nathan absentmindedly stirred his spoon in the baby food.

“He’s an honor student. He’s the only one in the class who got a higher score than I did on the econ test.”

“He’s two years older and you’re in the same economics class? Okay, that doesn’t matter. Here’s what matters: Is he a Christian?”

“I don’t know him that well.”

“That should come up early. If it hasn’t, it’s not a good sign.”

“He’s a nice boy.”

“Does this nice boy have a name?”

“Derrick Freeman.”

Jordan ran back into Jade’s room wearing mismatched pajamas.

“Has Derrick Freeman asked you out?”

“Uh . . . yes.”

Nathan sighed and gazed into her eyes. “Jade, baby, we already talked about this. You can’t go on a date with anyone until they come talk to me. And they have no business talking to me until you’re seventeen. Haven’t I been clear about that?”

“But it’s not a real date. We’re just talking about going to the mall.”

“If a boy asks you to go anywhere with him, it’s a date. To the library to study? Date. To the park to play Frisbee? Date.”

Jade folded her arms and pouted. Nathan, without thinking, ate a spoonful from the jar he was holding. Suddenly realizing it wasn’t yogurt, he gagged and spit the baby food in the trash.

Kayla came up the hall with a diaper in one hand and a phone in the other.

“Kayla, what are we feeding him? That stuff is nasty!”

“That’s broccoli and carrots, and it’s his favorite. Just ’cuz you saved him from a gangbanger doesn’t mean you can steal his food.” She held out the phone. “It’s Adam Mitchell.”

“You wash your hands?”

“You’re lucky it’s not my left hand,” Kayla said, pushing the diaper toward his face. He retreated, then took the phone.

“Sounds like it’s not a good time to talk,” Adam said.

“No, it’s fine,” Nathan said, disappearing into his bedroom. “You rescued me from the Hayes family circus. Performances nightly.”

“Just wanted to invite you to join us for a barbecue Saturday at my place. I’m grilling, and Shane and David are coming. Wife and kids are welcome. You in?”

“I’ll check with Kayla, but I’m 90 percent sure. Sounds like fun.”

In the hallway, Kayla had picked up where her husband left off in the conversation with Jade. It was a conversation that would probably go on another three years. She didn’t look forward to it.

Nathan rejoined the discussion just as he heard Jade raise her voice. “It’s not fair!”

Her mother told her, “Jade, we have your best interests in mind. You’ve got to trust us.”

“Sweetheart,” Nathan said to his daughter, “don’t let yourself get worked up.”

Jade tried to be calm with her dad, which he interpreted as an attempt to send the message that her mother was overreacting. “I’m not getting worked up. I just wish you wouldn’t judge people you don’t know.”

“That’s the point,” Nathan said. “We don’t know him. If I got to know him, maybe I’d judge him to be a fine young Christian man who will guard his purity and yours, a boy who knows he answers to God and to me as your father. If that’s the case, we’re gonna get along great!”

“Nobody’s like that, Daddy.”

“Don’t set your sights low, baby, or you’ll end up with dirt.”

Jade sighed. “When will you believe I’m mature enough to spend time with a boy?”

Suddenly Jordan ran by with her phone, and Jade shouted, “Jordan Hayes! That’s
mine
! Give it back!” She ran over and yanked it out of his hand, then went to her room and slammed the door.

Jordan’s head hung low.

“Son,” Nathan said, “you know you can’t play with your sister’s things without her permission.”

Kayla squatted down to his level. “You wore these pajamas every day last week. I put them in the dirty clothes basket for a reason. Go put on a clean pair.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jordan ran into his room.

Kayla cracked open Jade’s door. “Jade, I’m sorry, but I need to feed Jackson. I’m at the pregnancy center in the morning, and I’ve got to get him down.”

“I’ll put Jordan down,” Nathan said.

“Thanks, babe,” Kayla called.

Nathan picked up his son, who giggled all the way to bed. “All right, buddy,” Nathan told him. “Let me say a prayer; then you need to get to sleep.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Do the bad guys ever shoot at you?”

“Well, almost never. But if I think they might, I have a special vest that can stop a bullet.”

“Do you wear it every day?”

“I did in Atlanta. But I don’t have to here. It’s safer. And on hot days I sweat like crazy.” He smiled. “So I don’t normally wear it. But don’t worry; I’ll wear it when I need to.”

“But, Daddy, how will you know when you need to?”

Adam’s phone rang at 3:50 a.m., too early to qualify as morning. He knew it couldn’t be good news.

“Hello?” Why was he trying to sound like he’d been up for hours?

“Adam, it’s Sam Murphy. Sorry to wake you.”

Sam?
Sergeant
Murphy?

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“Who?” Adam realized he hadn’t asked
what
, but at this hour the two questions were the same.

“It’s Jeff Henderson.”

Adam could sense Sarge’s hesitation.

“A neighbor found him dead.”

“Jeff? Dead?”

Victoria sat up and turned on her reading light. Her face looked like Adam felt.

“I’m sorry. I know you used to be partners.”

“How did he die?”

“Gunshot.”

“A break-in? Do they know who?”

“Detectives are at the scene. We should know more by the time the shift begins. I’m really sorry.”

Adam put down the phone.

Victoria’s voice shook. “Jeff Henderson?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Shot. They don’t know the details.”

“Emma and the kids are in California, aren’t they?”

“Last I knew.”

“Has someone called her?”

“I’m sure they will. Maybe they’ll wait until they know more.”

“They shouldn’t wait. Wives need to know right away.” Victoria put her hands over her face and cried.

Adam put a hand on her arm. He knew her tears weren’t only for Jeff and Emma and the kids. When a cop dies, every other cop’s wife cries for herself and her children too.