Operation Zulu Redemption: Out of Nowhere - Part 2 (8 page)

It was one thing to temporarily suspend her job. She
might
have broken some rules.
Might
have been obstinate about that. But to disrupt her entire life—phone, utilities, and her credit—was going too far. Enough was enough.

Frankie stalked into her father’s house, bypassing the kitchen, den, and bedrooms, and stormed right into his office.

His graying head came up, expression startled, then he smiled. “Francesca dear!”

“Do not ‘Francesca dear’ me, Daddy.”

His smile wilted. “Excuse me?”

Being upset was one thing, but disrespect never had a place in their home. “I want my life back.” Her heart thudded with the anxiety. “Please. I get your point. You want me to leave him alone. You don’t want me digging. I get it. Okay, maybe I was even wrong to pursue it, but to get me suspended and destroy my very name with creditors and—”

“What
are
you talking about?”

Anger ratcheted through her. “Don’t do this, Daddy. Don’t play Top Secret ignorant with me. Please—just reinstate my utilities.” She leaned over the desk, lifted the phone from its cradle, and slapped it down in front of him.

Shock riddled his expression, and she hated it. But she’d never been so desperate. “Please. Call them. This isn’t fair.” Tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she willed them away. She’d never used them to get what she wanted before, and she sure wasn’t starting now. Francesca Solomon might be many things, but weak and silly she was not. “It’s one thing to reprimand me through work. But to shut down my whole life—I can’t get gas. I can’t even get a new car because of what you did to my credit score.”

Her father stood, a scowl digging into his handsome face. “When did this happen?”

She blinked. “Daddy.” The tears were coming, but with every ounce of her willpower, she pushed them back. “Don’t do this. Don’t play dumb with me. You
know
—”

“I don’t.” His chest heaved, a sign of his effort to contain his anger. Or frustration. He waved her to a set of wingback chairs sitting in the morning sunlight. “Let’s talk.”

Frankie remained where she stood. “Talk?” Was he serious? How could he
not
know? “You are the only person who even cared that I was tracking down evidence on Trace, so feigning ignorance is not going to work.”

Well, a few others knew but they didn’t have the power or the means to shut down her life like this.

Or did they? Had she once again underestimated her enemy? She shoved her hands into her long black hair and trudged over to the chair and dropped into it. “You’re
seriously
serious? You didn’t shut down my life?”

“Why would I?” His tone bordered on preposterous.

“Because I’ve been investigating Weston.”

He went to the edge of the burgundy leather chair, elbows on his knees. “And you think because of that, I’d”—he lifted his hands in question—“hurt you like this?”

“You’re a general. It’s what you do—protect national secrets and all that.”

“No,” he said, vehemence scraping his tone. “I am your father first. Look, I won’t pretend or lie to you—I was in on the decision to suspend you.”

Frankie recoiled.

He tilted his head. “You operated beyond the legal boundaries of your job, Frankie. That puts not only
you
at risk but your commanding officers and, ultimately, the Air Force.” He readjusted on the seat. “I appreciate your passion to redeem my name, but”—he shook his head—“it’s not necessary.”

“It is! Your demotion hurt your reputation, it hurt your pay, it hurt Mom, and it hurt us kids. You know how hard it was to walk with my head up and continue on while the entire Misrata thing plagued our lives?”

His brown eyes held hers but he said nothing.

“But I was not going to let that disaster, that
man
ruin my life, too.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Is that. . .” He scooted to the very edge of his seat. “Is that what this is about, Frankie? You? How it affected and hurt
you
?”

“No!” Her heart felt as if it would burst out of her chest, startling her. That and the squeak in her voice. “Please don’t turn this on me, Daddy.”

“I’m not, Frankie, but I just do not understand your vendetta against Colonel Weston. Especially since I”—he placed a hand on his thick chest—“have let it go. Do you understand how this thing is poisoning your life? Your friendships? What about your encounter with Trace’s brother?”

Frankie swallowed. “That wasn’t fair. I had no idea who he was.”

“But you maligned Colonel Weston’s name in front of someone you believed a stranger. He was not here to defend himself, and your accusations have no foundation,” her father said, the veins in his temples bulging. “I need you to understand your actions are reflecting on me.”

Frankie straightened. “On you?” She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard more than once that I have a loose cannon for a daughter. My own superiors have questioned whether I am the fuel behind your fire.”

It felt as if a golf ball had nested in her throat. “I. . .I just want your name cleared.”

“And hunting down another officer, a very fine one, and damaging his name. . .” Meaning tweaked the edges of his eyes. “You know what it feels like to have your life shut down wrongly. Is that what you want done to Colonel Weston?”

“I want him to pay for what he did.”

“What if he didn’t do it?”

“He did!”

“Show me the proof, Frankie.”

She dropped back against the chair, petulant and mad. “Why do you do this? Why do you always defend him? After what he did to you?”

“What
you
believe he did to me. How many hearings have there been, Frankie?”

“Three.”

He held up a hand. “Three that
you
are aware of.”

“What—”

“How many found Trace guilty?”

She gritted her teeth.

“How many?” he repeated, his tone gentle but firm.

Her father might as well be pulling molars. “None,” she bit out.

“And you think with your limited access to the case files, to above Top Secret information that you do not have access to, that you, an analyst, can determine his guilt?”

“He was there. There was proof that he had a team in that area, and—”

“Yes, but so did three other special operators.” He pressed her fingers between his palms. “You don’t have all the facts, and you never will, to seal the case against Colonel Weston. Because it doesn’t exist. I’ve known and worked with Trace for a long time. He is not responsible for what happened in Misrata. I had the great misfortune to be attached to the situation because of my position and tasks assigned me.”

Frustration wove a tight cord around her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She wanted to lash out. Wanted to cry. Wanted to hit something. Then
it
hit her. “You did it again.” She groaned and pushed to her feet and went to the windows. “You turned this on me, made me look like the bad guy.”

“No, I’m only trying to get you to leave this alone.”

“Why?” She spun back toward him, surprised to find him only a few feet away. “Why don’t you care about your name and reputation? Does it not bother you that there’s no resolution? No closure for those families? For us?”

“Of course it bothers me. And my reputation will prove itself. It already has to a degree. Those who know me know I’m innocent of the charges related to Misrata. The only reason that happened in the first place was because they needed someone to blame. A scapegoat.”

“Augh!” She whipped around, stabbing her fingers into her hair, curling them into fists and letting out a groan-squeal. So incredibly unfair!

“Does. . .does the fact that Trace refused your attention—”

“Ugh! You have
got
to be kidding me.” She glared at him. Her brothers had tried to rub her crush on Trace in her face for years. She had outgrown that crush as quickly as she had her junior high training bra. “That was ten years ago, long before Misrata.”

As a family friend, Trace often hung out with her brothers. Played basketball or football. He’d been handsome and intense even back then. She’d been sixteen, wearing braces, and awkward as she stepped into womanhood. He hadn’t given her the time of day. Her crush had crushed her. Especially when her brothers figured out their kid sister liked their friend. They’d been merciless, taunting her.

“Yes, of course,” he said with a smile. “I admit for a few years, I’d hoped something might develop between you two.”

“It did—it’s called disgust.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “And it makes me sick to my stomach that he was right here, in our home, your friend, and then this—”

“That should be another reason you should believe he’s not responsible. Trace is not only a good officer, he’s a good friend.”

Daddy’s been drinking the Kool-Aid.

Arguing with him would only prove futile. She had to be more cautious, more secretive about her efforts to get to the bottom of this. “Look—I said I’ll back off, but I want my life back.”

“I’ll have it looked into. I can’t make promises about your job. That was out of my hands. I only advised. But I’ll get someone on the other things. Where are you staying?”

“At my house.”

His eyebrows winged up. “Without utilities?”

Frankie gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I know how to camp out.”

“You mean you were too proud to ask me for help.” He chuckled.

“Same thing.”

Stretched across the rear bench seat of the large pickup truck, David Augsburger placed a hand on his cast and another on the back of the front seat for balance, wincing against the potholes that peppered the road back to the farm.

“You okay back there?” his
Englischer
friend Tom asked, checking him in the rearview mirror.

“About as much as if someone was hammering my broken leg.”

Tom snickered. “Sorry. Road’s rough.”

Still, the leg pain was nothing compared to the hole in his heart. She hadn’t come to the hospital this time either, though he wasn’t sure why he thought she would when she’d up and left without a word. Still. . . “Would you mind if we made a stop?”

“Let me guess—the Gerigs’?”

“Just thought I could see how Mrs. Gerig is doing.”

“You mean, find out if they heard anything about Katie?”

David leaned back against the corner where the door and the seat met, his head on the cool window as he stared out over the fields. “Think I’m crazy?”

“Of course ya are—you chose to stay in Bleak Pond.”

With a snort, David smiled.
Rumspringa
, the Amish way of giving young people the opportunity to taste life outside the community and determine if it’s the life for them before committing to it.
Tom had met his wife, an Amish girl, during her time away, and the two fell in love. When it came time, she chose Tom instead of her people and community. Tom could’ve taken the faith and joined, but. . .while he liked the people, he’d often said it wasn’t the life for him.

David understood. There were many times he wondered why he’d come back. His sister, Lydia, was the official reason. Though he felt some of the older elders were too hard and too traditional, David believed in the community, in the simplicity of living.

Tom and Mary had compromised. They married and moved to the city right outside Bleak Pond. She was supposed to be shunned, but the family quietly saw her once a month. The elders and bishop looked the other way, just as they had for David with his car and driver’s license to help with his sister’s medical needs. David had begun to hope that his decision to stay had been the right one, especially once Katie showed up.

She was so unlike anyone he’d ever met, so determined to get things right, to shed her old self. Over the years she’d lived with her
grossmammi
, she had developed into a very fine young woman, a perfect woman for any Amish man.

No, not
any
Amish man.

Me.

And now. . .

Tom guided the truck down the road toward the Gerig house. Even now, David could imagine Katie out there, her sandy brown hair peeking out of the
kapp
she’d worn out of respect for their community and catching the sunlight as she did her chores.

The sudden jolt of the car coming to a stop tugged David from his revelry. Heart heavy, he let Tom help him out of the truck. Situated on his crutches and still weak from whatever had knocked him sick, David stared up at the old farm house.

“Want me to go in with you?”

“No, it’s okay. Thanks, but this should only take a minute.” Careful with his leg, he hobbled up the path to the front porch then negotiated the stairs. He rapped twice on the door.

It took a few minutes, but finally shuffling feet approached the door. “Who’s there?” came the suspicious, cautious voice of Katie’s
grossmammi
.

David lowered his head, staring at the cast as he called, “David Augsburger, Mrs. Gerig. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“
Ach
, gracious.” She pushed open the door and held it. “
Kumme
, David. How is that leg of yours?”

“A bit heavy,” he said with a laugh as he worked his way to the sofa. Sitting, he placed the crutches to his right. “How are you doing, Mrs. Gerig? Are you—”

“Fine,” she said. “Just fine. God’s grace gets me through each day without Katie.” Sadness lined her sweet face.

How could Katie do this? Just up and leave? Put them in danger? He itched to ask her grandmother if she knew the men who attacked them, but the police report said she didn’t. He didn’t need to hear it for himself and cause her more distress.

“Mrs. Gerig, I don’t mean to be rude,” David said as he pushed forward with the big question at the back of his mind, “but do you have any idea why Katie left? Just vanished without a word?”

“
Ach
, she left word. She apologized,” her grandmother said, her smile flickering as eyes that had seen a lot seemed to be dancing around something.

“Right, but—it was so sudden. And she didn’t explain why?”

A weak smile tugged at the weathered face. “I guess. . .I guess she was a lot more like her
mamm
than I realized.” She looked frail with the afternoon light filtering through the curtains.

The community knew of Katie’s mother, the elder Katherine, who had up and run off with an
Englischer
’s son. It wasn’t even her
rumspringa
. She wasn’t old enough. It’d devastated Mrs. Gerig and put her husband in the hospital. . .only to have him die. Some said it was a broken heart, but the doctors said it was cancer in his lungs.

But right now, the grief David noted in her face was fresh. A new wound. Gaping over a broken trust. Mrs. Gerig had allowed Katie into her home, spoken to the elders and bishop, and then Katie does this. . .

Even David felt betrayed by her. How many times had he defended her to his brothers? To his own
daed
, to whom he’d spoken of courting her once she took the faith. They’d all warned him no good would come of his care for her, though they accepted her into the community. He argued that she was a good person. That she wanted to stay.

What a fool.

“Well,” David said, lifting his crutches, “I should be going. But if you need anything, Mrs. Gerig, please know you can ask me. I will help any way I can.”

“
Gott
bless you
.
”

David thought
Gott had
blessed him when Katie came to Bleak Pond. “
Danke.
If you hear from her. . .”

“You will know,” she said, patting his shoulder as she shuffled to the door behind him.