The Unsung Hero (52 page)
He tried to turn around quietly. He knew the haunted look of a person who wanted to be alone. He’d encountered it often enough in his own mirror.
But quiet wasn’t an option that came with his walker. The metal frame hit God knows what, and Kelly looked up.
She tried to smile. It didn’t work. “You’re up early. Couldn’t you sleep?”
She wanted to play it normal. She’d been sitting there looking despondent, as if she were about to break into some operatic aria of doom and despair. But now she was playing the “Fine” game.
He tested her. “Are you all right?”
“Sure. I’m fine.” She forced another ghastly smile.
“Right,” he said. “Me, too. I’m just fine.” Dying, but doing it just fine.
Truth was, he’d been up for quite a while in the night, with the pain. His new bedfellow.
She looked at him closely. “Are you sure? You look . . .”
She was too polite to finish the sentence. Like hell. Like pig crap. Like an eighty-year-old man who had cancer of the everything.
Now was not the time to tell her he needed to get his medication upgraded to first class. She was strung pretty tightly, as if she were about to burst into tears any minute.
“I’m fine,” he told her. He was good at it, too.
“Listen to us,” she said. “My God, would you listen to us? Neither of us are goddamn fine.”
Uh-oh.
She slid down from the railing—a good way to get splinters in her butt. But she didn’t seem to care. She’d snapped. If he knew his daughter, full detonation was imminent.
“You’re dying,” she told him, “and I’m . . .” Her lip trembled, just the way it had when she was a little girl. “I’m scared to death of living.”
“That doesn’t sound so fine,” he agreed.
“No. It’s not. Tom loves me.” Her tears overflowed, just the way they had when she was a little girl. “But I don’t love him. I don’t want to love him. I refuse to love him again.”
She ran from the deck, just the way she had when she was a little girl.
“Well, that’s stupid,” Charles said even though she was already gone. “I didn’t realize I raised you to be stupid. You can’t choose who you love. Where the hell did you get that idea?”
Tom took a gamble. He bypassed Admiral Crowley’s office and called the FBI directly. He’d worked with Special Agent Duncan Lund a few years ago. And although they hadn’t kept in close touch, he knew Dunk wouldn’t have forgotten him.
He called the man at home and he spelled it out in detail—head injury, paranoia, doubt. It was two days to the ceremony and he was out of time. But Tom knew, from the way Dunk got more and more quiet, that he’d lost before he’d even begun.
Dunk had listened to all of it, though. And when he’d signed off, he’d told Tom he’d see what he could do to get people out there for Tuesday’s ceremony.
But Tom didn’t need a tracer on Dunk’s phone to know the next number the FBI agent dialed was that of the U.S. Navy.
He was screwed. But what had he expected? His entire day had started badly right when he had woken up alone in his bed.
Kelly had been long gone. He’d told her he loved her, but she hadn’t even stayed until dawn.
Tom punched in Chip Crowley’s home number, hoping he’d connect with the admiral first.
But he was put on hold for an awfully long time.
“Well, you fucked yourself good this time,” the admiral said in the form of a greeting as he came onto the line. “I just spoke to Larry Tucker, who wants to send the shore patrol out to bring you in. Seems he just got off the phone with the head of the FBI’s counterterrorist division, who told him—”
“Sir, this threat’s real,” Tom interrupted Crowley. “This celebration is going to start with a high profile ceremony in two days, and I’m alone out here. I need help.”
“That, Lieutenant, is God’s truth. You do need help. But right now, I fear you have put yourself in a position where you are beyond any help I can give you.”
“What can it hurt,” Tom argued, “to bring in the FBI? There are going to be U.S. senators here. Representatives from England and France. If this bomb goes off—no, Admiral, when this bomb goes off—”
Crowley spoke through gritted teeth. “God damn it, Tom. Haven’t you had enough? Can’t you hear how crazy this sounds?”
“Sir, what if I’m right?”
“Son, you’ve had a serious injury that’s affecting your judgment. What I want you to do is check yourself into the nearest military hospital.”
“Yes, sir,” Tom said. “I will do that, sir. Next week, after this celebration is over, if I’m wrong about this, I’ll go. But until then . . . Well, sir, there are people in this town I care a great deal about, and I’m not leaving them until I’m dead certain the threat has been neutralized or proven nonexistent.”
Mallory was still in bed when Brandon unlocked the door of David’s apartment.
“Wow,” he said, as clearly surprised to see her as she was to see him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here.”
He pocketed his key, but didn’t turn to leave. Instead, he went into the kitchen. “I came to steal some of Sully’s milk.”
“There isn’t any,” Mallory told him, hiding the note David had left her on his pillow.
“Damn,” Brandon said.
The sheet was up to her chin, but she was naked beneath it. She pulled her arms under, too, hoping he wouldn’t notice, hoping he would leave as quickly as he came.
But he didn’t. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed.
“Who would’ve guessed?” he said with one of his stupid-ass smiles that she’d once thought made him look so handsome. He may have been good-looking, but it was so superficial. His eyes were rimmed with red, as if he’d been out too late, drinking and partying. “Gorgeous Mallory in our little Sully’s bed.”
“He’s not little,” she said coldly. “Do you mind? I was sleeping.”
He didn’t move. “You know, Sul’s been in love with his Nightshade character for years,” he said. “Now that he’s given her a face, it’s only appropriate he should live out the complete fantasy and get to sleep with her, too.” He laughed. “So tell me honestly, babe. Does he make you put on tights and pretend to fly around the room when you get it on?”
Mallory didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smile. “Very funny, Bran. Go away.”
“You sure?” Bran winked. She couldn’t believe she’d once liked the way that he winked. What had she been thinking? “He’s not going to be back for another few hours. And it looks awfully comfortable in there. . . .”
He tugged at the sheet.
Mallory gripped it more tightly to her. “Don’t!”
“Whoa, hey, relax, I was only kidding.” He stood up, headed toward the door, thank God. But he turned back to look at her. “Sully’s a lucky dude—living out that fantasy, you know? Kind of like getting a chance to sleep with Princess Leia or Counselor Troi. Yow! See you later, Nightshade.”
As he shut the door behind him, Mallory pulled the note David had left her up from under the sheet.
He’d drawn a picture of her, asleep in his bed, drawn himself leaning over to kiss her good-bye. And in a thought bubble over his head, he’d written, “Can’t wait to get back from work to make love to Nightshade again. . . .”
Nightshade.
He called her Nightshade, all the time. I love you, Nightshade.
Oh, God. What if Brandon hadn’t been kidding? What if David wasn’t in love with Mallory? What if he was in love with Nightshade?
And she wasn’t Nightshade, that much was clear. She only shared the character’s face and body.
Nightshade was brave and strong and confident. She was a superhero.
Mallory was the illegitimate child of the town screwup.
And she knew with a sudden flash of fear that while David would never leave Nightshade, he’d probably soon grow tired of Mallory Paoletti.
Tom threw the telephone across the office.
Jazz didn’t look up at him, didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. He just finished his own phone conversation, ending it more traditionally by dropping the handset into the cradle.
“I got Jenk, Nilsson, and Lopez.” He spun in his chair to face Tom as he reported. His “sir” was silent, but it was there. “However, none of them can get here before early Tuesday morning.”
“Shit.”
“Better we have them then than not at all.”
Tom rubbed his forehead. “I’m not so sure about that anymore. In fact, if this thing goes off without a hitch, if I’ve been wrong about the Merchant from the start, I want you and Starrett and Locke to leave town immediately. I don’t want you getting hammered for helping me.”
“There are worse things, Tom.”
Tom looked into the eyes of the man who’d been at his side for years. A man he’d want beside him if he had to go into hell and back. And there had been times over the years that they’d done just that. “If I’m out, I’m going to push to have you take over the SO squad. You probably won’t be given Team Sixteen. Not yet. But maybe someday—”
“I’m in no hurry for you to leave,” Jazz said evenly.
“Yeah, well, Tucker is.” Tom shook his head. “Wherever I call for help, his staff has been there first. The state police had been warned I might be calling, and were ordered to ignore me. Even the local police don’t want to talk to me. In fact, the Baldwin’s Bridge chief of police had the frigging audacity to order me away from the hotel until the celebration is over. He told me if I’m seen there, his men will pick me up and escort me to the station.”
Jazz lifted an eyebrow. “Gee, I’d almost like to see them try.”
“We’re on our own,” Tom told his XO.
Jazz actually smiled. “More power to us.”
Kelly found her father curled up in his bed, gasping for air.
At first she thought he was having some kind of attack or stroke. And then she realized it was pain. Charles was in awful pain.
She slipped the nosepiece from his oxygen tank over his head to get him breathing easier. And then she opened his bottle of pain pills and . . .
There were only three left.
He must’ve been double and even triple dosing for going on days now.
“How many did you take, Daddy?” she asked. “How long ago?”
“Three,” he told her. “Twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes he’d been like this, bent in half in agony.
“Why didn’t you call me?” The question was out of her mouth before she realized the answer was unimportant. She was here now. She could help him as best she could now, which, after he’d taken three pills—three!—wasn’t going to be much. She put her arms around him. He was so skinny, so fragile.
But to her surprise, he actually responded. “Didn’t need to call. Knew you’d be down to say good night in a few minutes. Knew you’d come.” He closed his eyes tightly as if a particularly terrible wave of pain washed over him, clutching at her arms with hands that had once been so big and strong, but now were skeletal and gnarled. “Can I . . . Christ, can you call the doctor for me? This stuff isn’t working too well anymore.”
Kelly wanted to cry. “There’s nothing he can give you—not after you took three of these pills. You’re going to have to wait. They may not be working to stop the pain, but if you take too many, they’ll make you stop breathing.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, then.” He opened his eyes as he let go of her, pushed her away. “You don’t need to see this. You should go, then—”
“The hell I will. I’m not going to leave you.” Kelly planted herself against the headboard of his bed, holding him close, as if she were the parent and he were the child.
“Cybele wouldn’t, either,” he told her. “You’re a lot like Cybele—so strong and sure of yourself.” He closed his eyes again, his words coming in gasps. “I’m not sure how much longer I can take this, but I just don’t seem to die. Not last night, not today, probably not tonight. I’m not afraid of dying anymore—I’m afraid of this godawful pain.”
Kelly couldn’t help it. She started to cry. “I wish I could help you.”
“You can. You can promise me you’ll look out for Joe.”
“I will,” she promised. “I told you I would. I’ll see he always has a place to live and—”
“Not that way,” he said. “I know he’s not going to be homeless or starving. I’ve left him enough money to take care of that. I mean the other. Take care of him. Try to make him understand that he really was the Hero of Baldwin’s Bridge. He was ten times the man I was, Kelly. A hundred times. I don’t know why Cybele couldn’t love him, why she had to go and fall in love with me instead.”
Kelly had seen her father’s picture, taken at age twenty-three, right before he’d left to join the U.S. Army, the Fighting Fifty-fifth. He’d smiled into the camera, his eyes dancing with life and amusement. Joe had been a good-looking man, too, but Charles had had a magical air about him. He still had it, even at eighty. Even back when he was drinking and at his most cruel and verbally abusive, even then, the spark didn’t quite go out.
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