True Devotion (19 page)

When he eventually arrived back at the house, Kelly was sitting on the couch, a blanket around her shoulders, still shivering. She looked up as he entered the living room. Her gaze was haunted. A cop was with her, and Joe sent the lady a grateful look at seeing the warmed-up coffee mug Kelly gripped and the fact she had now changed into dry clothes. It was a good answer to his prayer.

“Sorry.” Kelly’s teeth chattered around the single word.

Joe hid a wince at her apology. “Don’t be.” He sat down on the couch beside her and reached around to tug the blanket more firmly around her shoulders. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold on until her shivers stopped, but she was fighting for control in her own way. He settled for rubbing his hand back and forth across her wrist, feeling the coldness gripping her skin.

“I looked at her, and I saw my own face.” She gulped for air. “In my dreams, that’s what I looked like when I drowned.”

She’d been dreaming about drowning. He should have expected it, but he hadn’t. There wasn’t much assurance he could offer. “This comes a little too close for comfort.”

The officer who had been with him at the beach joined them. He spoke with the officer who had come to meet up with Kelly. Joe heard the quiet debriefing and ignored it. There hadn’t been much he could tell the officer, and Kelly knew even less.

“Do you know who she is?” Kelly asked the officer as he came over and sat in the chair across from her.

“Not yet,” he said, frowning slightly.

“What happened? Do you know how she drowned?”

He looked at her steadily. “She wasn’t swimming or surfing. She wasn’t tossed against the rocks. There’s no sign of a struggle, and she hasn’t been in the water long. The dress slacks, sweater, jacket—they suggest she was out on a boat, no life jacket, probably slipped, hit her head, and fell overboard. The currents are strong; they may not even know she’s missing yet.”

Joe felt Kelly shudder. What the cop had described happened several times along the California coast each year. An accident.

“It’s also possible it’s a suicide, but few would enter the water with their jacket on if that were their intention And it’s doubtful she could jump from a cliff and end up on this stretch of beach. If she swam out until she was exhausted, then couldn’t swim back—we’ll look into it. Until we know something definite, we’ll be treating it as a crime scene.”

Kelly and Ryan almost drowned, and three days later, someone does. Joe knew the timing was coincidental, but it didn’t feel that way.

“I’m okay, Joe. Really.” He realized his hand had tightened around hers. She smoothed her free hand over his.

The officer offered Joe his card. “We’ll be down at the beach for at least another hour. If you remember anything else, please let us know.”

“I’ll call.”

“I’m sorry your evening ended this way, Mrs. Jacobs.” The officer hesitated. “My daughter clipped out your picture from the paper to add to her scrapbook. It would be a real shame if you let what happened Thursday and tonight scare you away from the water, from your job. The kids love you.”

“What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Lynnette.”

“Fifteen, gorgeous blue eyes, loves country music?”

“That’s Lynn.”

Kelly gave a glimmer of a smile. “Please tell her thanks. She is one of the best junior lifeguards we have at the beach.”

“I’ll do that.”

Joe saw both officers out and locked the door behind them. He returned to the living room and hesitated when he saw Kelly had tugged over a pillow, wrapping her arms around it. “Let me call Liz.”

She glanced up at him and shook her head. “She has enough broken nights of sleep with Christopher waking up to be fed.”

“Christi then.”

She pushed her hands through her hair. “No. I appreciate the thought, but I simply need to sleep and forget.”

It was a good idea, but Joe knew sleep wouldn’t be coming soon for her, not when she looked so haunted by what had happened, was still shivering occasionally. She’d just dream again, and this time it would probably be so vivid it would feel alive. He sighed as he crossed back to join her. He caught the edges of the blanket and tugged the ends around her lap. He’d suggest a hot shower, but water wasn’t a good idea at the moment either. “You need someone with you tonight.”

She looked up at him. “Just sit and talk to me for a while, please?”

His hesitation had nothing to do with her request. She had no way of knowing that at 0400 hours he was due to leave for the Chocolate Mountain training grounds. If he told her, she would insist he go home, that he call one of her friends. Where was the balance between his job and Kelly supposed to be when she truly needed him?

He took a seat beside her and knew for now it was the right decision. He wouldn’t have slept anyway.

She sighed. “That could so easily have been me.”

“I know.”

Her eyes searched his, looking for something. She finally gave a slight nod, accepting something. “Joe, did Nick drown?” she whispered.

The question sliced into him and the fact she had asked it—he couldn’t tell her, and yet to leave that question unanswered . . . “No,” he finally said softly, “Nick didn’t drown.”

She wrapped her hands more firmly around the blanket and seemed to pull back into herself. “I couldn’t handle it if he had drowned.” She took a deep breath, then looked over at him with desperate eyes. “When you drown, you know it’s happening.”

He froze. He was right; a lot more had happened in the water than she had told him. “What happened out there in the water?”

She looked away. He wanted her answer but was afraid of it, and he was afraid of so little. He couldn’t fix what had happened that night, and for that reason the emotions were hard to accept. Helplessness was an unnatural state. He thought she was never going to answer him. “I went to sleep.”

Went to sleep in the water.
Lord, I’m so glad she didn’t tell me before!

He didn’t break the silence. It was easier if she could choose the words to say.

“It was so peaceful,” she admitted softly, “and I just didn’t want to go on. I knew it was happening, and yet I closed my eyes and let myself go to sleep. The next thing I knew I was shoved by a wave and toppled over, and the adrenaline scare got me moving again. The panic was enormous. For that woman to have drowned—”

He cut her off. “You survived.”

“She didn’t.” Kelly set the blanket aside. “Why did God help save me and not her?”

Kelly didn’t need theology at 2330 hours; she needed to set aside a horrific memory and get some sleep. “Even if you could get an answer to the question ‘why me,’ I doubt you could accept it. The bottom line is still the same. Let it go, Kelly. You don’t need survivor’s guilt.”

She looked hurt at his answer but eventually nodded. “Fine, we won’t talk about it. Would you like some decaf coffee?”

“I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Kelly, honey, trust me. I’ve seen mad. You’re mad.”

“I’m . . . upset.”

No, she was mad, but he would concede the point. “Okay. Then I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She looked at him, shook her head, and went to get their coffee.

Joe knew the problem. Theology had always been a subject they disagreed on. She loved to ask why, and he preferred to just apply common sense. Some questions were not worth the effort to ask—for some things there were no answers in Scripture besides “I am God.”

He had seen her spend three years asking questions, making herself miserable.
Why did Nick die?
had been the first question and it had gone on from there. Kelly thought by asking the questions she would get answers, find peace. She was wrong. What she got was more heartache because she didn’t get an answer she could accept. The Bible said God’s ways are at times unsearchable. She wasn’t going to find an answer to explain Nick’s death that she could accept. She needed to set aside trying to understand and instead lean against the character of the One who had made the decision. God was trustworthy.

When she came back with the coffee, her expression had steadied. “This was not the end to our first date I expected.”

The subject had been set aside, as she said it would be. That fact made him feel like he’d kicked a puppy. “No, it didn’t end as planned.”

“Thanks for taking the actions you did. I’m glad I wasn’t alone when I found her.”

“Don’t worry about it. The situation shook me up too, Kelly.”

“You’ve seen people die before.”

He didn’t answer that question; he couldn’t. The positive answer made him wish he had a different profession. Like David, he served God with a faithful heart, but also like David, he was a warrior with blood on his hands. Tonight he wished his path had been different, that he could tell Kelly no.

“Tonight was my first time.”

“You handled it.”

It was after midnight before Joe was convinced Kelly would be okay left on her own. When she encouraged him to go home, he reluctantly got to his feet. She walked him to the front door.

“I’ll come by tomorrow evening after work.” He studied her face one last time in the light that came from the hall behind her.

“I would appreciate it.”

“You’ll sleep?”

She nodded and smiled slightly. “I’ll probably take my new teddy bear to bed with me.”

Her reply made him reach out and pull her to him, wrapping her firmly in a hug. “Really? I’m jealous.”

She rubbed her chin against his shirt and laughed softly. “I’ll consider changing his name if you really feel strongly about it.”

“I can live with Bear.” He reluctantly released her and stepped back. “You’ll call if you need me? if you have a bad dream?”

“Yes.”

She probably wouldn’t but he had to hope. “Then good night, Kelly.”

He drove home feeling somber. That could have so easily been Kelly found drowned, tossed back to the beach by the surf. She’d been in the water long enough she’d fallen asleep once that she could remember. The odds were good it had happened more often than that. She hadn’t been alert when he found her. Had she been in the water much longer she would have been found washed up on the shore somewhere along these miles of beach.

Who was she, the lady who had drowned? She’d been young, pretty, and someone tonight was pacing the floor waiting for her to return home. Instead they would get a phone call and a visit from a police officer.

Joe turned on the radio, wondering how long it would be before the news broke. He hoped Kelly’s name stayed out of it. The last thing she needed was more press attention.

Seventeen

* * *

“What do you think you are doing? You killed my inside source!”

“We know who they’re sending. She had become a liability to you. My men said she was talking,” the general arrogantly replied.

Charles watched the television coverage as word of the drowning led the morning news. He wanted to curse this man’s actions. Yes, platoons Echo and Foxtrot had deployed to Okinawa, and from there his own careful inquiries had revealed they were going on to Seoul. But they were reacting to a diversion he himself had created. He needed the SEALs and their equipment spread thin so this shipment could get through, and the diversion with North Korea and South Korea had been carefully planned. None of it led back to him and this deal.

All of that careful planning was gone because of the general’s rash actions. Charles’s own anonymity was shattered—the casualty happened right in his figurative backyard. He had also lost a crucial source of data he might still need. “Why did you decide on your own to kill my contact?”

“She jeopardized this deal.”

“She didn’t know anything!” Another person was dead. Another innocent person was dead.
This situation is spiraling out of control.
“Back off and let me do what you’re paying me to do.” There was no way to reason with this man.

“If this shipment is intercepted, you will pay for the mistake.”

“It will be delivered. Just don’t touch my remaining source. I need her.”

“We’ll be watching.” The phone call ended as abruptly as the last one.

This was the first time Charles truly couldn’t live with a shipment being intercepted. He thought about the lady who had died and felt sick. She had been caught in crosscurrents she wasn’t even aware of. He paced to the windows, feeling the noose of events tighten around him.

He needed to turn this around, but it was already too late. He could feel his feet sinking down in the quicksand of what was happening. He wanted to pray for help but couldn’t gather the courage to say the words. He knew the truth. He was reaping what he had sown from years before and appealing to God to intervene . . . Charles thought it unlikely help would come. Everyone lived with the consequences of their choices and he was living with his.

His wife, Amy, had died when Ryan was four, and his grief had manifested itself in anger. He had begun to steal again during the last stages of her cancer, at first as a way to get desperately needed cash. Then after Amy died, he stole as a way to lash out at God by intentionally crossing the line, going back to doing what Amy had worked so hard to reform him from.

Mortars had become guns, and guns had become missiles. Diverting shipments had become his specialty. Only it had spiraled out of his ability to control it. Once he’d crossed a line from small things to large, the demands of those he dealt with had become such that he could not step away.

He was in too deep and he hadn’t been able to say no when his buyers wanted more unconventional weapons. He had begun tipping the Americans off to the weapons, providing detailed shipping information. It was better to have the weapons intercepted than to say no to the deal and let his buyers get a hold of the devices from someone else.

But then Nick Jacobs had been killed in a recovery mission that should never have gone bad, and Charles had finally been able to get out. Even moving his business from Hong Kong to here had been calculated to help him disengage. It let him keep an eye on the SEALs, make sure his tracks stayed cold.