Acts of Honor, page 23
He answered sounding calm and collected. “Foster.”
She sat here in turmoil, and he had the audacity to be calm? That infuriated her into dismissing courtesies and rank. “She knows they’re dead.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” Shank lied with a clear conscience. “May I speak plainly?”
“Yes, yes. Go ahead, Captain. I want the truth.”
“I’ve been told that the truth is relative, sir.” She had. By him.
“Say what you have to say, Shank.”
“This situation is critical. In my opinion, not playing straight with Sara West is a serious tactical error that’s going to blow up in your face, sir. When it does, the only stars you’ll be seeing won’t be rank on your shoulders, but in your eyes.”
“Playing straight with her is too dangerous, for us and for her.”
“For her?” Shank guffawed. “Please, sir. Don’t insult either of us. We both know you’ll never let her leave Braxton alive.”
“You’re overreacting again, Captain.”
“Overreacting?” Shank’s temper flared, deeply enough that protocol flew right out of her head. “I’m the one stuck inside this hellhole forever. I’m the one who came for ADR-22, who saw all the others come after him—and they’re still coming. For five years, I’ve watched them come, and I’ve seen them suffer. Don’t you twist the truth to me, sir. Don’t do it. I know my job. I’ll deal with it. Just tell me when you’re going to stop this.”
“Captain, I strongly advise you to control your emotions.”
Shank clenched her jaw. “To hell with my emotions, sir. This is about my life and the lives of all of these patients. It’s about ADR-41.”
“There is no ADR-41.”
“If you don’t stop this, there will be,” Shank shot back at him. “This is about Sara West’s life, too. She’s a good woman who only wants to help her family. Putting the screws to her is wrong. This is not why I serve in the military, sir. I took oaths. They mean something to me.”
“Are you questioning my honor, Captain?”
“Yes, sir, I guess I am. I’m questioning my own, too. And everyone else’s who’s involved in this nightmare.”
“There are times when we’re required to act on faith, Captain. When we have to trust the character of the people who lead us, and to believe they are doing what is right. I’m aware of the costs Dr. West has paid, and of those she will pay.”
Did Shank dare to keep putting her faith in him? Would she doubt her decision when ADR-41 was admitted? She stared at the fire alarm on the wall across the hall. “So this is one of those times, right, sir?”
“Yes, it is.” Foster went quiet. Static crackled through the line. “Bring Sara to meet Fred.”
“Really?” Shank failed to hide her shock.
“I expect a full report on her reaction. Then I’ll decide what to tell her.”
Encouraged, Shank felt hope flare in her heart. “Yes, sir.”
“Sara West could accept this,” Foster said without passion. “Or she could run straight to the press.”
Shank swallowed hard. Her hand, holding the receiver, grew sweat-slick. If Sara even appeared to be leaning in the direction of going to the press, or so much as made an off comment, within an hour, Braxton would be leveled, and everyone in it would be dead.
Within two hours, all evidence of the facility, employees, and patients would be eradicated. And it would appear to all the world as if none of them had ever existed.
sixteen
Sara waded through the stack of research material.
Most of it she’d seen before. Dr. Kale, who was currently caring for her patients at home, had forwarded copies to her. Since he’d had a long-standing relationship with the military, in the form of twenty-odd years’ service, Sara hadn’t thought it unusual. Now, she realized that he’d had a specific reason for his interest in PTSD, as he too believed that had been the diagnoses on her patients here. He worked for Foster. Had Dr. Kale investigated events here, too? If so, he had failed. And if, even with his military experience, he had failed, how could she succeed?
“Sara?” Shank appeared at Sara’s office doorway. “Could you come with me for a second?”
“Sure.” Sara stood and smoothed down her lab coat. Checked to make sure her name tag was attached to her lapel. “What’s up?”
Moving down the corridor, Shank answered, “We’re going to see Fred.”
“He’s back?” Sara fell into step with Shank, heading toward Isolation.
“He never left,” Shank confessed without looking at Sara. She nodded at Koloski to open the doors.
Sara followed Shank through them. A swoosh of air whisked over her skin as the doors swung shut behind them. “I think you’d better explain.”
Shank continued moving down the hallway, passing Joe’s room. “I was under orders to isolate him from you, so I did.”
“Fontaine?”
Shank rolled her gaze. “No, he doesn’t know about this.”
“Who, then?”
No answer.
Tired of this, Sara insisted. “Who, Shank?”
Midway between room doors, Shank stopped and leaned back against the hallway wall. “Look, I’m damn tired of being between a rock and a hard place. He should play straight with you, and I’ve told him so myself. But I know the man, and all he’s worried about is getting his promotion. His damn star. Well, I’m going to get hung out to dry anyway, so what’s the difference? I believe you really are driven to help these men, and that’s what matters to me, so I’m going to tell you. Colonel Jack Foster issued me the order to keep you isolated from Fred.”
“You work for Foster?” Sara couldn’t even pretend not to be shocked. Yes, she’d deduced that someone inside had to be working with Foster—but Shank? She was as much a prisoner here as the patients.
“Anyone in uniform that Foster chooses works for him, Sara.”
“And some out of it.” Like her.
“Yes.” Shank shoved away from the wall. “Fred’s in here.”
Sara entered the room. Unlike Joe’s, it had a bed, a bedside table upon which supplies had been stacked, and a nightstand that was empty. She walked around the foot of the bed to get a look at the man lying in it.
Her heart slammed into her throat. She rushed to the bedside, cupped a hand to the man’s lean face. “David.” Tears sprang to her eyes, rolled down her face. “Oh, my God, David.”
Shank gave Sara a few minutes to accept this, and to get herself under control. Her own throat felt thick, and her eyes stung. When Sara glanced back at her, Shank knew the time for explanations had come. “He’s a vegetable, Sara. Legally dead, like the others.”
“But why?” Anguished and hurting, she motioned to David. “How could anyone consider him a security risk?”
“I don’t have your answers. I wish I did. And Foster doesn’t have all of them, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Fontaine, then? You think he’s got the answers?”
The expression on Sara’s face warned Shank that, at the moment, the woman would kill Fontaine to get those answers. But killing him wouldn’t do her any good. “No, not Fontaine,” Shank said. “My best guess is what you want to know, you’ll only find out at IWPT.”
Sara grabbed a tissue from the bedside table, swiped at her nose, and kept a protective hand on David’s shoulder. “Then get me in there.”
“I can’t. I don’t have the clout—”
“Then you get to Foster. You tell him I want answers and, by God, I want them now.”
“Foster’s not a good man to threaten, Sara.”
Sara began a full examination of David. “I’m not a good woman to threaten, either.” Sara gritted her teeth. Fred was David. Foster had blocked David’s computer file, just as he had isolated David from her. God, but she hated that arrogant bastard. Tears blurred her eyes, rolled down her face. Oh, God, David. “Twenty-four hours. You tell him, Shank.”
seventeen
In her quarters, Sara paced.
Did she tell Brenda and Lisa about David? Would telling them put them at risk? Did she force Fontaine to show his hand?
No. No. Stupid move. Confront Fontaine, and she’d never get out of Braxton—not even temporarily. And she had to get to IWPT.
IWPT brought her thoughts to Foster. She walked into the kitchen, pulled a glass and the bottle of bourbon from the cabinet, and tried to get inside Foster’s mind. Why had he kept David from her?
Because if she’d seen David right away, she would have gone through the roof, and all of the men here would have been exposed. Braxton would have been exposed. Foster had let her get attached to all of her patients, just as he had let her have time to fall in love with Joe.
Had he really brought her here to help Joe? Or to expose the connection between IWPT and Braxton? Did even Foster know what was happening at IWPT?
Of course he knew. She splashed bourbon over ice in the glass, chucked in an extra ice cube, and then took a quick sip. Well, maybe he knew something about it. What had he expected Sara to find here?
She tapped her glass with her fingertips. He could be working with Fontaine and IWPT, but if Foster was, then he wouldn’t have brought her here to expose Braxton and IWPT—unless he wanted them exposed.
Wait a minute. Just a minute. She sat down on the sofa, set her glass on the coffee table and stared at it. Foster was up for promotion to general. He wanted that star. Maybe he also wanted to get respectable, so to speak. Maybe he had been working with Fontaine and IWPT and he had decided to disassociate, but he couldn’t expose either IWPT or Braxton directly, so he’d devised a plan to disassociate indirectly, using her and Joe.
That fit. She snagged her glass and belted back a long drink. It burned going down her throat. She set the glass back down. That . . . fit.
Another possibility struck her. Maybe Foster had brought her here to bury her with the rest of Braxton because she wouldn’t relent and just accept David’s so-called suicide. She grunted. Her instincts had been right on that one. Poor David. Poor Brenda and Lisa.
That possibility also fit. Sara had dogged Foster for over five years about David. Time during which she now knew David had been right here at Braxton. Foster knew she wouldn’t give in, or give up. Ten years from now, she would still be dogging him for information on David. She’d dog him until she discovered the truth about what happened, regardless of how long it took. That tenacity made getting her out of his way both attractive and imperative to Foster.
She finger-swirled the ice in her glass. So which was it? Was Foster a good guy, using her and Joe to expose the corruption? Or was he corrupt and wanting to bury her with the rest of the evidence of his corruption?
She could just ask Foster. But experience proved she’d die of old age before getting any information from him that he didn’t expressly want her to have. And it could be advantageous for him not to know she was considering the possibility that he was corrupt. What she needed was a deeper insight into his character. She rotated her wrist, listened to the ice cubes crash against the glass. And there was someone who could give it to her. A woman who’d certainly had contact with him in the last six months. Joe’s mother.
The idea struck and clung. Sara checked her watch. Via Shank, Sara had given Foster twenty-four hours to give her answers. She chewed at her lip, hoping she’d left herself enough time.
“Joe?”
Sara awakened him with a hand at his shoulder and a gentle shake.
He came alert. “What?”
“I’m going away for a day. If anyone asks you about me, will you tell them I just left you, and you don’t know where I’ve gone?”
Facing the camera, Joe blinked.
“Shank will help cover my absence. If you need anything, go to her.”
He leaned close, tilted his head to his chest. “Where are you going?”
She looked deeply into his eyes and let her hand drift down his jaw to his chin. She couldn’t make herself tell him that she was going to Gulf Shores, Alabama, to see his mother. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she was about to see a woman he might never again have the opportunity to see. “In search of truth.”
“Be careful.”
She blinked, whispered so the sound wouldn’t carry through the devices to the nurses’ station. “I want you to know something.” She forced herself to look him in the eye. “You really matter to me, Joe.”
“I know.” He smiled softly and caressed her with his gaze. “Stay safe and come back to me.”
She squeezed his hands. “I’ll do my best.” She would, and she prayed her best would prove good enough.
Jarrod paced the padded floor.
Sara was searching for truth. Soon, she would discover that in military Intel matters the truth was relative to who was telling it and why. She’d lived in a black and white world most of her life. Now, she had stepped out of her comfort zone and into gray areas that she might, or might not, be willing to accept. Not providing herself with an alibi during her computer-access mission proved she wasn’t equipped with the stealth necessary to handle gray areas. She needed help.
He let his gaze slide down the murals they had painted on the walls. On this search for truth, what wouldn’t she have thought to cover? She had said she’d be gone for a day . . .
The car. Her car in the parking lot would be missing. A mistake that neither Fontaine nor Mick Bush, both adept at maneuvering in gray areas, would overlook.
Jarrod looked up at the camera. A glimmer of rage rose up from deep in his stomach. He latched down on it. “Koloski,” he said to the camera. “Get Shank. I need to talk to Shank.”
Sara sat down in a beige overstuffed chair in Jarrod’s mother’s living room. She liked the feel of the house. Neat, simple, traditional, with a spring bouquet of fresh flowers in a squatty vase on the coffee table. A nice touch, especially on a dismal-looking fall afternoon. The family appeared upper-middleclass comfortable, and their home reflected it.
Mrs. Brandt, lean, gray, and weathered from too many years in the sun, came in from the kitchen carrying a tea tray. She wore a peach dress with a white collar and belt that complemented her coloring.
As soon as Sara had mentioned Jarrod, the sparkle in Mrs. Brandt’s eyes had snuffed out. It still hadn’t returned. Sara hated causing Jarrod’s mother more pain, but she had to have answers.
Mrs. Brandt perched on the edge of the sofa, stretched to the antique-rose tea service, and then poured not tea, but coffee. “Jarrod died on a mission, Dr. West.” She passed a cup and saucer to Sara. Her hand wasn’t steady. “In his line of work, they don’t tell you where or how. At first, I thought that was a blessing. Now, I know it’s a curse.” She tilted her head. “You imagine all kinds of atrocities.”
Sara could easily see that anyone would. Hadn’t she, about David? Her gaze slid to the fireplace mantel. Awards lined it, and on the wall beside it hung a framed photo of a younger Jarrod, a bright-eyed, brash lieutenant in uniform. “Who came to tell you Jarrod had died?” Sara asked, letting her gaze skim over the awards. Purple Heart. Meritorious Service. Several she didn’t recognize. Jarrod had certainly been highly decorated. After the way he had covered for her, that didn’t surprise Sara. It seemed his nature to protect and defend. In a sense, as natural to him as drawing breath.
“Colonel Foster told us,” Mrs. Brandt said. “He talked to Miranda, too.”
Jarrod’s ex-wife? Sara tried to keep panic out of her voice. “But I thought they had divorced.”
“Oh, they had. But she was still the beneficiary on Jarrod’s OSGLI insurance policy.”
“Odd that he overlooked that,” Sara mused. “Seems he’d have caught it during the course of the divorce.”
“He didn’t overlook it. It was intentional. He warned his father and me that he was doing it.”
Intrigued, Sara set down her cup. “Why?”
“Theirs was a complicated relationship, Doctor.” Mrs. Brandt’s face flushed. “Miranda remarried six weeks after Jarrod’s death—not that it surprised any of us. She would never have remarried as long as he was alive.”
Searching for a foothold of understanding, Sara ventured, “She didn’t want the divorce?”
“This is sordid, and I hate to air dirty family laundry, but I know you said it’s important to your patients for you to understand—”
“Everything you say to me is confidential, Mrs. Brandt.”
“Miranda had been having an affair with Royce Winters for three years. Jarrod caught them. That’s why he divorced her.”
That explained his betrayal issue. “I’m sure that was difficult on everyone.”
“It was. Miranda was wrong for Jarrod. We tried to tell him she lacked focus, discipline, and ambition, and we knew she lacked the fortitude to function as a military wife. That’s essential when a man is in a job like Jarrod’s. A woman has to be flexible and self-sufficient, capable of standing on her own. Miranda wasn’t.”
And that had left her feeling inferior and her self-esteem shattered. Enter Royce Winters, substitute hero. Sara had seen this scenario many times.
“My husband and I knew the day they married that Jarrod and Miranda would eventually divorce. But what can you do? As parents you try to equip your children to make good choices, but kids are kids. You can’t tell them. They make their own choices, and even if you know they’re wrong, you’ve got to respect them.”
“We learn from experience. Still, watching people we love make choices we know are going to scrape their knees is challenging.”
Mrs. Brandt concurred with a ladylike grunt. “It’s damn difficult.”
Sara smiled.
Leaning toward the coffee table, Mrs. Brandt set her cup to her saucer. The porcelain on porcelain grated. “But Miranda added insult to injury.”
Sara sipped at her coffee. Chicory. New Orleans blend. Strong enough to put hair on your chest and tongue-burning hot. “How did she do that?”
