Broken Honor (6 page)

“About sixteen hours,” she said. “They had to take a bullet out of you, but the doctor said you'll be just fine.” She hesitated. “The police were here. They waited most of the night and today. They finally gave up, but they want to talk to you as soon as possible.”

Amy weighed that. Something nagged at her. Then she remembered what she'd been trying to remember. Boxes. She started to mention them, then stopped. What was the stranger doing in her room?

“Jon?” she asked. “I want to speak to.…”

There was a stricken look on Sherry's face. She touched Amy's hand. “He's dead,” she said reluctantly. “An automobile accident last evening. Hit and run.”

The room started to blur. New pain ripped through Amy. A kind of pain far different from the physical pounding in her body. And anger. Deep, bitter anger.

“No” she whispered. “It can't be.”

The colonel looked at Sherry. “Jon?”

“A history professor at the college. He and Amy were friends.”

And the burglar was coming out of his office
. Amy's heart beat faster, almost frantically. Sherry wouldn't have known she had gone to see Jon last night, that she had wanted to retrieve her boxes. And now Jon was dead. A coincidence? She did not believe it for a moment, but she was not going to mention it in front of this man.

“I'm sorry, Miss Mallory,” he said in a soft voice. “I wanted to reach you this morning, and called the college. Miss Machovitz had just arrived at the office and learned of your … injury. I don't think anyone knew about your friend then.”

His voice was deep, soft, and soothing. Too soothing. She didn't trust it. She wondered whether he had connected the two … incidents. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“The police were here all night, waiting to see you,” he said soothingly. “When they left to get some lunch, I told them I would stay with you.” He looked at his watch. “They should be here any minute.”

Then it struck her.
Flaherty
. Sherry had not mentioned his name yesterday, and she'd been so busy with details with the insurance company she hadn't asked. Flaherty. It was the same name as one of the generals in the newspaper story. Her eyes narrowed. Everything bad had started to happen after she'd read that article.

“What do you want?” Amy asked.

He looked uncomfortable, but determined. “Information. I don't know if you're aware of a recent commission report. On war thefts. Second World War.” He said it all in clipped sentences, his magnetic blue eyes studying her with an intensity that burned like a laser.

“I'm aware,” she said simply.

“I thought you might have some papers that would shed light on it.” It was both a statement and a question. It was a particularly effective form of interrogation. She had used it herself in interviews.

She was silent. In truth, she didn't know what she had. But after the last few days she was not going to share anything with anyone. “Why … would you believe I do?”

“You're a historian,” he said. “A very good one, I understand. And you're the only descendant of General Mallory. It stands to reason.…”

How would he know whether she was a good one or not unless he'd checked into her background? The thought chilled her. And that chill laced her reply. “It is not my field, Colonel.”

“I know,” he said with some amusement in his voice. “Your field is war protestors. I probably shouldn't have worn the uniform.”

“Then why did you?”

“It often helps me get into places I otherwise might not,” he said with a disarming charm that she knew had been lurking there, just waiting to be sprung on her. She was, however, in no mood to be charmed. Particularly by someone named Flaherty who got himself into her room through false pretenses, who had apparently snooped into her life.

“Well, I can't help you,” she said, tamping down on the waves of pain assaulting her. “I just want to rest. And,” she added pointedly, “to talk to the police.”

He studied her for a moment. “Why were you in Sammons Hall last night?”

“It's none of your business,” she said, her anger overcoming curiosity. Too much had happened in the past week. Things she didn't understand, and now this … stranger apparently wanted her to trust him. She didn't. She wondered whether she would ever trust anyone again.

She turned to Sherry. “Bo?”

“As soon as I knew you'd be okay, I went to your hotel and explained everything. They let me in and I got Bo for you. He's at my house.”

“Who's Bo?” the uniform said.

“Amy's dog,” Sherry said helpfully.

Amy closed her eyes. She was tired, so very tired. Her head hurt, and her side felt as if it were on fire. She was also confused. Angry. She thought of Jon, and grief flooded her again and lodged in her heart. He had been a good friend, and she would miss their conversations and his humor. And somehow, for some reason she didn't understand, she suspected she was in some way the cause of his death.

She opened her eyes again. The colonel was still standing there. Stiff and straight. Tall. Several inches taller than her own nearly six feet, which usually made her self-conscious.

He was lean in build and she sensed, rather than saw, raw physical power. He also gave an impression of restlessness even where he stood still. She would bet her last paycheck that he ran three miles before breakfast and worked out daily in a gym. The thought did not endear him to her.

His eyes, though, were difficult to read. He wore the investigator's mask. She had seen it too much in the past several days. Resentment replaced some of her confusion. They wanted information. They seldom gave it.
Well, not this time, buddy
.

“What do you do in the Army?”

“I'm in criminal investigation.”

She should have guessed from his insistence. “CID?”

He looked startled. “Yes, ma'am.”

“I didn't think colonels conducted investigations.”

“You know about us, then?”

“Oh, yes. I know about most law investigation agencies,” she said dryly. “Certainly enough to know that colonels supervise. Warrant officers and civilians do most of the … work.”

He looked uncomfortable, and that gave her momentary satisfaction. She didn't think he looked that way very often.

“The police know I'm here unofficially,” he said after a short pause.

She moved then, and the pain that had been under control—barely—became white-hot agony. She clenched her teeth to keep from moaning.

But Sherry saw it. “Squeeze the button beside you,” she said. “There's a drip to control the pain.”

Amy didn't want a drug. Not until she saw the police. Maybe not even then. She'd seen too much of what drugs did. She didn't even take aspirin. Instead, she waited until the pain receded.

“Go away,” she told the colonel.

He hesitated a moment. “I told the police I would stay with you. They've checked my credentials.”

Ah, the fellowhood of cops. Not once, apparently, did they question whether the colonel had a personal motive. She bit down on the pain again. “I still want you to go.”

“Will you talk to me later?” he persisted.

“Why should I?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Your name is Flaherty. So is one of the generals involved with the treasure trains.”

“I'm his grandson,” the colonel said.

The pain was tolerable again. “Why didn't you tell me that in the beginning?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“Of course it does,” she said, steeling herself once more against a new wave of pain. “You have a personal interest.” It was almost an accusation. He'd appeared the day after someone tried to kill her, several days after her house was burned.

“I do. I don't deny it. And you do, too.”

“It was fifty years ago. It has nothing to do with my life now.”

“Then why was your home destroyed? Why did someone hurt you last night?”

“You tell me,” she said, anger and pain coming together in an explosion. “You certainly appeared at a curious time.”

He shrugged carelessly, but she saw the tension in the set of his shoulders. He wasn't nearly as relaxed as he wanted her to believe. Why? What did he think she might know that would help him in any way? Or did he think it might hurt him?

“I saw the article in the paper,” he said after a moment's silence. “I knew my grandfather well. I couldn't believe he would have anything to do with a theft.”

“And you think my grandfather might have?” she asked indignantly.

“It might well have been none of them,” he said soothingly, “but now they're all tainted by insinuations. I tried to locate witnesses. Many of the supporting papers are classified or names are blacked out. I hoped your grandfather might have left some documents.”

The documents.
The boxes
. Was that why Jon had died? But why? Terror ripped through her, but she didn't want him to see it. Men like him—investigators—used fear as a weapon. She had seen it used with her mother. But where were the boxes now? In her mind's eyes, she saw the masked thief dropping one. Had he picked it up before fleeing?

“Why,” she asked, “didn't the commission investigators talk to me?”

He shrugged. “They were concerned with the events as they happened more than half a century ago. We weren't alive then. There was no reason to come to us.”

“Then why are you involved?” she asked testily.

“I want to know the truth. Our grandfathers were indicted by innuendo. I owe it to mine to clear him.”

“At the expense of others?” she accused him. “As you said, it was fifty years ago. Let it go.”

“You're a historian. Can you really do that?” It was a challenge.

No, she couldn't. Which was why she wanted to go through the boxes again. But she wasn't going to admit that. She didn't know whom to trust now.
Jon. Dead
. Her house burned. She had been shot. She knew enough about anatomy to realize that if the bullet had been inches to the left.…

“Do you remember anything about the man who shot you?” he asked, as if reading her mind.

She wasn't going to tell him anything. Not until she talked to the police. She shook her head and turned to Sherry. “The police don't have any idea who did it?”

Sherry shook her head. “A second security guard saw him flee, but he was masked. They want to talk to you, of course, and they're dusting for fingerprints.”

Amy saw the intruder in her mind's eye. Masked. Gloved. Dressed all in black. And graceful. Like her visitor.
An athlete's grace
.

She fought a wave of fear. Did someone know she was going to Jon's office? If so, how? And if not, how did he know to look in Jon's office? If, she reminded herself, he had been after
her
boxes. Maybe, just maybe, he had been after something else.

She only knew she was not going to mention them until she knew what happened to those boxes. There had been three of them. The thief had one box in his hands before he dropped it. Had he taken others before she arrived?

You're being paranoid. It wasn't your box. Jon's office was lined with them. Notes. Reference books. Manuscripts. It could have been anything
.

She had to make sure.

And she couldn't do it with the Army investigator in the room. The one with his own agenda.

“I want you to go,” she said again. “I'm hurting and I'm tired and I want you to go.”

He studied her for a moment, his eyes making requests she wasn't ready to grant. “I'll be back,” he said. “And,” he added, “I'll wait outside until the police arrive.”

His words struck her as ominous. “You don't believe.…”

“No,” he said. “The police think it was just a burglary gone wrong. But I told them I would wait.”

Amy just nodded. She wasn't surprised at his persistence. But at the moment she wanted him gone. He was a disturbing presence in more ways than one.

She watched unwillingly as he put on his hat, and drat it if he didn't look even better.

Amy turned away. She waited until the door closed, then looked at Sherry, who had a dazed expression on her face.

“Sherry?”

Sherry stirred herself back to reality. “I'm sorry, Amy,” she said. “I thought he had a right to be here.”

“He wanted you to think that,” she said flatly. “He lied.”

“He never actually said.…”

“Same thing as,” Amy said. “Do me a favor. Don't tell him anything. Anything at all.”

Looking abashed, Sherry nodded. “I swear.”

Amy remembered what the colonel said, that the police would be back soon. But he'd made sure he asked
his
questions first.

A simple burglary gone wrong
. If that was what the police thought, then they probably hadn't collected her boxes. She tried to move toward the phone, but her body objected and she fell back. “Sherry,” she said, “call the campus security office. See if they retrieved the box the man dropped. Ask them to check to see if there are any other boxes with my name on them. If so, ask them to lock them up.”

Sherry looked started. “Do you think that's what the … burglar was after?”

“I don't know, but I want to go through them, and I won't be able to do that if the police take them.”

Sherry stood.

Amy reached out her hand. “Thank you, Sherry.”

Sherry's hand squeezed hers. “I'll make the calls outside. You need some rest.”

Amy was grateful. Her head was swimming with emotions. She needed time to think, to cope with all the questions and fear and grief.
Claude. Jon. Why
?

Was someone also after her?

Or did she just have a dark cloud floating over her head? Coincidence. A burglary she interrupted. A burglary that had nothing to do with her? She wished that with all her heart.