Gundown (26 page)

A Debt to Pay

To Jewel it felt like coming home when Franklin pulled into his driveway after picking her up from work. She and Chloe slid out of the backseat, but he didn’t shut off the engine.

Jewel leaned into the front passenger window and said, “You’re not stopping? I think there’s a cold beer with your name on it.”

“Evening’s the best time for picking up fares—folks going out to dinner before theater and then going to the theater. I’ll grab a dinner break then and go back out when performances end.”

Disappointed, she said, “Yeah, I know.” Franklin was starting to feel like family.

He smiled. “I’ll be back for my break.” With a wave, he backed away.

On the way into the house, Chloe asked, “Is Franklin my uncle like Uncle Timmy?”

Jewel tried to ignore the tug on her heart. How would she ever tell Chloe what had happened to Timmy? She hid her thoughts behind a smile. “It’s not the same, honey, but close.”

“I miss Uncle Timmy.”

An image of Timmy’s smile before pink got him popped into Jewel’s mind. Her sweet boy. “I do, too, sugar, I do, too.” Had Juana been able to take care of his . . . last needs?

While Chloe played with a Raggedy Ann doll Franklin had given her for an “unbirthday” present, Jewel took her cell phone from her purse. She’d kept it pretty much off since leaving Chicago, but Murphy was long gone now. Wandering onto the front porch, she punched in Juana’s number.

Juana answered and said, “Jewel! How are you? How’s Chloe?”

Jewel smiled. “I’m fine, she’s great. I wanted to ask how things went—”

“A cop came. Right after you left. The officer—he had a hurt nose—he found Timmy.”

Murphy. She’d gotten out just in time. Anger brewed in Jewel. “What’d he do?”

“He came banging on my door. He was mucho angry, very scary. I say I don’ know nothing. Don’ know where you are. And then they took Timmy.”

Oh, Lord.

Juana sobbed. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t take care of him like you say.”

“You couldn’t help it. That’s okay.”

A silence, then Juana said, “I didn’t use the money you left for . . . you know.”

Jewel knew how much she needed it. “That’s all right. I want you to have it.”

Juana’s voice carried a grin. “Oh,
gracias, mil gracias!
”

“Hey, I gotta go. You take care.”

“Si. Give Chloe big kisses for me.”

“I will.” She disconnected. That bastard Murphy. A black flower of pain opened in her gut. She doubled over, wrapping her arms around her middle. With a long o-o-o-o-o-h, the grief she’d held at bay finally took her. Sobs tore loose and spilled into the air.

At nine o’clock that evening, after reading
The Runaway Bunny
to Chloe and tucking her in for the night, Jewel poured a glass of chardonnay and collapsed into a living room chair. She wanted to talk about her day at the Alliance, but with Franklin out cabbing, there was no ear to listen.

Franklin was easy to talk to, so accepting. The people at work were nice enough, but something in her stopped her from connecting. At lunch, Benson Spencer had been talking about the trouble his neighbor was having keeping the Alliance promise. Hell, she couldn’t imagine herself even making the promise. It
sounded
good, but if you believed it you had to leave yourself wide open to being shafted. Like a sitting duck. And sitting ducks ended up being somebody’s dinner. But still . . . it felt like she was missing out.

Enough of that. She turned on the television to search for something worth watching and came across Bruce Ball on
Headline News
. Next to an inset picture of picketers carrying signs that read “Free Hank Soldado,” Ball was saying, “. . . protesters today in Ashland, Oregon, picketed the headquarters of the Alliance, demanding freedom for convicted killer Hank Soldado.” Jewel had walked through the picketers to get to work. They’d been loud, but not violent.

The picture cut to a woman about Jewel’s age. The woman said, “He saved the life of a great man. He should be getting a medal, not a prison sentence!”

Bruce Ball returned.
“Headline News
tried to contact Noah Stone, the man whose life was spared when Hank Soldado gunned down an assassin. A representative told us that the Alliance leader was unavailable, but that he completely supports the Oregon system of justice. More on that from our legal correspondent, Kate Sellers, after this.” The picture dissolved into a commercial for a retirement home.

Jewel clicked off the television. The Ashland
Daily Tidings
had been swamped with letters to the editor defending and condemning the verdict in about equal numbers. She wished the whole thing would go away—there was something about what had happened to Soldado that troubled her, but she’d been unwilling to dig it out.

She picked up a mystery novel, but her eyes were tired from researching online all day, and her head throbbed.

A check on Chloe found her tangled in her top sheet, deeply asleep. After straightening her out, Jewel let her weariness take over. Undressing and putting on an oversized T-shirt, she turned on the classical music radio station and stretched out on her bed. She drifted . . . drifted . . .

The tall blond punk with a green stripe in his hair grabs her arm and whips her around. Behind him, Murphy watches, gloating.

She spins away, but there is another, identical Green-Stripe facing her. And an identical Murphy behind him, complete with smirk. She turns in a circle—she’s surrounded by sets of Green-Stripes and Murphys, and more are arriving, all of them the same.

The closest punk rips her blouse open.

Behind her, a hand yanks it completely from her. She huddles, arms crossed over her breasts.

The Green-Stripes unzip their pants and reach inside. She screams, but no sound comes out.

Suddenly the head of the Green-Stripe in front of her explodes, showering her with blood. One by one, each of her attackers suffers the same fate, each collapsing to the sidewalk.

Beyond them, Hank Soldado stands in a marksman’s stance, his pistol aimed her way. The Murphys run away.

She steps over a body and walks toward Soldado to thank him. Jewel extends her hand for a shake. Suddenly her hand holds a pistol. She squeezes the trigger and Soldado’s head explodes.

She cries out. “No!”

“Mommy, Mommy . . .”

Jewel jerked awake. Chloe stood beside her bed, tugging on Jewel’s T-shirt. Her daughter’s eyes were wide with fright.

“Mommy, are you hurt?”

Jewel shuddered and wrapped Chloe in her arms. “No, honey, it was just a bad dream.”

“I was scared.”

“It’s all right, baby. Hey, why don’t you climb in with me so neither one of us will be scared?”

Chloe crawled under the sheet and snuggled close.

Jewel tried to relax, but the dream rose into her thoughts. It had told the truth—she had killed Hank Soldado. The Keep was a death sentence, and she had stopped him from escaping. She had betrayed the man who had rescued her. And had saved Noah Stone’s life.

And for what? For preventing the killing of an innocent man. Where was the justice in that?

Sleep refused to come. After Chloe’s breathing eased into the easy rhythm of slumber, Jewel left the bed to sit in the living room and wrestle with the horror of her dream—and what she had done to Hank Soldado.

As she struggled with what she might have done, should have done, she realized that Noah Stone was a part of it, too. The laws that had doomed Soldado came from Stone and his Alliance.

Soldado had rescued Noah from Earl’s bullet, and in return Noah and his Alliance had tossed Hank Soldado into a deathtrap.

Noah Stone, the guy who kept promising to help.

So what was she gonna do about that?

Confronting Evil

Marion shook her head. Focus! Her thoughts had been so fractured since Suzanne— Focus! She took the top manila folder on the morning stack and removed the papers. Wishing they’d fix the air-conditioning in her office, Marion fanned herself with the folder.

She called Tiffany Horowitz. “How are you doing on the so-called ‘inquiry’ that put Hank Soldado in prison?”

“Appears legal. It can be appealed, but you know how long that takes. Ah, I reviewed that book you sent for, too.”

“Book?”

“
Justice Through Truth and Advocacy.
The one by Noah Stone and the chief justice? Their ideas about advocacy instead of adversity are starting to make sense to me.”

It bothered Marion that they were starting to make sense to her, too. But she had a job to do and a Constitution to defend. “I’ve seen their ideas railroad a man into prison without a proper defense. It’s your job to find a way to stop them.” Yes, Hank Soldado was guilty, but he was entitled to a defense. The oh-so-agreeable process of the Alliance’s advocates had hardly been a rigorous defense.

Wasn’t he entitled to that? Even if he was admittedly guilty?

Even though she had seen them find the truth?

Sounding as though she’d been scolded, Tiffany muttered, “Yes, ma’am.”

Marion hung up, opened a desk drawer, and took out a bottle of scotch. She half-filled a coffee mug and sipped. Her gaze went to the chair where Suzanne had sat to talk so many times. The knot of grief that seemed permanently stuck in her throat threatened to swell and cause more tears. She numbed it with a swallow of scotch.

She toggled her intercom. “No interruptions.”

If she and Suzanne had lived in Oregon, the man who had killed Suzanne would be in the Keep because of his earlier crimes, and most likely dead. And even if he hadn’t been, Suzanne could have defended herself with a stopper. Her attacker would have known that and maybe not even tried.

Anger rose. Where were Noah Stone’s grand ideas when Suzanne had needed them? He should have saved her!

She shook her head. That was crazy; Noah Stone had nothing to do with Suzanne’s death. Her killer was on the street because of a broken-down legal system.

Marion was the nation’s chief law officer.

Wasn’t Suzanne’s death her fault?

Her phone rang, the direct line. “Yes?”

“This is Joe Donovan, ma’am.”

Damn, she should have made sure to see him in Ashland. “Glad you called, Joe. I was going to call you and Sally—”

“This is a courtesy call, Ms. Smith-Taylor. Our resignations are in the mail to you, but I thought it was only right to let you know that we’re going to work for Noah Stone.”

“But why . . . Oh. Now that Soldado is gone, he’s scared.”

“With good reason, ma’am. He’s been shot at twice.”

She stood and paced to work off her anger. “He’s got a lot of nerve, stealing my agents.”

“It was us who went to him. We like what he’s doing.”

Okay, live with it. “I understand. Do me a favor and keep me informed?”

“We owe you that much. Stone will be okay.”

Why was she concerned? Stone was the guy ripping holes in the Constitution.

But he was making things work better out there, wasn’t he?

It was time she had a conversation with Noah Stone. He didn’t seem like a fanatic. Maybe she could get him to see how wrong it was to subvert the Constitution no matter how worthy his goals were. Maybe there was a way to work with him for change without destruction. She checked her schedule. She could be there in two days.

After asking her new secretary to get her to Ashland, she took out a notepad and started organizing her arguments.

An hour later, she realized that she was feeling like the defense on a losing case, not the prosecution of a successful one. Marion called for coffee and went back to work.

Into the Belly of the Beast

It was a few minutes before a clock on the wall reached nine o’clock in the morning when Arnie, flanked by two stopper-carrying guards, gave each prisoner a long look and said, “I urge you one last time to do the therapy.”

Trying to sleep on a jail cot made Hank contrary. He’d have probably said no even if he’d wanted to do it. He yawned. Dalrymple didn’t take Arnie up on the offer, either.

Arnie said, “As you wish.” He held out an arm, one hand decorated with a multicolored Alliance ring. “Now put one arm through the bars. If you’re right-handed, make it your left arm, left-handed, make it the right.”