Acts of Honor (34 page)

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?”

Anger flashed through Mrs. Brandt’s eyes. “Miranda didn’t just have an affair. She chose Jarrod’s best friend since grade school as her partner. Right or wrong, that was a calculated move on her part. She’d become disillusioned with being a military wife by then. She turned bitter, and then vindictive. She wanted to hurt my son. And she did.”

Double betrayal. Wife and best friend. Unfortunately, also typical. But because Sara cared so much for Joe, her emotional reaction wasn’t distant or typical. She felt his pain. And his rage. “I imagine that hurt him deeply.”
God, don’t let my voice falter. Not now.

“Enough to get him killed.”

Sara set down her cup. “I don’t understand.”

Mrs. Brandt touched the petals of a sunflower in the squatty vase. “Jarrod caught them together, Dr. West. He left. Miranda had second thoughts. Within a week, she was begging Jarrod to forgive her. She realized what he had known all along. She needed him. Jarrod was her rock. Her security and safe harbor during storms. He always had been.”

“But Jarrod refused to forgive her?”

“He refused to take her back. It was
 . . .
difficult. He loved her, but he understood that refusing her was what she needed to grow as a person.” Sadness tinged her tone. “Unfortunately, Jarrod didn’t factor in his own growth. He volunteered for every high-risk mission that came along. Colonel Foster told us that.” Mrs. Brandt sighed, and her voice trembled, turned watery. “Jarrod never talked to me or my husband about any of this. After he
 . . .
died”—she paused and pulled in a deep breath—“Colonel Foster shared it with me. Jarrod was a very private person. I guess he didn’t want to cause more tension between us and Miranda and Royce, so he talked to the colonel.” Pain flooded Mrs. Brandt’s eyes. “Those two sat at our table for Christmas dinner for three years, knowing they were betraying our son. I can’t forgive them for that. I just
 . . .
can’t.”

Sara’s heart went out to the mother. “I’m so sorry.”

Sara waited for her to get through the hurt and anger so she could go on.

“That’s why Jarrod volunteered for all those suicide missions. Because he felt he had nothing to come home to anymore.”

Sara shouldn’t do it. Couldn’t
not
do it. “No, Mrs. Brandt,” Sara softly disagreed. “Jarrod might have felt he had nothing left to lose, but that isn’t the real reason he put his life on the line in those missions.” On this, Sara knew she was on firm ground. “The reason he did that was because he believed in what he was doing. And because the others who would have taken on the missions he refused to take
did
have something left to lose.”

“That’s what Colonel Foster said.” A soft smile of pride and remembrance touched her lips. “He said all Jarrod did was acts of honor.”

Sara’s throat went thick. “They were.” This, Foster had done right. The way he had treated Mrs. Brandt and had handled this situation, giving Jarrod’s mother some comforting words, had been exactly right.

“The colonel really respected Jarrod. It was mutual. Jarrod thought the world of him.” Mrs. Brandt scooted back on the sofa cushion and crossed her legs. “He helped us a great deal after Jarrod died—still checks on us every month. On the fifteenth, we get a phone call. You can set your watch by Jack Foster.”

Mrs. Brandt clearly didn’t consider Foster corrupt. In her book, he wasn’t just a good guy but a great one. And judging from his dedication and devotion to Jarrod’s family, Sara waffled on her own opinion. Maybe Foster
was
a good guy. These certainly weren’t the actions of a man seeking only a star for his shoulder.

“Colonel Foster tried to help Miranda, too. She had a hard time with Jarrod’s death. Even with Royce there to help her, she struggled.” Mrs. Brandt sobered. “That there is no security is a hard lesson to learn, Dr. West.”

“Yes, it is. Harder for some than others.” In her practice, Sara had seen refusing to accept that truth destroy many lives.

Mrs. Brandt digressed, talking wistfully about Jarrod as a child, a teen. Sara listened, thinking that remembering was good for the mother in the woman, and feeling guilty as hell about that mother mourning a son who was not dead.

Solemn, her thoughts riveted back to Foster. He was held in high regard here, but Sara’s signals on him and his character remained mixed. She couldn’t slot him with any degree of certainty. Foster habitually did whatever he deemed necessary to accomplish his job, and yet his treatment of the Brandts and even Miranda proved he also had a compassionate side. At least, he did when being compassionate didn’t interfere with his job.

Had he kept in touch with the other families, too?

Probably not. Unless the patients were all Shadow Watchers, and that was extremely unlikely. Yet, he had kept tabs on Sara, Lisa, and Brenda—and even on their brother, Steve.

Could
all
of her patients have been Shadow Watchers?

Sara drove back toward Braxton,
passing the store with the broken phone and the old-fashioned Coke machine. Her tires kicked up a trail of dust behind her.

She had left Mrs. Brandt’s house and had gone to a motel, where she had phoned each of the other PTSD patients’ families, with the exception of Brenda. All of them lived too far away to visit personally.

Then she had spread out all the information gathered on the bed and had compared each file to all of the others. Some damaged men had not been in Intel jobs. Lou was an arms expert. Ray, a medic. Michael, a contract negotiator. David and Jarrod were Shadow Watchers. ADR-40 was a scientist whose primary duty dealt with a project developing laser technology.

Aside from all of them being transferred to Braxton from IWPT, the only common bond noted was that most of the patients, including Jarrod, had been in relationships with faithless spouses or significant others. From her research, Sara knew that bond was significant. Time after time in the research documents, infidelity had been cited as the number one vulnerability of soldiers in the application of psychological warfare.

Sara also felt certain that Jarrod no longer had as many memory blanks as he claimed. His survival instincts had kicked in, and he had incorporated a protective device to insulate himself from betrayal. She couldn’t be angry with Jarrod about that. Not knowing how he felt about her and about his relationship with Miranda. But knowing that he was insulating himself and that he wasn’t as diminished as he had led her to believe, did alleviate some guilt about Sara taking advantage of him.

She braked at a stop sign, waited for a blue Jeep to pass, and then drove on down the pothole-filled road leading to the gate. Maybe falling in love with a patient was wrong. But it was easier to bear than falling in love with a patient who was mentally diminished.

A flash from the ditch snagged Sara’s gaze. Someone jumped out onto the dirt road. She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. Reaston?

He walked around the hood of the car. Shaking hard, having no idea what this meant but damn certain it couldn’t be good, Sara rolled down the window. “Reaston, what are you doing out here?”

The sergeant stepped up to the window. “Saving your ass, ma’am.” He opened the driver’s door. “Scoot over.”

Sara slid over the gearshift and into the passenger seat, dumbfounded.

Reaston got behind the wheel, shut the door, and then slapped the gearshift into Drive. “This car is a rental. You phoned U.S.A. Rentals to pick it up outside the gate yesterday afternoon. An agent for the company did so. You have not been outside the facility at any time since yesterday morning. Understand?”