Broken Honor (26 page)

Everything she needed now.

She watched as he left the car, slipping the pistol from his holster into his hand. He came back to the window. “Do you have your pistol?”

She did. It was in her purse, which he'd given her when they'd returned to the car at the beach. She nodded.

“Keep it out and ready,” he said. “Stay here.”

She wanted to follow him, but as she fingered the weapon, she wasn't sure she could actually use it. She knew she wasn't experienced enough to confront armed assassins. She would most likely put Irish Flaherty in more danger, not less.

At this moment, she knew it took more courage to stay than to try to be Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone. She wanted to follow him with all her heart. But she had seen too many movies in which the heroine did something really stupid and imperiled others. She didn't want to count herself among them.

She put Bo into the backseat, then moved to the driver's side and turned on the engine. And waited. And waited.

Time crept by as if it were a tortoise crawling across a desert. Suddenly, an explosion rocked the car. A ball of fire erupted into the sky.

Bo barked frantically, and she sat transfixed, not sure what to do. Irish expected her to be there.

But what if … he was caught inside? Or he was injured?

Clutching her purse with its deadly contents, she rolled all the windows partway down for Bo. She couldn't leave him in a sealed car. She reminded herself of her total lack of police skills. Even survivor skills. But it didn't matter. She heard sirens, then saw someone running. She knew instantly it was not Flaherty. The figure stopped, as if he saw her. The sound of sirens was louder, and he turned again and disappeared between two houses just as a police car passed her, slowed and approached where their rental house was in flames.

Then she saw Flaherty, weaving his way toward her from the back of a house three doors down. His shirt was singed and stained with red. Blood dripped from several cuts on his face.

She started the car and drove to meet him. He eased himself painfully into the passenger's seat. As she started to move out into the road, a fire engine passed them, then another. She turned down a side road and, keeping well within the speed limit, found the main highway.

“How badly are you hurt?” she asked.

“Nothing serious,” he said. But he held his left arm awkwardly. “Go left to Highway 17.”

“Shouldn't we wait for the police?”

“I don't think so,” he said.

“Why?”

He hesitated.

“Now is not the time to keep anything from me,” she said. “I already know there's a lot of people out to kill me for some unknown reason. The more I know, the better I can protect myself.”

He sighed audibly. “You're right, of course. I think the cottage was rigged to blow when we went inside. I had placed some tape at both doors. Both had been disturbed. I checked the windows. The kitchen window had a slight crack, and I smelled gas. I think the moment I opened the door, a wire would have tripped a spark.”

She waited. There was more. Obviously he wouldn't be here if he
had
opened that door.

“Someone must have been watching, and probably had a remote trigger as a backup. When they saw me prowling around instead of going in, they tripped it. I had just moved away from the window, coming to get you the hell out of the way, but part of the blast knocked me down.”

“But why not talk to the police?”

“These people have resources like I've never seen before,” he said grimly. “They already may have tried to kill someone to get me transferred. If I show up at another police station, I'll sure as hell be hauled back to base. Right now there's nothing to connect us to the explosion.”

Nausea settled in her stomach. She was destroying his career. It didn't matter that it was a career she didn't exactly like. It was
his
career. Just as teaching was hers.

She started to turn the car around.

He grabbed the wheel. “No,” he said.

“But I can't let you destroy.…”

“You don't understand,” he said. “They nearly killed someone in Germany in order to get me transferred. What's to stop the from doing the same thing to me? I don't want to be looking under my car every time I get in. We have to find who is behind this.”

“Can't the FBI or someone else do it?”

He looked at her. “Someone high in the government is involved, Amy. I have no idea who, yet. Until I do, I'm not going to leave you unprotected.”

“I can't let you sacrifice everything for me.”

“They've tried to kill me, too. I'm as high on their list as you.”

“Because of me,” she said.

“No, I don't think so,” he said slowly. “I think we've all been targeted for a long time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your grandfather. He committed suicide?”

She nodded slowly.

“Did you think he was suicidal?”

“He was sick.”

“But suicidal?”

She shook her head.

“My grandfather had a heart attack, but he'd never had heart trouble.”

Silence. She tried to digest what was being said.

“And the Eachan family. General Eachan died in an accident.”

Her eyes turned away from the road for a second and toward him. “You think they're connected?”

“I think they could be.”

The lump in her throat almost choked her. The implications were too mind-boggling. Unlike her mother, she'd never believed in conspiracies. At least not many of them. And the scale of this was too large for her to comprehend.

“You can't go back to Memphis, Amy. It's not safe. Ask for a delay.”

“I'll see if it's possible,” she said slowly, not at all hopeful. Any hint of scandal would destroy her chances for tenure. Six days. She had only six days.

“We'll go to Washington,” he said, “and talk to Eachan. If necessary, we can fly to Memphis from there.”

She looked at his torn shirt, the blood splattered on it, the burn on the back of his hand. He must be in a lot of pain.

She was not going to make it worse. Not now. He was right.

She finally nodded. “We'll go to Washington.”

eighteen

S
OUTH
C
AROLINA

Irish hurt. He wished he could think better, but he was burned and cut and had lost blood. All he knew was his instincts. And they told him to run like hell.

He could still feel the heat from the blast. If he hadn't stepped back several feet, he would be toast. Again instinct had saved him. The moment he'd smelled gas.…

He'd known instantly they couldn't stay in South Carolina. Too many incidents now. He would be held, and he sensed she would be released. She would be on her own.

God, but he hurt. The blast had opened the wound he'd gotten at Jekyll, and he felt the blood running down his side. Now neither of them had any clothes other than what they were wearing. They had only the dog and those damned boxes.

He said a quiet prayer of thanksgiving that they had taken Bojangles with them. He didn't know how she could deal with another loss. Everything had been taken from her: her home, her friend, perhaps even her livelihood.

He leaned back, closed his eyes and tried to will away the pain. He didn't want her to know how bad it was.

The worst were the burns. They would have to stop and get some antibiotic salve and hope that it helped. He didn't want to go to a hospital or clinic. Or even a doctor. They would be looking for him there. They would know he was hurt.

That was, he knew, assuming a lot—that they had access to security or law enforcement agencies. He now feared that they—whoever
they
were—did. He'd underestimated them from the beginning.

Amy didn't say anything as they drove up the coast toward Washington, not when they passed the beach where they had stopped earlier, not when they passed several beach villages.

Finally, she stopped the car and turned off the engine. He opened his eyes and saw they were at a drugstore. She studied him. “I think you should go to a doctor.”

“No,” he said. “I know about stuff like this. Get some cotton balls, antiseptic cream, gauze and tape, peroxide and aspirin.”

She hesitated. “I still think.…”

“It's minor, Amy. I—we—don't want to have to explain what happened. The explosion will be all over the state news.”

“If you don't feel better tomorrow.…”

“We will talk then,” he said.

She disagreed. He knew that. But after a moment's hesitation, she left the car.

He tried to think. He had no idea how much money they had left. She had given him several hundred for groceries and gas. He didn't know whether she had left any money in the cottage when he'd had the very bad idea of a brief holiday from running. They had no clothes. He couldn't use the damned cell phone, which was one of the few possessions he still had.

They had to have money. He would have to take a chance and call the ranch. Or would he? There was the woman who ran the general store near the ranch. They had chatted back and forth quite a bit on his visits. Maybe he could call her from a public phone and ask her to contact his ranch foreman. The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it.

Joe had access to funds in order to run the ranch. It wasn't much, but enough, he hoped, for the next several days.

He closed his eyes again.

He opened them when he heard the car door opening. She tossed a large bag next to him. “I think we should stop somewhere and let me doctor you.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” he said, forcing his voice to sound lazy.

“I found a couple of T-shirts,” she added.

He looked at her. “How much money do you have left?”

“A thousand,” she said, adding regretfully, “I left several thousand more in the house.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It isn't your fault.”

He knew, though, that she couldn't have that much money. Not as an untenured professor. She must have taken out everything she had.

Tomorrow he would call Betty Manfield, the owner of the general store, and have money wired to Washington.

Tonight, he needed rest. He was tired. Weak. He knew the signs. Belated shock. Loss of blood. He needed rest. Time for the body to absorb what had been inflicted upon it. His mind worked fuzzily.

She seemed to sense it. “Should I stop?”

He nodded. “Someplace.…”

“Cheap and shoddy,” she finished the sentence. “I know.”

“You'll have to go in. I don't … think I would pass inspection, even for cheap and shoddy.”

She glanced over at him. “Not exactly what you promised earlier,” she said wryly.

“No.” It was all he could manage. It certainly wasn't what he'd promised with his eyes and words and body. They'd needed each other then. Now he needed her.

“How about this?” she asked.

He looked out. Daylight had faded into dusk, then into night. The motel was obviously a “by the hour” type. He suspected most of the license plates would be local. He might switch one of them for his tonight.

He nodded. “Looks good.” It didn't look good. It looked terrible. But at the moment any haven would be a blessing.

He watched as she parked out of sight of the office. She was learning. No one to check the license plate, even if they cared. She got out and went inside as Bo gave a halfhearted bark.

In minutes, she was back out with a key attached to a big black piece of plastic. No magnetic room cards here. She got back inside the car and drove around to the corner of the motel.

“We're set,” she said. “I asked for something real private.” She spoke with a pronounced southern accent.

He reached out and took her hand. “You're one hell of a woman,” he said.

“Have I thanked you for getting repeatedly shot, beaten, and wounded on my behalf?”

“On both of our behalfs,” he corrected.

She got out of the car, and opened the back door for Bo to jump out. Then she took the bag. He had to struggle to open his door and stand. She went over to him and put his arm around her shoulder, and together they reached the door to the room. She unlocked it, and they stumbled inside. He sat on the bed.

Irish watched as Amy turned on the lights, then the television.

She went into the bathroom and came out with a wet towel. He shrugged off the bloody, torn shirt, then allowed her to help him take off the T-shirt, part of which was stuck to his chest. There were large red marks scattered over his torso and arms. The wound on his side was partially open, and fresh blood mixed with dark dried spots.

She washed around the wound as gently as possible.

“Peroxide now,” he said.

She poured the liquid on a cotton ball and gingerly pressed it against the wound. He could tell it probably hurt her more than it hurt him. Her fingers felt cool against his skin, her touch gentle. When she'd finished with the peroxide, she taped gauze over the wound. She moved to the abrasions and burns, this time using a Benzocaine spray to cut the pain.

They were, he knew, fairly minor, but they still stung like hell. He felt as though a hundred porcupine quills had been stuck in him and set on fire. But at last she was through spreading antibiotic cream. He still hurt, so he took several aspirins, then he watched television with her. The stations were from Richmond. No news of an explosion in South Carolina.

They'd had no food. “The picnic,” he said.

Her eyes widened, then she smiled slightly. “Not exactly the way I imagined it.”

Nor the way he had imagined it. A bottle of wine in bed. Cheese. Bread. Strawberries. He'd thought of imaginative ways to eat the strawberries earlier. Lot of good it did him now.

She went out the door, taking her purse with the gun. She was a lot gutsier than he ever imagined. In another minute she returned. She put the cooler on the dresser, then carefully locked the door.