Courageous (36 page)

“Tonight’s a special night. Jade, I brought you here because I wanted to tell you how grateful I am that God entrusted you to me. I see my daughter becoming a beautiful woman, and I can understand why any young man would be drawn to you. But I also want you to know that as your father, I want the best for you. No man on earth loves you like I do. One day I will give you away to another man, but I want that man to love God more than anything. Because if he does, then he will love you.”

For the first time in recent memory, Nathan saw Jade sit with her eyes fixed on his, taking in every word.

“Jade, I know how young men think. They want to win your heart, but they don’t know how to treasure it. So I’m going to ask you something.”

“What?”

“I’d like to make an agreement with you. If you’ll trust me with your heart and allow me to approve any young man that desires to have more than a friendship with you, then I promise to take care of you and give you my full blessing when God shows us both who the right one is.”

She kept her eyes on him and smiled.

“Jade, will you trust me with your heart until God shows us the right man?”

Jade nodded. “Okay.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. I hoped you would. I got you something that will help us remember tonight.”

He reached in his coat pocket. Jade watched intently as Nathan set a small black box in front of her. He slowly opened it. Inside lay a gold ring with tiny diamonds in the shape of a heart.

She stared at the ring, wide-eyed.

“Jade, may I have your left hand?”

Jade placed her hand in Nathan’s. He slid the ring on her finger.

“Daddy, is this real?”

“Yes, it is. This is meant to be worn until the day it is replaced with your wedding ring. It speaks of our agreement and your commitment to purity to save yourself for your husband.”

She looked at the ring, mesmerized.

“I love you, sweetie. You are priceless to me, and from this night on, I am determined to treat you as the young woman you are.”

Tears filled her eyes.

“I love you too, Daddy. Thank you so much.” She looked like his little girl again. “Do you have a tissue?” she asked.

Nathan searched his pockets. “I’ll be right back.”

He walked toward the bathroom, hardly believing what had happened. It had gone exactly as he hoped. When he found tissue in the bathroom, he grabbed a handful for Jade, then looked in the mirror and quickly used three himself.

After Nathan composed himself, he returned to the table. The next two hours were sacred. They talked about nothing and everything, laughed about things that mattered and things that didn’t.

They drove home at nine thirty, finally silent. He had been able to speak to his daughter about something incredibly important. No texts. No Facebook. She had been there for him 100 percent—probably because he had been there for
her
100 percent.

When they entered the house, Jade ran to her mother to show her the ring. Kayla walked with Jade into her bedroom and didn’t come out until after eleven.

Jade texted five friends to tell them what her daddy had done for her. And at midnight, she lay on her stomach in bed, staring at her ring in the moonlight.

“Good morning, Daddy.” Jade hugged him tight.

“Morning, sweetheart. I could get used to hugs like that. How did you sleep?”

“I didn’t sleep much, but that’s okay.”

Kayla turned to Jade. “You weren’t up late texting, were you?”

“A little.” For the first time she could remember, Kayla felt good about what she figured her daughter had been texting to friends.

When Nathan took a call on his cell phone, Jade asked her mother, “Do you wanna see my ring again?” She held it out for Kayla, who was peeling an orange.

“I saw it the first three times you showed me. But I’m glad to look again. Yes’m, looks just as good.”

“I love it. I can’t wait to show Tasha and CeCe.”

“Jade, I’m glad you’ll show your friends, but make sure you don’t do it so they’re jealous. That ring represents a promise between you, God, and your daddy. And me too. It isn’t just bling.”

Suddenly Kayla covered her face.

“What’s wrong, Mama?”

“I was . . . thinking how my life as a young woman might have been different if my daddy had done for me what yours did for you last night.” Kayla wiped her eyes.

Nathan returned to the table. “You okay?” he asked Kayla as he sat next to Jordan and picked up a box of cereal.

“Yeah. Peeling oranges just makes me emotional.” She laughed. “Hey, do those cops you work with know that you eat Cap’n Crunch?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Kayla turned to Jade. “Okay, Lisa’s mom takes you after school. So what time should we pick you up at Lisa’s tomorrow?”

Jade looked down. “I’m not going to Lisa’s.”

“What? You’ve been looking forward all week to spending the night. What happened?”

“I decided I’d rather stay home.”

“But, Jade, your father changed his plans so you could go to Lisa’s tonight. And now you’ve canceled?”

Nathan stood and put his arm around Jade. “You know what? Last night was perfect for our dinner. And I think tonight would be perfect to have the family home together.”

Jordan piped up. “Why not now? Do you have to go to work today, Daddy?”

“I do, little man. But I’ll be home in plenty of time for a movie and Bible story time. Okay?”

“Are you gonna stop the bad guys today?”

“I’m gonna try.”

“Will you wear your vest?”

Nathan glanced at the newspaper and saw the weather forecast. Ninety-one degrees. “It’s gonna be hot today.”

Chapter Forty-two

Adam, in jeans and a casual shirt, parked his truck at the Dougherty County Jail, an imposing 1,244-bed prisonlike facility with two on-site courtrooms operating seven days a week. When Adam looked around the waiting room, he saw two dozen forlorn and nervous faces. He exchanged pleasantries with the female deputy running the front desk and got clearance.

The jail doors opened. Adam went through a metal detector, but the full search was waived when the sleepy deputy recognized him. Adam walked down the tunnel-like corridor of white cinder blocks and polished concrete floor.

Shane Fuller was held in protective custody, in the E building’s Echo 400, far back in the jail’s bowels. Steel doors opened, and a deputy escorted Shane into the visiting room. Adam took a seat across the glass from Shane, who looked down.

“Hey, Shane.”

“Adam. Thanks for coming. I . . . can’t tell you what it’s like to be on this side of the glass.”

“Shane, I’m sorry.”

“You did the right thing. It took me a while to admit it, but I deserve this. I knew what I was doing. I guess I just thought I had a free pass.”

“What happened, Shane?”

His old partner, with whom he’d had a hundred adventures and a thousand laughs, looked him in the eyes. “I ask myself that every day. Remember when we talked about hanging on, not letting go of that steering wheel? I guess somewhere along the way I let go.” His voice cracked. “Now my life is over. I couldn’t get it back even if I wanted to.”

“Your life doesn’t need to be over. But you’ve got to get right with God. Then you need to get right with your son.”

“I’ve lost him, Adam.”

“No. Tyler’s hurt, but you haven’t lost him. I’ve talked with him. It’s not too late.”

Shane leaned forward. “You have to help me with Tyler. He needs someone to look out for him.”

“Dylan and I discussed this. We’ll keep an eye on him. You have my word. In fact, we already invited him to run with us in the 5K.”

“I was gonna do that with him. Thanks.”

“Shane, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you choose to tell the truth about not warning Jamar Holloman before you tased him?”

Shane sighed. “I knew that if I claimed to have warned him before turning on the Taser, they’d go back and study the footage to determine whether that was possible. If they looked at it again, I was afraid they’d notice.”

“Notice what?”

“The bag of crack was right there. It had to be in the camera’s field of view. And while he was on his stomach, I grabbed it, poured half the rocks into a baggie, and stuffed it inside my shirt. Maybe fifty rocks, a thousand dollars. Internal affairs studied the film for the tasing, not the drugs. But if someone checked the report and looked back at the video, they could have seen there were twice as many rocks in Holloman’s bag as I turned in.”

“So you took a reprimand rather than risk the felony.”

Shane hung his head. “We were partners, friends. Please forgive me.”

The guard stepped in behind Shane and nodded to Adam that their visit was over.

“I forgive you, Shane.”

Shane looked up with haunted eyes. “Adam, I’ve really let you down. Even worse than you know. I’m so sorry.”

The guard took Shane’s arm.

“Don’t let go of the wheel,” Shane said.

Adam nodded. “Never.”

Adam watched Shane as he was taken away and the door closed behind him.

He walked out of the room and down the long hallway that separated the captives from the free. Yet, Adam pondered, some in prison were free in their hearts while many outside were slaves to their appetites.

On his lonely walk from Echo building back to the free world, Adam asked himself,
What did Shane mean when he said, “Even worse than you know”?

Adam’s patrol car wouldn’t start, so Murphy assigned Adam to ride with Bronson. Neither was happy about it. Adam feared he’d be swallowed up in the black hole of Bronson’s infinite gravity. Since it was Bronson’s first day back after the shooting, Adam volunteered to drive. Bronson gave him a look that suggested he would die or kill before letting someone else drive his car.

They parked a half block from a notorious drug house and watched customers go in and out. Bronson ate his second Jimmie’s hot dog, “all the way” with mustard, chili, and onions on a toasted bun, more slaw than you could shake a stick at, and some specialty sauerkraut Bronson kept in the car. The kraut was reason enough for Adam to keep his window rolled down.

“Is this how you spend your lunch hour?” Adam asked him. “Have you ever considered reading a book or listening to the radio?”

“Have you ever considered stoppin’ your yakkin’ and lettin’ a man eat in peace?”

After ten minutes, a man carrying a blue lunch cooler climbed the steps to the porch and opened the door without knocking.

“He’s carried that same cooler three days in a row. I don’t think he’s buying. I think he’s delivering.”

Soon the man left again, cooler still in hand.

“It frosts me, Mitchell. We know where the drug houses are, and we have to wait around until we get a warrant. I say we just go in and put them out of business today. We know what they’re doing. What’s to stop us?”

“Well, there’s the law. And the Bill of Rights. And also the fact that you’re asking for someone to blow your head off.”

“They’re not blowin’
my
head off.”

Adam sighed, remembering what Dylan said about opportunities to speak up. “Look, we deal constantly with death. It should make us more aware of our mortality, not less. Even if we retire and live another twenty years—which, despite our stellar dietary habits, most of us won’t—we’ll all die. You know that, right?”

Adam studied Bronson’s profile, searching for a way to penetrate that thick skull.

“I’ve cheated death dozens of times.”

“Brad, come on, you want lightning to strike you? Do you know how close to death you’ve come in the last couple of months? Especially at Harveys Supermarket.”

“Marciano saved me.”

“Yeah, he did. Then they opened fire on you, and one round hit you in the shoulder. Could have been your heart. That’s twice you could have died that day.”

“Okay,
I’m gonna die
. There, I said it. Happy?”

“Then doesn’t it make sense to be prepared for it?”

“Prepared for what? Being eaten by worms? How much planning does that require?”

“You’re created in God’s image, Sarge. You will exist someplace forever.”