Glaring at her, Janet tossed a stack of messages down on the desk. The pink slips scattered. “You got six phone calls this morning. Six. All threats.” Worry twisted Janet’s expression and she propped a hand on her slim hip. “How long has this been going on?”
Bloody hell. Plopping down on the chair Janet vacated, Tracy stared at the ivy on her credenza. It needed water; its leaves were drooping. “Since the day after I got the Burke assignment.”
“What?” Janet screeched.
Tracy darted her gaze toward the door. “Will you calm down before you have Jackson committing both of us to a mental hospital?”
“Calm down?” Janet dumped a glass of water into the ivy’s brass bowl. “I should wring your neck.”
“Now look who’s slinging threats’ ‘ ‘
Janet whirled around on her. “Thesi6 are serious, damn it.”
“I know that now.” Tracy swiped her hair back from her face and sipped at a steaming mug of strong coffee Janet had placed on her desk. “I knew after the car accident yesterday.”
“Car accident?” Janet’s jaw gaped and her knees folded under her. Fortunately, she was standing right in front of Tracy’s visitor’s chair. “I think you’d better start at the beginning-and don’t leave anything out.”
Tracy told Janet about the accident, the threatening calls, the sedan parked in front of her house all night, and about the sensation of being followed everywhere she went. “I have no proof of that, but-”
“Instincts become attuned to these things.” Janet rubbed at her cheek. “Intel rule is to trust them.”
Grateful for the support, Tracy nodded. “Then I got up this morning and found my garden had been destroyed.” Her chest went tight. “Every single blossom, sickled down.”
“I’m sorry.” Empathy filled Janet’s eyes. “I know it was your special place.”
“Yeah.” Tracy dragged in a steadying breath. “And Anderson’s Garage called right afterward. The Caprice is totaled.” Maybe she should have told the police about the hood latch being scored.
“Have you called your insurance carrier?”
Tracy nodded. “I directed all inquiries to Anderson’s Garage.” If they disclosed the weakened hood latch, then she’d pay the elevated insurance premiums now. If not, she’d suffer the pangs of conscience for delaying that disclosure until after the Burke matter was settled and the threats stopped. Then she’d make restitution and pay the difference in premiums. No sense in giving the promotion board or selection committee anything else to hold against her. They had plenty of fodder already. “I came in hell-bent on reporting all of this to the OSI.”
Janet dipped her chin and looked up at Tracy from under her lashes. “So, are you going to?”
“I don’t know. I’m torn.” Tracy swallowed down some hot coffee, inhaled the steam rising from her cup. “I’ve made zero progress at uncovering the truth about i Adam, and reporting all of this could keep me from ever finding out anything. But I’m angry. I feel … hunted.”
And as alone in the world as Adam must have felt. Tracy didn’t fear living her life, but she did fear living it alone.
I She hated it with conviction. “Damn it, I don’t know what to do.”
“Adam?” Janet cocked a wary brow.
“That is the man’s name, Janet.” It couldn’t be wrong to want to matter to someone, to want someone to matter to you.
Janet rubbed her lower lip with a hot-pink nail decorated with a silver stripe, but didn’t comment further. Grateful, Tracy considered trying to explain, but she’d dreamed of making love with the man, and considering Janet felt strong ties to the team members he supposedly killed, she’d never understand. Wiser to move back to safer ground. “If I file the report, once the OSI hears Burke is involved, they won’t be any more receptive than any one else has been, and the promotion board will definitely add ‘unable to handle pressure and intense situations’ to their ‘too young and idealistic’ listing of my flaws.”
Janet turned thoughtful. “The selection committee won’t be any less harsh, either.”
“My feelings exactly.” Tracy grunted and set down her coffee cup. “Even Paul has been riding my back, telling me to get out of the line of fire.”
“He just wants you to come back to New Orleans.”
“Hell will freeze over first, and he knows it.” She’d lost her family there. Every street corner held too many memories. “But he’s still gearing up to do some major interfering. After a while, you pick up on the signs. Paul is wonderful, but he tends to dominate.” Adam had been right about that, and it had played a part in her joining the Air Force.
“Don’t feel guilty for not wanting him to run your life, Tracy. You loved Matthew, but he’s dead and you’re not. You have every right to go on-without Paul’s interference.”
“I know.” She pulled out her secret fear and exposed it. “It sounds unappreciative, but at times I think his attempts to protect me are actually attempts to control me.”
“Considering he didn’t get into government contracts until after you did, which gave you no choice but to transfer out, I’d say that’s a distinct possibility.”
“Maybe he didn’t understand the conflict of interest.”
“Oh, please. The man runs an empire,” Janet said without heat. “He just doesn’t want to let go.”
That didn’t feel quite right, yet something in Janet’s assessment struck a chord. “He’s an intelligent man. Why can’t he understand?” Tracy let her gaze slide away, to the window mural on the south wall. “Sometimes you just can’t go back. Some hurts just cut too deep.”
“You’re all he’s got. Maybe he’s afraid you won’t need him anymore.”
Janet grimaced. “Whatever you do, don’t get noble and marry the man. You’ll never love him, and you’d be miserable married to a man already married.”
“Paul isn’t married.”
“Yes, he is. To Keener Chemical.”
Janet had Tracy there. Nothing mattered to Paul more than the family business. Nothing. She turned the topic. “so do I report these threats?”
I if you do, you’ll lose more than you’ll gain.” Janet looked annoyed by that. “Burke is dead, Tracy. His own family won’t even attend his funeral. I vote you let it go. All of it.”
“I wish I could. God knows it would make my life easier, but I can’t.”
“Because it’s not right?”
She knew Tracy too well. “Because he was a soldier, and many times during his service to this country, he put his life on the line. Finding out the truth is a matter of honor. Adam died branded as a coward and a traitor, but we don’t know for fact that he was either. We don’t know it, Janet.”
“Honey, even if Adam Burke was as pure as freshfallen snow, he’ll still be dead. Clearing his name won’t change that, but it could get you murdered. Whoever is behind this isn’t playing games. They’ve been warning you, but if you don’t listen, they’ll get serious. Dead serious.”
“I don’t even know if all of this is being done by one person. The incidents and threats could be unrelated.”
“They could be, but why stake your life on it?” Janet walked to the office door, then grasped the doorknob. She looked down at it, not back at Tracy. “I don’t have many friends. Lots of acquaintances, but few friends,” Janet said softly. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Me, either.” Touched, Tracy smiled. “How did you know Adam’s family won’t be at the funeral?”
“Chaplain Rutledge called. We chatted.” Janet shrugged. “The service is tomorrow at two.” Fear lit the depths of her eyes. “Don’t go to it, Tracy. There’ll be hell to pay.
She hated worrying Janet, but how could Tracy not go?
She could have been responsible for his death. His family wouldn’t be there, and she seriously doubted any of his coworkers would be. “I’ll consider it.”
“In other words, you’re going.” Janet grimaced. —Damn it, it’s that nobility thing again, isn’t it?”
“No.” Tracy Admitted the truth. “It’s not.”
“Then what is it?”
“Guilt,” Tracy said on a whisper. “And regret.”
Chapter 10.
p Rain spit down on the black canopy hovering over Adam Burke’s coffin.
Tracy stood in the wet grass, to the left of his bronze casket. Chaplain Rutledge, a thin man about forty wearing the vestments of a Catholic priest, stood at its top, his dark head bowed, his glasses slipping to the end of his rain-soaked nose, his expression suitably solemn.
There was no honor guard. No U.S. flag draped Adam’s coffin. No guns saluted, no planes flew an honorary flyby, No wreaths on wire stands littered the ground under the canopy, or spray of flowers rested on the barren top of his coffin. There were no flowers at all, except for the single white rose in Tracy’s hand. And there were no mourners.
Not a single soul stood at his grave, weeping because Adam had died and he would be absent from their life.
Those entrusted by his family to arrange his final resting place hadn’t seen fit to bury him in a veteran’s cemetery, or even in the veteran’s section of the base Cemetery; the only cemetery in Grandsen. He had been denied even that-without being adjudged.
That injustice sickened and saddened Tracy, leaving her feeling as bleak as the dreary weather. She looked down the long rows of white crosses and tombstones, holding her umbrella closed at her side, squeezing its handle. Pity swelled inside her. Pity for Adam, and anger at everyone who had let this happen.
Her eyes stinging, the back of her nose burning, she bowed her head and silently swore, I will find out the truth, Adam Burke. I swear, I will. And then she prayed for peace; for him, and for herself. Prayed that in learning the truth, she would prove the fire had been accidental, that Adam hadn’t been murdered because she hadn’t taken his warning seriously. And she prayed her hands wouldn’t forever be stained with his blood.
A cold gust of air chilled her skin. Her thoughts tumbled back five years, to the night of her accident. She should have realized Matthew had had too much to drink; she had been stone sober. She had no excuse for not realizing it. None. And he and Abby had died … “Ashes to ashes …” The chaplain committed Adam’s soul to God, and finished with a whispered, “Amen.”
Tracy stepped forward and placed the single rose on top of Adam’s coffin. A tear dripped down her cheek.
Surprise flickered through Chaplain Rutledge’s eyes. He stepped away, to the edge of the canopy. Rain slanted under its edge, soaking him from the knees down. “Captain Keener, why are you weeping?” he asked, his-voice soft and gentle. “I understood that you didn’t know Adam Burke well.”
She stepped over to him, a knot of tears in her throat. All afternoon, thoughts of Matthew’s and Abby’s funerals-funerals Tracy hadn’t attended because she’d been hospitalized-had tormented her. She hadn’t been there at the cemetery to mourn them, just as no one had been here to mourn Adam Burke. Why she had mentally tied her own family to a man accused of the most heinous crimes, she had no idea, and yet she couldn’t seem to sever the two. “He’s been condemned in everyone’s eyes, and yet no one knows whether or not he’s guilty,” she told Chaplain Rutledge. “His own family turned their backs on him-his country, too. And if he wasn’t guilty, he deserves better.”
“As I suspected.” Chaplain Rutledge held his Bible in front of him with both hands. Not as a shield between them, but as if it were a cherished, familiar friend. “Your being here had nothing to do with the money.”
How had he known about Adam’s bequest? “I can’t keep the money.”
“Oh, but you must keep it.” He glanced around the cemetery, down its winding gravel road, and then looked back at her. “At Adam’s request, I arranged for the preparation of those documents, Captain. What he did was his choice, and he made it.”
She cocked her head to look up at him. “Do you know why?”
Clearly thoughtful, the chaplain touched a hand to her arm.. “No, I don’t. But I’m certain he had his reasons, and we should respect them.”
The chaplain’s gaze softened. “For whatever comfort it might bring you, know that the One Who matters most knows the truth, and He hasn’t condemned Adam unjustly. No truth escapes the light, Captain. Faith and hope shall flood even the darkest crevice, and the truth shall spill forth like sunlight and shine.”
As those words left his mouth, the chaplain blinked, then blinked again, as if he’d stumbled onto some grand realization. He gently squeezed her arm. “That’s why you’re here, Tracy. You’re Adam’s sun.”
A feeling streaked from her arm to her heart. She was Adam Burke’s sun?
But she’d failed the man repeatedly. She lifted her gaze to the chaplain’s, suffering a twisting, almost painful, urge to pour out her fears about failing Adam, her regret, and that she had likely caused his death.
Trust no one else.
She bit down on her lips, ashamed to admit the truth aloud and to find solace in silence and reason from Adam to not have to admit the truth. But even without the advice in his note, living with these feelings was painful enough. She couldn’t admit this aloud, either; she wasn’t that strong.
The rain pounded a staccato beat against the vinyl canopy. “Tracy,” the chaplain said, elevating his voice to be heard above it. “Expand your thinking. Forgive yourself for the wrongs you believe you’ve done this man, and focus now on what you can do for his memory.”
“Thank you, Chaplain.” She opened her umbrella and noted he hadn’t brought one. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
Chaplain Rutledge offered her a gentle smile, looped his arm through hers, and then began walking across the grass to the gravel road, toward their cars. “That is why you’re here, Tracy. To be Adam Burke’s sun.”
The rain sprinkled against the side of her face and gravel crunched under her shoes. “I wish he’d chosen someone competent.”
“He did.” The chaplain stopped at the door of his car. “You follow your heart.”
Her convictions, yes: But her heart? She stared at him, long and hard. It would take some time for her to absorb all he had told her and yet she had no trouble absorbing the feelings that had come with his words. The truth hadn’t yet spilled forth from the dark crevices. But it would, through her-if she dared to follow her heart.
Oh, that was asking a lot. So much. Too much.
“If you’d like to talk, you can reach me through the base chapel,” Chaplain Rutledge said, getting into his “Thank you.” Tracy backed up a step, and watched him drive away.