A Silent Terror (23 page)

O’Hara, and welcome back to consciousness.”

The stirring of the air must have swept over Marianna, because her eyes popped open and she sat up. Immediately her gaze darted to Ethan and a warmth he’d never felt before coursed through him as he saw the relief in her eyes that he was safe.

And would live.

She gave him a tentative smile. “I’ll wait outside if you like.”

The doctor glanced at the chart, then looked at Marianna. “That’s all right. Mr. O’Hara will be staying with us one more night. If all goes well, he’ll be released to head home tomorrow. The bullet in his shoulder passed clean through, causing only some minor damage. The bullet in his side just creased it.” She gave him a pointed look. “You are one very lucky man.”

He looked at Marianna. “The luckiest.”

Then the doctor said to Marianna, “He’s healing nicely, and as long as he doesn’t overdo it, he will be good as new in a couple of months.”

The doctor left and Marianna turned to say something to him, but before she had a chance, the door opened and Victor, Ethan’s boss, entered. “Ethan, glad to see you awake. I do appreciate you not dying on me as I need some details filled in on this blank report.”

A grin stretched across Ethan’s lips. “Good to see, you too, Chief.

Try to go easy on the sympathy, will you?”

Victor’s expression softened for a fraction of a second. “Glad you’re all right, man. We let your parents know what happened. They said they’ d stop by shortly.”

“Thanks.” He wondered if they would, though. Not wanting to dwell on that topic, he said, “So, fill us in. What was so important that Steven Marshbanks risked his career, his life and everything he holds dear to get his hands on?”

Victor nodded toward Marianna. “She gave us the box that he seemed to be after. Apparently, Josh snatched a flash drive with a lot of incriminating evidence.”

“Really? What was on it?”

“An entire list of campaign contributors, the amounts they gave…and where the funds went, a lot of personal spending, bank account numbers, investments – all kinds of stuff.”

“Whoa. Where did the funds go?”

Victor grunted. “A lot of places they shouldn’t have. And we played a little game with Gerald Chambers. When we told Gerald we had Steven Marshbanks in custody and the man was casting all the blame on him, the boy sang like Tweety.”

“What did Chambers have to do with Marshbanks?”

Victor leaned against the edge of the bed, and Marianna spoke for him. “The three of them were all connected, weren’t they? Roland Luck, Gerald Chambers and Steven Marshbanks.”

“Yep.” Victor nodded and Ethan tried to put it all together, but his brain felt a big foggy. He blamed it on the pain meds, not the woman who’d walked up and taken hold of his hand.

“So?”

“So,” Marianna said, thoughtfully, “Roland Luck came across the evidence. As the campaign manager, he would have to keep an accounting of the money, know where it was spent, and so forth.”

Victor nodded. “Right. Apparently, he noticed something amiss and did a little digging, trying to figure out what was going on. He copied the stuff to a flash drive and took it home with him on a weekend visit to his parents.”

Ethan chimed in. “That must have been what he was looking for when he went by his parents’ house in the middle of the week. And when he didn’t find it, he realized Josh must have snatched it and taken it to school.”

“He actually searched your classroom, Marianna,” Victor said, “but you never realized it.”

“I knew someone had messed with my desk that morning! It was the week after Suzanne’s funeral. I went back to work and my desk had been rearranged…everything was…off.”

Ethan’s lips tightened at the thought of the invasion of her privacy…her classroom, her home…her life. “When he didn’t find it there, he went to your house.”

“Suzanne,” Marianna said, breathing.

Victor nodded. “That was pure accident, we believe. Roland figured the house would be empty for a while, but Suzanne walked in on him. It scared him. She started screaming at him, she grabbed for the phone to call the police and he shoved her. She fell, hit her head and bled to death.”

Tears leaked down Marianna’s cheeks. “It’s all so needless. If she’d stayed at work, she’d still be alive.”

Ethan shook his head and squeezed Marianna’s hand. He looked at Victor. “So, I’m guessing it’s not a coincidence that Roland Luck died in that car accident.”

“Nope. We’re pretty sure that was a setup. Failed brakes on a steep, winding mountainous road.” He shook his head. “Steven Marshbanks arranged the meeting for the campaign coordinators and volunteers. At the top of the mountain. He cut the brake line. Luck got in the car, started down and ended up over the side. Poor guy never had a chance. He was just trying to figure out where the money was going and who was behind the theft of it. So he broke into Marianna’s house to find the drive, caused Suzanne’s death – and ended up dead himself for his efforts.”

“And Marshbanks is spilling all this?”

Victor shrugged. “Hey, we got him for kidnapping, attempted murder, and every other charge you can possibly think of. I think we can even get him for a terrorist act because of the bomb he brought into the school. Against his lawyer’s advice, this guy is talking faster than we can listen, trying to cut a deal.”

“Okay, Roland killed Suzanne by accident.” Ethan mused. “Then Gerald was the one in Marianna’s house that night she called me.”

“Yeah, the DNA evidence showed us that, plus, he finally confessed. It seems that Roland was so riddled with guilt about what he’d done to Suzanne that he went back and told Marshbanks all about it, including the fact that Roland suspected Clayton Robertson was helping himself to campaign funds.”

Marianna took over, thinking out loud. “But it wasn’t Clayton. It was Marshbanks – the very man Roland took into his confidence.”

“Which is why Roland ended up dead. Marshbanks realized Roland had the evidence but had lost it, couldn’t find it at your house…. So, Marshbanks had to get his hands on that flash drive – and fast.”

“Which is why he came after me – or rather, Josh’s box. He figured I’d put it where I always did. When I didn’t send it home as usual, he came after it. And he probably didn’t want to call asking for it because he didn’t want to draw attention to it. What if I’d been the kind of person who’d look at it? No, he couldn’t risk that.” Marianna’s shoulders drooped. “But how did Marshbanks and Gerald Chambers get together?”

Victor held up a finger. “That one took a bit of work. Roland Luck, Steven Marshbanks and Chase Chambers, Gerald’s father, were all in the army together and big buddies for years. Marshbanks knew he couldn’t have too many unexplained absences with all the campaigning going on, so he hired Gerald to do some of his dirty work for him. That kid’s been in trouble since he got caught with a knife in elementary school. Marshbanks knew this and was able to talk him into breaking into Marianna’s house by promising him big bucks and a huge political future. Gerald was dumb enough to fall for it. If he hadn’t been caught, I can guarantee you, Gerald would be dead right now.”

“At Steven Marshbanks’s hand.”

Ethan watched Marianna’s brain clicking, absorbing the information. He said, “So when Gerald was arrested and the flash drive was still missing, Steven couldn’t take a chance on hiring someone else and had to come and do the dirty work himself.”

Marianna shook her head. “Only he never expected to run into a campus full of people. But why not wait? Why take a building full of hostages?”

“Greed,” Victor said. “On that flash drive was vital information with a deadline. He had to have it for some investment deal or he would have been out millions of dollars.”

“It wasn’t on the computer Roland Luck copied it from?”

“Apparently not. I think Roland realized to some extent what was going on and in a fit of pique erased a lot of the information, and Marshbanks didn’t know how to get it back. A computer forensics person probably would know, but he couldn’t exactly ask for help on that. So his only hope was that flash drive.”

Ethan leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Exhaustion swamped him. He looked back up at his boss. “Thanks, Victor.”

Victor clapped him on the shoulder. “You did a good job, Ethan.

You called everything just right at the school hostage scene. You should feel proud of yourself.”

Emotion clogged his throat. “I’m just glad no one else got hurt.” Victor turned toward the door, saying, “I’ll see you when the doctor releases you back to work.”

“I’ll be back sooner than you think.”

“Hal” Marianna snorted. “I’ll add that to my list of things to discuss with you.”

Ethan raised a brow, loving the fire that lit her eyes from the inside. “My pleasure, ma’am, my pleasure.”

Marianna couldn’t believe everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Incredibly, she felt at peace. About everything Naturally, she felt sorrow at the death of her friend, the trauma her students had suffered and the destructive greed leading people to make decisions that would negatively impact so many lives.

But for her, peace reigned. God was in control. He’d protected her and her students – and used this wonderful man to do so.

“Mom wants you to come to the house when you’re released from the hospital.”

Ethan kept a grip on her hand, his thumb rubbing back and forth across her knuckles, causing shivers to dance along her nerves. The light in his eyes spoke about feelings he hadn’t allowed to cross his lips yet. She kicked herself. Why had she ever compared this man to Curt Wentworth? The two were as different as night and day.

But she’d been so hurt by Curt that she’d allowed it to blind her to Ethan’s true motives. Good motives. She’d been looking at him suspiciously because of one warped experience, and she’d been wrong.

He said, “I appreciate that, but I don’t want to put her out.”

“She’ll be put out if you turn her down.” She frowned at him. “And then I’ll get grilled about why I couldn’t talk you into coming. So, plan on it, okay?” He pulled her down to sit on the bed beside him, wincing only a little as the bed shifted. She hurt for him. Marianna bit her lip, fought more tears and said, “You saved my life.”

The simple words provoked tears. She watched him look to the ceiling, blink them back. “No, I finally came to the realization that I am powerless…except for the power of God.”

“You pushed me out of the path of the gun and got shot. You saved me.”

He nodded. “I can’t explain to you what I was going through in that basement. The whole time I was looking for you, I felt helpless, yet I was praying.”

“And God was listening.”

“Yes. He used me to help you, and I feel – ” he took a deep breath and let it out “ – free, I guess, is the word.”

“Ashley’ s death was a horrible, horrible thing, but it wasn’t your fault.”

His grip tightened for a brief moment. “You can read me like a book, can’t you?”

She looked him in the eye. “I love you, Ethan.”

Shock flashed back at her – and something else. Pleasure? She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t regret saying the words. He opened his mouth, but she placed a finger over his lips. “Shush. You don’t have to say the words back to me. They don’t come with a required response. They come from my heart, and I wanted you to know.”

Funny, she didn’t feel embarrassed that she’d told him, nor self-conscious. Once again, Ethan started to say something, then snapped his mouth shut and turned his attention to the door. She understood. Someone had knocked.

The door opened and a nice-looking couple in their early sixties entered.

Ethan’s parents.

Marianna stood. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

He grabbed her hand. “Stay.”

Curious looks from both newcomers sent her blushing, but she did her best to ignore it and smiled, holding out a hand. “Hello, I’m Marianna Santino.”

“Liam and Margaret O’Hara.” The big man who looked like an older version of Ethan gripped her hand in his. “Nice to meet you.”

Ethan’s mother nodded to Marianna, but her focus was clearly on the man in the bed.

Ethan blinked at the concern in his mother’s eyes. He hadn’t seen her in almost three months, since right around Thanksgiving when they’d informed him they’d be taking a monthlong cruise for the holidays.

Her lingers curled around his, and she said, “Oh Ethan, we were so worried. Are you all right?”

“Worried?”

Hurt flickered. “Of course. When a mother gets news that her son’s been shot, she tends to worry a little.”

“Like you worried about Ashley?”

The woman closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “We were wrong in the way we dealt with Ashley, Ethan. I’m so sorry. If we had it to do over again, we’d do it differently, oh, so differently.”

He nearly fell out of the hospital bed. She was apologizing? Never before could he remember his mother saying she was sorry. He looked up at his father, stunned to see the man nodding. His dad swallowed hard and said, “After Ashley died, you kept yourself so aloof, so distant from us that we just figured you needed your space and time to deal with your grief the way you needed to. Unfortunately, that distance kept growing, and we’ve only just now come to understand that we should have done more, been there for you.”

Shocked, Ethan’s gaze darted between these strangers who were his blood relatives. “What made you come to that realization?”

“Your mom found Ashley’ s diary while cleaning up after Ashley…died. She wrote over and over about how she wanted us to come to know the Lord the way she did. She even wrote, ‘Whatever it takes, Lord, whatever it takes.’”

Tears flowed freely. “How could we ignore what we decided was her dying wish? So, we started investigating the church and everything she held dear…and came to realize that God is who He says He is and we wanted to follow Him.”

Marianna subtly placed a tissue box where Ethan’s mother could reach it. The woman took a tissue, dabbed her eyes and gave an elegant sniff. Ethan sat stunned. Ashley’ s death had brought his parents to the saving love of Christ.