Acts of Honor (18 page)

Sara watched Joe’s every move on the observation monitor.

Mesmerized, agonizing with him, she watched him struggle, fighting his way through the rage. By the time the episode ended and he collapsed on the padded floor exhausted, she stood in a cold sweat—and kept watching.

He lay motionless, soundless, for a full ten minutes, and then dozed into a restful sleep. Frazzled and trying not to show it, she grabbed his chart from the nurses’ station and ignored William’s I-told-you-so sneer. “If Joe has another episode, let me know right away.”

“Yes, Major.” William fixated on the monitor.

She supposed she should say something about his demotion and fine. Though the fault was his ally Fontaine’s, the injustice of it, and a tinge of guilt at her involvement, niggled at her, and she hadn’t yet found a way out of the facility to go phone Foster and ask him to intercede.

Resolved to face William now, she stopped beside his chair. “I’m sorry about what happened to you with Ray and the 70/30 incident. You weren’t to blame and, if it helps, well, I know the truth.”

William’s eyes glinted. “It took me two years to earn that rank, Major, and another year to pin it on.”

“I’m sure you worked very hard for it.” Sara resisted an urge to slump and shuffle her foot. “I’m not indifferent to what the incident cost you, William. I want you to know that I’m doing what I can to correct it.”

“Correct it?” He guffawed. “Done is done, Major West.”

“Maybe so.” Sara looked him straight in the eye. “But I have to try to fix this. It’s not right.”

Confusion knitted his brow. He rocked back in his chair and crossed his chest with his arms. Ten reflections of him glared at her from the monitors. “You have no idea, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

He shook his head, his gaze sweeping then stilling on her name badge. “Nothing.” He dropped his voice and looked back at the monitors. “I guess I’ve been a little hard on you.” Some stiffness left his shoulders. “I’m sorry about that.”

Fontaine’s staunch ally apologizing to her? William seemed sincere, but caution signs flashed through her mind, creating doubt.

He looked up at her, his eyes turbulent and rife with warning. “If you’re smart, you’ll leave this alone.”

She tucked Joe’s chart under her arm, trying to get a fix on how William’s mind worked. “What do you mean?”

He stared at her name badge, chewed at his lip, and then snagged it.

Startled, she stepped back. “What the hell are you doing?”

He jerked open a desk drawer, stuffed the badge into it, and then slammed it shut. “Just leave what happened to me alone, okay? I can take the hit, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure you can.”

Obviously, William was trying to tell her something without speaking openly. But why had he taken her badge? He knew she had to have it on at all times. Was this another setup? No, it couldn’t be. Too direct for Fontaine. Sneaky was more his style. “No, it’s not okay. There’s an issue of responsibility and justice involved in this that—”

“Look, Major,” William interrupted. “You have no idea what you’re getting into, and I’m not at liberty to explain. Just—just leave it alone.”

“I can’t just leave it alone.” She lifted a hand. “I hear your warning, William. I don’t understand it, but I do hear it. Still, I can’t just leave it alone.”

“You’re going to get hurt.” His tone went flat. “Bad.”

The prediction sent a cold chill racing up her spine. “Maybe,” she said. “Probably. But I’ve got to be able to live with me. If I do nothing, then I can’t face me. That’s a hundred times worse than anything anyone else could do to me.” Sara reached for the desk drawer, brushing aside his hand.

He let her retrieve her badge. She clipped it back to her collar and then stared at him a long minute. From his body language, it was apparent that this conversation was over, and he wouldn’t explain his cryptic statements. “I do appreciate your concern.”

“Bad,” he repeated. Frowning, he turned his back to her, then stared blankly at the monitors.

Sara’s nerves sizzled. His warning hadn’t been idle, or offhand. He’d been torn about issuing it. But was it sincere, or was he setting her up for Fontaine? She’d already felt the director’s sting, and it seemed likely he would use an ally to zap her again. Yet William had to be resentful. He’d been demoted and fined, for God’s sake. The question then was, how deep was William’s resentment, and what had occurred privately between him and Fontaine? Had they made a side arrangement? Agreed for William to take the hit on Ray’s 70/ 30 incident publicly and, later, Fontaine would make it worth William’s while?

Debating the feasibility of that, Sara took the elevator down to the first floor to her quarters.

The numbers were painted black on the white doors. She followed them down the hall to number 111, and then went inside. The three-room suite was hot and stuffy. She reached behind the door and cranked down the thermostat. The air conditioner clicked on. Maybe by Christmas it would cool down.

The bedroom, living room/kitchen combo, and bath comprising her quarters were larger than her office, though the coloring was the same dull gray as everything else at Braxton. She’d hated the place on sight. The furniture was early garage sale, but clean and serviceable. The kitchen had a fridge, phone, and a stove, not that she’d had much use for any of them. And the mattress on the bed didn’t have too many lumps, though she hadn’t slept much since she had gotten here. At first, she had blamed her insomnia on being at Braxton. But then she had met Joe and recognized him as the one, and that had let loose the demons of hell inside her. Guilt had kept her awake, pacing the floor, ever since.

She glanced around. With her things scattered here and there, the place seemed more like home. Well, like her refuge, anyway.

She dumped her purse on the sofa and skirted the maple kitchen table. At the far cabinet, she tugged open the door and grabbed a bottle of bourbon she’d seen on her first day here. The seal hadn’t been broken. Shank had to have left it for her. Anyone else here would have left her cyanide.

Still shaky from seeing Joe suffer the rage, and from suffering it with him, Sara grabbed the bottle and a glass, then added some ice and poured herself a healthy shot, pretending it was Grand Marnier. These feelings for Joe were definitely different. She’d been in love before, but from her reaction to seeing him suffer, she now knew she had never before loved a man. There was a hell of a difference. One she normally would have welcomed in her life with open arms. But not here. Not now. And not him.

Sara sipped at her drink. William’s snatching her name badge zipped through her mind. On its heels, she recalled something else. Something seemingly incidental. Time and again, Shank had straightened Sara’s badge or bent the clip so it would hang straight.

The iced spirits burned Sara’s raw throat, but she sipped again, thinking back. In fact, every time Shank had straightened the badge, she had talked about something delicate. Something she wouldn’t want overheard.

A tingle shimmied through Sara, set her teeth on edge. She looked down at the badge, took it off—and between the sides of the clip, she saw it. A listening device.

Someone had bugged her—and Shank and William had both known it
and
had warned Sara. Shank, more subtly.

Monitored? Like a crook on a cuff? Baffled, infuriated, Sara glared at the device. This was America, by God. She had rights.

But evidently not at Braxton.

Furious, she grumbled, “Fontaine.”

She slammed back a long drink from her glass, then slapped it down on the tile counter with a healthy
thunk
that rattled the ice cubes. Security rated more intense at Braxton than at the damn Pentagon. Who else but Fabulous Fontaine would dare to cut a trick like this?

She had taken enough. She was
not
going to tolerate this, too.

Rummaging through the drawers, she found a butter knife, pried the stick-on, button-type device from inside the metal clip, gave in to her anger, and dropped it into her glass. The device plunked down, bourbon splashed onto the counter, and the device sank, tumbling through the cubes of ice. “Enjoy that, you jerk.”

She turned and marched out of the kitchen. A long, hot bath, a little meditation, and maybe—just maybe—she’d ditch some stress and get murder off her mind.

The hot water steamed up over her. She cranked back in the tub and propped her foot on the silver faucet, feeling an intense urge to talk to Joe about her troubles. Definitely a bad idea. More worries, he didn’t need. Besides, she was a listener, the one others talked to about their trials. She seldom shared her own.

The urge still didn’t subside. She soaped herself, rubbing hard, then rinsed and rocked back again, sliding down into the water up to her chin, hoping she’d sloughed off the urge.

She hadn’t. Sighing, she grimaced at the faucet. Okay, so Joe was special—the one. And he had a good face. Not classic or perfect, but rich with character and signs of having lived in his skin a while. From the fine lines, he’d done his fair share of worrying and laughing, and that balance made him more attractive to her. She tilted her head against the tiles. Actually, a lot about him made him attractive to her. But nothing more than her instinctive certainty. Her mother, for all her faults, had been right about knowing at first sight. Brenda, too.

Was he married?

Her stomach knotted. She slapped a hand over it and rubbed, side to side. He couldn’t be. Oh, God. He couldn’t be. That would be the ultimate wrong.

Stop it, Sara. Are you trying to bury the man? Your interest must be strictly professional. It has to be that way, and you know it.

She wasn’t trying to bury him. Of course she wasn’t. But she couldn’t stick her head in the sand on this, either. Professional interest never before had put knots of panic in her stomach or filled her with a sense of incredible despair and sadness. Even with her rubbing, the knots wouldn’t go away.

You’d better get a grip, Sara. His life is in your hands. You get too involved and you’ll screw up. Screw up and he’s dead. You’ll be to blame.

Her instincts were right. Totally and completely. She reached for the soap again, determined to wash these personal feelings off her skin and out of her system. She’d never gotten personally involved with a patient, and God knew this was no time to start.

The warm, wet washcloth slid over her breasts. Yet, there was something special about Joe. When she had taken off his straitjacket, she had seen small scars peppering his arms from his wrists to the sleeves of his pajama top, above his elbows. Odd-looking scars. Almost like some kind of bites.

He had to be Foster’s operative. Had to be. None of the others looked as if they had trudged through the dark side with monotonous regularity—except maybe Fred.

Since he had continued to elude her, she couldn’t say squat about him with authority. But Fred wasn’t a viable candidate for a Shadow Watcher. Not if he was the vegetable he’d been reported to be. As a vegetable, he couldn’t be salvageable.

If.
An operative word.

Tomorrow, she swore to herself, she’d know Fred’s status firsthand and for fact. She dunked the washcloth in the hot water and then draped it over her breasts. The warmth felt good, and she wondered. Did Fred react with violence to white and red, too? And what really triggered Joe’s rage? Could it be as simple as the colors red and white? Just colors?

The key to helping him—and, her instincts said, to helping all of them—lay in learning exactly what trauma Joe had suffered. Someone had to know, or he couldn’t have been diagnosed PTSD. But who?

According to his chart, Joe had been diagnosed prior to being admitted to Braxton. She’d already grasped that patient charts couldn’t be trusted around here—at least not on Fontaine’s patients. But alluding to a previous diagnosis left a paper trail. Someone had to be able to follow it, or Fontaine would be leaving himself wide open. Fabulous Fontaine didn’t leave himself wide open. William and Sara could attest to that. Yet a previous diagnosis didn’t fit in with what Foster had told her about his operative. According to him, Fontaine had made the PTSD diagnosis, and the operative had shown up here scrambled, wandering around the grounds. If so, how had he gotten past the guards? The electric fence? If he had managed both, and that postarrival diagnosis by Fontaine was indeed true, then Joe couldn’t be Foster’s operative.

If,
it seemed, was the question of the day.

She sank lower in the tub, tapped the faucet with her foot to add more hot water. And then there was her futile search for information on David. So far, she’d found nothing. Not a snippet. Had Foster lied to her about that? Had he set her up to come here, using David, too? And if Joe wasn’t Foster’s Shadow Watcher, then who was he? Who had diagnosed him, and what had happened to him? Had he received immediate critical counseling? What had been—