Gundown (35 page)

Jewel said, “I met her, but not this Parsons guy.” The others nodded.

Joe said, “Okay. Can you help us out?”

Benson said, “Sure,” and everyone but Jewel said yes. She glanced at Hank, then said, “I . . . I don’t know if I can get a sitter.”

Donovan said, “Come if you can, but with Hank here I think we have enough. We’ll meet at seven inside Daggett Hall at SOU to assign positions. Many thanks.”

Benson clapped his hands. “Back to it, people—we have that robbery to deal with.”

Jewel hurried to her office. Hank followed and stood in her doorway. He said, his voice soft and low, “I want to say that I understand—no, more than that, I feel deeply how wrong what I did to you and Earl was. And I’m sorry.”

She stared up at him. Her face could have been carved from mahogany.

He felt disappointment, then chided himself. What did he expect, a big hug?

She looked down at the papers in front of her.

He left. Downstairs, he called Mitch’s cell phone number. Mitch answered on the first ring. Hank said, “Hey, Mitch. I’m out and free.”

“That’s great! Too bad you’re pretty much done with Noah Stone.”

“Actually, no. I’m back in Ashland and helping him out.”

Mitch’s voice tightened, got a little higher in pitch. “Ashland? Really.”

“Yeah. Same as you, I hear.”

Silence. Then, “After I lost you, I wanted to see the enemy in person, you know, maybe get a better handle on what to do.”

So he wasn’t going to say anything about his visit to Rick Hatch. Had he gone there for a gun? “Listen, I’m going to be at a speech Stone is giving tonight, and—”

“Yeah, the dedication at the university. Hey, I’ll just see you there.”

Well, Mitch didn’t seem to be hiding anything.

The Storm Hits

Jewel said to Chloe, “Forks go on the left, honey.” Chloe placed a fork next to a plate and Jewel smiled. “The other left, sweetie.”

Setting two more plates around the table, a twinge of sadness stirred when she passed the chair that had been Earl’s regular spot. She called out to the kitchen. “It was creepy, Franklin, Soldado walking around free as a bird, nobody paying him no never-mind.”

“I thought you wanted him out of the Keep.”

“I just thought he got screwed. The guy’s a fire lookin’ for a place to start.” Why the hell did he have to come back to her town?

She went to the window and gazed out. Rain clouds had gathered, but the neighborhood was peaceful. “I sure don’t want him around here. Not after . . . you know. I mean, how would you feel if he got into your cab?”

Franklin looked up from pouring pancake batter into an electric skillet. They were having Chloe’s favorite supper. “Weird. But he’s done the therapy, and he’s different now.”

She returned to setting the table. “So they say. But I’m not!”

“You got to let that go.”

“I can’t.” She set the last spoon in place and told Chloe, “Get yourself some milk, honey.”

Chloe skipped into the kitchen and climbed onto a step stool to get a glass from a cabinet; Jewel followed and leaned in the doorway. “I can’t feel for people the way the Alliance says.”

Franklin flipped pancakes and then glanced at Jewel. “Maybe you could use a little therapy.”

She gave him a glare. “There isn’t anything wrong with me. But I don’t know if I can work there if he’s gonna be around. Donovan asked us for help at the speech tonight, but I felt weird about Soldado bein’ part of it.”

“Help with what?”

“Donovan seems to think Noah might be . . . there could be trouble.”

Franklin turned and grinned at her. “So you a secret agent now?”

She smiled. “My girl-of-action days are over. They just wanted people to watch out.”

“Just as well you didn’t want to go. I got an audition that’ll take ’til about eight.”

Thunder rumbled through the house. She moved to the dining room window and watched sprinkles dot the glass. She pictured Hank Soldado. That afternoon he’d been . . . looser. “Soldado did seem different today. He even tried to apologize. But when I look at him, all I see is grief.”

A flash of lightning flared. Thunder cracked. Raindrops spattered the window and then came hard.

• • •

Hank was surprised to see so many come out in a heavy rain to attend the dedication of Daggett Hall on the Southern Oregon University campus. There was even a camera crew from a Medford television station. Noah Stone had a lot of pull in this town. At ten minutes to eight, the auditorium swarmed with rain-soaked students and citizens. The crowd was happy, swirling, laughing, handshaking, smiling. Its babble roared up to the balcony where Donovan and Hank observed.

Hank had seen familiar faces—Judge Crabtree stopped by and welcomed him back, though she did scold him about what he’d done in her courtroom. But he’d spotted no one with a hint of the telltale tension that meant an attack. He hoped the therapy hadn’t cost him his edge.

He touched the holster clipped to his belt, and then took out the stopper Donovan had given him. It hadn’t taken but a few minutes to learn to use it. He still had doubts about how useful it could be, though.

He stood beside Donovan in the upper tier; below them a broad aisle ran across the auditorium. From it, two aisles ran down to the stage, splitting the audience into three parts. Donovan had somebody from Legal at the two exit doors on either side of the stage. Sally Arnold, slim and attractive in a rare dress—a powder blue that went well with her eyes—swept her gaze back and forth from her position on the near side of the stage.

Donovan said, “Everybody’s in place except Jewel. I guess she couldn’t make it.”

Hank pointed toward a back corner of the hall on the far side from where they stood. “Our esteemed attorney general.” Marion stood near an entrance, scanning the crowd. He hoped she was going to leave Noah alone.

Then Mitch Parsons entered on the near side. He scanned the hall, and Hank gave him a little wave when they made eye contact. Hank said to Donovan, “There’s Parsons. I’ll go see if I can find out what he’s up to.”

• • •

Marion shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. It wasn’t cold, it was the doubt that had been growing in her since her conversation with Noah Stone. Were the rules of law and justice not the same?

When she was a law student, she and her classmates had ridiculed professors whose minds had ossified into rigid views of the law and who would have no truck with the changes modern society demanded. Had her reflexive reverence for the rule of law led her to become as hardened as those professors? Noah Stone was right: slavery had once been the law, but it was hardly justice.

She spotted Hank Soldado moving toward the entrance on the other side of the auditorium. How could he be out of prison so soon? She’d fought the Oregon system that had put him there, but even though it wasn’t the same rule of law she advocated, she’d come to admit that it had been justice.

Advocated. She had to give Noah Stone the win on that issue, too. His advocacy approach had gotten justice for Hank Soldado far better than the adversarial system she loved and hated could have.

What would her father say? As a defense attorney, he had relied on the protections of the Fifth Amendment for his clients. Yet he had been an honorable man, and she knew that the times his defense had freed a client who he knew was guilty had brought him sleepless nights.

Marion lifted her chin. All right, she’d see what Noah Stone had to say tonight. Maybe she did need to change. But what would the consequences be?

• • •

Jewel paced on Franklin’s front porch. Rain poured down. Every time headlights appeared, she squinted into the darkness, hoping it was Franklin. Come on, come on, rehearsal had to be over by now!

The violence that seemed to explode around Hank Soldado had nagged at her, and she’d gone from uneasiness into a sure feeling that trouble was coming. Whatever she thought of the Alliance’s promise, she cared about Noah Stone. She needed to be there tonight.

A car pulled up across the street and doused its lights. It sat there for a couple of long minutes, and then a big man got out and took a step in her direction. Franklin’s cab swung around the corner and cut him off, and the man got back into his car.

Franklin pulled into the driveway, and she yelled into the house, “Chloe! Come on!”

Chloe ran out, ready in a hooded yellow slicker and rain boots. Jewel grabbed her purse off the porch swing and they ran for the cab, Chloe squealing as she splashed through puddles.

When Franklin opened his door to get out, Jewel shouted, “Take me to the campus?”

“Sure.”

As they climbed into the cab, Jewel said, “Daggett Hall. Fast.”

Franklin turned to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I got a bad feeling.”

• • •

“And now,” the dean said from the lectern on the stage, “a man who has devoted great time and energy to helping raise funds for this magnificent new facility, Noah Stone.”

Hank reached Mitch. “Hey. Good to see you.” He saw no telltale bulge of a holstered weapon under Mitch’s jacket. He looked clean.

Mitch’s response was less than enthusiastic. “Yeah. You, too.” His voice was tight. So were his eyes, his body. Good ole Mitch was stressed about something. A murmur rose in the audience, and they turned to the stage.

Noah entered from the wings to applause that blossomed into a standing ovation. He greeted it with a smile. At the lectern, he held up his arms for quiet, and the audience returned to their seats. After his trademark pause, he said, “You honor me, and I thank you. But the honor truly belongs to thousands of others who have had the courage to change themselves and our world.”

He gazed at the audience. “I’m known to be something of a Johnny-One-Note, so it may surprise you that I’m not here to recruit you for the Alliance.” That earned him chuckles. “I’m here to thank you. Through your hard work and generous donations, the university has a new language arts center.” He brought his hands together and applauded, and the audience joined him.

When the applause quieted, he said, “Although I’m not on a recruiting mission, I do have a few words for the students here. As you work on the beginnings of your adult lives, I ask you to do one thing.

“There are good people in this world today who are having a tough time. They do the best they can, they work hard, but things just don’t get better. They need help to live a decent life, and they’re not getting it in a world that’s more against them than for them.

“So what I ask you to do is this: for their sake, and for yours, make the promise. Before you leave tonight, say and mean these words: I promise to help, the best I can.”

He chuckled. “Now, I’ve been a youth, and I read Ayn Rand in college. I know that right now a bunch of you are thinking that the promise sounds like some kind of mushy altruism of the most virulent kind. Ayn Rand would have thrown up at the words of the promise.”

Answering chuckles pattered up from the audience.

“But the truth is, and what Ayn Rand missed about the nature of a helping hand, that making this promise is just about the most blatant exercise of self-interest imaginable. It is this simple: when I make your life better, mine becomes better, too.”

• • •

Franklin’s cab splashed to a stop on Siskiyou Boulevard. He pointed into the darkness and said, “Daggett Hall’s the big building on the left.”

Jewel peered through the darkness and rain. A curving sidewalk led to the building twenty yards away—what the hell did she think she was doing here, anyway? Lightning flashed, and the boom of thunder prodded her to open the cab door. She gave Chloe a quick hug and said, “You go on home with Franklin, and I’m sure he’ll read you some stories.”

Franklin said, “You bet, Munchkin.” His brow furrowed, and he looked to Jewel. “Hope everything’s okay.”

She tried for a reassuring smile. “I’m sure I’m just being weird. Prob’ly PMS. I’ll call you when it’s over.” She stepped out and he pulled away, quickly gone into the rain and darkness. She trotted toward Daggett Hall.

Headlights hit her. A car bounced over the curb and slid to a stop in front of her.

She dodged around it, but the driver’s door was flung open and a bulky figure rushed her, arms outstretched. Floodlights from Daggett Hall gleamed off of Murphy’s fat face, an ugly snarl warping his mouth.

Panic hit her. She spun to run across the lawn toward the door. Murphy plowed into her and sent her tumbling to the grass. She rolled onto her back and looked up.

Puffing, Murphy stood over her. He grinned. “Gotcha, bitch.”

Rain stinging her face, Jewel stared up at him. Her stopper! She scrambled for her purse, snapped it open—

Murphy grabbed her wrist and yanked her arm up. The purse dropped, spilling its contents onto wet grass. Her stopper bounced to a puddle an arm’s reach away. He snapped a handcuff around her wrist and hauled her to her feet. “You’re goin’ with me. Now.”

He grabbed her other wrist and started bending her arm behind her. She fought, but his strength was too much. Chloe flashed into her mind, Chloe all alone. She wrenched, and her rain-slick skin slipped from his grip. She whirled, swinging her fist, but he stiff-armed her in the chest with both hands and knocked her onto her back.