The Betrayal

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Pete’s eyes darted between the three men and his chin began to quiver. “What have I done?” he said.

  “What have you done?” Fletch said. “Violated your oath. Put a fellow officer’s life in jeopardy. Tried to have a witness murdered. Falsely implicated a coworker. Lied. Extorted. Tampered with and destroyed evidence. Shall I go on?”

  Pete buried his face in his hands.

  “Worst of all,” Fletch said, “you played me. There’ll be no mercy.”

  “I’ll kill myself. I will. I swear. You put me behind bars, you’ll find me dead by dawn.”

  “That’s on you,” Fletch said. “But my guess is you won’t be able to get that done either.”

  Epilogue

  Tuesday, March 1

  Boone Drake had never experienced anything like shoulder rehab. A young woman half his size manipulated and pulled and stretched his arm to where it was all he could do to keep from crying out. The pain meds barely kept up, and while he remained committed to returning to full strength as soon as possible, he could barely move the rebuilt ball-and-socket between therapy appointments.

  Haeley visited him at his apartment every day, but Boone was also adamant about doing everything for himself. On the two occasions when Max was along, it was clear the boy had been warned to keep his distance. Boone looked forward to when Max could return to taking flying leaps at him.

  Boone’s mother had become so enamored of Max that she had prevailed upon Haeley to let him come downstate and spend a few days with “his future grandpa and grandma.” Haeley told Boone she had left it up to Max, and when he had ecstatically agreed, “I asked Lucy not to talk as if our future was a foregone conclusion.”

  When Haeley arrived at Boone’s around ten in the morning the first day of March, she had just taken a call from Max. “I needn’t have worried about homesickness. He jabbered on about your dad’s model planes and ships and trains and where they were going this afternoon—some indoor fair?”

  Boone nodded. “Hope he likes the smell of manure.”

  Haeley peered out the window. “Your kind of a day.”

  “Is it?” Boone said, slipping behind her to see dark clouds roiling. “Oh, babe, we have to go out.”

  “You’re not serious. What am I saying? You are serious. I thought our adventure today would be lunch at Carson’s. Now I suppose you’ll want a waterproof picnic.”

  “I’m all about compromise,” Boone said. “If we can watch the storm from the beach, we can go to Carson’s for lunch.”

  “I didn’t bring a raincoat,” Haeley said.

  “You can wear my civvy. I’ll wear my department-issue.”

  Twenty minutes later they pulled into the parking area near the Ohio Street Beach. Boone laid the two rain slickers and a blanket over his good arm while Haeley carried two lawn chairs from the trunk to one of several canvas, tentlike structures on the Lake Michigan sand.

  “I don’t want to rush you, Boone, but it’d be too ironic to lose you to lightning now.”

  He trudged along behind her as the wind whipped and the sky darkened. Whitecaps rose as waves crashed. They were unfolding the chairs just inside the flappy structure when the rain began. The temperature dropped quickly, so they donned their rain gear and sat close.

  “Maybe we’ll get to see lightning hit the Hancock,” Boone said.

  “That would make your day.”

  “It would. Ever seen that?”

  She shook her head. “Lightning hit the ground a couple of blocks ahead of me when I was driving once. Scary.”

  “Cool. Wish I’d seen it.”

  “I know, Boone.”

  As the rain turned to hail, Boone rose and adjusted a flap on the tent so his view of the Hancock Center was unobstructed. “Would you ever testify against me, Hael?”

  “Like Thelma’s doing to Pete? That assumes you’d be guilty of something. I don’t know I’d ever let it get that far.”

  “You’d mete out justice first, you mean?”

  “Probably. You planning a crime, Boone?”

  “Just wondering. That’s got to be hard on them.”

  She shrugged. “She was able to cop a plea because of it. Three to five in Decatur? Could have been a lot worse.”

  “Pete tried everything to settle, but there’s no plea-bargaining conspiracy to commit murder. Fritz says he’ll get life.”

  Haeley shook her head. “And at Stateville. I’d rather get the chair.”

  They fell silent as the storm continued to rage. The hail stopped, the sky grew dark as night, and then the rain began again, huge drops becoming driving sheets as the wind challenged their tent on all sides. “This is living,” Boone said.

  “This is me loving you, Boone. You know I’d rather be curled up before a fireplace with a book.”

  Boone’s phone chirped. It was Jack Keller. “We need to talk. You home?”

  Boone suggested Jack meet him and Haeley at Carson’s for lunch.

  “Can’t today, Boones, and this can’t wait. Tell me where to find you.”

  When Boone told him, Jack said, “I’m in my dress blues, man. You want me sloshing through wet sand?”

  “Wasn’t my idea, boss. Third shelter from the left.”

  Half an hour later Jack slipped into the tent and immediately began wiping down his shoes.

  “They’ll just get messed up again on your way back,” Boone said. “Forgot to tell you to bring your own chair.”

  Haeley immediately dropped to the blanket.

  “I don’t want to take yours,” Jack said.

  “Right,” she said. “You’re going to sit on the ground in your dress uni.”

  Jack shed his raincoat and hat, then sat and dug deep in the inside breast pocket of his uniform jacket for a manila file he had folded vertically.

  “What was so important?” Boone said.

  “For starters, Candelario has finished testifying. More record-setting indictments coming. He and his family will move out of the Wade condo and go into witness protection.”

  “What’re they going to do, disguise him as a jockey?”

  “Very funny. I have no idea where you hide a guy that size.” Jack leafed through a few sheets. “Pete’s sons are petitioning to try to get the condo. That’s a long shot. I gotta think the court is going to want restitution for a lot of stuff. Feel sorry for Thelma’s nephew, though.”

  “Yeah, what’s happening with Antoine? You thought he was just used, right?”

  Jack nodded. “Naive, but yes. Reprimanded for unapproved activity outside his jurisdiction and on administrative probation pending review by Internal Affairs.”

  “Tough.”

  “A hard lesson. Hey, I tell you about Carl?”

  “No.”

  “Going to get a medal of valor from the city, but get this: he was fined forty dollars for unauthorized possession of a deadly weapon.”

  Boone howled. “That could have been worse.”

  Keller folded his file and replaced it, eyes shifting.

  “Out with it, Jack. You didn’t come out into the weather for just that.”

  “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  “About what?”

  “About me.”

  “Start with the bad,” Boone said.

  “Margaret left me.”

  “Oh no!” Haeley said.

  “I mean, she didn’t leave me leave me. She still loves me and all that, but she says we can’t live together anymore, and she won’t see me unless I come to church with her.”

  “Wow,” Boone said.

  “She’s going to your old church, Boones. Where Sosa is.”

  “Great church. You’d enjoy it.”

  “Haven’t been there since, you know, the funeral.”

  “What’re you gonna do, Jack?”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s right to go to church just to keep a woman. But I do love her. Respect her too. If this is that important to her, I can check it out, I guess.”

&nbs
p; “Didn’t matter that it was important to me? It’s not like I never invited you.”

  Jack looked away and pressed his lips together, then smiled. “She has a little more hold on me, Boones.”

  “Time for the good news,” Haeley said.

  “I’ve been named acting chief of the OCD is all.”

  “Acting?” Boone said.

  “It’s just a timing thing. It’ll happen.”

  “Congrats, Jack,” Boone said. “Well deserved.”

  Haeley rose and embraced Keller. “So happy for you.”

  “There’s good news for Boone too. That’s really why I’m here. Downtown has authorized me to tell you that your petition for reinstatement has been accepted.”

  Boone pumped a fist. “Yes!”

  “There’s more. Funding for the Major Case Squad has been approved. They asked me about your suitability to head it up. I said there was nobody better. Next step is you officially applying.”

  “How do I do that?”

  Jack dug out a business card. “Call this guy and tell him you want it. He’ll tell you what to do next.”

  “And if I get it?”

  “You’ll get to staff it, and you’ll be working out of the new offices at the 11th. There is a catch, though. You’ve got to pass a rigorous physical. This is management, but it’s also street. You’ve got to be good to go.”

  “Just watch me.”

  On their way to Carson’s, Boone insisted on driving. Haeley took a message on her phone and broke into giggles.

  “From Dorothy Galloway,” she said. “Inviting you and me and Jack and Margaret to a barbecue, listen to this, ‘when the weather permits. And just so you know, I will be speaking to only the women.’”

  As they were eating, Haeley’s phone rang. “Yes, hi, Mr. Zappolo. . . . Yes, he’s with me. . . . Okay.” She glanced at Boone and whispered, “Wants me to put it on speaker.”

  She set the phone between them, and they leaned in to listen.

  “You two free this afternoon?”

  “We could be,” Boone said. “What’s up?”

  “Well, first, you owe me five grand, Drake.”

  “Well aware.”

  “But maybe I can take it out of the settlement.”

  “Settlement?”

  “The city wants to settle with Haeley quietly, avoid the courts and the press.”

  Haeley said, “I wouldn’t—”

  “They don’t need to know what you would or wouldn’t do, ma’am. They have a figure in mind and want to present it preemptively.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Which means they bring a check, and when you sign it, it absolves them of all liability regarding your false arrest and imprisonment and everything that resulted from it.”

  “How much are we talking about, sir?”

  “I’ll tell you what they told me, Haeley. They said you would be very pleased. I said, ‘Seven-figure pleased?’ And they said, ‘Oh yes.’ You know what that means?”

  “Of course I do, Mr. Zappolo. You get your boat.”