Standing Guard

by Valerie Hansen

  Logan began to smile. “You don’t say.”

  “Yes, I do say. And don’t look at me like that. I’m just helping out a victim who happened to cross my path, that’s all.”

  “Okay, if you insist.” He gestured to the truck where the child still napped. “I’ll keep you and Lindy and Danny in my prayers. Good night.”

  “Good night. Thanks again.”

  Climbing behind the wheel and shutting the door as quietly as possible, Thad turned the key.

  The sputtering engine noise was finally enough to awaken the seven-year-old. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”

  “Just leaving the factory. Go back to sleep.”

  “Where’s...?”

  Thad could tell the child was pausing to remember the details of their situation.

  “I want my mama.”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Thad said, silently vowing to do something, anything, to get Lindy out of custody.

  Danny began to sniffle noisily. “She needs to kiss me good-night and tuck me in.”

  It occurred to Thad to offer to stand in for Danny’s mother. He dismissed the notion out of hand. He wasn’t the affectionate type. It just wasn’t his nature to be nurturing, which was one more good reason why he’d let others adopt his brother’s kids without putting up a legal fight.

  Instead, he reached over and gave the boy a manly pat on the knee. “Hang in there kid. You’ll be okay. Nobody ever tucked me in and I’m just fine.”

  The child scooted as close to Thad as his safety belt would allow, reached out and gently touched his arm as he said, “That’s sad.”

  If there had been a chance of speaking without a hitch in his voice Thad might have argued.

  However, he knew better than to try. The boy’s simple show of affection and empathy had touched him too deeply.

  * * *

  Night in Serenity was just as the town’s name promised—serene. Lindy wouldn’t have minded the peace and quiet if it had not given her far too much opportunity to think.

  “Okay, to fret,” she grumbled in disgust. What she was doing was far more than mere thinking. It was worrying to the nth degree. She knew better. She should be giving thanks that Thad was looking after Danny and that he had arranged to safeguard her possessions, too, but it wasn’t easy to focus on the positive when so many negative aspects kept occurring to her.

  She heaved a sigh. “Well, you really did it this time, didn’t you, Ben,” she whispered, speaking to the dimness of the empty cell while envisioning the man to whom she had once pledged her life. This whole mess led straight back to him. It had to.

  Between the quest for Ben’s so-called stash and the presence of drugs in her home, there was little doubt her late husband had set this disaster in motion. He might be long gone but she was apparently still paying for his folly.

  Pacing seemed to help calm her so Lindy circled the small cell repeatedly. She was going around and around all right. Had been since that day when those men had broken into her house and messed with her credit cards.

  Although the house might be her greatest financial concern it was still just a building. The important thing, the only thing that truly mattered, was her little boy. As long as Danny was kept safe and sound, she could face any kind of future.

  Even one in prison? she asked herself. That concept gave her the shivers and made her stomach lurch. She didn’t even want to think of such an unfair fate, yet she supposed it was possible that whoever had framed her would keep up the attacks indefinitely.

  Which meant that Danny was in as much jeopardy as she was, she reasoned, tasting bile in the back of her throat and wondering if she was going to be literally ill. Adelaide had intimated that locking her up was for her own good. If that was the case, then shouldn’t her little boy be in there with her, at least for the night?

  “No. Of course not,” she answered cynically. “But it sure would be nice to talk to him, to tell him I’m all right and assure him it’s safe to stay with Thad.”

  Yearning for her son overcame Lindy and nearly made her weep. Poor Danny. First he loses his father and now me.

  No matter how illogical that conclusion was or how much being removed from Ben’s negative influence had benefited the child, she knew Danny missed his daddy. Danny was closer to her than he’d ever been to Ben—he must be missing her, too. And as the only surviving parent, she believed it was her job to prepare her son to face adult life. How could she do that if they were kept apart, maybe for years?

  Lindy stopped pacing and grabbed the cell bars. No one had offered to let her use the phone. Wasn’t that her right? Movies about police procedures portrayed it that way. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask.

  She tried a simple “Hello?”

  The hallway remained deserted, darkened except for the glow from a small exit sign. Below that, the door leading to the main office was shut.

  “Adelaide? Deputy Crowe? Are you out there?” Lindy paused and listened. There was no reply.

  The next breath was deeper and the shout a little shaky. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?”

  A distant male voice hooted. “I hear ya, darlin’. You come to spring me? Huh?”

  Well, the male side of the jail seemed to be occupied, as predicted. So if other prisoners could hear her, why didn’t a deputy answer?

  “Sheriff?”

  Lindy realized she was starting to sound panicky. That wasn’t good. If there was something wrong out there, the last thing she wanted to do was play the part of a victim.

  The door at the end of the hall creaked open enough to permit a narrow shaft of brighter light from the office.

  Lindy held her breath. No one spoke. No one entered. The door didn’t move any farther.

  Finally, unable to contain her anxiety, Lindy shouted at the top of her lungs, “Hey! I want my phone call.”

  A shadow broke the beam of bright light for a second.

  Struggling to see better, Lindy pressed her right cheek against the bars and peered down the narrow hallway.

  The silhouette shifted. There was a metallic sound as an object hit the floor then started to roll across the bare concrete.

  Visions of an attack filled Lindy’s mind.

  Moments before the door slammed and shut out the brightness, she thought she had glimpsed a dull-looking canister on the floor.

  By the time her eyes adjusted to the change in the light level, she was positive she could smell smoke.

  A hissing sound resonated. Whitish clouds billowed toward her cell, blotting out the glow from the exit sign.

  Lindy screamed. Coughed. Began to wheeze.

  Trapped!

  There was no escape. No way to keep from breathing the noxious fumes.

  All Lindy could think to do was bury her face in her pillow and pray that the gas was not lethal.

  She envisioned her only child. Holding Danny’s hand was a tall, strong man. The kind of man her son should have had for a father. Thad Pearson.

  The images of man and boy looked at her.

  Together, they smiled.

  The pure sweetness of that make-believe scene caused a flood of tears.

  And that moisture on the pillowcase made it a tiny bit easier to draw a shallow, filtered breath.

  THIRTEEN

  The sounds of sirens in the distance alerted Thad that something was amiss.

  Slowing the truck’s speed, he checked his mirrors. Fire engines wer
e fast approaching from the rear, their red-and-white lights flashing and horns honking.

  He pulled to the curb near the courthouse to let them pass, then started to drive away as soon as the road was clear.

  “I wanna watch the fire trucks!” Danny exclaimed. “Please, can we? Please?”

  “Sorry, no. We’re not supposed to get in the firemen’s way,” Thad replied.

  “But they’re right over there. See?” He unclasped his seat belt and got onto his knees. “Please, please, please? I wanna watch Timmy and Paul’s new daddy shooting water.”

  That mention of his orphaned nephews made Thad’s gut clench. Paying closer attention to the place where the firefighters were rapidly deploying tied his insides in a knot the size of a basketball. Thad parked his truck on the shoulder and turned off the engine.

  Smoke was rolling out of the small sheriff’s office.

  The jail was in that building.

  Lindy was in that building! Grabbing his keys and quickly jumping out, he hollered, “Come on.”

  Danny was already scooting toward him across the seat. As Thad reached for him, he launched his small self into the man’s arms and held onto his neck.

  “Good boy,” Thad told him, trying to sound calm when he wanted to shout and break into a run. “As soon as I find somebody we know to look after you, I’ll go see if I can help.”

  “I thought you said we were supposed to stay away.”

  “This is different.” His voice grew stern, commanding. “Just do as I say. Understand?”

  Danny’s reply of okay was more of a whimper than a word.

  “Hey, sorry I sounded grumpy. I’m not mad at you, all right?”

  The child nodded. “Where are we going?”

  “Right over here with these other people,” Thad explained, frantically scanning the gathering, milling crowd on the courthouse lawn. If he couldn’t find someone he knew and trusted to watch Danny, he was going to have to take his own advice and let the firefighters handle the emergency.

  “Which one is Tim and Paul’s daddy?” the boy asked.

  Thad barely heard the query. All his concentration was focused on finding a trustworthy man or woman to look after the little boy in his arms. Lindy trusted him to safeguard her son and he intended to do so. The problem was, he couldn’t rescue the mother and keep her child out of danger at the same time.

  “Please, God, please,” Thad murmured. “Send me somebody. Anybody.”

  Danny let go with one hand and began to wave happily. Following the child’s line of sight, Thad spotted Louise Williams, one of his employees. Perfect.

  He wove his way through the throng and greeted the wiry, middle-age woman. “Louise. Glad you’re here. Can you mind Danny for me for a few minutes?”

  “Sure.” She pulled her sweater closer and shivered. “Where’s his jacket?”

  “I don’t know.” Thad was already setting the boy on his feet next to her. “Just watch him, okay?”

  “Sure, but, where are you...”

  Her voice faded as mayhem reigned. Firefighters were shouting into their handheld radios or calling to each other in person. Pumps were starting to rumble as they cranked them up to higher pressure to supply the hoses. The hum of the gathered casual observers was punctuated with overly excited bursts of exclamations.

  Thad pushed his way to the front of the crowd and grabbed the arm of the first uniformed man he saw. It was Levi Kelso, the police chief.

  “What’s going on?” Thad demanded.

  “Don’t know yet.” He regarded Thad the way a person might look at a pestering gnat. “Get back and let the pros handle this.”

  “Did you get the prisoners out?”

  “Yes. Of course.” He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t see Lindy.”

  “Who?”

  Thad was so frantic he almost yelled. “Lindy Southerland. Harlan arrested her this evening.”

  Turning away, the chief spoke into his radio, then frowned. Thad heard him say, “All right. As soon as you can,” before looking up.

  “My men didn’t know we had a female prisoner,” Levi explained, “and the dispatcher was only half conscious when we carried her outside. So she was in no condition to mention it, either. We evacuated the male side of the jail right away, but...”

  Thad grabbed the man’s arm. “Lindy’s still in there?”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll have her out in a few minutes. Some joker apparently made a false accident report to lure everybody away and empty the station, then set off a smoke bomb inside. We don’t think there’s a real fire.”

  Unconvinced, Thad burst through the line and followed the fire hoses through the main door and into the shared offices of police and sheriff. All the nearby interior doors stood open and a firemen wearing full breathing apparatus’s were setting up a large fan near the front.

  Thad immediately began to struggle for air. His throat burned. The deep, racking cough that followed was so strong it made his sides ache.

  He peered through the smoky atmosphere, hoping to see one of the deputies he knew. Apparently, everyone had evacuated. So how was he going to locate Lindy?

  As soon as he’d seen the smoke, he’d suspected that this might be another attack on her. If he went with that gut feeling, the smoke should be thickest wherever she was being housed. It was an idea worth pursuing.

  Eyes tearing, lungs screaming for cleaner air, Thad pivoted in the smoky office. Most of the problem seemed to be centered to the right, down a corridor he could barely see. That was where he’d go. That was where he’d find her. He knew it.

  He rammed a hip into the edge of a desk and nearly tripped over a loop of heavy canvas fire hose before he reached that doorway. Another man or woman in full firefighting gear had picked up a smoking canister about the size of one of the Pearson rolling pins and was carrying it out in a gloved hand.

  “Out of the way.” The man’s voice sounded muffled behind the protective mask. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  Thad took a deeper breath to answer and was overcome with coughing once again. By the time he was able to speak, the firefighter had passed him and was carrying the canister out into the street.

  “Lindy!” Thad managed to choke out. “Where are you?”

  No one answered.

  Groping along the wall he felt for bars. There. He reached forward. And again.

  “Lindy!”

  Feet sliding sideways, his hands moving from bar to bar along the grates, he kept going. Now that the source of the smoke had been removed and the fan was blowing, the air was beginning to clear a little.

  The whirling lights of the engines outside were throwing intermittent flashes through a small, high window at the end of the cellblock. That was all the light Thad had. It was enough.

  He found her in the last cell. She was on her knees beside her bunk with her face pressed into her bed pillow.

  “Lindy!” he shouted, hearing the pathos in his voice as he wondered if she was still breathing.

  She didn’t move.

  Thad heard footsteps behind him.

  “Over here,” he yelled. “Bring a key!”

  The shoulder that pushed him out of the way was clad in a police uniform but also wearing one of the fire department’s regulation air-packs units. Thad thought it might be John Waltham but he wasn’t sure.

  The lock clicked. Before the door was fully open, Thad sidled through.

  Fell to his
knees beside Lindy. Touched her shoulder. Called her name. She didn’t react.

  Not waiting for help, he scooped her up and turned to leave.

  Officer Waltham took off his mask and placed it over her face, staying close so he and Thad could move as one and give Lindy the full advantage of the purer air.

  They were outside in mere seconds.

  An ambulance was waiting.

  Thad went directly to the paramedics and handed her over, then bent double to continue coughing.

  “We’d better take you in, too,” one of the medics said.

  “Just take care of her,” Thad managed to say between bouts of wheezing and hacking. “Is she breathing?”

  “Yeah. She’s already coming around. Looks like she’ll be fine. We need to take her to the E.R. to be sure but I wouldn’t worry.”

  Gasping and red-eyed from the smoke, Thad swiped at the moisture on his cheeks, hoping everyone would assume it was caused by irritation.

  All he knew for sure was that his relief at hearing that Lindy was conscious was so great it was almost overwhelming.

  One of the paramedics tried to guide him to the ambulance.

  He resisted. “No. I can’t leave. I have to get Danny.”

  “Whoever he is, I’m sure he’ll be fine while you get some oxygen. Just sit with us for a bit and let us help you.”

  “No.”

  Thad jerked his arm free and stepped away from the ambulance. His vision was blurry, his eyes burning from the acrid smoke.

  He pivoted, trying to search the crowd. Where had Louise been when he’d last seen her? There? Maybe more over that way?

  At a loss, he turned back to the medics. “Can you wash my eyes out? I can’t see.”

  “Sure. Over here. I’ll need you to sign a release if you refuse further treatment, anyway.”

  Bending at the waist, Thad turned his head to the right and let cool water bathe his burning eyes as the medic slowly poured it. Then, they did the same for the other side and handed him a towel.