Honor Redeemed

by Loree Lough

  It took him a moment to untangle himself from her arms, and when he did, Matt raked both hands through his hair. “Two promises, remember?”

  Smiling, Honor nodded, for she couldn’t for the life of her remember what he was talking about.

  He held up one finger. “Don’t read the inscription until I’m out of sight.” His index finger joined the first. “And for the luvva Pete, Honor, do a better job of staying in touch, will ya? Please?”

  Then he turned on his heel and jogged down the steps and out of sight.

  Honor slumped onto the sofa and hugged the book tight. He wouldn’t have needed to elicit that second oath, because even if she’d peeked inside the instant his size-twelve shoes hit the sidewalk, her tears would have prevented her from reading his inscription.

  28

  During that first week following his visit, Honor picked up the phone no fewer than half a dozen times a day. Mostly, she just stared at the buzzing receiver before slamming it back into the cradle. Once she’d dialed all but the last digit of his cell phone number, and then pushed the flat gray disconnect button.

  She didn’t have to wait long, as it turned out, to get back into the swing of things. Classes had started, and no one anticipated double enrollment in every session. “If I’d known we’d be such a hit,” she teased Buzz one busy afternoon, “I’d have added a couple of zeros to my salary requirement.”

  “You’re Irish,” he’d shot back, “so consider Murphy’s Law: if you had, the bottom would’ve fallen out of this thing, and you’d be collecting unemployment instead of gray hairs.”

  The department had given her permission to hire a secretary, to be shared with Buzz. He kept her so busy, typing and filing and photocopying, that Honor took pity on her and carried her own workload alone. Surprisingly, that load lightened, thanks to Buzz’s new assistant. Not so surprisingly, it didn’t lighten enough to take her mind off Matt.

  He popped into her head at the most peculiar moments. Once, while collecting quizzes, she called a female student Matt, simply because her eyes were the same shade of brown as his. While daydreaming about him at a red light the other day, the light turned green. The guy behind her leaned so hard on his horn that it got stuck … and she’d heard the annoying blare for blocks. Then, yesterday, she dialed the front desk to ask the security guard if the package containing her new cell phone had been delivered, and said, “That book is my all-time favorite present” instead.

  Somehow her work got done, despite her woolgathering. But she was torn: hearty enrollment meant good things for the future of the program, but as the only qualified teacher on the roster, her work seemed never-ending. She watched her students closely, searching out those who had what it took to certify and become competent instructors. It took weeks to find two capable candidates, and within weeks, Honor felt comfortable leaving them to share the lectern for short periods of time.

  Now, as she dialed Matt’s cell, her star pupils were running the show in Classroom B. She didn’t expect to leave them there for long. It had taken less than a minute to leave every other message in his voicemail box. Why should this call be any different? Yawning as she counted the rings, Honor tapped a fingertip on her desk. She’d recited the same information so often, she felt like a recording.

  “Well, it’s about time,” he said.

  Hearing his voice delighted—and terrified—her. “You’re a hard man to reach.”

  “Said the kettle to the pot.” Matt laughed. “So how are things?”

  “Busy, but I’d be hard-pressed to name someone who isn’t saying that these days.”

  “And that goofy mutt of yours?”

  “I took a chance on him, finally, and he’s doing great in the rescue program. I believe one day soon, another K-9 hero will be living under my roof.”

  “I can almost see him now: ‘I want to thank the American Rescue Dog Association for this beautiful medal …’ “

  Laughing, Honor shook his head. My, but it was good to hear his voice, and not a crackling recording of it. “So what are the boys up to these days?”

  “Working hard at hardly working. I threatened to take a coal shovel into their room the other day and toss everything I found on the floor into a trash can. Trouble with that is, I can’t afford to replace all those school clothes and toys.”

  “Aw, don’t be so hard on ‘em, Dad. Christmas isn’t that far off. I’m sure Santa will come through for you.”

  The mention of the holiday made her remember last year’s celebrations and family dinners. She’d no doubt get an invitation to join Buzz, but even if she said yes—which wasn’t likely—it wouldn’t be as good as last year. “So what’s this I hear about you getting back into the field? I thought you gave that up, because of the boys.”

  “True on both counts—and have I told you how great it is to hear your voice?”

  “Funny. I was thinking the same thing a minute ago.”

  “Well, now, that’s a silly thing to say. You hear your voice all the time.”

  Honor groaned, and Matt said, “Sorry. Too much time around eleven-year-olds, I guess.”

  “Did they like what I sent them for their birthday?”

  “I’ll say. They’ve seen three movies in three weeks and, thanks to that generous gift card, took a pal with ‘em each time. But you know what? They would have preferred having you here to a present.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. I would have loved to be there. But I’m glad they liked the gift cards. They’re growing up so fast, it’s hard to know what they’ll like.”

  “Tell me about it. One thing they like is you. I’ll bet not a day goes by that one of them doesn’t mention you or ask about you. Which reminds me, they wanted me to find out what you’re doing this Thanksgiving.”

  Honor automatically turned to the November page in her desk calendar. She didn’t know why, because of course she couldn’t join them. “I have classes right up until the Wednesday before, and after a short break, they pick up again the following Monday.”

  “What time does your last class end on Wednesday?”

  “I’m usually home by eight, eight-thirty. Why?”

  “Because if you made a reservation now, you could catch a train late Wednesday and stay right through Sunday. The kids would love that.”

  I’d love it, too.

  “And so would I.”

  “But I don’t have anyone to take care of Rerun.”

  “So? Talk to your vet. Get him to prescribe some tranquilizers and crate the big boy. He’d love it here, with Cash and the boys and a yard to run around in. The guest room has its own bath. You could think of it as a mini vacation.”

  “Let me see what I can arrange and get back to you.”

  “Oh … Harriet says to tell you hi. Same goes for Bud and Flora, and Mercy and Austin. And hey, speaking of whom … breaking news: Mercy is pregnant.”

  “What? Pregnant! No kidding? That’s fantastic! I’ll bet Austin’s chest is so puffed up, he’s popping all the buttons off his shirts.”

  “Yeah. He’s pretty psyched, all right.”

  “And Mercy? Is she all right, too?”

  “Well, sure. Far as I know. Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “No reason.” Honor remembered that long conversation she and Mercy had last Thanksgiving, when an emergency pulled Austin from the dinner table. She must love her man a lot to risk losing him and risk being left to raise a house full of little Finleys, alone.

  What about you, Honor wondered. Could you step out in faith that way? It was certainly something to think—and pray— about. “When is the baby due?”

  “Mid-November, I think.”

  “Do they know yet if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  “Didn’t think to ask.”

  “Men.”

  “What can I say? We have more important things to worry about, like whether or not our favorite girl will come home for the holidays.”

  Home. Oh, but that sounded wonderful! She tried not to focu
s too intently on the favorite girl part of his comment. “Well, it’s something to consider.”

  “Something to seriously consider.”

  “Okay, seriously.” She smiled. “I’ll call you.”

  “Soon, I hope.”

  “Yes, soon.”

  “And with any luck, you won’t have to leave a message.” Then, “By the way, have you had a chance to read the book?”

  “White Fang, you mean? I’ve paged through it, but I’m a little afraid to actually read it. The pages are so delicate.”

  “Books are meant to be enjoyed, Honor. Read it. Trust me, it’s stronger than it looks, sorta like you. Besides, who knows what you might find on those delicate pages that you never saw before.”

  It had been her favorite novel ever since Mrs. Lester made it required reading in the seventh grade. “I guess it can’t hurt to read the story a nineteenth time.”

  They said their goodbyes, and she made the obligatory promise to try and spend Thanksgiving in Baltimore … then closed her calendar and quoted Thomas Wolfe as she headed for the classroom: “You can’t go home again.”

  29

  Honor got the call in the dead of night: a little girl, barely older than Matt’s twins, reported missing from her bed.

  “I know you’ve put in a full day,” Buzz said, “but this guy’s a friend. Closer than a friend, really … more like a brother. He’d be obliged, I’d be obliged, if you and Rerun could get out there, join the team to see what you can find.” He trusted her more than any SAR team member he’d ever worked with; if she couldn’t come up with something, he said, here probably wasn’t anything to come up with.

  It had been tough, saying goodbye when Buzz moved the family north, but times had been tough and good jobs even tougher to find, so Honor said and did what it took to keep the lines of communication open. If she’d done things differently, Buzz wouldn’t have hired her, and she wouldn’t be in New York right now, taking a call from one of the best … and a man she admired.

  It had been a while since she’d been shaken out of bed by a “get up, go now” call. Fortunately, old habits die hard, and the tablet and pen on her bedside table were within easy reach when Buzz rattled off the search coordinates. Her sturdy canvas-and-leather pack hung, fully loaded, on a hook beside the front door, too; two minutes after hanging up, she was dressed, and in three, she and Rerun were out the door.

  Sleep hadn’t exactly been a friendly visitor these past few months, so drowsiness and exaggerated yawns at her desk hadn’t surprised her. But a thing like this had the power to energize Honor like nothing else could. A missing child? Who didn’t get revved up by the possibility of finding and returning her to the loving arms of her parents?

  Honor tried and failed to drive the speed limit and rolled up in record time. The intersection Buzz mentioned wasn’t marked by a street sign, but the strobes of police cars slicing into the blackness made it pretty clear she’d arrived at the right location. As she strapped on her pack and snapped Rerun’s vest into place, Honor spotted the search manager right off … a big bulky man with a clipboard and a no-nonsense attitude. He stood, feet shoulder-width apart in the center of a circle of trackers, half who tugged at the straps of their own packs while the rest held tight to their dogs’ leashes.

  Intensity lined every grim face as the cops took turns reciting what little they’d gleaned from the family, from neighbors and friends who formed an outer circle around the first, hoping to overhear a bit of news. These were the people Honor least trusted, because for all their outward sincerity and despite their teary, worried faces, they always seemed more interested in grabbing the spotlight—at least for as long as it took to deliver their ill-gotten tidbits—than in seeing the missing and lost brought home.

  There weren’t enough photographs to go around, so dog handlers got pictures and those without were told to pay attention:

  Macy Carson, age twelve, had long brown hair and brown eyes. She stood 4′8″ tall, weighed 110 pounds, and wore pink braces. The vital statistics were recent and accurate, her near hysterical mother insisted, because she’d just enrolled Macy in a new dance class, and the litigation-fearing administrators required full physicals before a girl could participate. Mom and Dad were divorced a year ago, the team was informed, but this wasn’t a case of parental abduction; the distraught father shook his head and muttered as he paced in the halo of a street lamp.

  The place last seen? Macy’s bedroom, where now, shadowy figures walked back and forth on the other side of a window shade that glowed golden, thanks to the bright bulb of a table lamp. The parents felt certain she hadn’t run away, because only yesterday her music teacher informed Macy that she’d won the lead in the school play, and she’d been singing My Favorite Things pretty much nonstop since getting the news. It was a Friday night, but there were no parties going on—at least, none the cops had heard anything about—and no slumber parties scheduled. She’d never had a boyfriend, never got a grade lower than a B, never mistreated her cat, and only rarely bickered with her little brothers.

  Rerun and the two other rescue dogs were encouraged to inhale as much scent as the quickly closing window of time would allow. It was cold, and pitch black on this early-November night; Macy owned two coats, and both still hung in the closet behind her mother’s front door. A light rain had begun to fall, increasing the odds she’d suffer exposure out there, while decreasing the dogs’ chances at following a trail.

  The plan: work wide sweeps in a “hasty search,” and see what the dogs could pick up, then narrow the scope, gradually. This time of night, there hadn’t been much foot traffic in and around Macy’s yard, meaning her scent wouldn’t be buried by layers of other humans’ scents. Rerun struck a pointer pose, tail out and head erect, head bobbing as he drew new things in through the sensitive sensors in his nostrils. The eye shine of a raccoon, racing across the driveway, sparkled, but Rerun paid it no mind. “Good dog,” she said. “Way to go.”

  She hadn’t given him enough credit. Rowdy had been such a natural, such a ham that he’d stolen the limelight. But if he’d seen one of the masked critters darting through the dark, it was just as likely he’d chase it as not. Rerun? He kept his nose to the ground, huffing and woofing and whining.

  “Rerun’s on to something,” she said softly into her radio.

  A minute, maybe two later, a pack of investigators showed up to point other dog handlers in the direction Rerun had gone. An hour after that, the dogs were agitated and so were the handlers. By daybreak, exhaustion and frustration raised tempers and voices and blood pressure. It seemed they were going in circles, because that’s exactly what they were doing, and still no sign of Macy.

  The same ugly word was in everyone’s mind, but no one wanted to say it: abduction.

  As much as Honor loved this work, she hated endings like this ten times more. She loaded Rerun into the car and pitched her pack into the trunk. Nobody involved with SAR missions believed every search could end positively. But the ones involving kids? Nobody involved wanted them to end any other way.

  “Buzz,” she said to his answering machine, “it’s me, Honor. It’s 9:04 and I’m on my way home. If this stupid dashboard clock is right, I’m already four minutes late for work. Well, guess what? You can just add twenty-four hours to that, minus the four minutes, because I won’t be in today. Give me a couple hours to shower and catch a nap and I’ll tell you all about our little after-hours search party.”

  Then she peeked into the rearview mirror at Rerun, still alert and upright on the backseat. “How’d I get so lucky?” she whispered. Some would say it was because she knew how to choose a puppy. Others would credit her teaching skills. But Honor knew better. The 20 percent of rescue dogs that retired, old and gray after years of successful SAR missions, weren’t good at what they did solely because of skilled handlers. Search was in their DNA, and she’d lucked onto two dogs that would have been naturals, no matter who had trained them.

  “Oh, you�
�re gonna get a whole lot more respect from now on,” she said.

  Rerun yawned, then stretched out on the seat.

  “Unimpressed with my shallow generosity, are you?” Maybe he’d see her as more sincere if she made a spot for him at the foot of her bed. And after feeding him something special for breakfast, she’d climb up there with him, and pray to sleep like the living dead, so she wouldn’t have to think about … anything.

  Not many people would understand the disquieting feelings rumbling in her head. “Shrug it off,” they’d say. “It’s over. Just pick up where you left off.”

  Easier said than done. Lots easier. And it might be easier still if she had someone to talk to, someone who knew what it was like to come home, elbows scraped and knees banged up and every toe blistered, knowing that, despite it all, you’d still come up empty. She wanted to commiserate with someone who’d shouted a single, specific name into the dark, only to have it echo back, awful and empty. Matt understood what it felt like to drive home from a mission, hounded by guilt. If the team had hung in there just one minute more; if they’d thought to look around this corner instead of that one; if they’d arrived sooner, or later, or at a different starting point, then maybe, just maybe, Macy would be home with her mother and bothersome little brothers right now.

  Second-guessing herself had never helped before, and it wouldn’t help now. If Honor had an inkling how to put a stop to the haunting conviction that because they’d failed last night, it was Macy’s body they’d find, not a girl too cold and terrified to answer when they’d called her name.

  Matt would help her stare down that horrible truth, and he’d pep talk her into believing she could do it again, the next time a girl like Macy went missing … if she called him.

  There was something wrong with her, something that went bone-deep and far beyond the Brady Shaw-Wyatt Hoffman story she’d been hiding behind. Oh, it had made her miserable, to be sure, and cost her plenty. But it had been old news for months now, and any power it might have had to harm Matt and his boys had long ago fizzled. Until, unless she could give the illness a name, what hope did she have of finding a cure?