The Guardian

by Marliss Melton

  Out the corner of her eye she saw Toby and Jackson share a look as they realized they had both been caught on video.

  “Here.” Unsnapping the small pouch, she turned and thrust it at Jackson. “I don’t need this anymore. Congratulations, you’ve finally gotten rid of me,” she added, snatching her gun off the table where Toby had set it and dropping it in her purse. “I’ll be out of here tomorrow, so you can continue your investigation without any distraction.”

  “Lena,” Jackson protested, but his tone couldn’t completely hide his relief. “Why don’t you stay at the river house with Naomi and Silvia?” he offered.

  Memories of the perfect day spent with him and his daughter filled her with sorrow. But, like she’d told him once before, she was not that quick to forgive. Right now, she just wanted to retreat and lick her wounds in isolation.

  She shook her head refusing the offer. “I have to go. My work is finished here.” She’d put all her eggs in one basket, and now the basket was dropped, the eggs all broken. Her only hope was that Davis would call to request a rendezvous in two weeks. Not that she was looking forward to it.

  “You need to get back,” Toby said to Jackson, who continued to ignore him.

  “Lena,” he called as she turned her back on him, marching into the unlit store to fetch the money from the counter. She still needed to drop the pouch off at the bank.

  Ignoring the cameras in the store for once, he caught up to her by the register. Catching her elbow, he swung her around. “Lena,” he said in that firm voice he used with Naomi. “Look at me.”

  Steeling her heart against the pull of emotion she knew she would feel, she raised her eyes reluctantly to his. Even in the dark they shone like stars at dusk.

  “Make sure you put ice on your neck the first chance you get.” His gruff concern was palpable as he cupped either side of her face, holding it captive. “You promised me,” he reminded her on a note of disappointment.

  She hadn’t forgotten. But right now, there was no future, only the past, and every dream she’d harbored in the last ten years had just been swept down the drain.

  “You’d better go before you’re missed,” she whispered, her heart hard and cold.

  He stroked his thumbs lightly over her cheeks, clearly hoping for some softening of her expression, only she refused to relent, and he stepped away from her with a sigh. “Toby will make sure you get home safe tonight, and he’ll stay in touch. I will see you again, Magdalena,” he added on a firmer note. Then he turned and disappeared into the storeroom.

  He and Toby exchange terse words before the door shut quietly behind him.

  Lena picked up the money pouch. Feeling numb, she jotted Bill a note of apology, letting him know that she wouldn’t be back. Then she took one last look around.

  She’d intended on leaving this place with everything needed to bring closure to her sister’s death. Instead, she had nothing but a bruised neck and a broken heart to show for it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jackson awoke in the middle of the night, his heart thudding unevenly, a lump in his throat. Plagued by disturbing dreams, he’d done nothing but surface sleep for the past several hours. Whenever he lapsed into unconsciousness, he dreamed of Lena with her neck ravaged, glaring at him accusingly.

  Colleen used to look at him like that, but for entirely different reasons. At least he couldn’t be blamed for neglecting Lena also. If anything, he’d been overprotective. But what kind of concerned citizen would leave her alone with Davis in a closed, locked store? If he hadn’t alerted Corey who’d come up with the idea of warning Davis about a room inspection, who knew what Davis might have done to Lena? His imagination supplied an appalling answer.

  Christ, he’d never fall back asleep if he kept up this line of thinking.

  Things will get better, he assured himself, now that the Taskforce had sufficient evidence to start arresting people. Toby had let him know that between the list Jackson had found on Zakariya’s copier, the information Ike had extorted from the incarcerated rapper, and the files they could now access on Ibrahim’s computer, the Taskforce had pieced together a clear and chilling picture of the imams’ vision of Judgment Day.

  Those receiving the propane were all original graduates of Gateway. For seven years, Gateway had been supplying each man with propane. While records stated it was to be used for heat, the apartment buildings were all upscale residences heated by natural gas and occupied by mainly white, upper-middle class professionals. That left only one viable use for the amassed propane.

  At a designated date and time, to be conveyed in code through Zakariya’s top ten music picks, all that volatile accelerant was to be released at once and ignited via remote detonators, instigating explosions throughout the city. Forty apartment buildings would collapse as a result, causing widespread death and injury.

  In the ensuing chaos, Five Percenters would arm themselves with the weapons Ike had found in the storage facility in D.C. and take to the streets to kill or maim any white man or woman in positions of power. Jackson shuddered at the thought of all those weapons in the hands of brainwashed ex-cons.

  Worse than that, documents in Ibrahim’s computer detailed plans to attack federal buildings, banks, and institutions of higher learning, not just in Washington, D.C., but throughout cities on the east coast. If Ibrahim’s diabolical plan unfurled as he had architected it, the nation would be stood on its head, as the so-called gods of the Earth wrested the reins of power from those who presently held it.

  As long as the Taskforce took quick, decisive action to tear down the infrastructure of the Five Percent Nation, to confiscate their tools of war and stifle their communication, then Ibrahim’s plans for Judgment Day would never get off the ground.

  At last, given the amassment of evidence accruing, the Attorney General was seeking warrants for both imams’ arrest. It could all go down in a matter of hours now. In the meantime, Jackson was to keep a low profile and not make waves.

  Heaving an unsettled sigh, he willed himself to fall more deeply asleep. Ride it out, he told himself. It’ll soon be over.

  **

  Lena blinked her bleary eyes and looked around. After nearly three weeks in her rental cottage, it came as a shock to awaken in her tastefully appointed Alexandria apartment, just across the river from the nation’s capital.

  With its modern furniture and central air, the room was startlingly plush compared to what she’d gotten used to. Wincing at the stiffness in her neck, she turned her head to eye the bedside clock. She had slept until early afternoon.

  After last night’s fiasco, she’d packed up her possessions and driven straight to the city, even though she knew it would be nearly dawn by the time she arrived. Crawling into bed, she’d tossed and turned, her mind too full of frightening visions of what Davis had in mind for her when she met up with him next.

  At 4 A.M., desperate for rest, she’d taken a sleeping pill to knock herself out. Now half the day was gone, and she felt miserable and hung-over.

  A composite of Jackson’s face, looking both determined and torn, loomed large in her mind. Yearning wracked her heart and made her body throb with want. They’d shared a passion unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Only, he’d gotten in the way of the one thing that meant most to her—putting her sister’s killer behind bars. How could she ever forgive him?

  Yet, the fact that he was still neck-deep in his own investigation made her feel guilty for even thinking that way. She might not forgive him, but she dreaded the thought of harm befalling him.

  Rolling toward her bedside table, Lena fumbled for the landline phone. As tired as she was, it took a couple of tries before she punched in the number to Crime and Liberty’s main office correctly. Clearing her hoarse throat, she identified herself to Peter’s secretary and asked to be put through.

  He came on the line several seconds later.

  “I just wanted to let you know that I’m back in the city,” she croaked. “My investig
ation’s over,” she added with a pang.

  “What’s wrong with your voice?” he asked. “Are you sick?”

  “It’s just a cold,” she insisted. “I got a partial confession,” she added, in answer to his first question. “Would have had everything but we were interrupted.”

  He was quiet for several seconds. “Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you,” he said with a question in his voice.

  Regret wrung her heart anew. She wasn’t in the mood to provide Peter with details. “Thanks.”

  “So, will you be coming into the office any time soon?”

  “Maybe next week.” Her neck would look worse before it looked any better. “How’s your research coming on the investigation at Gateway?”

  “Oh, great,” he said on a note of disdain. “Get this: the Feds think the leaders there are backing Algerian rebels.”

  “How do you know they’re not?”

  “Oh, come on. Do you know how easy it is to plant that kind of evidence? I told you, Lena, they’re trying to frame the Muslim leaders because they deplore diversity.”

  “Whatever, Peter. Just remember that you promised me a week’s notice.”

  “No worries. I’m not going to run the piece until October.”

  Why would Peter wait that long? But then she thought of the senator who’d helped him identify Jackson. “Let me guess. You’re counting on your article to impact the Presidential election?”

  “Of course. This is the perfect example of how paranoid the President is. If you’re a Muslim and a former prisoner, then you’re automatically a terrorist.”

  “I doubt it’s that’s simple, Peter. Do me a favor, if you change your mind and run your story any earlier, I want you to call me, okay?”

  “Why?” he asked, ever the journalist.

  “I’ll explain later. Just remember who brought this to your attention in the first place,” she pointed out.

  “Fine, I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks. Listen, I have to go.” Her head had started throbbing. Without waiting for his good-bye, she dropped the phone into its cradle and rolled out of bed to find her cell phone. Toby would probably like to know that Peter wasn’t running his story for another two months.

  **

  Jackson slipped out of his dorm room into a balmy evening to jog to the forest and meet up with Toby. No sooner had he shut his door than a local sheriff’s car, driven by the deputy who’d guarded Artie’s, swerved into the entrance at Gateway right in front of him. Two official vehicles from another district followed right on his tail. All three cruisers were moving fast and displaying their lights.

  Jackson blinked in surprise. The logo on the sides of the second two cars told him they were D.C. Metropolitan Police. What the hell? Was the Taskforce arresting the imams without giving Jackson so much as a head’s up?

  Postponing his run, he chased the cruisers around the dormitory and found them blocking the gate to the basketball court. Ten or so parolees had frozen in the midst of a game to gape at the lawmen popping out of their cars with pistols drawn.

  “Hands up and spread out along the fence!” Deputy Hazelwood shouted. He and three Metropolitan police officers approached the cage. Two of the four edged into the enclosure just as the halogen lights, operating on a timer, flickered on.

  “Which one of you men is Rupert Davis?” the larger officer demanded.

  Stunned and curious, Jackson inched closer.

  None of the parolees spoke up to rat out Davis, probably because none of them knew him by his birth name, but Davis took a wary step backwards, drawing attention to himself.

  “You’re Rupert Davis?” demanded the Metropolitan police officer, honing in on him.

  Under the bright lights, Davis’s skin shone with a film of perspiration. “My name is Sulayman,” he snarled, his gaze shifting left, then right.

  Jackson smiled, anticipating the sight of his arrest.

  Just then Imam Ibrahim came rushing out of the mosque, his sleeves flapping like the wings of a stricken bird. “What is going on here?” he cried.

  Jackson strained to hear Deputy Hazelwood’s reply.

  “We have a warrant for the arrest of Rupert Davis.”

  “On what charge?” Davis asked, no longer denying who he was. “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

  “For the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl,” answered the cop approaching him.

  “Those charges were dropped ten years ago,” Davis protested, the whites of his eyes more evident than usual.

  “New evidence has cropped up,” the officer stalking him said.

  Jackson couldn’t believe his ears. What new evidence? Even if Davis had finished confessing to Lena, which he hadn’t, she’d surrendered her spy camera to the Taskforce agents. She didn’t have the proof to instigate this kind of action.

  “Hit the ground, Davis,” the officer continued. “You know the drill. Arms behind your back, legs spread. The rest of you put your backs to the fence and stay there.”

  Eyes rolling, Davis hunted for an escape route. But the fleeing felon rule that authorized police to shoot persuaded him to drop stiffly to his knees. In the next instant, he lay face down on the asphalt.

  Watching the officer put a knee into Davis’s spine and cuff him, it was all Jackson could do not chuckle with satisfaction. With all eyes focused on the activity on the blacktop, he stealthily retreated. No one had taken any special note of him.

  As he turned toward the highway, his attention fell on the Amish man standing at the corner of Artie’s, watching the action from across the street. The protected soul had probably never witnessed an arrest before.

  Relief lightened Jackson’s step as he raced down the quiet highway, running as fast as he ever had. The peach-colored sky and the cooler air lifted his spirits to new heights as he pictured Lena’s overjoyed response to Davis’s arrest. As long as the new evidence that had come to light kept Davis behind bars, Jackson had reason to believe she might finally let go of the past and concentrate on the future—their future together.

  Turning off the highway, he sprinted beneath the power lines. On either side of the cleared track, the last rays of sunlight turned the leaves of the trees to green flame, but the trunks were already lost in shadow. He didn’t immediately see Toby until the ATF agent detached himself from a tree trunk to intersect his path. If he was carrying his air soft gun, Jackson couldn’t see it.

  An earring glinted in Toby’s left earlobe. Today his T-shirt read: I HEAR VOICES IN MY HEAD, AND THEY DON’T LIKE YOU. .

  Jackson stopped in front of him, holding up a finger for Toby to let him catch his breath. He put his hands on his knees for a moment and then straightened. “Okay. What’s going on?”

  “The warrants are being processed. We’re arresting the imams tomorrow,” Toby announced straight-faced.

  “Why don’t you look happy?” Jackson asked with suspicion.

  “The Attorney General wants to make a public example of the leaders, so guess who he’s bringing with him.”

  No. Jackson balled his hands into fists. “The press,” he guessed, with sudden misgivings.

  “You got it.”

  Arresting a religious leader on sacred property was contentious enough without the media getting involved. Jackson shook his head. “I can’t see Ike agreeing to that.”

  “The AG’s pulling rank on him,” Toby answered. “He thinks we’ll crush the morale of Ibrahim’s followers by filming his humiliation.”

  “That’s just going to piss them off,” Jackson declared.

  “Our thoughts exactly.”

  Jackson sighed. “What can I do?”

  “Ike wants you to stay put in case something goes wrong. Once the imams are in custody, head toward the highway, keeping clear of the press, and I’ll pick you up there. We don’t want your face on the six o’clock news.”

  “What time tomorrow?” Anticipation kept Jackson’s pulse elevated. The end could not come soon enough. By tomorrow night
he might be home with his daughter, reunited with Lena.

  “Mid-afternoon.”

  “Cool. I’ll be ready. Listen, I need you to tell Lena something for me,” he requested, recalling recent events.

  “What’s that?”

  “Davis was just arrested for the murder of her sister.”

  Toby’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit. How’d that happen?”

  “Some new evidence came to light. I have no idea what. Maybe she can find out. Can you give her a call?”

  “Sure,” Toby promised.

  “Tell her—” Jackson’s chest swelled with longing as he recalled her devastation last night, the way she’d blamed him for ruining her plans. He wished he knew what to say to make amends, to ensure that she kept her promise to be with him again. “Tell her I love her,” he muttered hoarsely, his face hot with chagrin.

  Toby cringed. “You’re such a sap, Jack. I’ll tell her about Davis, but I am not telling her you love her. Yich.”

  Jackson exhaled heavily. “Fine. Just tell her about Davis.”

  “Will do. Keep your head in the game a little longer, man. You’re almost home free.” Toby clapped him on the shoulder, spun him around, and gave him a push back in the direction of Gateway.

  Anticipating the sting of a pellet from Toby’s airsoft gun, Jackson bolted, only it never came.

  Once safely out of range, he tried slowing his pace so he wouldn’t tire early but it felt as if his shoes had sprouted wings. He couldn’t even hear his footfalls over the sawing cicadas. By this time tomorrow, he’d be reunited with Naomi. And if Magdalena agreed to become part of that picture, his family would finally be complete.

  **

  Lena gripped her steering wheel with white knuckled hands as she turned into Artie’s parking lot. She would never have guessed she would be returning to the site of her undercover job a mere two days after walking away from it.