Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (7 page)

For a moment she almost felt let down. She’d prepared herself to champion anything he claimed, to believe anything he needed her to believe. This was just like him though. She should have known it before she even got there. He’d sooner doubt himself than trust his own memory if the evidence was against him. Given the circumstances, she had to respect that he was willing to accept that he might be remembering things wrong, it was mature. Had it been her, she’d have slapped any cop or doctor who dared give her a doubtful look.

Jonathan didn’t have her baggage though, she remembered.

“It’s possible, I guess. Given everything that happened, your mind might play tricks,” she said, “but I believe you.”

“Hayden and Collin tell you what I remembered?” He asked.

She nodded.

“Well, thank you,” he said, “but you can probably see it’s better to doubt it. Or else I might need to start worrying about my sanity.”

Paige was concerned by the last statement. Sanity seemed a strong word, but she didn’t say so. Time passed with nothing said, so she decided to change the subject to something that had been bothering her.

“Hayden told me,” she paused. “You forbid him from calling your mother?”

She’d masked the statement like a question, but it was really a subtle reprimand.

Paige adored his mother. Whenever Evelyn visited Jonathan, she spent half the visit with Paige. They’d clicked since the day Jonathan had moved into the house as a freshman. Evelyn had taken time off work to help him get situated. Jonathan didn’t realize at the time that it was really his mother’s way of prolonging his moving out. Paige had understood and the two had ended up at the kitchen table drinking coffee while Jonathan hauled in everything he’d brought with him from home.

Paige thought Jonathan had found their relationship endearing. He didn’t seem to think so now. Defiance flashed over his face. He looked like he was trying to gauge if his little sister planned on ratting him out to their parents, suspicious that she might deliberately go against his wishes. She didn’t blame him for the look, because she’d been thinking it and wasn’t making any pretenses.

“I’ll tell her, I just don’t want her coming up here and making things worse. I want some time to sort it out before she over-involves herself,” he said.

Hard pressed to ignore such wishes under the circumstances, Paige nodded, but she didn’t like it. They talked a while longer before she started to get ready to go.

“Paige, would you turn the fan back on,” he said before she left. “The sound helps.”

An hour south of downtown Seattle, Grant sat in the small room he’d been directed to on Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He’d been stationed there for over a year now waiting out the end of his service, which was due in the next few weeks.

He’d never been in this room before, let alone this building, and it was becoming unnerving as it bore stark resemblance to the interrogation rooms he often saw on procedural cop shows. There was one door, three chairs, a metal table, and no windows except the obvious one way mirror with people behind it watching him. He’d been waiting for nearly twenty minutes now, and no one had informed him what this was in regards to or who he was supposed to be meeting with.

Finally the door opened and Captain Spencer entered.

“Stay seated, Specialist,” he said, and Grant followed the order.

Spencer took a seat across from him, his back to the one way mirror. He had a manila envelope in his hands. He opened it and read while Grant waited.

“I apologize for the way you were pulled in today,” Spencer started. “Rest assured; you’re not in any trouble.”

Grant nodded and relaxed. Spencer seemed to be speaking to him in a highly formal manner. He had to assume they were being watched by someone important behind that mirror.

“I wanted to inform you that your discharge will be going forward sooner than scheduled; I know this is sudden but you will be honorably released from active duty today,” Spencer said.

That caught Grant off guard, he hadn’t expected this, hadn’t been given time to plan for it either.

“Captain?” he asked.

“Our superiors have requested I present you with a rather unconventional proposition, Grant,” Spencer said. “They assured me that should you decline on any ethical grounds that you won’t be punished. However, there will be substantial financial reimbursement for your participation should you choose to accept their offer.”

After a pause, Grant nodded slowly.

“Still it must be pointed out, should you decline, you will be sworn to secrecy about the request on punishment of treason. I have documents in this folder that you’ll be required to sign before you are presented with any additional details. These documents also require full disclosure of any details that may be requested about your private life, should you wish to participate,” Spencer said.

He pulled the paperwork out of the folder and pushed it toward Grant. He then removed a pen from his front pocket and laid it down in front of the documents. There were pages upon pages of legal jargon for him to pretend to read as he thought over what was being presented. Luckily, the places where he needed to sign were highlighted.

Grant didn’t think for long. His curiosity was stronger than his caution. Whatever this was, it might be a chance at doing something real, something important. Spencer had said he didn’t have to accept. Worst case scenario, all he would be forced to do was keep a secret. He figured he could handle that.

After he signed, Spencer offered Grant his handshake, then got up and left the room instructing Grant to remain seated.

Again he was left for a period that seemed purposely long. Knowing he was being watched through the window only made time stretch. It was an effort to sit still knowing strangers observed him behind the mirror, and he found he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He wondered if this was some kind of test and they wanted to see how long his patience would last.

A woman finally stepped into the room. She was dressed professionally, immaculate in business attire. She wore heels, her hair up, thick rimmed glasses, and carried a metal briefcase in her right hand; attractive, in an FBI meets librarian sort of way, but Grant thought she couldn’t be military. He reigned in his eyes, not wanting to be caught letting them roam down her impressively fit body.

He was irritated now, knowing it was this woman who had been making him wait. Some power play to show how important her time was, and conversely, how insignificant his was. She was likely some Army Intelligence Contractor’s overpaid bimbo secretary.

Can we please get to business already
,
Princess,
he thought.

She was the type who used her body to cloud men’s judgment, conveying some power with her sex. Grant recognized it. She was probably only here to give him some orientation before he was taken to his new commanding officer. Still, he knew better than to let his opinions show on his face, the man in charge could still be watching through the glass.

She didn’t offer her name. She didn’t make eye contact with him or smile. Instead, she went through an excessive amount of preparation pulling out her chair and organizing herself, retrieving file folders from her briefcase and placing them in front of her with excessive precision.

Grant didn’t appreciate being ignored, nor her disregard for observing the pleasantries. It was impolite. What did she think? That she was above shaking his hand or giving her name, treating him with the respect he was due.

Finally, pulling a photo from one of the files she’d carefully laid out, she spoke. “My name is Olivia,” she said. “You will report to me from here on.”

Grant flinched, but then nodded.

“What is this about?” he asked. “Why all the paperwork?”

Ignoring the question, Olivia held the photo out to him.

“As thoroughly as possible, describe your relationship with this individual,” she said. “Be candid, leave out no details.”

The desire to say something confrontational swelled after his questions were ignored. He looked from her face to the picture and found himself puzzled. It was a photo of him and Paige. It was clearly taken at the hospital this morning, less than a few hours ago.

This woman had put them under surveillance.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MONDAY | JUNE 20, 2005 | NOON

IT’S
too bad mind bleach isn’t a real thing,
Collin thought.

It was awkward business having recently traumatized friends. Knowing how to behave in these situations didn’t come easily to him. He wasn’t sure what to say, what not to say, when to be helpful, when he became smothering, how long until it was okay to have fun again. He took most things with a laugh but they were all having trouble finding the humor in this.

When Hayden brought Jonathan home from the hospital, his eyes looked over the kitchen and he just seemed at a loss. Collin understood. What is the appropriate way to say “thanks everyone for cleaning my blood off the kitchen floor”? Instead, Jonathan had said nothing.

Paige, Hayden, and he had been up late cleaning the mess off the floor and cabinets, bleaching the towels they’d stained, getting rid of the cloudy red mop water. It was a night he wasn’t soon to forget. They’d all been so quiet as they cleaned, he’d felt like a mortician.

It wasn’t as though they had done it so Jonathan would thank them. Collin figured it was an unspoken law of humanity: if your friend nearly bleeds to death all over the kitchen, everyone chips in and cleans it up before he has to see the mess. In reality it was a lame, although at the same time genuine, attempt to protect Jonathan from his own memory, to try and limit the reminders. The only thing that would get the blood off the linoleum in Jonathan’s memory was time.

Regardless, Collin imagined they’d be doing a lot more eating out for a while.

Jonathan had wanted to head straight to his room. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, seeming to remember something.

“Will, one of you—” Jonathan had stammered. “Let me know if you aren’t going to be—”

“We’ll be around. We won’t leave you alone until you ask us to,” Collin had said.

He’d nodded, then turned and headed up the stairs. That Jonathan wasn’t the type to ask for help made Collin feel for him. All things being equal, Collin figured he would have reverted to a three-year-old and wanted nothing but his mother had it happened to him. Oddly, that was the one thing Jonathan had forbidden. Paige had said that he wanted to get things straight in his head first. Collin didn’t really buy that, he figured Jonathan didn’t want her to worry about him anymore than the woman already did. Paige wouldn’t have gone along with that though.

“We need to make sure someone is always home with him,” Paige said.

Collin and Hayden didn’t argue, if they were being honest, none of them wanted to be in the house alone right now.

“It’s making me paranoid,” Hayden said. “What if that guy comes back? Shouldn’t we have police surveillance, something?”

“I don’t know,” Collin said. “I mean, they do stuff like that on TV, but they didn’t even offer it to him at the hospital. I don’t think Jonathan makes the cut for bodyguard status. If this guy is still planning to come for Jonathan, he has plenty of patience anyway. Who knows how long he waited to get him alone the first time.”

He noticed Paige shiver visibly at what he’d said.

“I hate thinking someone may be watching us right now,” she said.