The Innocent

Chapter





74


“SO, MR. BROOME AND RICK WIND served with my dad in the Army?” said Julie.

Robie was sitting with her in the FBI safe house. How safe it was Robie wasn’t sure, but he had few options left. The FBI agents guarding Julie looked professional and alert, and yet he kept his hand near his Glock and was prepared to gun them down if they made a move to harm the girl.

“They fought in Gulf One. They left the Army at separate times after that. Apparently, a number of soldiers in their squad got that tattoo on their arm.”

“I still can’t believe my dad was like a hero.”

“Believe it, Julie, he was.”

She fingered the zipper on her jacket. “Did you find out anything else?”

“Not really,” said Robie.

“My dad must’ve been young when he left the military. I wonder why he didn’t stay in.”

“No way to tell,” said Robie quietly. “Some guys do their stint and go on to other things.”

“Maybe if he’d stayed in he might’ve, you know…”

“Well, he might not have met your mother either, if he’d stayed in.”

“That’s true,” said Julie slowly. She eyed Robie closely. “Why do I think you’re not telling me everything?” There was something in her look that Robie recognized. It was the same look he gave people who were simply telling him things they knew he wanted to hear.

“Because you’re naturally suspicious, just like me.”

“Are you holding something back from me?”

“I hold lots of things back from lots of people. But always for a good reason, Julie.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

He locked his gaze on hers, figuring that not to look at her now would be simply an exclamation point on his underlying deceit. “It’s the only one I have to give. I’m sorry.”

“So you haven’t figured out what’s going on, then, have you?”

“Not really.”

“Do you need my help? And don’t say you have to keep me safe. There’s no such place, not even here with super-duper FBI guys all over the place.”

Robie was about to turn her offer down using this very safety issue, but stopped. Something had just occurred to him.

“Your mother said that you didn’t know anything, right? When she was talking to the guy in your house?”

“That’s what she said.”

“So that implies that your parents did know something. That your mother, in fact, probably knew why the guy was there. Why he wanted to kill them.”

“I guess that’s right. But we’ve already covered this ground, Will.”

“And Leo Broome, right before he died, implied that he knew something too.”

Julie wicked a tear from her right eye. “I didn’t know him all that well, but he seemed like a nice guy. And I really liked Ida. She was always nice to me.”

“I know. It’s a tragedy all around. Now, Cheryl Kosmann said that the day before your parents were killed they had dinner with the Broomes at the diner. She said they looked like they had seen a ghost.”

“That’s right.”

“When was the last time you talked to your parents before you went back to your house that night?”

“Just before I was put back in foster care. I never got a chance to sneak over and see my mom at the diner.”

“And how did your mom seem when you did see her last?”

“Fine. Normal. We just talked about stuff.”

“And then later a guy is at their home looking to kill them and your mother is not surprised by it?”

Julie blinked. “You mean something had to happen after I last saw her and before the guy showed up at our house?”

“No, it had to be between you seeing her last and your parents having dinner with the Broomes where they all looked like they had seen a ghost, according to Cheryl.”

“But we don’t know what that something is.”

“But narrowing it down to a specific time period helps. The way I see it, either something happened with your parents, they found out something and told the Broomes. Or the Broomes found out something and told your parents.”

“What about the Winds?”

“That’s sort of the wild card. They weren’t at the dinner, but they must be involved somehow too, otherwise why would they have ended up dead?”

“Do you think it has something to do with their time in the military?”

“My gut tells me that it should. But all the facts don’t point to that. Namely, my involvement in all this. If I’m right and I’m the reason why this whole thing has been orchestrated, why involve your parents, the Broomes, and the Winds? I didn’t know any of them.”

“So you really think all of this is tied to you somehow?”

Robie could sense the question left unspoken.

Was I the reason her parents were killed?

“Yes, I think it does. Too many coincidences otherwise.”

Julie pondered this. “So either the Winds, my parents, or the Broomes found something out. Because they were in the military together the guys might have told each other about it. The bad guys found out and they had to kill them.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Julie said, looking away from Robie.

He let a few tense moments pass by before he spoke. “Julie, I don’t know what’s going on. If this is really all about me and your parents and the others were caught up in it, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not blaming you for what happened to my parents, Will,” she said, though her voice held no conviction.

Robie stood and paced. “Well, maybe you should,” he said over his shoulder.

“Blaming you isn’t going to bring them back. And what I want hasn’t changed. I want to get whoever did this. All of them.”

Robie sat back down and looked at her. “I think there was no more than a twenty-four-hour window when whatever got your parents killed was communicated among Wind, Broome, and your dad. If we can trace a call, or a movement, or any type of communication among that group, we might be able to get a better handle on all this.”

“Can you do that?”

“We can at least give it a hell of a shot. The problem is, so far nothing in their background suggests they were involved in anything that could have been the catalyst for all this.”

“Well, they weren’t the only ones in the squad, right? A squad consists of nine or ten soldiers, with a staff sergeant in command.”

“How do you know that?”

“American history class. We’re studying World War II. So my dad, Wind, and Broome are three guys. That means you have six or seven more to track down.”

Robie shook his head, wondering how he’d missed something that obvious. Then he looked down at Julie’s chest.

The laser dot was centered right over her heart.