A Question Of Honor

He grabbed her hand. “Where are you going?”

“Away,” she said matter-of-factly, not wanting him to know anything. This was all her doing.

He let go of her and reached into a drawer to his left. He took out a large red square envelope with a Christmas bell design on it and offered it to Faith. “I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to give you this early, but...”

She took the card from him, hugging it tightly to her chest without opening it. “I didn’t get you anything,” she said as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Her dad stood, brushed at the moisture on her face with an unsteady hand, then pressed her to him. “As long as you’re my daughter and believe in me, I’ve got all I need,” he uttered. “Merry Christmas, Angel.”

Faith forced herself to leave without looking back. She moved quickly. Her dad’s use of the nickname he’d given her as a baby hurt her so much. She brushed past the attorney and would have left if Baron hadn’t said her name.

“Faith.”

She paused and closed her eyes, keeping her back to the room. “I can’t tell you anything,” she said.

“I don’t want you to. Just be safe, and if you need anything...” He touched her shoulder and she saw him hold out a business card to her. “On the back, my personal numbers. Use one of them if you have to.”

She accepted the business card without looking at it and slipped it into her jacket pocket. The attorney spoke again. “Hold on, I got the files you asked for.” She had almost forgotten he’d promised to get her copies of files from the Kenny setup that would be used in any case against her father. She turned to see Baron with a thumb drive. “Lots on there,” he said.

She took it from him and, without looking at her father, walked away. She retraced her path and checked the security screen by the side door. No one. Only falling snow and leafless trees bending in the growing wind.

Minutes later she reached the old import she’d bought from a private party two days ago. She couldn’t register the car in her name, so she chose not to register it. The tags were good until June, so she felt she had enough time to use it and keep her name off the title. She’d parked seven blocks away from the house and felt slightly breathless from the walk by the time she slipped behind the wheel.

She got the engine going, then set the heater on high, which, she’d found on the way there, meant warm enough. Sinking back into the seat, she stared at the red foil envelope in her hands and watched the snowflakes melting on the surface.

She tugged the sealed flap open with hands that were less than steady and looked inside. There was a small plastic card and a flat box in green foil. She caught the plastic card between her fingers and pulled it out. She almost cried at her father’s ability to hate what she was doing and yet help her if she had to do it, even when he was afraid for her. She’d emptied her back account and had enough cash to keep going for a good amount of time. But only her father would think of the one thing she hadn’t considered.

She was holding an Illinois driver’s license with her picture and vitals, the same ones on her real license. She was five feet two inches, 105 pounds, with black hair and blue eyes. But what wasn’t right was the name, Faith Marie Arden, or the address, somewhere in Rockford, Illinois. Arden had been her mother’s maiden name, and she didn’t even know anyone in Rockford.

She wasn’t about to try to figure out how her father had managed to get the license; she was just grateful that he had. “Thank you, Dad,” she whispered as she put it in her wallet. She opened the glove compartment and slipped her valid license under the sales papers for the car. She sat back and reached inside the foil envelope again to take out the only thing left. The box.

It had a single strand of ribbon around it, and she undid it, letting it fall to her lap. Opening the box, her eyes filled with hot tears as she took out a delicate gold bracelet with a single charm on it. It was a locket in the shape of a heart. Her mother’s. Something her father valued beyond measure. But he’d given it to her. Through a blur of tears, she manipulated the tiny lock and the heart fell open. Inside was a photo of her when she was just born, and on the other side was a photo of her mother and father on their wedding day.

When she had been very young, her father would open the locket and tell her stories about everything he could remember about Marie Arden. She heard how they met, fell in love and how thrilled they were when their daughter was born three days before Christmas.

She studied the images of three people at the start of their lives together. Her mother was gone. Her father was in real danger of being destroyed. And she was driving away from the only person who mattered in her life. She started to drop the bracelet back into the box, but spotted a folded piece of paper lying on the bottom.

She took it out, opened it and read, “Merry Christmas, Angel. You were the best Christmas present ever. Dad.”

Faith swiped at her face again, wishing she could wear the bracelet, but afraid to. It was so delicate. Still, she had it with her. She put the note and bracelet away and pushed the box into the glove compartment.

As she pulled away from the curb, she felt the tires slip on the fresh snow, then gain purchase. She was heading south, away from Chicago. She paid no attention to the Christmas decorations adorning the streets, and by the time the city was in her rearview mirror, she felt an overwhelming sadness mixed with a strong conviction that she was doing the best thing for everyone.

“Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad.”

CHAPTER TWO

Santa Fe, New Mexico

ADAM CAMERON HAD ARRIVED in town an hour ago and sat alone in a coffee shop near the airport. He was waiting for his ride home to Wolf Lake, two hours northeast. He’d chosen a booth by the window that overlooked the street, keeping an eye out for a police cruiser, the one his childhood friend John Longbow told him he would be driving.

John had been surprised by Adam’s call a few days ago, assuming that his friend would be back according to his normal timetable—get home the day before Christmas and leave as soon as he could.

To be honest, Adam had been surprised by his own decision to arrive home early. But it had ended up being an oddly easy one for him to make.

When he’d called home to let his mother know when he’d be there, he’d figured she wouldn’t be happy but that she’d understand how busy he was. And besides, she would have Jack, his older brother, and Gage, his younger brother, there, which would take some of the sting out of her disappointment. Lo and behold, he’d been wrong, very wrong.

The waitress appeared with his coffee. A cute blonde who never stopped smiling or calling him “hon” as she set the steaming mug in front of him. “You new around here, hon?” she asked with that smile still blazing.

Adam didn’t flirt well. He’d always thought that if something happened, it happened, but working to make it happen didn’t sit well with him. Been there, done that, he thought as he poured cream into his coffee. He hated playing games. That was why he liked relationships with no ties and no complications. He would admit to anyone that he had commitment phobia. He liked freedom and moving along when he had the urge to go. His latest stop had been Dallas, on the police force there, but already he was thinking about making a change, maybe heading to California.

The waitress was waiting for an answer, and he was vague. “I’m just here for a few days,” he said as he picked up his mug and turned back to the window.

He heard the waitress sigh, and in the window watched the reflection of her walking away. Then Adam’s image overlapped hers. With his ebony hair combed straight back from his sharp-featured face, one half of his heritage was emphasized, and it wasn’t the fair-skinned Irish side that rose to the surface. He could see his mother’s Navajo ancestry that defined him in more ways than one.

All three Carson boys were chiseled from the same mold physically, with decent height, tanned skin and bold features. But their characters were uniquely different. Jack was the homeboy who loved the land. Adam was the restless one, and their younger brother, Gage, was passionate about building anything. But right then it was Jack who filled Adam’s thoughts as he waited.

That simple call to his mother, but Jack answering the phone, and everything changed when he heard his brother’s voice come over the line.

As he picked up his mug, he spotted the police cruiser emblazoned with Wolf Lake P.D. on the door and John behind the wheel. Adam put down his coffee, slapped a five-dollar bill on top of his tab and then headed for the door. The waitress calling after him, “You come on back, hon, you hear?” He let the doors shut on her voice and he approached John, who had gotten out of the cruiser.

The men hugged, thumped each other on the back and got inside the car. “Welcome back, man,” John said, and in that moment, Adam experienced something unsettling and unusual for him. A huge wave of homesickness washed over him. He couldn’t remember that ever happening to him before, even as a kid. He’d always looked beyond the horizon.

Until now.

Adam murmured, “I appreciate the ride.”

“Glad to do it,” John said as he swung the cruiser out into traffic.

“Did you really have business in the city?” he asked, eyeing the man’s dark uniform, which looked rumpled from prolonged wear.

“Of course I had business in Santa Fe. Besides, I like having good company when I make this trek.”

They had barely gone a few blocks before Adam’s cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and glanced at the ID, expecting it to be work or even his mother. But he did a double take. The call was from his kid brother, Gage, and that surge of homesickness came again.

“Hey,” he heard over the line after he answered the call. “What are you up to?”

“Just off a plane in Santa Fe and heading for home.”

Gage didn’t sound surprised by that statement. “Good, Mom’s looking forward to it.”

“Mom called you about me coming back now?”

“No, actually. John did,” Gage answered. Adam was confused.

He turned to look at John, who was staring dead ahead out the window. “You called Gage about me coming early?”

John glanced dark eyes at him and nodded. Without saying a thing, he went back to his driving.