Page 109 of One Final Target

Jodie turned to Tara. “Hey, thank you again. I have to admit my imagination ran away with me for a bit, and I thought you were the one working with Jonah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. After seeing everything in Collins’s house, well, I’d have been thinking the same about everyone. My attitude would have been trust no one.” She looked toward Sam. “I was right, you know.”

“About what?”

“He is a superhero.”

Jodie laughed, and it felt good.

“He definitely is,” she agreed, then walked over and sat next to him. They’d gone through a lot in an intensely short time. She wanted to get to know him better in normalcy. Maybe being wherever Sam was, was where she should be.

CHAPTER62

TWO MONTHS LATER

Jodie dressed carefully. Since she was no longer a police sergeant, she couldn’t attend the ceremony in uniform, but she had a professional skirt and jacket set she’d worn often to court.

Today was the day of the memorial ceremony for her team. Their names would be inscribed on a memorial monument, just not one in the mountains. The names of the RAT officers, even those who did not work for LBPD, and Archie “Jukebox” Radio—something she fought hard for—would be inscribed on the police memorial at the base of Chestnut, south of Broadway in Long Beach.

She put the finishing touches on her makeup and then checked her watch. Sam would be there any minute. The lasttwo months had muted the pain and loss Jodie had felt for the three long months the case was not resolved. Jodie felt a pinch of pain from the loss she knew would be with her forever. Knowing Jonah Bennett, a man she loved like family, had tried to kill her and did kill five innocent people was still a point of bafflement. She’d confronted Mike about Jonah’s claims when she returned home to Seal Beach.

“Jonah made some accusations about you.”

“Accusations about what?”

“About what got himfired.”

Mike turned away, brought a hand to his chin.

“Was what he said true?”

“Jodie, can we leave this for another time? You and Sam are safe; George Upton is on the mend; we all need to rest and decompress.”

“No, Mike, I need to know. He said you raped someone.”

Mike stared at her. “No, of course not. That’s crazy and convoluted. Jonah has issues.”

“Why would he say it?”

Hands on his hips, he held her gaze. “I have no idea. You’ve never asked why Jonah gotfired.”

“It was never important to me until now.”

He put his hands together and tapped his lips, sighing as he dropped them to his sides.

“It was an end-of-probation party. Things got out of hand. I’m not perfect, Jodie. I had way too much to drink. I went into the street and discharged my weapon, shooting at the moon. So did Gus. We were stupid, drunk and howling at the moon. I don’t know where Jonah was at the time. We could have beenfired for unauthorized discharge of our weapons. But no one could identify us at the time and we skated when the complaint came in. Two months later my brother was killedand you became my responsibility. It was like being dunked in freezing water.” He looked away as if remembering.

“Gus had just started dating Estella. I told her I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t raise you. I was not father material. She agreed. I was hopeless, but she knew where I couldfind hope. She took me to church. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before; I mean your dad was an on-fire Christian. I always dismissed it coming from him.”

He paused, voice breaking. “Itfinally took this time, because of you. You walked into my life holding a Bible almost as big as you were. I had to do right by you. All I’ve ever tried to do is be a good dad. For twenty-five years.”

“And Jonah? Why would he say you raped someone?”

“You’d have to ask him. Four months after the party, a woman came forward and accused him of rape. He wanted us to lie, to say he was with us, but neither of us could. To put ourselves there, where he said he was, would have contradicted our earlier stories. We thought he understood. Gus was serious about Estella by then and I had you to raise. Neither one of us wanted to lie any more than we already had. In the end, the woman never pressed charges, but it was too late for Jonah. All these years, I thought there were no hard feelings. Life went on. He did well.”

“Until Jason died.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know why he told you I was a rapist. In a way I did stab him in the back. I let him down, yes, but I’m not guilty of anything else. Over the years I only tried to help and protect him. Gus and I both did. We mortgaged our houses to help him outfinancially. I’m truly sorry that all he felt all these years was resentment.”

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