Apocalypse Burning by Mel Odom Page A

was starting to resemble that of an inbound freight train.
    Benbow hadn’t told her she was in denial about the situation, and she didn’t really think she was, but the possibility of getting fired from her position as counselor or even jailed because the act was directed against a military person just hadn’t seemed real to her. The kids she helped needed that help. Surely the base commander had to realize that.
    “How can he use that?” Megan asked.
    “You’re being investigated for being derelict in your duty. If you take the stand and talk about Boyd Fletcher’s abuse of his son, or allow documents concerning those events to surface during the hearing, the opposing counsel is going to use them to show that you’ve got a history of being derelict in your duty. He’s going to convince the jury that you should have acted prior to the night in question. He’s going to say that your dereliction of duty started long before the night you climbed up onto that building with Gerry Fletcher.”
    “The decision to remove a child from a home has some heavy repercussions for the family as well as the counselor. I felt that taking Gerry from his family would have been more detrimental to him than letting him stay.”
    “More detrimental than getting beaten?”
    “There had been only one incident at that time.”
    “But others followed?”
    “Yes. By then,” Megan said, remembering the situation with helpless frustration, “Gerry had locked into a pattern of lying to protect his father. I would have had to tear down his stories before I could have helped him.”
    “Wouldn’t that have been the right thing to do?”
    “I would have lost his trust. And, yes, that would have affected everything.”
    “Was the situation at Gerry’s home then a matter of life or death?”
    “I didn’t think so.”
    “What about the night in question? The night you willfully didn’t tell Boyd Fletcher his son was in the hospital.”
    “I wasn’t sure then, but I knew something had to be done. Things had been escalating, but a lot of time had passed since the last violent incident. That night I didn’t feel that the situation had gotten completely out of control until Boyd Fletcher showed up drunk at the hospital and Gerry climbed up on that building.”
    “You weren’t certain what your course of action would be when you arrived at the hospital?”
    “No. I was working my way through the situation.”
    “Megan, the jury judging you is going to be made up of men—maybe a few women, God willing, because they hopefully know what it’s like to be a mom or an aunt or a big sister—who live on a daily basis prepared to make life-or-death decisions between heartbeats. Pull the trigger; don’t pull the trigger. And with everything going on in the world right now, those men are tuned directly into that mind-set: Take charge and make a difference. They may very well feel that you didn’t take appropriate action. That ‘working your way through a situation’ wasn’t what was needed to save Gerry.”
    “Because I didn’t take Gerry out of his home?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Then why wouldn’t they blame Boyd Fletcher? He’s the one who created the situation. He came into the ER in a drunken rampage that night. It took two MPs to subdue him, and both of them had to be treated for injuries. Gerry was scared of his father. That’s why he ran and that’s why he ended up on that building.”
    “They will blame Boyd Fletcher,” Benbow agreed. “But they’ll only blame him for his part in this. Trust me, Boyd Fletcher isn’t going to get off scot-free in the eyes of the military men he serves with. At least, not with most of them. And probably not with the army. I’m willing to bet his career is over, one way or another. But that court and that jury are going to hold you accountable too, Megan.”
    “For what?”
    Without flinching, Doug answered, “For allowing the situation to come to that. For not notifying the parents their