Reluctant Witness (15 page)

As I read article after article, I recognized
some advances in treatments for the disease that defeated my
mother, and I felt a tug of sadness, wishing that she had survived
long enough to take advantage of them.

“Marigold, are you okay?” the FBI support
services coordinator asked me forty minutes later. I was in the
middle of reading an article about Novartis’s Afinitor, a similar
new breast cancer drug that was competing with Palbociclib. “You
look upset.”

“What?” Glancing up, I saw a look of concern
on her face. “Oh, I’m fine. I was just reading about breast
cancer.”

“I know. I saw the articles,” she sighed,
handing me a stack of papers. “Tough topic. My sister has it. She’s
currently in remission, but it’s been tough for her.”

“My mom died of the disease.”

“It’s hard not to meet someone who hasn’t
been touched by the experience, isn’t it?”

“These drugs seem to offer the first real
hope of long-term survival,” I told her. I briefed her on what I
had learned about the developments from both companies, and what
the differences were between the drugs as best I could. When I got
done, I was rewarded with a big smile.

“Well done! You picked a topic that has
meaning for you and you already have some personal experience with
the subject. Just remember, if anyone starts a topic out of your
depth, distract, distract, distract. Change the direction of the
conversation to the personal cost of breast cancer.”

“That won’t be hard. My mom belonged to a
support group and I used to sit in on the conversations when she
was too weak to drive herself. I met some wonderful women, some of
whom didn’t survive. I’ve got plenty of anecdotes to last a
lifetime, unfortunately.”

Chapter
Fourteen

Jojo went back to her desk in the other room.
I could see her sitting there, chatting on the phone. Every once in
a while, she interrupted the conversation and typed something into
her computer.

I went back to my professional reading,
flipping through articles on the hunt for relative terms. Whenever
I found something, I’d jot down a note or two. Kary, curled up by
my side, nuzzled my hand, hoping for some attention. I scratched
him behind the ear and he settled back down beside me, his little
body pressed against my thigh.

Just before six, Kary went on alert. He sat
up, listening keenly as a key went into the lock. He cocked his
head this way and then that way before he leapt down and trotted to
the foyer for a closer look. By the time Tom let himself in, the
Shih Tzu’s long tail was wagging in anticipation of seeing his old
friend.

“There’s my buddy!” he exclaimed, reaching
down to pat the pooch. “How was your day?”

Jojo came limping in from the study in time
to observe the exchange. Shaking her head in mock disappointment,
she teased Tom.

“Well, I must say, husband of mine, I can’t
recall you ever greeting me with such enthusiasm!”

“Alas, I can’t recall you ever meeting me at
the door with your tail wagging.”

“Touché!” She picked up Kary’s harness and
leash, holding it out to him. “Will you be a kind gent and do the
honors?”

“Only if I get a proper kiss first,” he
insisted. Ignoring the dog scratching at his leg for a moment, he
pressed his lips to hers. “Now that’s more like it!”

I got busy on the Spanish omelet while Jojo
set the table. She uncorked a bottle of Spanish Godello and poured
each of us a glass of the white wine.

“Tom and I usually have a glass before
dinner. It’s a tradition we started when we got married.”

“When was that?” I inquired.

“Two years ago.”

“You’ve only been married two years? I’m
surprised, Jojo.”

“Ah, that’s understandable. When you get to
be my age....”

“No, it’s not that,” I responded quickly. “I
just thought that you two have that easy-going kind of relationship
that makes you seem like you’ve been together for a long, long
time. You finish each other’s sentences and you....”

“We worked together a long time, so we knew
each other very well as friends. After Tom’s wife died five years
ago, we just sort of fell into the habit of hanging out
together.”

“And one thing led to another?”

“Not so much,” she shook her head. “The man
was absolutely as thick as a brick. I watched him go through one
woman after another, unsatisfied. He did nothing but complain about
how they just didn’t appreciate him for who he was.”

“What changed, Jojo? He suddenly realized he
had a good thing going with you?”

“Heavens, no. I started dating another man,
one who was going through a divorce. Tom insisted I was wasting my
time. He told me the first woman a man takes up with after a
divorce never lands him, but I thought he was full of donkey juice.
Sure enough, my hot-and-heavy affair went wonky a couple of weeks
later, and while I was busy crying on his shoulder, he tried to
cheer me up by telling me what a wonderful woman I was and how any
man would be lucky to have me. He was so successful at selling the
idea of that, he talked himself into falling for me. We’ve been
together ever since.”

“What a sweet story,” I sighed.

“Sometimes the stars align and people
suddenly see what’s been in front of them all along. Me? I was too
much of a romantic dreamer, in love with the idea of love. But with
Tom, I had a friend who loved me for me, so I felt safe falling for
him. I knew he had my best interests at heart and he wasn’t a
stranger. And, to tell you the truth, Marigold, when that spark
ignited, it was better than anything I’d ever known before. My
advice to you, my dear, is hold out for the real thing.”

“Mmm....” I muttered as I stirred the
broccoli salad.

“That doesn’t sound like you’re a
believer.”

“It’s not that. It’s just that I’ve
been...um, my life is rather complicated by circumstances beyond my
control. Every time I think I might just find love, something
terrible happens and it all just seems to vanish in front of my
eyes.”

Jojo gave me a sympathetic glance as a slight
smile played across her lips. “So, it’s like that, is it? It’s not
easy to live a double life, is it? The person you were born to be
doesn’t get to be the person whose life you’re living.”

“I always seem to be entangled in someone
else’s troubles,” I groaned. “I’m afraid I’m doomed to be forever
on the outside, looking in, like some poor little match girl.”

“You can’t think of yourself that way,
Marigold. If you do, you’ll never give yourself a chance to
actually find love, because you’ll believe it’s out of reach.”

“But....”

“Don’t make excuses and don’t second-guess
yourself. Real love doesn’t settle for second best. It finds a way,
even if that way isn’t always what we expect. There’s much to be
said for knowing that you’re not alone, that you’re loved.”

A big lump formed in my throat. I swallowed
hard, hoping to keep the pain down, knowing that I couldn’t tell
Jojo my story. That didn’t stop me from wanting to share it, and
that inability to tell her about my lonely life made me lonelier
still.

“Marigold?”

“Yes?” I tried to avoid eye contact, but Jojo
wasn’t having any of that.

“If you’re trying to avoid love, in order to
avoid pain, maybe you’ve never really been loved, because I promise
you, there’s nothing like it in the world.”

“It’s not that. I...I lost someone I
loved.”

“Oh.” She put an arm around my shoulder. “I’m
so sorry. Forget what I said. I’m an idiot.”

“Oddly enough, there’s a part of me that
wants you to be right. Even though I can’t see how it can possibly
happen for me, I’d love to find someone with whom to share my
life.”

“That’s a good sign, love.”

“Is it?”

“Indeed.”

When Tom returned with the little dog, we sat
down to dinner. He and Jojo kept me amused with tales of their FBI
adventures over almost three decades. Even though it seemed like
their goal was to boost my confidence and convince me that
everything would be fine, I finally admitted to them I was
apprehensive about the scheduled flight to Atlanta.

“Not to worry, Marigold. You’ll be in good
hands tomorrow. Jeff’s a great guy.” Tom poured me another glass of
wine. “He may not be in law enforcement the way his brothers are,
but he’ll look after you just fine.”

“Brothers?”

“Sure,” Jojo replied. “Did we forget to tell
you that Jeff is Jack and Linc’s brother?”

“Yes, you did,” I nodded.
Was that relief I was feeling?
How many
Cornwall boys are there? It’s like they have their own private
WitSec network.
“Jefferson...Lincoln...Jackson....They were all named after
American presidents?”

“Indeed. Papa’s a history professor,” the
retired FBI agent replied, “and a presidential scholar. He was
hoping his boys would follow in his footsteps, but that just wasn’t
to be.”

“Oh,” I laughed. “That figures. But why do I
think I know the name Jefferson Cornwall?”

“He’s the best-selling
author of several thrillers.
On the
Job
,
Dangerous
Deception.
...” Jojo began to list the
titles. That’s when it hit me.

“He wrote
Pull Up the Covers
,” I
exclaimed. “I read it last year, the one about a husband-and-wife
team of undercover cops who have to convince the bad guys they’re
who they say they are, even though they’re lying through their
teeth.”

“That’s his biggest seller.
It went all the way to number two on the
New York Times
best seller list, and
number three on
USA
Today
,” she gushed with the enthusiasm of a
teenage groupie. Tom rolled his eyes towards the heavens, shaking
his head as his wife gave him an impish grin. “Jeff is in Atlanta
as creator and producer for the new series that’s being developed
for the Fox network based on
Pull Up the
Covers
.”

“Really? That sounds exciting.”

“He interviewed me three times, just so he
could get the details right about undercover work. And he hired Tom
to be their technical adviser when they finally start to film.”

“But....” I suddenly
realized to my horror that I was being handed over to a
writer.
A writer. What’s he going to do if
the bad guys catch up to me, stab them with his pen?
“If Jeff isn’t an FBI agent or a
cop....”

“No, he’s not either of those things,
Marigold, but he’s got some tricks up his sleeve.”

“Keep in mind one thing, Marigold,” Tom
cautioned me. “Those Cornwall boys can be very competitive.
Remember that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Jeff’s a bit of a superstar, now that he’s
making oodles and oodles of money,” said Jojo, “as in an obscene
amount of money.”

“He got the inspiration for several of the
stories from his brothers, the lawmen,” her husband informed me.
“If they hadn’t spilled the details of their big cases, he’d have
never been able to write those thrillers.”

“Ah, sibling rivalry?”

“You might say that,” Tom conceded with a wry
expression. “And when you add a pretty woman to the equation, it
can get messy.”

“You mean they’ll fight over her?” I asked
Tom. Jojo cut in.

“Marigold, you’re the pretty woman Tom
mentioned.”

“You think they’ll fight over me?” I was
shocked. “I’m...I’m just a woman on the run.”

“Good heavens,” Jojo laughed, slapping the
table with her hands. “Are you really that thick? Marigold, you’re
a damsel in distress, and these two guys live to be the knight in
shining armor!”

“No way,” I scoffed. “Lincoln’s still stuck
on his ex-wife. And you said yourself that Jeff is a superstar. Why
would they be interested in me?”

“Holy moly, this is likely to get bloody.
It’s like sending a mermaid into the shark tank. The Cornwall boys
will devour her,” the retired FBI agent decided. “We should have
the EMTs standing by with an ambulance.”

“Surely that’s an exaggeration,” I insisted.
“How bad can they be?”

“You have no idea,” was all he had to say on
the matter.

I cleaned up the dinner dishes while Tom took
Kary out one last time. Jojo went back to the study to print me up
some business cards for my cover as Susan Langforth and to set up a
contacts list in the new cell phone she got for me. Tom downloaded
the Atlanta airport map and talked me through the steps for the
meeting with Jeff’s driver.

By nine, I was exhausted and excused myself
for the evening, heading upstairs to bed. Kary passed me on the
third step and kept on going. As I stepped into the guest room, the
Shih Tzu hopped onto the bed and settled himself on my pillow.

“Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?”

Although I was used to sleeping alone, I had
to admit I was beginning to relish the little dog’s companionship.
For the first time since Jared died, I slept soundly, deeply,
surrendering my constant vigil of consciousness. Somehow I trusted
my canine companion would alert me if something was wrong. Every
once in a while, Kary would sigh aloud, letting me know he was
right there by my side as the night wore on, and in the morning,
when I awoke, I found him pressed up against my back.

Over a breakfast of oatmeal, fruit, and
coffee, Jojo informed me that we were leaving for Dulles
International Airport no later than ten o’clock. She had booked a
non-stop noon flight for Kary and me. She would deliver me to the
Delta gate with the assistance of a friendly FBI agent friend, and
once my bag was checked and I was past the security checkpoint, it
was merely a matter of walking onto the airplane, stowing the dog
in his travel crate under the seat, and relaxing in first class for
two hours or so. In Atlanta, I’d disembark from the plane and make
my way to the arrivals lobby, pooch in tow. Jojo promised I would
find my driver there waiting for Susan Langforth. Once he retrieved
my suitcase from the baggage check area, I’d be driven to meet Jeff
at his home in Buckhead.