Reluctant Witness (18 page)

Kary, unleashed, trotted happily around the
doggie playground, stopping here and there for a sniff. He paid
faint attention when we were joined by Beauregard, the black toy
poodle, and his owner, Dave, who engaged in a game of fetch with a
tennis ball.

“This park is a lifesaver. We’re on our way
to Phoenix, so Beau really has a long day ahead of him,” he told
me. “It’s nice to be able to let the little guy loose out here,
even if it does mean we have to go through security again.”

“Wow, back in line for that again?” I raised
my eyebrows. “What a brave soul you are. When does your flight take
off??”

“Not for another hour and a half. It makes
for a really long day of traveling.”

“I can see that it does,” I agreed. We
chatted for a few minutes while the two dogs got acquainted.
Curiosity satisfied, Beau returned to his master, ready to
play.

“Go long, boy!” the chubby, gray-haired man
hollered, tossing the yellow felt-covered orb into the air. His aim
was slightly off, and as the ball hit the enormous metal statue of
a dog, it ricocheted off and smacked against the aluminum fence. I
bent down to retrieve the yellow tennis ball as it rolled past my
foot. With the ball in my hand, I raised my arm to toss it back to
the eager black dog, but the look on Dave’s face alarmed me.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he hollered.

Whirling around, I saw the cause of that
fear. A man in a beige windbreaker and khakis had hopped the fence
and was heading straight for Kary, arms outstretched, as the little
Shih Tzu attempted to evade him. A bolt of sheer terror passed
through my body and I found myself galvanized into action.

“Don’t you dare touch that dog! Leave him
alone!” I screamed, waving my arms as I rushed toward the
dog-napper, impeded by my new purple high heels on the uneven grass
surface. Kary sprinted in my direction, and as he came into arm’s
reach, I bent over and safely scooped up the terrified Shih Tzu.
Rocky and the uniformed cop hurried towards us, guns drawn.

“Hold it right there!”

The man in the beige jacket gave Dave a hard
shove and knocked him to the ground before fleeing to the far end
of the dog park where he hoisted himself back over the chain link
fence and continued on, jumping into traffic and just barely
missing the front fender of a small wagon.

“What the hell was that?” Rocky wanted to
know. He kept his weapon at the ready. His friend was talking into
his police radio, summoning assistance.

Beauregard, worried about his master, trotted
over to where Dave lay sprawled on the grass and pushed his nose
against his master’s cheek. A little whimper emerged from the
dismayed dog. A hand came up and patted the loyal companion on the
snout.

“Thank God!” I gasped, feeling relief wash
over me like a salve. “You’re okay?”

“Come on!” Rocky grabbed my elbow. “We’ve got
to go.”

“But....” I protested, feeling responsible
for the man who lay on the ground. “Shouldn’t we....”

“Now!” Rocky was insistent, pulling me away
as the cop bent over to attend to the man on the ground. I could
see more uniformed people arriving on foot and heard police sirens
in the distance. My bodyguard and I crossed the grass and opened
the gate to exit the dog park. The Atlanta cop suddenly reappeared,
hailing us. “I’ve got a squad car on the way for you, Rocky.”

“Thanks, Kubiak,” my bodyguard told him.
“Good thing you were right there.”

“What kind of idiot tries to steal a dog at
an airport with a cop standing right there?” the baffled law
enforcement officer wanted to know.

“I was so busy keeping an eye out for Susan,
I didn’t think to worry about the dog,” Rocky replied. “What was
that jerk thinking?”

Curious passersby began to gather on the
sidewalk, a few with their cell phones pointed at us. I cringed at
the thought this would end up on YouTube or the evening news. It
was obviously not a normal day at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson
International Airport dog park. I could hear the chatter as people
speculated about whether a couple of dogs had gotten into a rumble.
Rocky pushed me towards the curb just as a marked police cruiser
screeched to the halt.

“Let’s go!”

His uniformed friend threw open the back
door, instinctively putting a hand on the top of my head as I slid
onto the seat with the dog. Rocky squeezed in behind me, bags on
his lap. The Atlanta police officer joined his female colleague up
front.

“Where did you park?” asked the driver.
“We’ll drop you off.”

Six minutes later, after a loop around the
airport, we entered the short-term parking garage. A second team of
cops were waiting there, still on the lookout for the missing
suspect. After Rocky’s vehicle was carefully examined and declared
safe to drive, then and only then did we bid the cops goodbye.

“Thanks, Kubiak.” Rocky reached inside his
coat jacket and withdrew a small black case containing business
cards. Separating one from the pack, he offered it to the officer.
“Give your supervisor my card, in case there are any questions
about what happened here.”

“Happy to help, Rocky. I’ll see you at the
studio tomorrow. I’m doing a four-to-midnight shift.”

“Stop by my office when you clock in and
we’ll get caught up on the incident,” said the man in charge of
security for Jefferson Cornwall’s production company.

“Will do,” said Kubiak, as he returned to the
marked patrol car. Rocky turned his attention to me.

“In you go,” he said, popping the lock and
grasping the handle, pulling the door open. “You’ll have to step
up. Be careful in those heels.”

With a hand on my elbow, the short, burly
security man guided me into the passenger seat and made sure I was
buckled in before he shut the door. I could feel the dog’s tiny
heartbeat against my palm as I cradled Kary’s chest to settle him
on my lap. He was still terrified. I understood the feeling.

“It pays to hire real cops for private duty
work. Kubiak moonlights at the studio.” Rocky confided, as he slid
into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and shifted the
transmission into gear, smoothly pulling out of the parking space.
“What happened back there?”

“One minute everything was fine, and the
next, some guy tried to snatch Kary from the dog park,” I answered,
still a little breathless. Everywhere I looked I saw action; it
seemed like airport security personnel were scrambling to find the
suspect.

“Don’t worry about them, Susan. It’s standard
procedure in a situation like this. They have to make sure the guy
isn’t a terrorist. As we speak, they’ll be reviewing security tapes
and using facial recognition software. Was the guy on the plane
with you?”

“I don’t think so, but...I was one of the
last ones on and first ones off. I didn’t really get a look at my
fellow passengers.”

“Did he say anything, anything at all? Did he
make a threat, or....” As Rocky left off in mid-sentence, I filled
in the blank for him.

“No, he just went straight for the dog.”

“He went for the dog, not you?” There was a
note of surprise in Rocky’s voice.

“Yes.”

“Huh....”

“Huh what?” I asked, wondering what in my
response captured his attention.

Rocky pulled the Equinox onto the ramp for
I-85, heading north, towards the city. He took his time responding.
It was obvious to me, from the way he evaded my question, that
something was bothering him. I let him mull it over in peace,
turning my attention to my new surroundings. The amount of traffic
in Atlanta surprised me, but Rocky seemed undaunted by it as he
negotiated around slower drivers. Finally, he spoke.

“If, as Linc says, you’re a target and you
need a bodyguard, it seems to me the guy had more than ample time
and opportunity to snatch you, or even whack you. Why didn’t
he?”

“I don’t know.” That question hit me hard
because it came with an attached reminder. I was still vulnerable.
The man almost came within touching distance of me. He got that
close. All he had to do was pull a handgun from his pocket and
shoot me. Or a knife and stab me. He could have even just broken my
neck with one simple twist. So, why didn’t he make a move? “He
didn’t even try.”

“No?” Rocky sounded almost confused by the
situation, but considering his job was to keep me alive and through
dumb luck I was still breathing, I could see why he might feel that
way.

“Not at all. I had my back turned to him at
the time, so he could have snuck up on me and I wouldn’t have seen
him coming. If it wasn’t for Dave sounding the alarm, he might have
snatched Kary.”

“But why would someone who’s trying to get to
you want to take the dog?”

Chapter
Seventeen

“I don’t know. None of this makes sense to
me. In Windham, the hit woman shoved me in the trunk of the car
instead of killing me, so the New York state cops thought I must
have information she needed and that’s why she didn’t try to kill
me right away. And even after someone shot her dead, another guy
tried to grab me, but the cops stopped him. That’s how I got my ear
pierced by a bullet.”

“You were shot?”

“Yes. The doctor said I was lucky to keep my
ear.” I turned my head and lifted up my purple headband to show him
the damage. From his reaction, I guessed my ear still looked like
gazpacho.

“Ah...maybe you should tell me all about
that, Marigold,” Rocky insisted. “From what I understood, you just
needed a temporary babysitter until the FBI sorted this out. Folks
didn’t seem to think there was much of a chance someone would try
to come after you again, and certainly not while there was a cop
standing thirty feet away. That was brazen. I’m not convinced this
incident jives with the others. For one thing, it would have been a
lot easier to grab you in the parking garage, which is far more
secluded and less public than the dog park. Or better still, why
not just wait until you and I are on our way and run us off the
road?”

“There’s a cheery thought,” I grimaced.

“I’m just saying that’s the normal thing that
happens in a case like this. With a murder for hire, the shooter
doesn’t want to get caught. It’s all about survival for the bad
guy.”

“Need I remind you the man got away? He
hopped over the fence and fled. And they still haven’t caught
him.”

Rocky’s eyes narrowed as I said that. I could
tell he was tossing the facts around in his head and he didn’t seem
to like what he ended up with when the dust settled.

“Why try to steal a dog from an airport dog
park? It’s dumb. You’re going to show up on surveillance cameras.
Everything is covered in case of a terror attack.” He gave me the
rundown on the efforts by the responsible law enforcement agencies,
from Homeland Security to the Atlanta Police. “There’s even a
police station inside the Ground Transportation Building, and you
saw for yourself there are cops all over the place.”

“Who knows? Maybe he was trying to get me to
follow Kary, so he could attack me.”

“Why not just take you out and forget the
dog? Why cause such a scene in front of so many witnesses?”

“Maybe I was supposed to have an accident. A
car might have hit me as I chased him into the street....”

“That’s too iffy. How did he know you were
going to run after the dog? In order to hit you with a car, his
accomplice would have to show up at just the right moment. It’s
hard to control a plot like that.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, now feeling a
more than a little exasperated with him. Rocky was a highly focused
investigator. I hated the fact that he was so logical, especially
since none of this made any sense to me.

“The point is he picked a really bad place to
make a move on you. Either he’s not a professional killer or he’s
the world’s dumbest hit man.”

“I don’t understand. You think this was just
an ordinary crime, a dog-napping, not an attempt to kill me?” I
inquired. Rocky’s theory came as a surprise. That thought hadn’t
occurred to me. “How can you be so sure?”

“A professional contract killer not only sets
up the kill, but also the getaway. The smart thing to do is lie in
wait until the moment is right. It’s a matter of intelligence. He’s
going to figure out the contingencies and cover all the variables.
A professional killer is just that, well-trained in murder. He’s
even going to have a modus operandi, right down to his signature on
the killing and the weapon of choice. Is it supposed to look like
an ordinary accident or is it supposed to send a message?”

Those words hit me like a sharp blast of
liquid nitrogen, instantly chilling me right down to my core,
imprinting the image of a cold, calculating killer on my brain. Why
did that image stay with me as the miles rolled on, refusing to let
go? I kept thinking about it, gazing out the window as we came into
Atlanta proper, unable to get it out of my head. Hired killers made
plans. Was that why Tovar showed up at the Gilded Nest
unexpectedly? Did he know there was a contract out on me? Was he
following the killer...or was the killer following him?

So many things had changed in the last few
months. Between Shaun retiring and Eve going out on maternity
leave, Tovar was the only person I still knew on the witness
protection team. He escorted me to my new location. He was the one
who found me the apartment by the lake. He even helped me get
started with my business, encouraging me to hire helpers. If it had
only been a matter of Tovar being shot at the Gilded Nest that
night, I might go on believing that he stumbled unexpectedly into
the banquet facility on the heels of a killer’s arrival, but there
was always something that just never seemed right about it. Why
hadn’t he called me first? My phone was on that night. He could
have sent me a text to warn me. And yet, he didn’t.