Reluctant Witness (25 page)

The story was published in 1999, apparently
just a few years after Jeff’s accident. It was the first book in
the Serena Duvall Caribbean Dreaming romantic suspense series, all
set in the islands. It didn’t take long for me to lose myself in
the tale. The opening line of the first chapter skillfully managed
to capture my attention.

“Silence!” he hissed at me. “They will hear
you and kill us both!”

I felt the insistent hand cover my mouth and
tasted the skin of those rough, masculine fingers on my lips. In
the faint glow of moonlight, I couldn’t see his face, but as I
fought his effort to subdue me, my hands brushed the stubble on his
cheeks and tangled in the locks of his shoulder-length hair. How I
longed to claw myself free!

He held me fast, tucked into the shadows,
his hot breath on my neck as he kept one arm around my waist. I
struggled, only to find my arms yanked behind my back.

“Stop it,” he whispered, his lips pressed
against my ear. “Don’t you know they will slice your throat and
dump you at sea as fish bait? Is that really how you wish to
die?”

Recoiling, I turned my head, desperate to
see my captor. He loosened his grip on me, twirling me around until
I could gaze up at the shadowy figure in front of me. As his hand
came away from my mouth, I uttered the one question that mattered
most to me.

“Who are you?”

“I am Inspecteur Principal Jean-Claude
Noiret, Interpol, at your service!”

“Interpol? But...I am not a criminal!” I
sputtered, my voice hushed. “What are you doing here?”

“I am on the trail of a very dangerous
fugitive from justice.”

“Here? On a spice farm?” I was dumbfounded.
“But...who?”

“Le Scorpion, a ruthless drug trafficker, a
man who has destroyed many lives with his evil. He was born
Guillaume Chartier, but you, mademoiselle, know him better by his
alias, Alain Beaumont.”

A cold, dark force pierced my heart, taking
my breath as it punched through my lungs. I felt the whoosh of air
escape from my lips, even as this stranger moved to catch me. His
strong, masculine arms held me fast as the night went black and I
lost consciousness.

When I came to, I was no longer in the
shadows of the drying shed, but some distance away, in a grove of
cacao trees. Inspecteur Noiret cradled me in his capable arms.

“What happened?” I whispered, still feeling
fragile.

“You passed out. There is no need to panic,
mademoiselle. We will capture Chartier. Have no fear.”

“No,” I protested. “It’s not that. It’s
that...it’s that...I just made him my partner in the business.”

“You own this place?” Inspecteur Noiret
sounded dismayed.

I felt my throat go dry as I tried to speak.
Suddenly, the emotional roller coaster ride of the last few weeks
made sense. The man I had only known for little more than three
months, the man who had swept me off my feet so unexpectedly,
professing his undying love, was a fraud. Even as I had demurred,
he pressed himself on me, insisting that it was to our mutual
benefit. Even as I had gently refused, he grew more insistent by
the day, plying me with gifts meant to seduce. He promised that I
would grow to love him, for he would make himself worthy of me. It
was all a con. “It was what he wanted for a wedding present from
me.”

“Mon dieu!” he muttered. “The man is a
fiend! Does this mean you two are married?”

As I read, my thoughts returned briefly,
painfully, to Jared. Was it the Caribbean setting of the story? I
thought about the trip we took because he was worried about his
Dutch Island Investments. Why did that bother me? Surely it was a
coincidence that he chose Dutch Island as the name of his firm. It
was just a local Jamestown landmark, a piece of Rhode Island
history, wasn’t it? I thought about the times we had kayaked there,
packing a picnic lunch to share on the rocks as the ocean rolled
in.

But then I got a nagging feeling, deep in my
gut. Why did I think Jared Spears and Alain Beaumont had more in
common than just the Caribbean?

Just before he was murdered, Jared had taken
me to Curaçao. We spent several days there, relaxing on Blue Bay
Beach. He had asked me to sign papers when we went to the bank in
Willemstad, said they were just a formality. We weren’t going to
have a prenuptial agreement, at least not the usual kind, because
Jared knew I was going to remain faithful to him during our
marriage. He trusted me with his money. Should I have wondered
whether he was trustworthy, too?

Chapter Twenty
Three

Maybe I was thinking too much about matters I
didn’t understand. After all, the man I had promised to marry was
now dead. How could he be involved with the people who now chasing
me? None of this made any sense to me. And yet, there were still
too many questions left unanswered. Was my mind just trying to fill
in the blanks by imagining what might have happened, instead of
what really did?

What did I actually know with certainty? What
were the facts? I forced myself to look back to a time in my life
that was absolutely terrifying. If I put aside my heart and focused
on the scene in front of me, what did I see? Jared was dead,
murdered by a person or persons unknown. Real bullets cut him down.
He bled real blood all over my floor. That’s what I saw when I
walked into my home, a dead man on the floor. But it was more than
that. The initial shock of finding his corpse sent my senses
reeling. And later, as the long hours wore on, my mind just went
numb. I experienced a profound sense of guilt that I hadn’t been
there for Jared’s last breath. He had died alone. In my distraught
state, had I missed something important?

I pushed myself to recall that image as I
stepped over the threshold. Why was I so shocked? The condo was
empty. I was alone with a dead body. What did that mean? The killer
hadn’t waited around to for me to return. Why wasn’t he lying in
wait for me if I was his target?

All this time, I’d paid attention to how I
felt at that moment in time. I saw the events through my tears.
Now, as I sat here in this quiet spot, in this tranquil sanctuary,
those long-unexplored questions began to slowly rise to the surface
of my conscious mind and make their presence known. Why didn’t the
killer just wait for me to return? Why did he kill the man I loved,
but not me?

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, except
when the heart is involved. It’s almost impossible to get past the
emotions when it’s someone you love lying on the floor dead.
Shaking myself out of these ridiculous thoughts, I forced myself to
read on.

“The wedding is scheduled for tomorrow
afternoon, in the garden,” I informed Inspecteur Noiret. He scowled
as he listened.

“How fortuitous! Chartier must have gotten
word that we were looking into his shipments of coffee. He knows a
wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband.”

“Are you going to arrest him?” I asked him.
My words went unanswered as the Frenchman unexpectedly pulled me
down to the ground. Two men were heading our way, deep in
conversation, and as we tucked ourselves into the shadows, I
recognized one of the speakers.

“Where can she be?” Alain grumbled. “She
should be in the house.”

“She’s probably just getting some fresh
air,” Louis, his assistant, replied confidently. “It’s just a case
of wedding jitters.”

“It better be. You are certain you
thoroughly checked out her background? This is not some plot to
penetrate my organization?”

“I swear, boss. She’s as pure as the driven
snow. Not a traffic ticket or even a whiff of scandal.”

“You’d better be right, mon ami. If I find
out that you allowed a mole into the Scorpion’s burrow, I will
personally kill you with my bare hands and it will be a long, slow,
excruciating death!”

Those words caused me to shiver. I felt
Inspecteur Noiret pull me closer in his strong arms. As my head
rested against his shoulder, I felt the thumping of my heart inside
my chest and I understood how real my fear of Alain was. Perhaps
that was my reason for resistance all these weeks. Had I somehow
known that underneath the shining veneer Alain Beaumont showed to
the world, there was an evil man? Alain’s assistant spoke
again.

“My information came from three different
sources, including a former DGI officer. You know how thorough the
Cubans are!”

“Well, I just don’t like this. I don’t like
this at all. She shouldn’t be wondering around so late at night,
not in the dark. If, as you say, the cops have been making
inquiries, she is likely to become a target. The sooner I can marry
her, the sooner I will be able to disappear. Now that the coffee
business is showing a profit, it is time to use it wisely. We will
begin to substitute the new barrels next week. Let’s start with a
hundred and see if they get through United States Customs....” The
voices faded as the men returned to the house.

As he let me go and pulled out his
walkie-talkie, I knelt on the ground beside Inspecteur Noiret,
feeling sick to my stomach. How could I have been so foolish? How
could I not know?

“Did he invest his drug profits in my
family’s business?” I demanded. “Is all of this part of some kind
of criminal syndicate?”

“Shh!” he warned me. “I must inform my
colleagues, lest they walk into a trap!”

I shivered in the darkness as he conversed
in hushed tones, feeling my growing anger as I began to put the
pieces together. A wife might not be forced to testify against her
husband, but I was not yet a wife, and I was certainly willing to
tell Interpol everything I knew about the man who called himself
Alain Beaumont. Let them arrest the bastard tonight, while he
waited for my return.

“Okay, I will,” said Inspecteur Noiret. “I
will do that right now.”

He took my elbow as we huddled in the
shadows, leaning against me as his lips brushed my ear. A tiny
thrill filled me at his touch. Was it because I was angry at being
used by Alain or because Inspecteur Noiret was so attractive? I
hadn’t even seen this stranger’s eyes. I didn’t know what color
they were, what shape they were, or even what they looked like when
he laughed. But something inside me reacted to the sound of his
voice, the touch of his hand.

“I have bad news, mademoiselle. We must send
you back in there.”

“What? You cannot be serious! You heard him
say he would kill me!”

“Yes, I did. Unfortunately, we are not
prepared at this moment in time to rescue you. But I promise I will
come to you tonight. Leave your window open. Which is your
room?”

“In the front, by the rocking chair on the
veranda. But...you cannot think I can just waltz back into the
house and pretend nothing is wrong!”

“Unfortunately, that is exactly what you
must do. Pretend you have a headache...or an upset stomach. Tell
Chartier anything that makes sense. And if he asks you where you
have been and why you left, tell him you are sad that your family
is not with you.”

“But how...how did you know that?”

“It is simple, mademoiselle. Your family
would have never allowed you to marry this beast, any more than
they would have allowed you, a single woman, to move to these
islands.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I was taken aback by
his statement. How could he possibly know what my family would or
wouldn’t do? I was twenty-six, old enough to make my own
decisions.

“Is it? I have been chasing Chartier for the
better part of a decade, and in all that time, I have never once
seen him romance a woman who has family. It complicates things when
it’s time to get rid of her. And he always gets rid of a woman when
she is no longer useful. I still have three female bodies in a
Paris morgue that are unidentified. He counts on them to be
anonymous. Women who have no roots can disappear and no one is the
wiser.”

Women who have no roots can disappear....I
was in the WitSec program when I met Jared. Right up until the day
we sat down with Shaun, Tovar, Eve, and the department lawyer to
discuss my status as a protected witness, I had kept the secret
from the man I planned to marry. What was bothering me about that
meeting?

“Finding the book to your liking?” Jeff
appeared unexpectedly in the doorway, watching me read. I sat up,
startled.

“Um...yes, I am.”

“And yet you were frowning.”

“It...it reminds me of something that
happened to me.”

“Really? Tell me more.” He sat on the end of
the bed, eager to hear my story.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to do that.”

“Well, I guess I’ll give you the bad news now
and get it out of the way, in case whatever it is that’s bothering
you is something you need to share with someone. According to Tom,
the Department of Justice has decided not to prosecute anyone for
the murder of Jared Spears. The man they arrested for the crime was
found dead in his jail cell in Leavenworth, and they have no other
active leads.”

“Oh,” I replied, feeling rather numb. “Does
that mean I go back into Witness Protection and get relocated?”

“More bad news, I’m afraid. The Marshals
Service has declined to protect you because they feel you
compromised the security of their personnel.”

“They what?”

“They are refusing to bring you in because
they think you leaked information on the program.”

“But I didn’t, I swear!”

“Marigold, they found confidential
information in Jared’s office, details he could have only gotten
from you.”

“It’s not true!” I cried. “It can’t be!”

I stared out at the wide expanse of concrete,
my tears stinging as they cascaded down my reddening cheeks.

“Look, I know you’re upset. If it’s any
consolation, you’re more than welcome to stay here.”

“Even though you think I did what they said?”
I snapped. I couldn’t disguise the bitterness of my situation. “No,
don’t worry. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can figure out
what to do.”