Reluctant Witness (36 page)

“
You okay?” Nancy plopped
down on the chaise lounge beside me, toweled off her short hair,
and leaned back. “Something in the book bothering you?”

Her eyes were set upon me, studying my face.
I found myself flinching under such scrutiny.

“
Talk to me, Marigold,” she
insisted firmly.

“
I’m almost done with the
book and I can’t see how the main characters can ever find their
way clear of the mess they’re in. She’s been betrayed by a man who
only married her to get his hands on her coffee plantation, so he
could use it as cover to export drugs from Guadeloupe. And the man
who helped her, an Interpol policeman, faked their deaths so his
colleagues could penetrate the drug smuggling operation. Where does
that leave them? In limbo....”

“
Living off the grid?” she
suggested. “Underground?”

“
Doesn’t it mean they will
have to assume new identities somewhere far away?”

“
Like you’ve done more than
once?”

I nodded. I had to admit I was worried about
the future, especially now that I had been kicked out of the
witness protection program. It had been my sanctuary since I was
sixteen. I worried about who and what I would become next.

“
Marigold, what if your
fianc
é started this whole thing independent
of you? What if Jared had problems of his own before you two met?
You said that he arranged for you to go with him to Curaçao, to
sign papers for a bank account. That should have caused quite a
stir for the marshals. After all, how would they be expected to
protect you if you’re out of the country?”

“
Yes, but they approved the
trip,” I replied. “It’s not like I had to beg them for
permission.”

“
That’s the odd thing about
all this. It was their job to protect your safety, but towards the
end of your time in Windham, you were the proverbial sitting
duck.”

I felt my chest tighten at those words. “You
think one of my handlers deliberately compromised my identity?”

“
It’s possible.”

“
Why would someone do
that?”

“
It could be for any number
of reasons. If this is all about Jared, it’s possible that when he
showed up in your life, he triggered law enforcement alarm bells,
not because of your history with the WitSec program, but because of
his own.”

“
You mean he wasn’t
murdered because of me?” All these months of carrying around the
burden of my guilt had taken a toll on me. The emotional weight had
been heavy on my shoulders. How could I not believe my past caused
the man I was about to marry to forfeit his life?

“
Maybe Jared’s been the
problem all along. Think about it. You’ve been in WitSec since you
were a teenager. You’ve spent your whole life on the run, so to
speak, living a lie so you could hide in plain sight. Along comes
Jared, this international businessman, and all those years you
lived in relative safety are lost. The guy gets murdered in your
condo and you get kicked out of the witness protection program.
You’re on your own, without family or friends. That makes you
expendable, Marigold.”

“
Expendable?”

“
If you were murdered, who
would know, let alone care?” The words were so blunt, so
matter-of-fact that they hit me like a sledge hammer. I found
myself suddenly feeling nauseated. But Nancy wasn’t done. “If you
knew someone’s secret, it would die with you.”

“
What kind of
secret?”

“
Maybe Jared told you
something before he died. Or maybe one of his associates fears he
did. Maybe you pose a unique threat because you were in the witness
protection program for so long and you were so well-protected, the
only way to bury that secret is to bury you. But first, it was
necessary to get you kicked out of the WitSec program. That way, by
turning suspicion on you, the bad guy deflected attention from
himself. Everyone would assume Jared’s death, like yours, was the
result of what happened to your family when you were a teenager,
instead of something Jared did.”

“
You think I know something
important?”

“
It’s possible. Did you
ever meet Jared’s friends?” Nancy wanted to know. I
nodded.

“
Sure, lots of
times.”

“
I wonder if you met the
man who arranged for you to be stalked. Lincoln says there were two
attempts to kidnap you on the same night. The first contract killer
got into a shootout with your handler, and the second was shot in
her car. But there was also the man who shot at the state police
when they tried to help you.”

“
He was a stranger,” I told
her. “Not the same man who showed up at the Gilded Nest and shot
Tovar, but I think he showed up at the ski chalet later that
night.”

“
So, we’re looking at
someone who has enough money to hire some well-trained muscle. That
kind of help doesn’t come cheap.”

“
I never did get to collect
the money from that bank account in Curaçao, even though Jared told
me his lawyer would handle it if anything happened to him. Maybe
someone is afraid I’ll try to claim it. Could that explain the
contract killers?”

“
If Jared arranged for you
to benefit from his death, maybe someone needs to keep you alive
long enough to move that money to a secret bank account, and once
that’s done, it’s time to carry out the hit on you.”

“
But surely Jared’s
attorney could just arrange for the money transfer.”

“
Not if there were business
associates with a financial interest in his estate. They would want
to legally claim any monies as company assets. It’s possible that
reporter stirred up the pot by focusing too much attention on
Jared. That might explain why folks want to take you alive and why
they don’t mind killing anyone who gets in the way.”

“
Is it possible that the
person doing this thinks Jared shared a secret with me?”

“
Either that or your fiancé
actually did tell you something,” Nancy replied thoughtfully. “And
that something can unravel a well-laid plan, even if you don’t
understand the meaning of the information. Someone might be worried
you’ll eventually figure it out and spill the beans. It could
explain why your WitSec team was hit.”

“
But they survived, didn’t
they?”

“
Yes, they survived, but
that was more luck than anything else. With three members of your
team assaulted, Washington would normally order a major
investigation into why they were targeted. I’d love to get my hands
on that report. Who interviewed you after the two incidents in New
York?”

“
Interviewed me? Philomena
and Inspector Vidal did, at the state police barracks.”

“
No, no. Who from the
Marshals Service came to speak to you?”

“
No one did,” I
shrugged.

“
No one from the United
States Marshals Service questioned you about what happened?” Her
eyebrows shot up.

“
The only people who were
interested in me were the New York State Police.”

“
That’s strange. Maybe Linc
can find out why you weren’t interviewed.” Nancy pulled out her
Smartphone again and starting tapping on the tiny
screen.

Half an hour later, we had an answer.
According to the United States Marshals Service, I had voluntarily
left the witness protection program, signing all the paperwork
right before I disappeared.

“
But I didn’t disappear, I
was kidnapped!” I protested. “And I didn’t sign
anything!”

“
We know that, Marigold,
but that’s the official story according to Washington. That’s why
there was no interview with you after your handler was shot. He
insists you notified him that you were leaving the program. He was
coming to see you to find out why.”

“
Tovar came to the Gilded
Nest that night because I quit? But I didn’t!”

“
The man drove from Rhode
Island to catch you at the event you were working and he just
happened to get shot when he arrived. You got snatched by a second
contract killer. That can’t be a coincidence, Marigold. That was an
effort to tie up loose ends. The question is can we follow the
thread and unravel the concocted story? My gut is telling me that
the second we pull on one thread, the others will follow. This
whole plot has depended upon one thing.”

“
What’s that?”

“
Nobody asked any
questions.”

“
Which isn’t normal,” I
pointed out. “You’ve all gotten farther in the last couple of days
by asking me questions than anyone else did.”

“
Exactly,” Nancy nodded.
“Somebody went to a lot of trouble to convince the marshals you
left the program voluntarily and to convince the FBI that you were
a security problem. But should folks sit down to compare their
notes, they’d know that you were set up. That means someone went to
a lot of trouble to make sure that never happens, and there’s only
one way to do that. You have to provide the answers before anyone
gets too curious.”

“
Who could manage to pull
those kinds of strings?” I wondered. She considered the
question.

“
Only someone with access
to you, someone with credibility.”

“
Oh. That’s not good, is
it?”

“
Well, there’s another way
to look at it, Marigold. You’re with us now and we’re not going to
let anyone from your past to get that close.”

We sat in silence for a few moments,
absorbing the implications of this mess. The magnitude of the
problem was what I couldn’t wrap my head around. But another
concern popped up on my radar.

“
Nance, why did the killer
flee after he killed Jared? Why not just wait for me to come home
and then kill me, too?”

“
Your status as a protected
witness was supposed to be the explanation for Jared’s murder.
Someone had to get rid of the guy, so you were used as the
scapegoat, to prevent anyone from looking into your
fianc
é’s life.”

“
So, now what do we do?” I
wondered.

“
You finish that book. I’m
going to talk to Jeff and Rocky. We’re going to get this solved,
Marigold.”

“
We are?” I took heart from
the aura of determination she exuded.

“
Sure. You think whoever is
behind this will just stop because he can’t find you?” She
grimaced. “He won’t stop until you’re out of the picture. Unless
I’m mistaken about the creep, he’ll use any means necessary to stop
us from exposing him.”

“
That’s a scary thought.” I
shuddered, despite the warm air.

“
I didn’t say he’d succeed,
Marigold. You’ve got us to look after you, and we’re not going to
quit. We just can’t let the bad guys win.”

Chapter Thirty
Three

Once we were back upstairs, I grabbed a can
of soda from the fridge in my hotel room and made my way to the
tiny balcony overlooking the water. The afternoon breeze was warm
and light, even this high up; it felt good on my skin. I relished
the chance to be outdoors after the long, cold winter spent in Lake
Placid. Settling in the patio chair, I opened my paperback. If
Nancy needed to read the book in order to understand my world, I
was more than happy to oblige by finishing the tale. I picked up
the story at the point where Nora found herself in the Virgin
Islands.

I sat alone on the veranda in the late
afternoon, watching the sea birds follow the fishing boat back to
Christiansted. Here on St. Croix, there was little for me to do as
the idyllic days seemed to crawl by at a turtle’s pace. This was
very much a waiting game. According to Davis, we were stuck here
until Jean-Claude returned. It had been five days without any word,
and my heart seemed to shrink a little every day that passed
without him.

Mifkin and Davis had rented a compound on
the island. It consisted of a main house with four bedrooms and two
guest cottages nestled on a cliff above Cane Bay. They used one of
the cottages as a command post.

Nurse Véronique was my constant companion,
hovering over me day and night. We had adjoining rooms at her
insistence and the door was left open. She was not about to let me
out of her sight. Davis told me on the second day that Jean-Claude
assigned her to keep me safe. Desperate to fill the hours, I
finally broke down on the third day and asked her if she knew how
to play any games. We found a backgammon board in a closet and set
it up on the dining table under the covered veranda, playing a few
rounds here, a few there, throughout the day. Once in a while,
Mifkin would challenge me. He said his preferred game was chess,
but he was content to roll the dice and move his checkers around
the backgammon board.

Véronique finally seemed to relax on the
fourth day. I found some books in a bookcase in the living room.
They were mostly about local history, but they helped fill the
time. She got out her needlework and stitched away as I read on the
patio. Once in a while, I would put on my bathing suit and take a
dip in the small pool. Not Véronique. She was on the clock and duty
came first.

It struck me that Nora and I had more in
common as she hid from Le Scorpion and her pursuers. She, too,
spent a lot of time waiting for life to happen while she was in
hiding and took solace in reading. It was a comfort to see witness
protection through her eyes, for I respected her as a character,
and her frustrations were so similar to my own. It was as if we
were kindred spirits. But we had other traits in common, I found
out, as I read on.