Tom pulled up, got out and opened the passenger door for her.
“I feel like some sort of ambassador,” she said. “This is really all for me?”
A trooper cruiser idled in front of the Durango, about to lead them to the Department of Family Services on the other side of the complex. Another cruiser rolled into position at the rear. Tom had been foolish to think any of this could be low-profile. Witness protection was not like witness relocation. He returned to the driver’s seat as Heather drew the seatbelt across her midriff and clicked in.
The lead car got going, took the service road, which circled round the complex, Tom following close behind. They traveled alongside the high fence with its unending coil of cyclone wire, then made a turn.
Heather let out a trembling breath as the jail receded in the mirrors.
“Probably never thought you’d be on this end of the system,” Tom said.
“No.” She placed her hands in her lap and kneaded her knuckles. Then she cracked the joints, the popping noises a surprise.
“You alright?”
“I miss my children. I hope they’re okay.”
“I called last night around midnight. Both girls were sleeping soundly.”
She faced him. “Thank you. So, what happens now?”
“What happens now is you’re going into witness protection. So far we’ve done damage control best as we could; we’re telling the press that this is highly sensitive, to completely back off — no one even knows you’re being released today, okay? So we have to be careful who you talk to.”
She covered her mouth, then seemed to compose herself. “What about my job? My house?”
“You’ll be in seclusion at first, someone with you and the girls around the clock. We’ll work things out with the clinic. Your house should be fine — there’ll be someone keeping an eye on it.”
“My God. How did these people find me? Who put that thing in my car?”
“We’re going to find out.”
“Are they the same people who shot at me? Are we going to be safe?”
He glanced at her, tried to be comforting. “That’s the plan, to keep you safe.”
Heather put her head in her hands and rubbed her face, smoothed back her hair. “Ugh. I need a shower . . . What about school? Poor Olivia.”
“Unfortunately, we’ll have to keep Olivia out of school and Abigail out of day care for now . . .”
“Where are we going to stay — if we’re not going home?”
Tom didn’t answer. After a couple seconds, Heather gave him a penetrative look and repeated the question. “Where are we staying?”
“I’ve booked a hotel.”
“A hotel?” She averted her eyes. “Is that normal? I would’ve expected some government-subsidized housing. Like a safe house, or something?”
Tom got a better grip on the steering wheel. They were arriving at the Department of Family Services. The jail was still visible through the rear window.
“I’ll level with you,” he said. “Witness protection can be tricky. This is a state-run program we’re working with right now, and it takes time. You have to understand, most witness protection and security programs are about protecting criminals who are informing on their bosses or organizations. So, they’re already in jail, and this all gets set up while they’re just sitting there. But, you’re out.”
“Because I’m not guilty of anything.”
Tom felt her cool gaze, and she turned to look out the window. Her words hung in the air, but he thought they’d sounded unconvinced. No doubt she was still grappling with the role she’d played in Declan’s death; questioning her actions, wondering if she might have done something different, which would have led to another, more favorable, outcome. One in which no one died. He knew he would have been. He wasn’t much for analyzing himself — the department shrink did it for him — but he was pretty sure he knew how to pile on the guilt and second-guessing.
Heather continued to massage her hands, the knuckles no longer popping.
The lead trooper pulled up in front of the DFS, a single-story gray building. Tom stopped behind him and faced Heather. “At this point, here’s how we consider it: you’re being treated as an eye witness to a gang killing, or what we call a street crime. The federal government is not intervening here, this is just us. You can leave anytime. But I seriously recommend that you don’t.”
Since her own clothes had been booked into evidence, Heather had been given a pair of navy blue slacks and a white t-shirt to wear. She had no make-up on, but she was naturally pretty, a kind of Dutch look to her — wavy blonde hair that nested on her shoulders, average height, slender frame.
A deep crease formed between her eyebrows and she leaned back a bit. “I understand all of that, and please understand I am very grateful. Okay? I’m sorry I’m so on edge right now, I just don’t know how I’m going to stay in a single room with my girls for — how long? A few weeks? Longer? I mean, even a few days and those girls will be climbing the walls. I probably will be, too.”
“There’s a pool.” He knew it was a weak offering and smiled.
“A pool . . .” She broke into a smile and laughed. She put a hand over her eyes and swiped her fingers across her forehead.
“It’s heated,” Tom said.
* * *
The girls came running and Heather swept them into her arms. Olivia was rapid-fire talking about her overnight adventure, her younger sister chiming in with the last word in nearly every sentence. “Eat! Bed! Teevee!”
Watching Heather embrace her daughters, and seeing the way the girls adored their mother, Tom felt a tightness in his chest. He caught the gaze of a social worker who offered a soft smile. Tom made his way to her and asked how things had gone.
“Very good. They’re extremely polite girls.” The social worker looked over Tom’s shoulder at the family reunion. “We’re pulling for her,” she said. “Heather is one of the good ones. Whatever you have to do . . .”
Tom nodded and returned to Heather and her daughters, glancing at the state troopers waiting outside the glass doors.
“Okay, let’s get going.”
Olivia stared up at him. “Hey, I know you.”
“Hey, I know you, too.”
Two minutes later they were strapping the girls into their car seats. A trooper from each of the vehicles stood guard, backs to the Durango, as Tom wrestled with the older girl’s harness.
“In the middle there,” Heather said, pointing to the clasp. “The shoulder belts snap together right there. Then the whole thing goes into the buckle between her legs.”
Tom nodded. A bead of sweat rolled down his nose. Olivia was looking out the window, oblivious to his struggle. “Mom, do we have any snacks?”
“No snacks, baby.”
Heather was more dexterous when it came to the child seats and already had Abigail snapped in. She kept kissing the girl, smoothing her wispy hair. Tears continued to brim in Heather’s eyes, but Tom thought she was a pillar of strength.
“There,” Tom said at last. “Good to go.”
Heather got up on her tip-toes and leaned over Abigail, stretched across the back seat and grabbed a strap. She yanked on it. “Needs to be a little tighter.”
More runnels of sweat coursed down the sides of Tom’s face. It wasn’t even that hot out. He couldn’t imagine having to maneuver these kids in and out of car seats multiple times a day. Torture.
Heather grasped the tension strap and gave it a yank. The whole harness cinched around Olivia to the point Tom thought it would cut off the girl’s circulation, but Olivia didn’t seem bothered.
One of the troopers came over with two heavy Kevlar blankets.
“These are ballistic blankets,” Tom explained. “This is an armored vehicle, but these are fireproof, will resist any fragmentation.” He unfolded one and wrapped it around Olivia, who acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. The trooper went around and placed the second blanket over Abigai
l, fastening it around the child seat with Velcro straps.
Heather looked uneasy. Tom grabbed something else from one of the troopers, held it out to Heather, who blanched at the sight of it. “This is standard-duty body armor. It’s pretty comfortable.”
As Tom was helping Heather get into the armored vest, Olivia asked, “How about twist, Mommy? Do we have twist?”
“No, honey, no twist.”
Dressed in the special armor, Heather gave Abigail one more peck on the nose before closing the door. She got in the front passenger seat and Tom slipped behind the wheel, giving her a look. “Twist?”
“I put a mixture of two kinds of cereal in a plastic bag. We call it ‘twist’.”
“Gotcha.” He kept the vehicle in park a moment. “You’ll get used to the vest.”
“I don’t want to.”
Then they were rolling again, this time leaving the whole complex behind — the jail, DFS. Tom kept his eyes moving.
“Where’s my bag?” Heather asked.
“It’s at the ROC.”
“The ROC?”
“Regional Operations Center. It’s a mixture of crime lab and administrative offices.”
“It’s a twist,” Olivia said, from the back seat.
“Exactly.”
* * *
The troopers kept their lights off. The convoy moved at a good clip, threading through the thick traffic. The sun burst from behind parting clouds and Tom put on his sunglasses.
Abigail squirmed in under the ballistic blanket. Olivia asked: “Are we going home?”
“No, we’re not going home.” Heather turned to the girls. “We’re going to a hotel.”
“A hotel? Like a vacation?”
“Yep. Like a vacation.”
“But Mom, I don’t have my bag packed.”
“That’s okay, baby. We’ll get everything we need.”
Heather faced forward again. They turned off 41 onto Immokalee Road, and an odor filled the car. Tom flicked another look at Heather, who was smiling. A real smile, showing the person she was before this supernova of danger and fear had exploded her life.
“We might need some pull-ups,” she said. “It’s a type of diaper for potty-training. Abby has been doing the big-girl potty, right honey?”
“Ight!”
Heather lowered her voice. “But sometimes we have a little accident.”
“Is that what that is?”
She nodded and kept looking him.
“Now?” he asked.
“You got any on you?”
“Can it wait?”
“How far are we going?”
“Just ten more minutes.”
“But how soon until we get some supplies?”
“Maybe an hour.”
“I’d really like to change her. They put a diaper on her at DFS, but I’d rather she didn’t sit in it for that long.”
Tom took out his cell phone and called the lead trooper, explained that they needed to make a detour. “We have to, ah, pick up a few personal items for the family.”
* * *
They pulled into a shopping center and parked a distance away from the store entrance. Tom had Heather write down everything she needed. By the time she was done with the list, it was a dozen items long.
The trooper gave it a look and said nothing, just glanced in at Tom and his passengers, then trotted off to do the shopping.
“I bet he didn’t expect this was going to be part of his day,” Heather said.
Other troopers stood around, giving them cover. Tom made small talk with Olivia while they waited and Heather broke the news to the girl that she was going to miss school. Olivia had a lot of questions, and Heather fielded most of them.
Tom admired her. She didn’t lie to her daughters outright but was nimble with the truth.
When the trooper returned, Heather requested Tom open the back hatch of the Durango. Among the purchased items was a box of wipes. With the troopers and Tom forming a human shield around the back of the vehicle, Heather changed the two year-old in what had to be record time. She folded up the used diaper, fastened it to itself with the sticky straps, and held it out to him. “Evidence?”
“No, we can let that one go,” Tom said. He nodded to the trooper beside him who took it and moved off, looking a bit green.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The hotel had been selected for its location — off the beaten path but still relatively close to Naples and Fort Myers — but also for its set up. It was seven stories high, with five potential entrances on the ground floor; the main entrance of the lobby, a door off the kitchen, and a second service door which led to a rear loading dock. The two stairwells were exit-only and an alarm would sound when opened. The kitchen door also had an exit, but no alarm.
A security detail awaited their arrival. One agent was posted at each door. There would be three eight-hour shifts going around the clock. Nine agents just on lower building security, then three shifts upstairs on the top floor, where the room was. Twelve agents every day. A single day was going to cost upwards of three thousand dollars, just in manpower.
Tom recognized the agent guarding the room as Damien Culpepper. After Tom helped Heather and her girls settle in, he stepped out into the hall and shook the man’s hand.
Culpepper, a Florida native with a permanent tan, raised his blond eyebrows. “Pretty crazy.”
“Yeah . . . they pulled you from Governor Protection, huh?”
“Yeah.” Culpepper loaded a stick of gum into his mouth. “Want one?”
“Sure, thanks.” Tom unwrapped the piece handed to him.
“So you’re back on normal duties, huh?” Culpepper got a crooked smile. “You never said why you were there, but I know you didn’t sign up for Governor Protection . . .”
Tom had thought of it as being sidelined, but there was no need to insult what Culpepper did — protecting the governor was important work. “I needed out of investigations,” Tom said, “while they ran me through therapy.”
Culpepper accepted this with a nod. “Gotcha. Shit, first day back in the field and you’ve got this mega case and you’re pulling all these strings. I guess therapy worked.”
Tom gave the hallway a look up and down, chewed his gum and commented no further on it. Two elevators on the east end beside the stairwell, and on the west end the hall made a turn out of sight. “What’s the word on all this?”
“You want me to blow smoke up your ass or do you want the unvarnished truth?”
“I’ll take unvarnished.”
“People think this is crazy.” He looked at the room door, marked 702, slightly ajar. Sounds of the TV drifted through the crack — rubbery cartoon voices. Culpepper said, “A few people think a potential murderer is out walking around with protection. The rest just think it’s excessive.”
“The rest?”
“Well . . .” The agent smirked. “Not me.”
“It’s excessive to protect a woman whose daughters have been threatened the way they were?”
Culpepper put up his hands and shifted the gum between his cheeks. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, right? No, I mean, everybody gets that. But there’s just a sentiment, is all I’m saying . . .”
“That we should’ve kept her in jail?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not complaining. This is better than working GP, less travel, closer to home. But, you know, taxpayers are already floating the bill for the jail, and social services, and now there’s this.” He raised and dropped his shoulders a second time. “You know how it is.”
“Yeah.” Tom peered into the room. Heather’s shape blurred past. She wanted to call people — her parents, brother, friends — assure everyone she was alright. The shooting at her home had been widely reported. They’d gone over most of the protocols, about what to say and what not to say to the people she spoke with. The phones at the hotel had been checked for security and the one in the room outfitted with a recorder. But officially, she still needed
to be briefed by someone from the Violent Crime and Drug Control Council; they were supposed to be arriving presently.
Tom’s phone rang in his pocket. He nodded at Culpepper and wandered down the hall as he took the call.
“Hey, Lauren,” he said.
“You got a minute to meet me downstairs?”
“For you? I got five.”
“That joke is older than I am,” she said.
* * *
Blythe had brought them a couple of hot coffees. They sat in her Crown Vic, facing west, watching the sun slide slowly towards a horizon of tall, slender trees. Tom had a file folder with him which he let sit on his lap.
She nodded her head towards the vegetation.
“You know what we’re looking at, there?”
Tom sipped his coffee. “Woods?”
“Very good, Agent Lange. Virgin bald cypress, that’s correct.” She pointed with her cup of coffee. “That’s the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.” She cut him a look. “But I’m sure you knew that.”
He smiled, took another sip.
She said, “Thirteen thousand acres in the heart of the Corkscrew Watershed. Seven hundred acres of the largest remaining virgin bald cypress forest in the world, and home to the largest nesting colony of wood storks in the country. That’s a federally endangered species, I might add.” She glanced around, pointing out more with her cup. “I guess it’s not a bad spot you’ve picked, is my point. You’ve got Orangetree two miles down the road there, and then Ave Maria five miles back that way. Ten minutes to the Immokalee Regional Airport, too.”
“Don’t forget the casino.”
Blythe ducked her head to get a look up at the hotel. “And how is our guest doing?”
“She’s okay.”
“You watch the news?”
“I’ve seen a little.”
“Well, you know we’ve kept her anonymous. But the media was all over the shooting, they know who she is, they’re speculating that the shooting is related to Declan’s death because they know she does mental health work for the jail. So, they’re looking for her. Is she going to be able to handle all this?”
Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set Page 37