***
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Marshal Quinn?”
My new, temporary boss, Chief Deputy Jacquetta Krauss, with the Arlington U.S. Marshal Unit, was a very nice-looking woman in her early fifties. She had an aura of authority that told me she was the no-nonsense type.
“Uh, no, thanks.” I just want to know why the hell I’m here. “And call me Hettie or just Quinn. We’re all marshals here.”
“I appreciate that you had to drop everything to accommodate us, Hettie, and I promise, I’ll get you back to your unit as soon as I can.”
“My SD said you asked for me specifically. May I ask why?”
She carried her coffee cup over and placed it on the coffee table beside the chair facing the one I was sitting in. My transfer was to the headquarters building in Arlington, and unlike my SD’s office, which was practical but plain, Chief Deputy Krauss’ office was surprisingly inviting. Leather chairs in front of a large mahogany desk, a Tiffany desk lamp, and two oil portraits of U.S. Marshals that bore a striking resemblance to her. She had picture frames on her desk, but I couldn’t see who was in them.
“The witness asked for you specifically,” she stated as she sat down.
“Who is it?”
“You may know her as Contessa Yarbrough, or her married name, Morrison. We’ve given her a new identity, so you can call her Amanda Sanders from now on.”
“Contessa. Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. Is she a Russian countess or something?”
“No. Her grandmother was named Contessa. Anyway, she seems to know you.” She picked up a folder that was lying next to her coffee cup and handed it to me. Then she picked up her coffee cup again.
I looked at the picture stapled to the report. Contessa, nicknamed Connie, was a very pretty blonde with the saddest blue eyes. Understandable. Slim and pale, with just a hint of freckles across her button nose. Beautiful in a cute sort of way. I didn’t recognize her. The report said the father was double-tapped in the chest with a nine millimeter, bled out in a matter of minutes, the mother shot once in the forehead, died instantly. There were two witnesses after the fact; Connie and her neighbor, Betty Cobbs, and they both claimed not to have heard the shots, which told me that the shooter most likely used a suppressor. The report also said that it looked like the killer was searching for something, got interrupted and left. As sloppy as that seemed to me, the Feds believed it was a professional hit. If that were true, why didn’t the killer take into account the daughter who lived with the couple? Why is she still alive?
Krauss sipped her coffee, glancing at me over the rim of the cup. She has doubts about me. Good. “The short story is that her father was vice-president at a bank downtown and was about to turn states evidence in an embezzlement case, when he and his wife were murdered last week. Amanda, who was living with them, saw the killer as he ran out of the house, although he was wearing a mask. She was the one who found the bodies.”
The muscle in my jaw bunched at the visual the report conjured. I’d seen a lot of bodies in my life, but none of them were related to me. My parents were living the life in Florida and thanks to my siblings’ families, had grandbabies to keep them busy.
“How old is Contess… I mean, Amanda?”
“She was twenty-five, but we’ve changed her birth certificate and now she’s a twenty-two-year-old redhead with hazel eyes.”
“Any leads on the killer?” I asked.
“More theory than hard fact,” she replied. “The Feds said that Todd Yarbrough, the bank manager, was going to provide proof that the bank president was embezzling.”
“Figures,” I muttered.
“Give me your email address, and I’ll send the reports to you.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
I might be stuck babysitting, but at least I’d have something to read. I pulled out my business card and wrote down my personal email address on the back and handed it to her. Since this was just a protection job, I decided to use my generic account so I wouldn’t have to log in to my work computer first. The two-step authentication each time I logged in was a pain in the ass.
She looked at it and then set it to the side. “Let me warn you before you meet her, she’s been through a very traumatic event and has had a bad reaction to it.”
“I don’t understand. Bad reaction?” I asked, flipping the sheet and glancing at the crime scene photos. “Who wouldn’t react badly at seeing this?”
“The psychiatrist called it selective mutism. She can’t speak. He explained that it was a sudden onset due to the severe trauma. When she tries to talk, the anxiety becomes too much and she gets agitated, even hysterical.
“There’s a pill for that, right?”
She sighed. “Yes, but she has refused medication, so only time and patience will heal her. We can help her by keeping her alive until that happens. She gave the Feds a written statement but when they asked her questions, she was too emotional to write down the answers. The doctor said the mutism was her only defense against the horrors she has lived through, not once, but twice. Amanda’s wife had been shot at point-blank range while on the phone with her two years ago. Amanda was the 911 operator. The Feds don’t believe the two incidents are related.”
“Shit, no wonder she flipped out.”
“She’s not crazy. She has just shut down as a way of handling her grief,” Krauss said diplomatically.
“Uh-huh.”
“Tread lightly, Hettie. She’s very traumatized and that alone makes her vulnerable. When she was told she would have to go into hiding, leaving behind everyone and everything she knew, she got so upset she fainted.”
“Is she fit to travel?”
“Yes. The psychiatrist was able to talk her into going into WITSEC by asking her if she wanted to see her parents’ murderer brought to justice.”
“Any leads?”
“The only thing missing from the crime scene was Mr. Yarbrough’s laptop. The Feds don’t think the killer found what he was looking for because…” She stood up and walked around to her desk, opening a drawer. Walking back, she handed me two pieces of a plush cat toy. It was decapitated. “We found this sitting on top of the trash can the next morning. A message from the killer to Amanda. Oh, you’re not allergic to cats, are you?”
“Yes, I—”
At a soft tap on the door, Krauss snatched the toy from me and put it back in the desk drawer. Then she walked back to where I was sitting and said, “Come in.”
The same assistant who had shown me in opened the door. “Ms. Sanders is here, ma’am.”
The assistant stepped to the side and a white ball of fur strutted in on a leash. The cat looked around, sniffed the air, and then began licking its self. I looked from the cat up to Amanda. She was thin. So thin that I wanted to pick her up in my arms before a breeze blew her away. Her red hair was too bright for her pale skin and almost gave her a clownish look. She looked at me with a hooded, haunted gaze, and for a second, when our eyes met, I thought I saw her eyes brighten as if she recognized me.
“Amanda, this is U.S. Marshal Hettie Quinn.”
She nodded, her lips trembling as her eyes welled up. Krauss grabbed a box of tissues from her desk and handed one to Amanda.
Her reaction to seeing me surprised me. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?” I asked, searching my memory again.
Amanda struggled to form the words through her tears but gave up and nodded again, dabbing the tissue under her eye. Then she knelt and picked up the cat, hugging it to her chest. Very docile animal.
I looked at Krauss, who only shrugged. I took a step toward Amanda and felt like a behemoth standing in front of her. I was tall and bulky; she was short and fragile. After a couple of rapid-fire sneezes because I got too close to the cat, I stepped back. Stuck in a car with her and her cat for hours would not be a good use of my time. Not to mention my mild allergies to cat dander. Everything in me said walk away. Everything except my heart.
“Okay, well, I want you
to know that I will keep you safe. No one will touch you on my watch, understand?”
She smiled and, this time, it radiated across her face and reached her eyes. I remembered seeing that smile somewhere before. I remembered it because the way her lips became fuller when she smiled was unique. Most people’s lips would disappear when they smiled, but not Amanda’s, not when it was an unforced smile.
I scratched my head distractedly. “Did I sleep with you once or something?”
“Deputy Quinn! That was a completely inappropriate thing to ask,” Krauss admonished.
Amanda’s cheeks flushed a bright red, and her mouth gaped open. She let loose with a guffaw that told me either I was lousy in bed or we hadn’t slept together. I knew I wasn’t lousy in bed, so we probably hadn’t slept together. Still, it was worth it to ask. I didn’t think she’d laughed in a long time because the sound of it surprised even her. She shook her head, a sparkle in her eyes that disappeared as quickly as her smile. What was left was a dark shadow of pain in her eyes and trembling lips.
“Okay, well, sorry about that,” I said, shoving my hands into my jeans pockets. “I guess I’ll never know how we met, which is a darn shame because I’m sure it was, uh… memorable.”
She chuckled again and mimed for something to write on. Krauss went to her desk and got a pen and pad and gave it to her. Amanda put the cat down in the chair, still holding onto the leash, and wrote something on the pad. She handed it to me.
My eyebrows arched up when I read it. I looked up at her again, finally connecting the dots. “We were in psych class together in college and you sat behind me?” She nodded with a smile. “I remember now… Connie, right? You were that shy little thing who wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
Amanda nodded again and pointed at her third finger on her right hand. She was wearing a gold wedding band and a diamond engagement ring.
“Well, that explains it then,” I joked. I don’t have many scruples, but I do draw the line at married women. Not worth the hassle… well, unless it’s a threesome.
“Amanda,” Krauss said softly. “Remember, you’ll need to take the rings off. I’m sorry.”
Amanda’s eyes welled up, and I thought she was going to lose it. She nodded at Krauss and played with her rings, twisting them around her finger.
“Do you have everything?” Krauss asked. “Your new driver’s license, social security card, cell phone, and spending money?”
Amanda nodded, patting her purse. She pointed at the cat, and Krauss seemed to understand what she was asking.
“Ah, yes. My assistant has the supplies you asked for. You can check with her while I confer with Hettie for just a moment.”
Amanda picked up her cat, glanced up at me, and then shut the door behind herself.
Krauss eyed me with a piercing stare, as if making a decision. Then she sat down at her desk, leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “I’ve had protectees ask for money, swimming pools, hell, even breast enlargements. Amanda asked for cat food and a pet emergency kit. Look. I get that you didn’t want this assignment, but this is as much an investigative case as a protection detail. Plus, Amanda couldn’t or wouldn’t write her answers to our questions down, yet she didn’t hesitate to communicate with you. Amanda feels safe with you. You are exactly who she needs to protect her and get her to confide in you.”
Sneering, I asked, “Confide in me? Seriously? I’m not a damn shrink, uh, ma’am.”
Krauss smiled lightly. “She needs you, Hettie, and from what your SD tells me, you could use a break. What better way than to take a nice long trip across half the country?”
“Like I told her, I’ll keep her safe until we get to Fort Smith.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt. But there’s so much more you can do to help her. Use your skills, your knowledge, and your patience, Hettie. I’ve got a good feeling that you’re going to do more than just babysit her.”
Damn my SD. He didn’t have to tell her that. “Copy that,” I replied, not having anything else to add. There was no use in arguing. And besides, it would only be for a couple of days. Drive her to Fort Smith, leave her and her cat there, and hop a plane back. Piece of cake.
Chapter Five
WITSEC ID: Amanda Sanders
Status: Active
Location: FSAR
Case Pending: None
Amanda Sanders… The name felt funny on my tongue. I guess no name but my own would feel right, whether I liked the name or not, which I did not. They’d told me that my life as I knew it was gone. Connie Yarbrough-Morrison was gone. Now I was Amanda Sanders, a twenty-two-year-old, single, redhead with a cat. They could call me whatever the hell they wanted, I would never forget who I was.
One of the reasons I thought of Hettie as my WITSEC agent was because she knew who I was before. We weren’t friends or anything, but she remembered me from college, and that was more than I had expected. Hettie had always made me laugh, though she never knew it. It was her strength and self-awareness that really caught my attention.
When she strutted into psych class, her gun on her hip next to her badge, I thought she was there to arrest someone. I also thought she was the most handsome woman I had ever seen. I was in my second semester at college and Meredith, who had been in my algebra class in the first semester, was charming her way into my heart, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate a statuesque warrior’s physique when I saw one. Hettie was thinner then, with short mousy-brown hair, brown eyes that turned to honey when she looked at me, and a cocky smile. Except for hair that had grown to shoulder length, with curled ringlets at the end that seemed to annoy her, and a few extra pounds, she hadn’t changed.
When the psych teacher had Hettie introduce herself, I realized she was a new student. I held my breath, hoping that she wouldn’t sit near me. She sat down in the seat right in front of me. For fifteen weeks, I stared at those broad, muscular shoulders and fantasized about how those muscles would feel under my fingertips. Being afraid to draw attention to myself did wonders for my fantasy life. That was until I fell head over heels in love with Meredith. My fantasies became reality and I wasn’t the shy little college student any longer. Meredith pursued me, but when Nancy no-knockers in accounting class started flirting with Meredith, I found I wasn’t so shy anymore. Since her death, my only fantasies had been of seeing Meredith alive again.
Sitting in the assistant’s office, rummaging through my satchel bag better known as my cat emergency kit, I tried to speak out loud. Just a word or two. Nothing came out. I was able to talk to Bubbles last night in our hotel room as if I had never had a problem. Something told me that wouldn’t be the case in front of all these people. Forcing it just made me more nervous. I was surrounded by Federal officers, who carried guns. I couldn’t be safer, and yet I couldn’t be more terrified. What is wrong with me?
The pet emergency kit contained water bottles, small cans of cat food and cat treats, a feeding bowl, a first-aid kit, and a few toys. It also had a cardboard cat litter box with lining, pet waste bags, and even an emergency blanket. I think Meredith would have approved. When they gave me a new name and changed my driver’s license and other ID cards, they also changed Bubbles’ ID tag and updated her microchip. They even gave her a therapy pet license, so I wouldn’t have to leave her in the car when I went to the store or bank, etc. Her new name was Precious, but she wasn’t going to answer to it. I’d call her that in front of strangers, but Bubbles was too old to retrain now.
I had to leave behind almost everything, save for a few photos and my wedding ring, both of which I had on me at the time. That was all they would let me keep, and even then, the Marshals had fought with me over the rings. It wouldn’t match my new profile. Screw the profile. I wasn’t going into hiding so I can avoid being murdered, too. I was going into hiding so that Hettie could help me find my parents’ murderer. What hurt the most was having to miss my parents’ funeral. Who arranged for it? It was probably my mother’s sister, Eleanor. She live
d in Nebraska, but they were close.
I reached up and unclasped the gold chain around my neck. In a compromise of sorts, I’d agreed to wear my rings on a chain … for now. Pulling my rings off, I slipped the chain through them and fastened it back, tucking the chain under my blouse. I patted the rings through the cloth. Close to my heart forever.
Last night, as I lay in bed, unconsciously I reached for Meredith, only to touch the cold sheet where she would have lain, and I’d had an epiphany. I was not going to curl up and die, like I’d wanted to do since the day Meredith had been murdered. My parents were good people, who loved and supported me unconditionally. I was studious instead of athletic, and they were proud. I was terribly shy because of the stuttering, and they didn’t try to shame me out of it. When I came out to them, they asked me what took me so long to tell them. When I married Meredith, Mom was my bridesmaid and Dad proudly walked me down the aisle. How could I cower in the corner and let their deaths go unpunished? I’d done that when Meredith was killed. I wasn’t doing it again. And the only way I could accomplish that is to use the stages of grief I knew I was in; denial, anger, and bargaining, to avenge their deaths. After that I didn’t care where I went or how I lived.
My wife told me once that shyness was not a curse to be hated but a gift to be loved. I wondered what she would say about my selective mutism. Probably that the shrink was an idiot if he thought I would ever choose to be mute. Meredith would have given him a piece of her mind for being an asshole. God, I miss her so much.
Hettie came out of Deputy Krauss’ office folding a piece of paper and slipping it into a metal card carrier. She then slid it into her jeans pocket. I couldn’t help but wonder what was on the paper, knowing that it was probably about me. Was it a clue in the case? She probably wouldn’t tell me if it were. But somehow, over the next couple of days, I had to find a way to convince her to help me. First, though, I would have to find the courage, and I was not so confident about that part. Hell, I couldn’t even talk, unless it was to my cat.
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