Beholden

by Pat Warren

  “A safe place. Where would that be? My father’s a retired policeman, but I’m afraid to involve my family.”

  “And you should be. No one is to know where you are. Once we relocate you, you must stay out of sight until you testify.”

  “Out of sight. You mean, away from Phoenix? But my family’s here, my friends, my job.”

  “I’m aware of that. Do you want to jeopardize them? You witnessed a cold-blooded killing and then these same people tampered with your car in an effort to silence you. Do you think they would hesitate to harm others to keep from getting caught?”

  Her hands were trembling and a frisson of fear raced up her spine. “No, I don’t think they would.”

  “We’re going to move you out of here tonight. Only one other person, a female agent who’s also a nurse, and I will know where you are for now. Later, a senior agent will be assigned to you and will remain with you until the trial. He’ll help you every step of the way, even help you build a new identity.”

  Surprise had Terry trying to sit up. “A new identity? But I don’t want a new identity. I want to be me.”

  This was always the hardest part, Jones knew. “You will be, on the inside. But outside, we’ve got to change your appearance on the off chance that someone Sam Russo knows spots you. He has connections in several states.”

  “But they think I’m dead.”

  “Yes, they do, and we’re going to do everything we can at this end to keep them convinced you are. But nothing works all the time and we don’t take chances. We’ll do our best to keep them in the dark as long as possible.” He turned toward the priest. “That means, Father O’Malley, that we must not inform the Ryans or the rest of her family that Terry’s alive and Lynn Hartley died. For their protection, they need to believe it was the other way around. Can we trust you, sir?”

  He didn’t like deceiving people. It wasn’t his nature or his vocation. But he could see the necessity. Father O’Malley nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “Good.” Bob turned back to Terry. “Most especially since Sergeant McCarthy’s involved somehow, we need to let your family believe as they already do. You’re our only hope at this time of putting these men behind bars, where they belong.”

  Terry’s head was aching mightily by now. “How long will all this take?”

  Jones raised a shoulder. “I wish I could tell you. A couple of weeks, a couple of months, maybe longer. Or it could go more quickly. Cases take time to build, evidence has to be collected, court time assigned.”

  Terry sank back. “What you’re saying is that I have to put my whole life on hold for God-knows-how-long.”

  “Terry,” Andy stepped in, “Chief Jones has already stuck his neck out for you. Everybody who goes into the Witness Security Program has to be authorized for placement by the Office of Enforcement Operations. He’s not empowered to act until he receives notice that you’re approved for inclusion in the program. He’s rushing this along to keep you safe.”

  “What if they don’t approve me?”

  Jones touched her arm. “They will, Terry. After talking with Andy, I wasn’t willing to risk your life by waiting. I know this will be difficult. It’s a damn shame you stumbled into such a heinous crime. But think of all the good you’ll do eventually by removing these scumbags from society. Think of the kids who might not become addicted to drugs because of your testimony.”

  He had her and he knew it. Besides, she was too weary to argue any longer. “All right, but… can’t I at least talk to my father? To let him know I’m okay? He’s got a heart condition and….”

  “I wish I could say yes, Terry,” Bob told her. “We can’t risk his life, or yours.”

  “But won’t these men know something’s up when I disappear from the hospital? I mean, I know they think I’m Lynn, but aren’t they watching, waiting for the person in this bed to either recover or die?”

  Jones wished she hadn’t asked this particular question right now, but he had to tell her. “They will learn that Lynn Hartley died of internal injuries.”

  A horrified gasp escaped from Terry. “What about Aunt Julia? Will she be told the truth?”

  “Terry,” Andy interrupted, “her daughter’s already dead. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Oh, God, this is brutal. It’s all so damn unfair. Innocent people are going through hell because…”

  “Because men like Sam Russo have no morals, no ethics, no compassion. Life isn’t fair, Terry.” Bob stood and looked down at her. “But you can put these particular men away where they won’t be able to do this to anyone else ever again.”

  Her hand with only two fingers unbandaged moved up to press against her puffy lips. “All right, you’ve convinced me.”

  Andy leaned down to kiss her bruised cheek. “You’re doing the right thing, Terry. I wish I could go with you.”

  “Me, too,” she told him, her eyes damp again. She’d be with strangers, for months, with no contacts. Dear God, how was she going to manage? To whom could she turn?

  “Andy, how is it you can’t be involved?”

  “Because once we call in federal agents, their authority supersedes the local police. Don’t worry, Terry. You’re in good hands.”

  “Chief Jones,” Terry said as he picked up his briefcase, “who is the agent who’ll be assigned to me?”

  Bob narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. It would take some fast talking, but he knew exactly who he wanted on her case. “I can’t say right now, but you’ll know soon enough.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Luke Tanner paused with his hammer in midair, the nail only halfway in the fence board he was attaching to the post. His cabin was some distance from the road, the sounds of traffic usually muted by acres of tall pines, squatty evergreens, older cottonwoods, and pale green palo verdes. The noise from an approaching engine was rare enough to cause him to stop working, his eyes going to the winding dirt path, the only passageway to the main highway. Yuma had heard the car first and was already racing to meet the new arrival.

  Luke wasn’t expecting a delivery since whatever he purchased in town he hauled home in his truck himself. He wasn’t expecting a friend or neighbor since he’d met none since arriving two months ago. The last vehicle that had wandered in a couple of weeks ago had been a Jeep full of tourists who’d gotten lost. Checking to make sure his .38 was tucked into the small of his back at his waist, he let his hands hang loosely at his sides as he walked toward the front porch he’d finished reinforcing last week.

  He recognized the car the moment it came in sight, and the man who got out as soon as he’d parked the blue Buick behind Luke’s white pickup. A standard government issue vehicle driven by Bob Jones, who removed his suitcoat and tossed it onto the seat before striding forward, Yuma sniffing at his heels.

  “Seems as if you’re having a hot spell, same as we are down in Phoenix.” Bob rolled his shoulders after the two-hour drive, noting Luke’s inscrutable expression. The man definitely wasn’t glad to see him, but he was too disciplined to show it.

  He didn’t want to be unfriendly to his old friend, for Luke respected Jones as he respected very few. But he knew exactly why Bob had come. To get a rundown on how he was coming along, the unasked but implied question being how soon before he’d be returning, cutting short his leave of absence. It had happened before. The service was always shorthanded.

  Luke wished he knew the answer himself.

  “What brings you up my way?” Luke asked as they shook hands. Squinting at his commanding officer, he almost smiled. “As if I didn’t know.”

  Bob ignored the comment and strolled toward the back. “You’ve done wonders with this place.” He’d been up only once before, and then briefly, when Luke had purchased the ranch, surprising Bob. Luke had never indicated an interest in establishing roots. On the patio, he crouched to examine the flagstone inlays. “You have hidden talents.”

  “Glad you think so. How’s the family?” Jones had a wife and two young sons.
>
  “Fine.”

  Luke flipped open a folding chair, then went to the kitchen and brought back two long-necked bottles of beer. Without asking, he held one toward Jones before straddling the only other chair. Bending his head back, he drank thirstily, then eyed his boss. “All right, let’s have it.”

  Jones took his time looking the younger man over. A bit on the scruffy side, but Senior Agent Tanner looked tan and lean and strong, the restless energy more contained, the fatigue absent from his gray eyes. Those eyes that had had many a subject squirming under their intensity.

  Bob took a drink before answering. “Three months is a long time, Luke. I thought you might be itching to get back in harness by now.” Actually he’d thought no such thing, but it was a start.

  This time Luke did smile, his teeth very white against the leathery look of his face. “Sure you did.” He drank again, then crossed his arms over the chairback and waited. “I asked for six months off, remember?”

  “I remember.” Luke wasn’t a man to beat around the bush with, Bob knew. He hated dancing around a subject himself. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the beer bottle dangling in his hands. “There’s this new case. A special one.”

  Right on cue, Luke thought, his mind already searching for feasible reasons to decline. “They’re all special, Bob.” A dedicated chief deputy, Jones had a strong affinity with the silent victims, as he called the people forced into the protection program. Most had few choices as their very lives were uprooted and forever changed over a chance sighting or fateful happening.

  “This one really is. A young woman who witnessed a brutal shooting, almost getting killed herself in an arranged accident, her face scarred by flying glass, perhaps permanently.” Bob shook his head. “Poor kid.”

  Luke glanced at the twilight sky above the redrock mountain in the near distance, a brilliant sunset just beginning. What the hell. He’d been about to quit for the day anyhow. He drained his beer and stood. “Why don’t I throw a couple of steaks on the grill while you tell me about this poor, special kid.”

  Bob crossed his legs. “If you really want to hear.”

  Luke’s lips twitched. “Oh, yeah. I’m dying to hear your story.”

  ***

  The minute the sun dropped out of sight, the air turned much cooler. Luke served the steaks and a big salad at the kitchen table with a second beer, listening to Bob as he ate.

  “Before we moved her out of the hospital last week, we brought in a steno and took down her statement, which she’s signed.”

  “You think that’s enough to arrest this Sergeant McCarthy?” Luke asked, mildly interested despite his desire to stay uninvolved.

  “Along with what I’ve got in the car it is.” It took Bob only a few minutes to get the manila envelope from his front seat, then sit back down across from Luke. “I asked Terry Ryan to look at some pictures to see if she could recognize either of the other two men she saw that night. She picked out one, but we didn’t have a photo of the other man.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got two IDs.”

  “Oh, I’ve got all three. The detective I was telling you about, Andy Russell, reminded me that Terry’s an artist with the Phoenix Gazette. Her hands had been cut, but they’re healing pretty well. She did a sketch for us of the third man.” Bob pulled the drawing from the envelope and handed it to Luke. “She’s quite good. Artists apparently make note of more visual details than most of us. Look at these.”

  “I’ll be damned. Ozzie Swain, complete with toothpick in his mouth and pockmarks on his face. Mob muscle. He works for the Russo brothers.”

  “That’s right.” Bob removed the photo of Sam Russo Terry had identified. “According to Terry, the man she sketched did the shooting while Sam and Mac stood by and watched There was a fourth person who never got out of the car, but she only caught a glimpse of him from the knees down in the backseat.”

  Involuntarily, Luke’s hand reached to touch a six-inch scar on his right side, a souvenir of his own encounter with Sam’s brother, Nick, some years ago. Both Russos were vicious SOBs.

  Jones noticed Luke’s reaction and thought he knew what he was remembering. “Are you thinking that maybe the guy in the car was Nick Russo?”

  “I doubt it. He’s more of a participant than a spectator. If Nick had been there, he’d have been holding the gun.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “So this is how you figured on getting me back, knowing how badly I’d like to even the score with the Russos?”

  Bob shrugged. “The thought crossed my mind.”

  Luke studied the man across from him as he sipped his beer. The chief wouldn’t push; it wasn’t his style. Yet Luke knew that they really needed his help on this one or Bob would never have come in person to ask. The other thing that Bob would never mention aloud was that Luke owed him. Out in the field when they’d both been fairly new agents, Bob Jones had taken a bullet meant for him. It wasn’t the sort of thing a man like Luke Tanner ever forgot.

  Luke cleared their plates, poured two coffees, then sat back down and gazed out the window at his spread. He felt an affection for the place that he’d put his mark on and a genuine reluctance to leave right now, when there was so much yet to do before the snow fell. But a man who hates to flinch when he looks into his shaving mirror knows there are some debts that have to be paid whether the timing is wrong or not.

  Besides, when push came to shove, he was aching to put the Russos out of commission for good.

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “You got Washington’s approval, I take it?”

  “Not yet, but it’ll be here any day. I had to get her out of that hospital. When Terry drew that sketch, Andy Russell looked at it and thought he’d passed a man who looked like Ozzie in the halls of Phoenix General a couple of times. You remember that Swain always wears bright-colored suspenders, and with that pockmarked face he’s not hard to spot. Visiting hours are all day long. Security at most hospitals isn’t what it should be. The place is like Grand Central most of the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam sent Ozzie to keep an eye on the girl until they determined her condition and identity for sure. With McCarthy getting the police reports, Russo knows that one girl was burned beyond recognition. In their line of work, it pays to eliminate all loose ends.”

  “So where’d you take her?”

  “To that private hospital outside San Diego that we’ve used before. She underwent plastic surgery on her face yesterday. Temporarily, I’ve got George Everly with her and Sara Baines. Remember them?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Luke had worked with Sara before. She’d been an RN for ten years before going into law enforcement. She was good, a big motherly woman who knew how to follow orders even if she didn’t like them. George was another story. The man was methodical enough to drive you crazy, someone he could never partner with. Privately Luke thought that Everly should have taken voluntary retirement some time ago, or requested a desk job. They really had to be shorthanded for Bob to pull George out and put him on a case.

  Luke finished his coffee. “Looks like you’re bending a few rules on this one, old buddy, rushing her through before the paperwork’s in.”

  “Sometimes, you have to. I want this under way ASAP. Terry Ryan is a brave young woman who had a good life going for her, until she witnessed that shooting. She’s lost a reporter friend, a cousin who burned to death in the crash, and survived an attempt on her life. And now she’s been taken away from everyone she knows. That can’t be easy.”

  No, it never was. “How’s she handling it?”

  “She’s not happy, but she’s cooperating so far. She doesn’t know it, but the worst is yet to come.” When the healing was over, loneliness and frustration would set in. Jones glanced at his watch and stood. Eight, and it was a long drive back to Phoenix.

  “Looks like you’ve got a case. When are you planning to issue arrest warrants?”

  “Tomorrow. I had to delay until Terry was safe. T
his morning, I had Phoenix General release a statement that the second occupant in the Volkswagen has died of internal injuries. The longer we can keep the suspicions that Terry’s still alive to a minimum, the better off we’ll be.”

  “What about the family? Didn’t they want to see the body?”

  Jones sighed heavily. “I told them that we had to move the body to do a police autopsy, that they’d get to view her later. They didn’t buy it, especially John Ryan, Terry’s father. He’s a retired cop and he’s sure something’s rotten in Denmark. Trouble is, he can’t prove it, though he’s driving everyone crazy with calls and visits demanding answers.” Jones shook his head sympathetically. “I can’t blame the man.”

  “You located Russo?”

  Bob allowed himself a small smile as he walked toward his car with Luke. “Sam’s on probation. He’s violated the terms so it’s automatic jail, no matter what his expensive attorney pleads. And the new charge is accessory to murder.”

  “Which is also what McCarthy faces.” Luke watched Bob climb behind the wheel, then braced a hand on the closed door. “Let’s hope you draw someone like Carmichael.” Judge Henry Carmichael was known to be tougher on cops gone bad than anyone sitting on the bench.

  “That would be nice.” Bob held out his hand. “I appreciate your cutting things short here.” His statement left volumes unspoken.

  Luke shook hands. “Only for you would I do this.”

  “I know that.” He handed Luke a second manila envelope. “All the particulars are in there—pictures, addresses, bio on Terry Ryan and her family. When can I tell George you’ll be relieving him?”

  “Give me three days, maybe four. Will she be out of the hospital by then?”

  “Most likely. George has a secured place set up in San Diego. Info is in there. I’ll activate your checking account.”

  Luke was thoughtful. George had found a secure place. He wasn’t sure he trusted the man. Maybe he’d step up his timetable.