Reluctant Witness

by Barton, Sara M.

  “Really. He ordered one of his minions to murder Guadeloupe’s police commissioner. The hit man just happened to be an informant for us. We were able to record the conversation. With a couple of other operatives flipping on Chartier, it’s unlikely he will be free any time soon. We should celebrate, Nora.”

  “Indeed we should.” The full impact of this hit me hard. I squeezed his hand, suddenly unable to speak, and wiped away the tears that rolled down my cheeks.

  “Marry me.”

  I was not expecting a proposal. As I gazed into those eyes, there was no mistaking the passion that burned brightly. Suddenly I knew I couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving me again. Nor I could bear the thought of leaving the Hawaiian Butterfly Coffee and Spice Company behind as I followed him to France. Once more, I found my heart was breaking.

  “But you are a policeman,” I sobbed, “and I am a farmer.”

  “Was a policeman,” he smiled. “Now I am a businessman.”

  “You are?”

  “Absolutely,” he smiled. “By the way, the French government has seized Le Papillon Coffee and Spice Company and all of its assets. Because you are the owner of record, the farm and its orchards belong to your estate. I arranged for your lawyers to put it through probate, so that your cousins will inherit. It is to be sold at a private auction within the next six months, to one of the legitimate coffee growers on Martinique.”

  “But I don’t have any cousins, Jean-Claude.”

  “You do now, ma chérie,” he winked at me. “When the sale goes through, we will take the profits and purchase more land here for our new future, our new family.”

  “Children? But what if something goes wrong here? What will we do?”

  “We’ll still be together. There’s always Tahiti...Bora Bora...Fiji....”

  “The South Pacific will be our oyster. Lovely,” I sighed, stroking his hand with great affection. “Paradise.”

  “Indeed. But you have not given me your answer yet. Will you marry me, Nora Hazen?”

  “Mais oui!”

  For the first time since Jared’s death, I slept like the proverbial baby, feeling almost safe again. I hit the snooze button three times. Nancy finally came to check on me at quarter to eight.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m better than okay,” I smiled, sitting up in bed and stretching. “It’s a new day and I’m raring to go!”

  Chapter Thirty Four

  “Good for you, Marigold. I’m glad to hear that. Now hurry up and get dressed, so we can go grab some breakfast before Rocky gets here. Terry and I are playing golf while he meets with you.”

  We were at the Fairways Café when Rocky phoned, wanting to know where to find us. He was sitting in his rental car in the parking lot, a few hundred yards away. A few moments later, he joined us on the terrace.

  “You folks enjoying your vacation?” he asked jovially, as he pulled up a chair and set down his briefcase.

  “I knocked a stroke off my handicap,” Terry replied. “I must say this case has been rewarding.”

  “I’ll just bet,” said the security chief for Roaring Kill Productions. “How would you like the chance to make it two strokes?”

  “Meaning what?” Nancy wanted to know. I thought I detected a slight eagerness in her voice. “We’re staying down here?

  “Is there any problem with that?”

  “Well,” Terry paused for a moment, thinking. I could see him giving the subject serious consideration. “Are we talking about a week, two weeks, or longer? If we’re going to be down here a while, I’ve got to take care of some business back home.”

  “Me too,” Nancy told Rocky. “I’ve got appointments. And my mother’s birthday is next Friday. I promised to take her out to dinner.”

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you two plan on going home for the week? I won’t have any trouble finding folks to fill in for you. When you’re ready, you can come back. Sound good?”

  “Does it ever!” Nancy gave us a toothy grin.

  Rocky and I walked back to the hotel together, leaving Terry and Nancy to start their daily round of golf. I could tell there was something important on his mind, but he waited until we were in the hotel room. I sat on one bed, he on the other.

  “Marigold, how many times did you travel to Curaçao?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know. It was usually spur of the moment. Jared was like that. I think I went with him five or six times. Why?”

  “Do you remember where you stayed?”

  “Usually we stayed at hotels in Willemstad. Is it important, Rocky?”

  “Very.” His dark eyes were intense as he studied me.

  “We were at the Renaissance twice, the Marriot twice, and Blue Bay Beach once.”

  “You never stayed at big house on the beach?”

  “No,” I laughed. “I’d remember that. Jared always rented us either a small suite or a double room. Why?”

  “You’re absolutely certain you never stayed in a house.”

  “Positive. Now you’re making me nervous, Rocky. What’s going on?”

  Rocky popped the latch on his briefcase and withdrew a manila folder. He opened it up, turned it around, and placed it in front of me.

  “Do you recognize this place?”

  There was a photograph of a distinctly Curaçaoan home, rather grand, with a winding driveway and graceful cement walls that curved around the steps up to the front door.

  “Charming,” I decided. “It looks like something you’d see in Willemstad.”

  “It is. Are you familiar with it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Rocky took out nine more photos. There was a beach hut, a living room, a master bedroom, a couple more guest rooms, a chef’s kitchen, some bathrooms, and a terrace with an infinity pool overlooking the ocean. “Does any of this look familiar?”

  “It looks like something Jared showed me from Architectural Digest.”

  “But you never stayed here?”

  “No. I mean, look at it, Rocky.” I pulled out the terrace photo and showed it to him. “Why would I forget a private oasis with a view? You don’t erase a memory like this.”

  He pulled another folder out of his briefcase, but held it to his chest, watching me carefully. I felt the seconds tick past and waited. “Did Jared ever take you anywhere besides Curaçao?”

  “We went to Montreal twice, the Dominican Republic once, Grand Cayman twice, and then after that, the rest of the trips were to Curaçao.”

  “And every time you went, you informed your WitSec handlers?”

  “Of course. It would have been irresponsible not to tell them.”

  “And you’re a very responsible woman, aren’t you, Marigold?”

  “I have to be,” I admitted. “If I’m not, someone could get killed.” That point had been drilled into my head as a teenager when my family entered the program. Real killers intended to kill my father and that made the rest of us vulnerable.

  “Ever go to Cyprus?”

  “The island in the Mediterranean? No. I’ve only been to those countries I told you about, and only for long weekends. I’ve never even been to Europe to see my sister play in her orchestra. She always comes back to the States for our family reunions. My other sister’s an Army trauma surgeon, so she sometimes comes back for retraining or on assignment.”

  “Could either of your sisters pass for you?”

  “I don’t think so. They’re both much taller than I am, with different coloring. Pansy and Violet have blue eyes and blonde hair. Me, I got my mother’s green eyes and auburn hair.”

  “I’m going to ask you something and I want an honest answer, Marigold. Is this your signature?”

  Rocky placed a piece of paper with odd-looking lettering that I couldn’t decipher. “This looks Greek to me.”

  “It is the Hellenic alphabet, also used in Cyprus. Do you recognize your signature?”

  “Not really. I don’t think I ever signed anything for Jared that wasn’t in
English.”

  “Not even when you were in Curaçao?”

  “No. It was all in English. Why?”

  “When you were down there with him, did he ever excuse himself to go take care of business?” Rocky wanted to know.

  “All the time. In fact, whenever we were down there, I spent most of the time by myself, at whatever hotel we were staying in. He sometimes didn’t even come back for dinner, so I’d have to eat by myself. I think that’s why I’m feeling so frustrated here.” As soon as I said it, I realized it was true. The past few weeks gave me so much time to remember what I didn’t like about my relationship with Jared. “I feel like my life is always on hold.”

  “Do you remember anything about Jared’s business? Did he ever share information with you about what it was he did?”

  “He told me he was one of the original owners of Quicksilver Limited down in Delaware. When they sold the company, he made a small fortune.”

  “Actually, it was a rather large fortune,” Rocky corrected me.

  “Just before he died, a group of overseas investors formed Cinnabar Capital in Curaçao and bought a controlling interest in Quicksilver. Lincoln said something to me that I didn’t really understand. Quicksilver and Cinnabar are terms for mercury.”

  “Yeah, I talked to him about that. Jared started out at Helmut Gruen 80 and Mercury Industries.”

  “And now you’re asking me about Cyprus and my signature and houses I’ve never seen before.” I saw the guarded look on his face and knew something was terribly wrong. “Are you saying Jared was a money launderer? That’s what he did for a living?”

  “You tell me.”

  “But if that’s true, why would he be interested in me? I’m a nobody.”

  “Wrong. You’re a woman with a past and a need to remain anonymous. Either he knew you were in the witness protection program and pursued you to get at your father, or by some weird coincidence, he discovered you were in the witness protection program after the fact and thought he’d use it to his own advantage.”

  “That’s the second time someone’s said that to me.”

  “Here’s the problem, Marigold. Twice we’ve had professional killers come after you, not to kill you, but to kidnap you. How does that make sense? Why not just hire guys to kidnap you?”

  “Maybe someone wanted to see me alive before I was killed,” I sighed. “Why else would someone need to pay a killer to kidnap me?”

  “To see you alive before killing you....” There was surprise in Rocky’s voice at that thought. “Maybe.”

  “But what does it have to do with that watch Jared gave me?” I asked. “That’s what really bothers me. If it had a GPS locator, it would mean that anyone who knew that would be able to track me wherever I went, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And as long as I wore that watch, he could find me at any time.”

  “Sure.”

  “So why kidnap me? Why not just kill me? Or is it the watch that’s important?”

  Rocky shook his head and smiled at me. “Jeff was right. You’re one smart cookie. Mind if I make some phone calls?”

  “You need privacy?”

  “I do.”

  “In that case, I’ll grab my laptop and go sit out on the balcony to work.”

  “I appreciate that, Marigold.”

  It only took me a moment to gather my things and open the slider. Shutting it behind me, I settled myself in a chair at the glass table and got to work. Jeff had sent along a couple of USB sticks loaded with the floor plans and his personal thoughts on the condo project back in Atlanta, including his color and style preferences. For his master bath, he had one “must have” -- a therapeutic whirlpool bath for his bad back. It was obvious to me the man was being kind, trying to help me fill the hours with productive activities, so I wouldn’t just fritter away the hours, worrying. I was more than happy to oblige. Within minutes, I was searching for paint colors on the Benjamin Moore site.

  I couldn’t completely walk away from the conversation Rocky and I had had, though. Even as I flipped through paint samples for just the right combination of colors for Jeff’s walls, my mind kept going back to those trips with Jared. What had bothered me at the time?

  And then it came back to me. We went to these foreign countries and I didn’t get to see anything. No sightseeing trips, no excursions, not even dinners at memorable restaurants. My time was spent in hotel rooms at lovely resorts. Most of the time when I was with him, I felt like a potted plant set down in a sunny room. We didn’t do anything together as a couple. No boat trips, no scenic drives, no snorkeling. The minute that thought popped into my head, I knew. I had been Jared’s cover for something nefarious.

  “Rocky!” Hands trembling, I pulled open the sliding door. The security man for Roaring Kill Productions looked up at me, startled. “I was cover for Jared!”

  “What?” He put his hand over the phone and gave me his full attention.

  “I never went anywhere with him. I never did anything with him. I was only there as cover.”

  “So?”

  “There has to be another woman!”

  “Another what?”

  “What kind of man takes his fiancée on exotic trips with him and then just leaves her alone in the hotel room? He needed me to be in those places. And he needed the WitSec people to know I was going with him to those places. Doesn’t that mean that whatever happened there, he wanted people to believe I was involved?”

  “Say that again,” he instructed me, this time as he held out his phone. I repeated what I said. When I was done, he put the phone up to his mouth and said, “Did you get that, Jeff?”

  “Cherchez la femme!” I crowed. “That bastard used me to cover his sleazy business transactions. The question is which came first, the chicken or the egg.”

  “Say what?”

  “Did he pick me because I looked like his girlfriend? Or did he pick me and then find his girlfriend?”

  “No,” Rocky said into the mouthpiece, with an amused chuckle, “I didn’t get that far, man. She figured it out herself. Right. I’ll tell her.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Jeff says he could kiss you.”

  “Tell him he’s welcome to kiss me any time.” Those words came out of the blue. As soon as I said them, I knew I couldn’t take them back. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do that. What possessed me to say that? Was it the Cornwall magic? First Lincoln, now Jeff? I remembered what Rocky said to me the day I met him. Jeff was Atlanta’s most eligible bachelor, a man about town, with women constantly throwing themselves at him. Had I completely gone mad by letting the idea of Jefferson Cornwall creep into my heart? Maybe it was Nora’s story. Or maybe it was that he showed me so much kindness. I reminded myself not to get carried away. After all, this wasn’t a relationship that was likely to go anywhere.

  Rocky gave me a funny look before he turned his back on me and resumed his conversation. I wandered back out to the balcony and sat down, no longer able to concentrate on my decorating project.

  What was wrong with me? Why was I always falling for the wrong guy? Sure, I had trust issues. That was to be expected. But even my sisters were living happily ever after in their lives. Pansy had met a Special Forces soldier three years ago and they were in the midst of planning a wedding. Violet had been involved with her boss, a symphony conductor from Linz, for the last eight years. As she said, they made beautiful music together.

  But me? Looking back on my romantic life, I couldn’t say I ever had much of one. It seemed like every time I started dating a man, something interrupted our relationship just as we were falling in love. Twice I was transferred to other cities when I worked for the hotel chain, ruining a couple of promising relationships. Since I hadn’t really been invested in them, it was no real hardship to let go of them, but David was different. He was the man who came before Jared, the last one I dated when life still seemed normal.

  We met at a social gathering hosted by the hotel c
hain for its regional employees. He was the assistant hospitality services manager in another city fifty miles away. We got together on weekends, sometimes just the two of us; other times with a group of friends.

  Looking back now with the clarity that time and wisdom bring, I’d have to say I knew he wasn’t the one for me. It’s easy to keep a relationship going when you’re having fun, but when things begin to roll downhill, that’s when you find out what a person is really like, good or bad.

  When my mother got sick and my father asked me to move back home to help care for her in her final months, David resented my decision. He thought I was wasting my time and energy looking after a dying woman; his solution to the dilemma was to just hire someone to do it. I balked at the idea. It struck me as heartless and cruel, even calculatingly cold. What my mother needed most at the end of her life was to know she was loved, that we would be with her no matter what came her way. I stood my ground. That’s when I learned the true measure of the man. At a time when I most needed his support, David told me that he didn’t think he could wait on the sidelines while I did my duty as a family caregiver. I’m not sure I ever forgave him for being such a cad. It surely killed any stirrings of love that survived in my heart.

  I was still reeling from my mother’s death when I arrived in Rhode Island. I was like a wounded bird, waiting for my wings to heal, not quite ready to fly again. My emotions were so raw at the time and the pain was so deep inside me, it was difficult for me to meet new people. I cautiously moved into my new life, tiptoeing at a time when most people might have barged right in. If Jared hadn’t pursued me, I probably never would have paid attention to him. I would have stayed in my own little world of hurt.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Was that why he seemed to bowl me over so easily? Was my resistance so unusually low that it made me especially susceptible to his charms? He seemed so determined, so focused on achieving his goals. I was swept away in the whirlwind that was Jared Spears.

  But what if he took advantage of me because he had a plan of some kind and needed a scapegoat? What if he deliberately searched for someone who looked like his mysterious girlfriend, a woman he could use to pose as me for his shady business dealings?