Reluctant Witness

by Barton, Sara M.

  As a newcomer in town, Jared didn’t really know many local people; much of his energy was directed at attracting wealthy clients in Newport as potential investors. He had had worked in Boston and Wilmington, Delaware long before he set up Dutch Island Investments. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that he gave that name to his company.

  But what if he had already established himself in Curaçao before he showed up in Newport? Did that mean that those investments were all part of a carefully planned and executed scam? Did he intend all along to make that money vanish, in a Bernie Madoff-style scheme, especially after that reporter got wind of the story? More importantly, had someone betrayed Jared, committing murder to get him out of the way and take over the scheme? He could have had a partner, couldn’t he?

  This time I didn’t rush back into the room. Instead, I lightly tapped on the glass and waited until Rocky waved me in.

  “Let me guess,” he smiled, pocketing his phone. “You remembered something else.”

  “And then some,” I grinned.

  Two hours later, we were sitting outside on the balcony, and Rocky was taking notes when Nancy and Terry returned from their golf game.

  “What’s on the agenda today?” she wanted to know. By the time Rocky gave them the short version, I knew we had made important connections in the baffling story. “Should we cancel our trip home?”

  “No, no. Don’t do that. It’s going to take some time to track all this information down. Finish your business and we’ll get all our ducks set up in a row before we do anything. As long as that Citizen Chronograph keeps moving, whoever it is that’s tracking it will think Marigold’s on the run. And when we’re ready to spring our trap, we’ll put it back on her wrist and wait to see who shows up for the party.”

  “We’re springing a trap?” I asked, slightly apprehensive. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being a target with a bull’s eye on my back again.

  “We can’t let you spend the rest of you days on the run, Marigold. That’s no way to live,” Terry told me.

  “You deserve better than that,” Nancy added.

  “Time to get to work,” Rocky announced. “I’ve got to get back to Atlanta.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Terry told him.

  Nancy and I got dressed for a swim. I handed her Vanilla Orchid Magic.

  “It’s definitely one of my all-time favorite books,” I announced. “I love the ending.”

  “What are you going to do now that you finished this?”

  “Jeff lent me a copy of A Whisper of Ginger. He said it continues Nora’s story.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  Terry joined us at the pool a short time later, wearing his neon orange swim trunks. Nancy challenged me to swim some laps with her, so we left him guarding our gear and I gave it a go. Twenty minutes later, we climbed out of the water and flopped on our chaises.

  “Not bad,” Terry decided. “Considering the fact that Nancy spent ten years as a swim champ and lifeguard, you kept up with her fairly well.”

  “It’s been a while,” I confessed.

  “But you don’t normally have a workout routine?” he wanted to know.

  “I was always told not to stick to a schedule of any kind, to vary my activities, so they weren’t predictable.”

  “Gee, kid...that doesn’t mean you can’t get regular exercise! It’s just a matter of knowing how to shake things up. You pick five or six different workout routines for the week and you roll the dice to decide which one gets done. Monday, you roll a one, so you go for a bike ride. Tuesday, you roll a five, so you go for a gym workout. You change your list every week, rearranging the activities numerically, adding or subtracting. That way, your choice is random. Didn’t anyone teach you these things in witness protection?”

  “No.”

  “Pity. You’ve definitely got the grace of a natural athlete. And it would be helpful for your security if you were to maintain it. Exercise isn’t just for weight management, you know. It’s also a matter of keeping your reflexes sharp and your brain trained to react quickly.”

  While Nancy and Terry schooled me on security, Rocky and Tom contacted a couple of retired law enforcement buddies, inviting them to bring their wives down to Palm Coast for a working vacation. Rocky arranged for the use of four condos within the same building at a resort down the coast. That way, we would always have people around us, in case there was an emergency. Nancy knew the two wives already, so she was thrilled they would be joining us.

  “It’s going to be like old home week, kid. Boy, are we going to have fun!”

  Three days later, I found out where we were going when we checked out of the hotel and into a three-bedroom condo at Cinnamon Beach, a gated community within the Ocean Hammock Resort about twenty miles south of St. Augustine. Terry and Nancy were excited at the prospect of playing golf at the course called “The Pebble Beach of the East”.

  Our unit was in a quiet area of the complex. Nancy parked the car in a spot in front of the building. We took the elevator up to the top floor and crossed the open air corridor to our assigned penthouse condo.

  “This looks promising,” Terry decided as the door swung open.

  “Not too shabby,” Nancy agreed as we peered inside, our curiosity rising. There were two guest rooms, one on either side of the tiled foyer. The larger one had a queen-size bed and an attached bath; the smaller of the two had bunk beds, an attached bath, and a window that faced the exterior corridor of the building. Nancy shook her head when she saw that.

  “Security-wise, I’d rather not put you in either of these, Marigold. We’ll have to alarm that window, Terry. Let’s see what the third bedroom looks like.”

  We walked on, passing an open kitchen and a dining area, and into a living room with a wall of windows that gave direct access to a long, oceanfront balcony with a breathtaking view. We checked out the master bedroom, popping in from the living room. Not only did it have a large window facing the ocean, it had a set of sliding glass doors that opened onto that glorious balcony. Terry inspected the walk-in closet, while Nancy and I opened the remaining door and poked our heads in. The master bath was sumptuous, with a large tub and a separate shower.

  “Perfect,” Nancy decided. “You should be fine in here.”

  “More than fine,” I replied, smiling. I was utterly charmed by our accommodation, with its rich West Indian tropical decor. It felt like home. For the first time in weeks, I could walk from room to room, coming and going whenever I wanted, without needing a bodyguard to follow me. For the first time since leaving Atlanta, I felt like I could finally breathe.

  “Definitely no complaints from me,” she laughed, returning to the living room, where she flopped down on the sofa. “This is great.”

  We had a real kitchen, where I could cook to my heart’s content. Nancy and I made a trip to the local Publix for groceries, loading up on food and sundries.

  “Terry and I are leaving tomorrow,” she reminded me on our way back to the resort. “Tom’s coming down with Jojo, and Rocky said the rest of the gang will be arriving tomorrow night. Let’s stop and grab some wine.”

  It took us an hour to shop and three trips back and forth to the car to carry all the groceries into the building vestibule. Once she had parked the car, Nancy and I loaded the bags onto the elevator and rode it to the top floor. Terry helped us from there.

  “You ladies leave any groceries for other customers?” he wanted to know, as he lugged the last sack into the kitchen and plunked it on the counter.

  We grilled up a steak, baked some potatoes, and tossed a salad for dinner, popping open a pinot noir to share. It was such a lovely change from eating in restaurants every night. We lingered over strawberry shortcake at the dining table under the covered balcony. There was no reason to rush. And when the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher and the pots and pans were cleaned and put away, it was a pleasure to lounge on the pair of sofas and watch TV together. We left the sliding glass door open, and I
could hear the ocean waves rolling in, soothing my spirit.

  “I love having a normal life again,” I sighed, sinking onto the seat cushion.

  “Gee, it’s going to be hard to leave here tomorrow.” Nancy said wistfully.

  “Yeah,” Terry agreed. “We haven’t played this course yet, and I hear it’s a beauty.”

  “I’ll miss you two,” I told them as we watched the news. “I hope it all goes well back in Atlanta.”

  “Don’t you worry, kid. We’ll be back with bells on in no time at all. Besides, you’re about to have a familiar little visitor, one with four legs.” Terry announced.

  “Tom and Jojo are bringing Kary?”

  “Indeed they are, Marigold.”

  The next few days seemed to fly by. Ocean Hammock turned out to be a perfect place to hide out. The retired agents and their spouses showed up with the enthusiasm of kids going to summer camp. Karen and Al came down from Washington with Tom and Jojo. Karen was an experienced counterintelligence analyst at the FBI, used to tracking spies and patterns of suspicious behavior. Tom wanted her assessment of the information we developed. Al had been involved in national security cases, so he still had a lot of useful contacts he could reach out to for information, both in the United States and overseas.

  Tessa and Mark flew to Charleston from Minnesota, so that Lorena and Dan could pick them up at the airport and drive them down from South Carolina. Rocky and Tom thought it would give the foursome a little more cover that way. The two men had worked together in the Los Angeles FBI field office, Dan as assistant special agent-in-charge and Mark as a supervisory agent. Tessa was a real estate agent in and Lorena was a kitchen designer for a well-known real estate developer, so I picked their brains about trends in house renovations. We had several discussions about what kinds of changes actually increased a property’s value.

  Of the three couples joining Tom, Jojo, and me, Mark and Tessa were the closest to my age. Having the chance to hang out with them made me realize how much I missed having friends my own age.

  I followed Nancy’s suggestion and set up a routine for getting exercise every day. I went for bike rides and took walks along the beach. I was invited to play tennis with the group of ladies, and occasionally the men joined us for mixed doubles. The sunrises over the ocean were spectacular, and I could often be found having breakfast on the balcony. Jojo usually joined me, relishing the glorious views.

  It was lovely to see the little dog again. Kary often accompanied Jojo and me on our excursions. We even got a basket for one of the bikes, so he could come along when we rode on the bike paths.

  Tom commandeered the third bedroom in the condo as an office. He pushed the beds to the far wall and put together a desk he bought at Staples, so he could work.

  The week passed quickly. When Nancy and Terry returned, Tessa and Mark went back to Minnesota, and Tom and Jojo moved to the condo down the hall, taking little Kary with them. I missed his presence enormously. The condo seemed so silent without the tap-tap-tap of his toenails on the tile floors.

  We got back to our daily routine right away. Terry had been a firearms instructor in the Marines before becoming a federal agent. Now retired, he was more than content to handle security assignments for Roaring Kill Productions. As he put it, the pay was great, the risks low, and the chance to play golf made it all worthwhile, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to do whatever it took to keep me safe. He wanted me to know that both he and his wife were champion marksmen. In fact, that’s what brought them together as a couple.

  “I’ll be honest with you. Nance has actually bested me in a couple of competitions -- three, to be exact. I aim to make sure she doesn’t do it in a fourth,” he confided, giving me a wink. “I love my wife, but my eyes are always on the prize.”

  Terry and Nancy spent several hours each day training me in the art of self-defense and evasive maneuvers. They also utilized the other retired agents as instructors because, as Nancy said, it helped to get as much training from as many people as possible. She told me everyone developed a style of fighting over time, and if I only practiced with the two of them, I might think I could anticipate my attacker’s moves, and that could prove dangerous for me.

  They also fully debriefed me about my life in Rhode Island, both before and after I met Jared. We went over the events leading up to Jared’s murder. They grilled me on every little detail, sometimes going over the same points again and again, until I felt like screaming. Nancy sent Jeff and Rocky the results in encrypted emails, which they shared with Tom and Lincoln.

  By the third week of March, Karen and Al gave Jojo a ride back to Washington, because she was due back at work, but Tom stayed on. The biggest surprise of all was the news that Jeff was coming down with Rocky.

  Every time I found myself growing excited at the prospect of seeing him again, imagining that spark between us catching fire, I remembered Rocky’s warning about Jeff. Maybe it was best to just go on acting like a friend and leave the romance out of our relationship, especially if there was no chance we could ever be together.

  Nancy and I were going over defensive moves in the living room the following day, just before noon. She had me in a choke hold, showing me little mercy, and as I tried to untangle myself, there was a knock at the front door.

  “Hold that thought,” she instructed me, releasing me before she headed down the hallway to answer it. A moment later, I heard her giggling. “What the dickens is this?”

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Curiosity got the better of me. I hurried to the foyer to see what was so amusing.

  “Don’t you mean who in the dickens is this?” Jefferson appeared in the doorway just as I rounded the corner. As our eyes met, I felt a tingle go through me that was as electrifying as it was delicious. He was here at last. Stop it, I cautioned my romantic self, as my hopes soared. He’s just a nice guy, an author in search of a good storyline. And yet, I had to admit that just to be close to Jeff was delightful, like being home again with family.

  Family...it had been a long time since I had seen mine...too long. Ever since Jared died, I had been in limbo. My sisters lived their lives without me, as did my father. As far as I knew, none of them had any idea of what I had been through, or even that I was in danger now. That was just the luck of the draw as a protected witness separated from family. Maybe it was the strong bonds shared by the Cornwall brothers that triggered this reaction in me, I decided. I hadn’t had a real home since I was sixteen. I always felt like I was living on borrowed time and eventually someone would come to reclaim it. The wonderful sense of camaraderie the brothers shared drew me to them. I wished to be inside that Cornwall circle because they had what I had missed all these years. They had roots of love that went deep into the earth and made them strong.

  But now...here...seeing Jeff, I couldn’t ignore the reality that I longed for more. Perhaps the magnetic pull that drew me to him was just my mind’s way of trying to tap into that elusive sense of security, of permanence that home provided. I wanted what normal people had, a sense of belonging. The ache to be in those strong arms of his, to be wrapped up in their confident embrace, hit me head on, like a rip current, threatening to pull me under, to drown me in emotions that tossed me around on a sea of despair until I felt light-headed. I felt more vulnerable than ever. As I stood there, rationalizing every emotion that flowed through my heart in just those few brief seconds in the foyer, there was one thing I couldn’t deny. I had never felt this strongly about any one man before and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  I tried again to fight it with reason, but it just made things worse. I knew I was only fooling myself. There was no evidence to prove that he felt even a smidgen of the yearning I did. So, why did I go on hoping this tiny, burning ember inside me would ignite in him? Who was I to imagine I could matter to him? I was just suffering from the normal angst of a woman too long on the run. What else could it be?

  “Well?” Jeff stepped into the foyer, followed by Rocky.
“What do you think of him?”

  “Of him?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the man standing before me. He wore a green golf shirt and a pair of khakis, with boat shoes on his feet and sunglasses still perched on the bridge of his nose. I couldn’t read the emotions in his eyes and that just seemed to rattle me even more.

  “The little guy!” He pointed to the foyer floor, where a bundle of nervous energy twirled around on a leash.

  Nancy bent over and picked up a small tan and silver creature, cuddling him in her arms. When his little head popped up, I spied a slightly timid Yorkshire terrier. Had Jeff gotten a dog? He had made no mention of the pup in any of our conversations or emails.

  “Isn’t he adorable?” She patted the tiny head with one hand as she held him close. Those brown eyes looked at me with uncertainty and I understood the feeling. Change can be unsettling, even for a dog.

  “He is,” I nodded. Looking at him, I was sure I would fall in love with this little visitor in the next few weeks, only to be parted from him, just as I had been from Kary. A sudden pang of envy took hold of me. Here was one more thing I couldn’t have, my own dog. One more piece of my heart would be torn away by the loss of another canine companion; I would be left bereft again. It was more than I could bear. I turned away, afraid the tear that slipped down my cheek would invite a flood and give me away. “Excuse me.”

  I hurried away, unable to contain my emotions. What was wrong with me? I had so looked forward to Jeff’s visit and now that he was here, I was acting like a complete fool.

  “Don’t you like him?” I heard his voice behind me, but I kept going, telling myself he was talking to Jojo. I was desperate to get away, to be anywhere but where I was. I couldn’t trust myself not to disintegrate. “Marigold!”

  A bolt of agony passed through me as he spoke my name. It was almost torture to hear that tinge of disappointment in his tone and not to be able to respond politely. How could I explain my irrational behavior to my benefactor? Hands shaking, knees weak, I paused at the door to the balcony, not daring to face him, lest he see my misery. Now unable to stem the flow of tears, I was sobbing. Big, wet, messy tears splashed down my cheeks unchecked.