The Witness

by Nora Roberts

  “Good. Heading in the right direction. I didn’t want to have the conversation with her, but after I had, I realized it was a good one. I think we understand each other better than we ever did, and that’ll make it easier for both of us.”

  “It would be easier for me if she weren’t so physically gifted. And that’s petty. I don’t like being petty and shallow.”

  “As I grew up with two sisters, I can safely say odds are strong she’s thinking the same about you. But my point is this Roland Babbett got himself an earful.”

  “None of it’s applicable to the charges against Justin Blake, if indeed Babbett is a private investigator working for Justin’s father.”

  “No, but it’s fuel. Just like you carrying a gun and having high-class security is fuel. How well will those bona fides of yours hold up?”

  “My documents and available history will stand up to a standard police run. There would be no reason to question them.”

  “A PI’s not a cop,” Brooks pointed out.

  “I believe they’ll hold up to a rigorous check. I’ve never had any trouble.”

  “Ever been arrested, brought in for questioning?”

  “No, but I’m routinely checked by clients before contract. Due to the sensitive nature of the work, and my fee, my documents and references are thoroughly checked by any new client.”

  “That’s good.” Satisfied, he nodded. “That’s good to know. My concern, and it’s just a concern at this point, is this Babbett wouldn’t be working for a client wanting to hire you, but one looking for dirt, for something he can use to discredit you or threaten you.”

  “He’d have to be very skilled, and very determined.”

  “Maybe we’ll take some precautions.”

  “You could intimidate him. You have authority, and weapons. You could confront him, intimidate him and make him leave.”

  “Maybe I could, but that’s the sort of thing that would tend to make him more curious once he’s gone. Unless I have a lever.”

  “I don’t want to leave.”

  “We’re not going to let that happen.”

  She hated this new stress, this additional complication that had nothing, nothing, to do with the Volkovs.

  “If I’d stayed in the house, not answered the door, or simply given him directions—”

  “I don’t think that would’ve made much difference. He’s doing a job. What we’ll do—or you will, as I expect you’re better and quicker—is find out what we can about him. See what kind of man we’re up against here. Meanwhile … I’m going to want to borrow some of your cameras.”

  “Why?”

  “That precaution. Is it okay if the Bickford Police Department borrows some of your equipment for a day or two?”

  “Yes.” She took a key ring out of her pocket. “Borrow what you want.”

  “Thanks. I’ll have Ash or Boyd run out and get it, if that’s okay. I need to make a couple calls to set up that precaution.”

  “All right. I have to finish the meal.” Hopefully it would settle her nerves. “I don’t want to overcook the vegetables.”

  She had to do something, keep doing something, so the panic couldn’t push through. If she performed normal tasks—add fresh thyme and butter to the green beans, drizzle the wine sauce over the chicken, plate them with the roasted potatoes—she could cling to the illusion of normality.

  She’d prepared and presented the meal very well, but she could barely force down a few bites.

  She had a contingency plan. She always did. All the documents she needed for the next identity were inside her safe room, locked away. Waiting.

  But she didn’t want to use them, didn’t want to become someone else again. That meant she’d have to fight to protect who she was now. What she had now.

  “If this investigator is very skilled and very determined, it will still take time for him to discredit my documents and history,” she began. “I need more time to plan and organize any sort of contact with Special Agent Garrison.”

  “She’s in Chicago?”

  “I wanted someone in Chicago, where the Volkovs are based. She would have more incentive, and more access. Her response time would be quicker, once she learned to trust my information.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “But unless I can formulate an alternative, if I make direct contact, she’d be duty-bound to detain me. If that happens, I don’t believe I’ll have the time or opportunity to clear myself before I’m eliminated.”

  He reached over, took both her hands. “You’re not going to be detained, and you’re sure as hell not going to be eliminated. Look at me. Whatever it takes. And I’ve given some thought on alternatives and methods.”

  “I’ve considered sending Special Agent Garrison an e-mail on her personal account, telling her who I am, relating the entire story, all the details. I can route it as I do the data I send her, and it wouldn’t be possible to track. But it could leak. If the information I give her gets in the wrong hands, the Volkovs will know I’m not only still alive—”

  “Ilya Volkov saw you. They know you’re alive.”

  “They knew I was alive five years ago in New York. I might have had an accident or contracted a terminal illness.”

  “Okay, slim, but point taken.”

  “They’ll also know I’ve accessed their accounts, their electronics, and have given information to the FBI. Naturally, they’d take steps to block me from the access, which would cost me time and effort. They’d also be much more careful about what they put in e-mails and e-files. But more, it would make them very angry, and increase their effort to locate and eliminate me.

  “They have very skilled techs. Part of their income is from computer fraud, scams, from identity theft.”

  “You’re better than their techs.”

  “Yes, I am, but I’ve also had considerable time to study and program, to break through firewalls, elude alerts. It would take time to do that again, with newer, stronger security in place. In their position, I’d lay traps. If I made a mistake, they might track me. Time, again, is important. If and when I contact the FBI, the process of taking Keegan and Cosgrove, identifying other moles, arresting Korotkii, Ilya—all of that would have to happen quickly.”

  “Like dominoes falling,” he suggested.

  “Yes, along those lines. Bureaucracies don’t, in general, operate in a timely fashion. And before the process can begin, the agent, her superiors, would have to believe me.”

  “They will.”

  “The word of a fugitive, suspected at least by some of killing or certainly causing the deaths of two U.S. Marshals. Against the word of two other marshals, one of whom has been decorated and promoted.”

  He covered her restless hand with his. “The word of a woman who at sixteen handed them a top-level Mafia assassin on a damn platter. They’re the ones who screwed up.”

  “You’re biased because you love me.”

  “I love you, but I also have good instincts. You think the FBI, the marshals, the CPD wouldn’t bend and twist to break the back of the Volkov organization? They’ll deal with you, Abigail.”

  It took an effort not to pull her hand from his. “Are you asking me to trust them to protect me?”

  “No. I’m asking you to trust yourself, and me, to do that.”

  “I think I could.”

  “Then what we need is, first, a conduit.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Someone to speak for you, to make contact and open the door to negotiations.”

  “You can’t—”

  “No,” he agreed, before she’d finished. “I can’t. I’m too close to you, emotionally and geographically. They’ll check out the conduit. But they’d have no reason to connect me—or you—to my former captain on the Little Rock PD.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “I do. Just hear me out. Captain Joseph Anson. You can research him. He’s a solid cop, decorated, a twenty-five-year man. He’s got a wife—first an
d only—two kids. He’s a good boss, a smart cop. By the book, but not so much that he can’t skip a page if it’s the right thing to do. He’s trusted and respected in the department because he’s trustworthy and respectable. And he’s got balls.”

  She got up, walked to the window to think it through. A conduit made good sense, would lay a reasonable buffer down. But …

  “Why would he believe me?”

  “He’ll believe me.”

  “Even if he did, why would Special Agent Garrison believe him?”

  “Because of his record, his service, because he’s clean. Because he’d have no reason to lie. He’s a handful of years away from his thirty, away from retirement. Why would he risk that by lying to the feds?”

  She nodded, seeing the logic. “But why would he risk that by involving himself in this?”

  “Because he’s a good man, and a good cop.” Now Brooks rose, went to her. “Because he’s raised two daughters, and if he doesn’t imagine them in your place, I’ll put them there in his head.”

  “You’re asking me to trust a man I don’t know, have never met.”

  “I know it, and don’t think for a minute I don’t know how much that asks. If you can’t do it, we’ll find another way.”

  She turned to the window again. Her gardens were doing so well. Her life had been so smooth, really, for the last year. And yet nothing had really grown until she’d opened the door to Brooks.

  “Would you trust him with your life?”

  “I would be. You’re my life now.”

  “Oh, God, you say that and I feel I’d wither away if I lost what I’ve found with you. You make me want to risk the quiet, Brooks, and I thought the quiet was all I ever wanted.”

  “You can’t keep running, Abigail.” Taking her shoulders, he turned her around to face him. “You can’t keep shutting yourself up, shutting yourself down.”

  “I thought I could, but no, I can’t. Not now. How would you do it?”

  “Drive to Little Rock. We couldn’t risk a phone call or an e-mail. It has to be face-to-face, not only so we don’t leave a trail but because Anson’s a face-to-face type. I could be there in under two hours, get this started, be back before morning.”

  “Tonight?”

  “What’s the point in putting it off? There’s a PI I guarantee is working on his laptop right now, scratching at that surface. We’ve got the advantage, why waste it?” He got to his feet. “You take your laptop or that iPad of yours. Do your research on the captain on the way. If you’re not satisfied, we turn around, come back.”

  “You want me to go with you?”

  “Always. But in this case I want him to see you, hear you. I want you to tell him the way you told me. You’re scared. I don’t blame you.” He took her arms. “You want to take more time, to analyze, to calculate, work out details. But that’s not what you did when you got out of that safe house. It’s not what you did in New York when they chased after you. You went with instinct, and you beat them.”

  “I’m going to take my alternate identification, and cash. My go bag. If this goes wrong, I can’t come back here.”

  “If it goes wrong, I’ll go with you.”

  “I know you mean that now—”

  “Now’s where we are. You take whatever you think you need.”

  “I want to take Bert.”

  Now he smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  HE DROVE HER CAR. Neighbors wouldn’t think much about an SUV in Anson’s driveway, but they’d remember a Bickford police cruiser if a badge asked somewhere down the line.

  While he drove, Bert did what dogs did in cars, hung his head out the back window with a dopey grin on his face, and Abigail worked on her laptop.

  “Your Captain Anson has an excellent record.”

  “He’s a good cop.”

  Advantage or disadvantage? Abigail wondered.

  “If he agrees to help, will you know if he’s telling the truth?”

  “Yes. Trust me.”

  “I am.” She looked out the side window at the blur of landscape. “More than I have anyone else in a dozen years. If this goes through, and others believe me, it would lead to arrests, trials, my testimony. And there could be repercussions. You have to understand that.”

  “We could go on the way things are, let it alone. And both of us—I think both of us—would never feel quite okay with it. Safer, but not quite okay.”

  “Safe’s been enough for a long time now.” She looked back at him, still in wonder how one person could change everything. “It’s not now. Still, it won’t be enough to hurt the Volkov organization, to just damage it. To be okay and safe, we have to destroy it.”

  “Working on it.”

  “I have some ideas. But not all of them are strictly legal.”

  She watched the grin move over his face. “That doesn’t surprise me. What do you have in mind?”

  “I’ve been working on something, but I need to refine it a bit more. It’s technical.”

  He glanced over, and down at her laptop. “Nerd stuff.”

  “I suppose. Yes, nerd stuff. If we do this, I’ll need to spend more time and effort on the programs I’ve been developing. In the meantime, and again, if your captain agrees, you have to decide on your communication. Once he makes contact with the FBI on this matter, they’ll track his communications.”

  “We’re going to make a stop on the way, pick up some prepaid cell phones. That should cover it for the time being.”

  “It should.”

  He reached over, briefly laid his hand over hers. “We’re going to find a way.”

  She believed him. It made no sense, defied all logic, and yet she believed him.

  Her nerves ratcheted up when Brooks drove down the quiet street in the pretty neighborhood. Old leafy trees, green lawns, lights glowing against window glass.

  Captain Anson might attempt to arrest her on the spot. He might insist on contacting the federals.

  He might not be home, which would be anticlimactic and somehow more stressful.

  He might—

  “Relax,” Brooks said and stopped in front of a tidy two-story house with attached garage and a lovely red maple in the front yard.

  “That’s not possible.”

  He shifted so they were face-to-face. “In or out, Abigail? It’s your choice.”

  “In, but I can’t relax about it.”

  If she had to run, she wouldn’t allow him to run with her. She wouldn’t allow him to give up his life, his family, his world. She had an extra set of keys in her bag, and could be out and gone, if necessary. If that happened …

  “Whatever happens, I need you to know these past weeks have been the best of my life. Being with you changed me. Nothing will be the same for me again, and I’m glad of it.”

  “We’re going to win this, starting now.”

  “All right.” She ordered Bert to stay, and got out of the car.

  After Brooks skirted the hood, he took her hand. She did her best to focus on that contact as her heart began to thud in her throat.

  Lights glowed in the window, and she could smell spring, and the oncoming summer—the grass, the heliotrope, dianthus, some early roses. She felt the anxiety build, an anvil on her chest, and closed her eyes against it for a moment while Brooks knocked.

  The man who answered boasted broad shoulders and heavily salted dark hair gone thin at the temples. He wore khakis and a blue golf-style shirt with reading glasses hanging from the pocket by the earpiece.

  His feet were bare, and from somewhere behind him, Abigail heard the commentary of a ball game.

  His eyes were a hard steel blue, until the smile burst onto his face.

  “Son of a bitch, it’s Chief Gleason at my door.”