The Perfect Witness

by Iris Johansen

  “Why are you suddenly so concerned?” He didn’t like this. Dantlow was not usually on edge. “You agreed that it was worth the wait. I promised you that you’d get what you needed eventually.”

  Dantlow was silent. “I may need it now. I don’t like the way things are shaping up in Allie’s case. There are … problems.”

  “Spit it out,” Mandak said harshly. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Budget. We have a new administration, and they’re making us cross t’s and dot i’s. I couldn’t just bury the Allie Girard file completely.”

  Mandak muttered a curse. “Dammit, I took care of all the living expenses for the Walbergs and Allie.”

  “But I still had to make sure that there was protection for such a valuable witness. It was part of my job.” He paused. “And I had to justify that protection.”

  Mandak asked slowly and precisely, “And just how did you justify it, Dantlow?”

  “I didn’t enter it into the computer. It was a one-page file that had only the scantiest information. Just enough to—”

  “Satisfy the bureaucrats and possibly put Allie in jeopardy. What was in that file?”

  “I’ll send it to you,” Dantlow said. “Seven years, Mandak. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that anyone would still be interested in that kid. I thought we were safe.”

  “But someone was interested, weren’t they? That file was compromised?”

  “I can’t be sure that it was her file, but the record room showed an intrusion, and the file drawers on that side of the room had been opened and examined.”

  “And photographed.”

  “More than likely.”

  “I could break your neck.”

  “It might be okay. They might not have been after info about Allie. My witness files could be invaluable to any number of crime figures. I’m just pissed off someone managed to breach my security. They were experts, and they could have been wanting to sell the information to the highest bidder. And we can’t be sure that anyone will even recognize her as the same girl. She’s changed. I made no mention of Teresa Casali.”

  “She’s not changed that much.” But he had to hope that Dantlow was right and the theft was a random hit and that he’d have time to explore the situation.

  And get Allie away before all hell broke loose.

  “You’ve seen her more often than I have during these years. Last year when I checked in on her, I was pleasantly surprised. Gorgeous and not at all like the uncivilized urchin you turned over to me that night in Kentucky.”

  “She must have been on her best behavior,” he said dryly. “She’s not shown me that side of her character lately.”

  “Because she didn’t trust you?”

  “Maybe. At least I wouldn’t have put her file in a cabinet for anyone to grab.”

  “Computer files can be hacked, too. In fact, it’s more likely. She may still be safe.”

  “And she may not. You wouldn’t be putting pressure on me to get her to perform and lasso your bad guys if you didn’t think that there’s a chance that she might be a target.”

  Silence. “It’s possible.”

  “When were your files compromised?”

  “Two nights ago.”

  “And you didn’t call me right away?”

  “I was investigating the situation. I sent out feelers to our informants in the Camano organization to see if there were any ripples.”

  “And?”

  “Indeterminate.”

  “But you were uneasy enough to call me and try to prod me into saving your ass.”

  “Bullshit. I don’t play that way. My ass has been on the line before. I wanted to do my job and complete what we started out to do.”

  He was probably being honest. Mandak wouldn’t have dealt with him if he didn’t know he had integrity. But the anger was still flaring and he had to control it. “And still not have trouble with your damn budget.”

  “Okay, I made a mistake. Can you wrap Allie Girard up?”

  “I was on my way to doing that. It will just take a little more time. Do I have it?”

  “I told you that the status was indeterminate. I can let you know if I hear anything from Camano’s camp.”

  “I want Allie’s security doubled until we’re certain one way or the other.”

  “I’ve already taken care of that. Joseph Gillen and Bill Pontlin are reporting to me every two hours. Nothing unusual so far.” He paused. “This isn’t only about Allie. Can’t you persuade her to come in and give us a statement? It would take guts, but I’d judge that she might do it.”

  “And then I’d have to start all over, and it would be a miracle if she lived to go to court. Let me handle it. You just keep her safe until I juggle some priorities and work this out.” He hung up.

  Son of a bitch.

  Just when Mandak had been planning to make his move, Camano might be raising his cobra head to complicate issues.

  Complicate, hell.

  He’d have a tough time just keeping Allie alive, much less moving her toward his agenda.

  He heard the ping from his phone and he accessed the Allie report Dantlow had sent him.

  It was as scanty as Dantlow had said. Lots of double talk and not giving specific addresses or true names.

  Except for the name of the university.

  And the name Allie Girard.

  And that might be enough, dammit.

  He looked at Allie’s photo. It was hard to be objective when that face had been in his mind for the last seven years. There were some changes. As a sixteen-year-old, she’d had a thin, pale face and her enormous brown eyes had seemed to dominate it and given her a waiflike quality. Her short, curly, dark hair had added to the urchin look.

  The face of the woman in this photo had the same huge brown eyes, but her features had matured. Her lips were beautifully formed and her high cheekbones interesting and no longer waiflike. He’d told her to grow out her hair, and it hung below her shoulders now and shone with auburn highlights. She kept her skin bronze the year long with a self-tanner to add to the contrast with that elfin appeal. Dantlow was right. She was gorgeous, and a casual glance would not identify her as that kid running through the woods so long ago.

  If that report was casual.

  But it was Allie’s expression that he was most worried about. The features might have matured, but the expression was the same. Bold, challenging, ready to take on the world. Why couldn’t Dantlow see it? Mandak had been so aware of that spirit that he’d not allowed himself to notice the cosmetic changes.

  But there were people in Allie’s past who had faced that expression every day of her young life. Her mother, teachers, the goons Casali had kept around him during her childhood.

  If they had cared enough to notice.

  He could only hope that they had not cared and that the hunt had not been specifically for Allie.

  And that he had enough time to set up a new scenario to keep her from getting killed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “OKAY, I’M DONE. I’M GOING to bed.” Allie yawned as she threw down her cards. “You two cardsharps can fight it out between you. I’ve got an early class.”

  “Excuses. Excuses,” Natalie murmured. “We keep giving you our very best instruction in this fine art, and you never quite get it.” She looked at Lee. “And Lee would be so easy for you to beat if you concentrated. You wouldn’t even have to bluff. He’s much too soft where you’re concerned.”

  “True.” Lee smiled. “But I’d rather watch your expressions when you’re conniving than spoil it by going for the jugular.” He glanced at Allie. “Your class isn’t with our revered history professor?”

  “Hell, no. I wouldn’t even have to prepare if it was him.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” He looked back down at his cards. “Perhaps it’s time you continued your studies somewhere else.”

  She froze. “What are you talking about?’”

  “You need more o
f a challenge. I could arrange for you to go to a university in Utah or Colorado that would be more interesting for you.”

  Her eyes widened. “You want me to go away?”

  “No,” Natalie said quickly. “Lee is being very clumsy about this. We love having you with us. But that’s the point, Allie. You’re with us most of the time. As long as you’re here, you’re not out with people your own age and reaching out for the brass rings.”

  “Screw the brass rings.”

  “You haven’t had more than a half dozen dates in the last four years. You’re a wonderful, loving woman. We want you to have normal relationships.”

  “So you’re sending me away?”

  “God, no,” Lee said. He glanced at Natalie with disgust. “You didn’t do any better than I did. Now she thinks that we believe she’s not normal.” He said to Allie, “We thought you’d like a complete change of scene. Natalie and I could scratch together enough to hire your own security and get rid of Dantlow. You’d be on your own and free. It was only a suggestion. I just wanted to get your take on it.”

  “It’s a lousy suggestion,” Allie said. “That’s my take. I don’t want to go away from you.” She paused. “Unless you’re finding me a bother. If that’s true, I’ll go wherever you want me to go.” Her gaze searched Lee’s face. “But I don’t think you do feel that way. I believe I’d sense it. I’m far too insecure as far as relationships go to ever take it for granted.” She moistened her lips. “I don’t give a damn about dating and brass rings and hobnobbing with people my own age. For the first time in my life, I feel as if I have a family. We started off kind of shaky, but as time passed, I knew that you felt something for me. And I was sure I felt something for you.” She made a face. “See how clumsy I am? I’m afraid to say the word.” She was silent, then said awkwardly, “I love you guys. I love and respect you, and I’m grateful you’ve let me come into your lives. I’ll do anything you say if you’ll just let me stick around.”

  “Of course you can stick around,” Natalie said crisply. Her hazel eyes were glittering with moisture belying that brusqueness. “But you have to promise us that you’ll think about going to another university. Being selfish is a privilege of old age, and Lee and I are too young to have earned that privilege.” She made a sweepingly dismissive gesture. “Now go to bed. Though all this emotional nonsense will probably keep you awake anyway.”

  Allie hesitated, gazing at them uncertainly. It had been a difficult and uneasy few minutes, and she wasn’t sure what was expected of her. Then she came forward and gave Natalie a kiss on the forehead. “It wasn’t nonsense,” she said quietly. “Loving you and Lee is the most intelligent thing I’ve ever done in my life. The rest of it has been a crazy jumble of incoherency and mistakes, but that shines out bright and true.” She gave Lee a quick kiss on the tip of his nose and headed for the stairs. “So finish playing cards and have your discussion about what’s good for me. But unless you take a sudden dislike to me, you’re going to have to kick me out.”

  “No danger,” Lee said gruffly. “But just do what Natalie suggests. Think about it. Okay?”

  “Okay.” It wasn’t okay. She had hoped the subject had been dropped. This sounded like she might have to face this conversation again. She started up the steps. “Good night.”

  She paused on the landing to look back at them. They had not started the next game of cards. They were sitting before the fire, gazing at each other. Troubled. She knew that expression, she knew all their expressions. When she had found that she had stumbled on that wonderful bonanza lode of affection, she had wanted to experience every facet of it.

  And Lee and Natalie were definitely troubled about her. Why? For God’s sake, just because she didn’t want to go out on dates? She had experimented with sex and found it exciting. But sex wasn’t love, and she had found genuine affection with Lee and Natalie. Affection and safety and the knowledge that she was as important to them as they were to her.

  Okay, maybe that wasn’t normal. But it was her normal. She’d thought Lee and Natalie had understood. Evidently not. Perhaps she’d better make the effort to go out more. Maybe bring some guy home to dinner or spend the night at a motel to prove to them they weren’t cramping her style.

  She started up the second landing.

  As if she had a style yet. She was still stretching, learning, putting bandages on old wounds. She was doing pretty damn well for a cripple, and Lee and Natalie had helped enormously. But there was still a long way to go.

  She opened the door to her room. She would just have to work her way around this sudden concern of Lee and Natalie’s and give them what they—

  “Good evening, Allie. I had no idea you were such an enthusiastic cardplayer. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

  Mandak.

  She froze as she saw him lounging with legs outstretched before him in the big chair by the window. The sight of him struck her with that tingling awareness, as it always did. The piercing blue eyes that seemed to know and understand everything about her. The sensual mouth that was half-parted in a mocking smile. The muscular body that she had touched, felt the power, challenged, and yet been held and comforted by. Her own body was instinctively readying to meet that challenge.

  “Hello, Mandak.” She hadn’t seen him for a few weeks and that had been for only one short hour. It wasn’t like the past sessions, where he’d actually probed, soothed, held her when the confusion and pain was too much. Those last couple visits it was as if he was making a duty call. He’d asked her about blocking problems, inquired about her karate training with Milt Nolan, the martial arts instructor to whom he’d assigned her, talked casually about Natalie and Lee. Then he’d gone as quickly as he’d come.

  And left her on edge and feeling that maddening sense of loss and resentment that he could make her respond that way.

  “I’m not enthusiastic about cards. Ask Lee and Natalie.” She slammed the door behind her. “And you wouldn’t have had to wait if you’d called me and asked if I was available instead of creeping up here like a cat burglar.” She looked at the open window. “Don’t tell me you actually did come in that way? I can’t believe it.”

  “It seemed the best entry under the circumstances. I wanted to talk to you as soon as possible, and I didn’t want to run into Lee and Natalie.” He smiled. “And, besides, it brought back memories of the old days, when life was a little more exciting than it’s been lately.”

  “The old days? I was joking about the cat burglar.” She gazed at him with narrowed eyes. “Should I have been?”

  “Let’s just say I developed some similar skills in that direction.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me. Cat burglary is minor in comparison to your true potential. Nothing surprises me about you. You killed three men in the first ten minutes after I met you.”

  “And?”

  “Okay.” He was waiting for honesty, and she gave it to him. “I would probably have been dead if you hadn’t done it.”

  “But you still resent that I killed them.”

  “No, I resent that you did it so easily and efficiently. Death should be difficult and hard. It’s the difference between good and evil. I grew up with a father and the people around him who had no trouble with killing.” She met his eyes. “I felt as if I were back with them when you stepped in and killed Tantona and the others. I was afraid of you.”

  “You didn’t show it.”

  “It didn’t last long. There were too many things happening to me. And I was too worried about the fact that your memories were blank to me.” She added, “But it comes back now and then.” She braced herself. “Like right now. And I don’t like to be afraid. It makes me want to strike out.”

  “I know.”

  “So, unless you want to get socked, why don’t you tell me why the hell you’re here tonight.”

  He chuckled. “You do amuse me, Allie. There’s no one like you. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  “I didn’t say I was afraid
of you,” she said quickly. “Well, maybe I did. But I should have said I’m afraid of what you might bring to me, what … surrounds you.”

  “Surrounds me?”

  What was she doing speaking to him so bluntly? She had been avoiding that frankness since the moment he had turned her over to Josh Dantlow. No, that wasn’t true. Those weeks at the lodge had been honest in their own strange way. Afterward, she had deliberately walked carefully whenever she was with him. She had known in this new life that she could only let him enter tentatively and even then held at a distance. She couldn’t read his memories, but she’d always been aware that what lay beneath was violent and forceful and a power like nothing she’d ever encountered.

  A power that drew her, fascinated her, as it was doing right now. When she was younger, that power revolved around the mental aura of danger that she had immediately recognized. But as she grew older and matured, it was sometimes overshadowed by the sexual response she had whenever she was near him. At the lodge, she had been too absorbed to let herself feel anything but the emotional response of that weird bonding and the obsession with what she was learning. That changed once he was no longer with her. The first time he’d come back to see her, it had hit her with solid, bewildering force. After that she had explored sex with a number of good-looking, virile men she’d met at the university, but she had never felt anything like the searing sexuality that she felt for Mandak. Dangerous sexuality. Sex could make you weak and pliable. It was one of the principal reasons why she had worked so hard to keep that coolness in place when he had visited her.

  “Interesting observation.” His brows lifted. “I didn’t realize that you were that … sensitive. I wonder what else I’ve missed. I think it’s time I found out.” He added softly, “Come sit down, Allie. Your hands are clenched. But I doubt if you’re going to go on the attack until you hear what I have to say.”

  She opened the hands she hadn’t realized she’d clenched. “Why didn’t you want Lee and Natalie to know that you were here?” She made a motion with her hand. “Never mind, I think I know. You’re going to try to persuade me to leave here, aren’t you? Well, I won’t go. Why should I? I don’t owe you anything, Mandak.” Only her life and sanity and the only loving family relationship she’d had since the day she was born. “Okay, maybe I do. But what you did for me was done for your own purpose.”