by Lisa Harris
Sienna blinked. She didn’t recall hitting Agent Perez that hard. “I’m sorry. Will I be arrested?”
“Probably, but right now we need to keep you alive. What spooked you?”
“She asked me strange questions that have nothing to do with Mr. Ford.”
“Like what?”
Sienna didn’t want to tell him. Maybe later. “Suffice to say that I didn’t have a good feeling about Agent Perez.”
“So you left.”
“They dropped off your SUV key. It was right there on the counter.”
“Then you bashed her on the head with a frying pan and took off to see your colleague. What for?” Earl asked. “Tell me the truth.”
Sienna drew a deep breath, closed her eyes, and counted to ten. Then twenty. Thirty.
“Tell me the truth and I can help you,” Earl said.
Sienna opened her eyes. “Would you?”
“That’s what you hired me to do.”
“Technically, my uncle paid for your services. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have.”
“You called Helen,” Earl reminded her.
“Yes, I did, but I couldn’t afford her and she doesn’t do pro bono work.” Sienna looked away. Outside, shops and gas stations came and went as Earl headed back to the highway in the opposite direction she had come from.
“Neither does she give discounts. So who called your uncle?” Earl drove the vehicle onto the Interstate 20 ramp.
“Helen didn’t say. My guess is that she called my uncle, who is my mom’s full-time caregiver. He’s retired and lives on social security. I don’t know where he got the money to pay Helen.”
“Where do they live?”
“Chattanooga.”
“Do you get to see them often?”
Sienna shook her head. “I try to go up there every other month to see Mom, but in the last several months, I’ve stayed away. I need this problem solved, Earl. Do you understand? Then I can go back to my normal life.”
“Then tell me the truth, Sienna.”
“Where are you taking me?” Interstate 20 could keep going all the way through Atlanta, and then western Georgia to Alabama.
“I’m going to get on 285, and drive round and round until you tell me what’s going on,” Earl said. “Otherwise I cannot help you.”
Before Sienna could put her thoughts into words, Earl’s phone buzzed.
“Agent Kimball.” He tapped his phone to call her back. Audio only. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I heard,” Kimball said over the speakerphone.
“Any word?” Earl asked.
“A dead man in the driver’s seat.”
Sienna gasped. “His wife and child?”
“They were safe inside the house. I’m on my way to interview them,” Kimball said. “I need you to get Sienna to the new safe house pronto.”
“What happened to the old safe house?”
“Perez is dead,” Kimball said over the speakerphone. “It’s a crime scene now.”
In the passenger seat, Sienna was beside herself. “Oh no. I’m sorry. I didn’t hit her that hard. The pan was aluminum, not even steel.”
“The real Perez has been dead before you two arrived at the safe house,” Kimball said. “The woman whose head you bashed disappeared before the ambulance arrived.”
“She passed out on the floor when I left,” Earl said.
“She must’ve been pretending.” Kimball drew a deep breath.
“What’s her name?” Earl asked.
“Joy Burditt. Goes by Killjoy,” Kimball said.
“And you figured it out this quickly. How?”
“Fingerprints everywhere. She’s in the NCIC. Wanted in five states for murder. Multiple outstanding federal warrants.”
Earl whistled. “How did she find the safe house?”
“Someone let her in while we were extracting you from Dana’s house,” Kimball said.
“What is NCIC?” Sienna asked.
“The National Crime Information Center database,” Earl replied.
Kimball moved on. “Go to Sandy Springs. When you get there, call me. I’ll tell you where the safe house is. I need you two to go straight there. I think Killjoy is out looking for you.”
“Yes. Ma’am.”
Sienna prayed quickly for the right words to say. “Which hospital did they take Dana to?”
No one answered.
“You heard the lady,” Earl said.
“She’s at Grady,” Kimball finally replied.
“How’s her baby?” Sienna asked.
“Baby?”
“Yes, ma’am. Back at the house, she told me she was pregnant.”
“Whose baby?” Kimball asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but she gave me the impression it was Mr. Ford’s.” That was all Sienna knew. She prayed for Dana that she and the baby would be well.
“Good to know,” Kimball replied. “Now put on your seat belt. I don’t want you going through the windshield in a wreck.”
Sienna’s jaw dropped. She pulled her safety belt over her shoulder. “How did you know I wasn’t…”
Earl didn’t say a word. He simply shook his head. “Hey, Agent Kimball.”
“Yes, Earl?”
“Neither Sienna and I have eaten. We’re going to grab a bite on the way.”
“Get takeout.” Kimball’s voice was harsh.
“I know a safe place near the Galleria.” Earl glanced at Sienna. “We’ll do a little detour to Sandy Springs.”
“All right,” Kimball said. “I know I’m going to regret this already.”
“You know where we are,” Earl said.
“Yes, we do.”
“Then you can keep us safe, right?” Earl laughed.
Kimball laughed with him and hung up.
Chapter Five
“Something is not right,” Sienna said.
Earl didn’t answer. He reached over to hold Sienna’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’m on your side.”
Just before Highway 20 intersected with Interstate 285, Earl pulled over into a gas station. “That’s a good price for gas. I’ll fill up the tank.”
Sienna looked up at the sign. That was not a good price at all. In fact, it was two cents more than some other gas stations. Not only that, there was still half a tank of gas left in the SUV.
She wasn’t sure what Earl was up to. She waited as Earl filled the gas tank while he stood outside the vehicle, tapping away at his phone. He had a worried look on his face. Then he started moving his phone back and forth across the doors of the SUV.
What on earth was he doing?
Sienna prayed that God would keep them safe. She leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. The day had been overwhelming, to say the least.
To begin with, she’d hardly had any sleep the night before. By three in the morning, she had packed her suitcase for the conference on Grand Bahama Island in the Bahamas. She mostly filled it with summer clothes, shoes, and sunblock. Then she tried to go back to sleep, but the recurring flashbacks of how Rocco had died filled her with fear and anxiety.
She had gone to work immediately in her home office, even as her first pot of coffee of the day was brewing in her kitchen. By the time Earl knocked on her front door with takeout Chinese food, it was noon, and she couldn’t remember all that she had gotten done and hadn’t gotten done.
She heard the vehicle door shut, and Sienna opened her eyes. She turned her head toward the driver’s side as Earl started the SUV.
“Do you remember when we first met?” Earl asked.
“How can you make small talk like that?” Sienna asked. “Arun’s dead.”
“Sometimes it’s good to talk about something else. Humor me.”
Sienna closed her eyes. A tear trickled. So much going on. It was confusing.
“Wasn’t it last week?” Earl asked.
Sienna nodded.
“We hit it off right away. You weren’t afraid of me.”
“Should I
be?” Sienna asked.
“I don’t know. Sometimes people say I’m intimidating.” Earl pulled out of the gas station.
“Is it because of your height?”
“You’re pretty tall yourself. In fact, you’re one of the tallest ladies I’ve dated…uh…”
“Look at you, playing the boyfriend role already. Mr. Ford would totally believe that we’re in a relationship with each other.”
Earl chuckled. “I’m good at playing the part.”
“If circumstances were different…”
“Go on.”
Sienna shook her head. “I’m tired and not thinking straight.”
“Really? Or were you trying to ask me if we could be friends outside of this trouble bubble?”
Sienna had to think about his question. “I don’t know.”
Southbound Interstate 285 was filled with brake lights.
“It’s almost ten. I’m surprised we still have traffic,” Earl said.
“At least we have a full tank of gas.”
“For sure.”
Sienna looked outside the window. “You know, I can’t remember how many times I’ve pleaded to God for help in the last six months.”
“God sent help, didn’t He?” Earl eased into traffic on the southbound Interstate 285.
“You mean you?”
“I could very well be a part of your support team. Helen, your uncle, me. And your praying friends at your church at Lakeside.”
“So you know where I go to church in metro Atlanta.” Sienna figured he had probably read up about her. “What else do you know about me?”
“That you’re in big trouble, but you’re too proud to receive help.”
“Am I proud?” Sienna hadn’t been able to do any self-evaluation. The many sleepless nights had affected her ability to think straight. “I need answers.”
“And Arun Dhillon had the answers?” Earl changed lanes. It turned out that one lane was blocked due to a fender bender. Police cars and two fire trucks were at the scene, as was a tow truck.
“I didn’t tell you his name.”
“Agent Kimball and I looked up his address.”
“How did you follow me…oh… You have a tracker in your SUV.”
“This is a company vehicle. Never know when someone might just drive off in it.”
“You don’t trust me,” Sienna said, stating the obvious. After all, she had taken his vehicle without permission.
“Do you trust me?” Earl asked.
Sienna was silent. She wasn’t sure. “Helen wants me to trust you.”
“Then trust me.” Earl reached out for Sienna’s hand.
She let him hold it. His hand was warm.
“If you don’t trust me—yet—then how about trusting God for me?” Earl asked.
“Good idea. To tell you the truth, I’m afraid of what might happen to me, to my family.”
“All the more reason to trust God,” Earl said softly. “Pray Psalm 56:3 back to Him. ‘Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.’ Okay?”
Sienna nodded. “Do you usually hold the hand of your clients?”
“Not unless we’re pretending to be in a relationship. We might as well practice.”
“We’re in a vehicle by ourselves. No one else is here.” Sienna waved her other hand in the air.
“At this time tomorrow night, we’ll need to convince your boss that we are together, or this whole thing will blow up and I can’t help you anymore.”
“I feel like we’re getting somewhere, but if GOOP blows up…” Sienna couldn’t finish her sentence.
“Good administrative assistants are sought after.”
Sienna shook her head. “A whistleblower cannot be trusted. I’d be earning peanuts—no offense to peanut growers.”
“You could change your career. Or get retraining. Money is not everything.”
“My mother has dementia and is living with her widowed brother. But you knew that.”
Earl nodded.
“As an administrative assistant, I have to work extra to earn enough to pay for her daily care. I don’t have enough left over to pay Helen. I had to sell my house, buy a smaller car, emptied out all my savings just to keep Mom alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to do with you.” Sienna shifted in her passenger seat. “I work a lot of overtime. Sometimes Mr. Ford works late, and I’m there until he’s done. I hear things, I see things. Too much.”
“Do y’all call him Mr. Ford all the time?” Earl asked.
“He’s only ten years older than I am, but it’s a safety wall between us, you know?” Sienna smiled. “He hated me calling him Mr. Ford. He said it makes him feel twenty years older than I am. Dana called him Finnegan, even at work.”
Earl put his blinker on and changed lanes. Sienna could not believe they were heading on Interstate 75 North already.
“For two years, I ignored whatever was happening,” Sienna continued. “Then I met Teo. He was charming and sweet—a perfect gentleman. For a whole year, he worked at GOOP. During that time, he dumped me and cozied up to Dana.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Teo and I were not a good fit. He was better off with Dana.” Sienna sniffled. “She’s my friend, but she can be stubborn. They talked about kids and she wanted five and he wanted three. She quit smoking on account of him.”
“Until one day…”
“Will you let me tell the story?” Sienna snapped. “Yes, then one day he was fired. We found out that he had been taking photographs of documents which would be sent over to GOOP’s competitors. After that, Dana and I became close, like sisters. She paid for lunch at work every day so I could be an attentive listener to her problems—lamentations, I call them. Truth be told, I would have listened anyway even if I took care of my own lunch.”
“I feel sorry for her already.”
“Pretty soon, Arun joined us and we became friends. Turned out, he’d been interested in Dana too—why isn’t anyone interested in me?—and she was getting lonely. He suggested she spend more time in the gym—with him, you see.”
Earl nodded.
“She was at the company gym one day and ran into Mr. Ford, who had just had a fight with his wife of many years. He had gone to the gym to blow off steam, and there was Dana in the rooftop pool outside the gym. They were the only people in the pool that evening. And so it began.”
“How long did Dana and Mr. Ford have their affair?” Earl asked.
“Until Mr. Ford’s wife found out. Then she filed for divorce. They didn’t have a prenup. She walked away with nineteen billion dollars.”
Earl whistled. “That must’ve caused a financial chain reaction for Mr. Ford.”
“Not anymore. He slept with one of the GOOP partners, and persuaded her to sell her shares to him. Now he owns fifty-five percent of the company.”
“Did that make the other partners mad?”
“It made Sandrina Owens mad because Mr. Ford dumped her afterwards. She took him to court, but the sale was legit. She moved out of state after that,” Sienna said. “They kept Owens in the company name.”
“What about the other partners?” Earl asked.
“Mr. Ford’s half brother, Zachary Gavard, is the ‘G’ in the company name. He owns twenty-five percent of GOOP. ‘Furious’ can’t even begin to describe him.” Sienna recalled the day Gavard stormed into Mr. Ford’s office and broke a glass wall. “He’s got anger management problems.”
Earl turned on his blinker to merge into traffic going north on Interstate 85. Someone honked at him.
“Eyes on the road, Mr. Young,” Sienna ordered.
“Yes, dear. So between Ford and Gavard, they own eighty percent of GOOP. Who owns the remaining twenty percent?”
“Ten percent belongs to Mr. Gavard’s wife, Celestia, née Oppenheimer.”
“Ah, the other ‘O’ in the name.”
“Another ten percent is distributed among other investors—who are going to be at the priva
te conference next week at Moss Grand Bahama.”
“Tell me this,” Earl said. “Who runs the company if something happens to Mr. Ford?”
“Mr. Gavard and Celestia.”
“If something happens to Mr. Gavard?”
“Celestia would own ninety percent of the whole shebang,” Sienna said.
Earl whistled. “What does Celestia do?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. All I know is that she does show up at the quarterly company meetings, and she knows many of GOOP’s investors.”
“Back to Arun…” Earl said.
Siena burst into tears. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Earl pointed to the glove compartment. “There’s some paper napkins in there.”
Sienna nodded. After she blew her nose with the paper napkins from Krispy Kreme, she tried to answer Earl’s question. “What did you want to know about Arun?”
“When Arun lost Dana to Mr. Ford, what did he do?”
“Disappointed, Arun married someone else and they now have a child. Then Dana broke up with Mr. Ford, but it was too late. Arun told me privately that he could not have gone back to a woman who would sleep with someone else’s husband. Of course, I could never tell Dana what he said.”
“Interesting,” Earl said quietly, but Sienna heard him.
“What?”
“That people confided in you. You must listen well.”
Sienna felt uneasy hearing Earl’s comment, like she had spoken too much. Then she remembered how Agent Kimball had seen her not wearing a seat belt. There must be a camera in front of her, but she could not see it.
She wondered if she should say something to Earl. He seemed nonchalant about it. He had asked her to trust him. It was too late for her to back out now.
She decided that this wasn’t the time to tell Earl about the whistle USB drive. Instead, she prayed to God for wisdom and timing.
She needed both more than ever.
Chapter Six
Something wasn’t right. Earl felt it in his gut, but he could not explain it to himself, let alone to anyone else asking. All he knew was that gnawing feeling that something was wrong, and that the FBI might have been infiltrated, with an assassin in the safe house.
He recalled an event a few years back, when he had helped FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler catch a terrorist. Their enemy had consistently caught up with them no matter where they went. At the end of the day, it turned out that the FBI had a mole working for the terrorist organization.
