Hiding Jessica

by Alicia Scott

  Hiding Jessica

  Alicia Scott

  To my oldest brother, Rob—

  because you have always been my hero.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to Bill Lorenz for providing gun expertise and to Andrew Atkins for enabling Mitch to do

  magic..

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  First he had to show ID, then walk through a metal detector. And then, just to prove they were learning from past mistakes, they took his gun from him anyway as he was not officially on duty.

  If Mitchell Guiness hadn’t known of the incidents that led to such precautions, he would have been impressed. Instead, he simply felt tense by the time he discreetly tucked himself into the courtroom and slid into his customary aisle seat in the back row. As usual, no one spared a glance for him. Everyone’s eyes were still focused on the witness stand.

  After a quick look, he couldn’t blame them; the Ice Angel looked particularly lovely today. Blond hair back in an elegant French twist, sparing but effective use of makeup to highlight her arctic blue eyes. Not to mention a white designer suit that had cost someone more than a few pennies.

  He wondered if that someone had been Les, and found himself shaking his head.

  In his business, it paid to be cautious and cynical. But even he wasn’t sure what to make of Jessica Gavornée, high-fashion model, Mafia mistress and now, federal witness.

  In the beginning, everyone had thought she would play the victim: the naive woman who had fallen unwittingly in love, only realizing too late what kind of man Les Capruccio really was. The attorney general had even set her up for the role, wanting to increase the jury’s sympathy for her. Yet yesterday, she’d sidestepped every question with blunt evasion.

  “Miss Gavornée, could you please describe to the court your relationship with Mr. Capruccio?”

  “I was his companion.”

  “Companion? Don’t you mean mistress?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “Then I think we’ll call it that, Miss Gavornée. Exactly how long have you know the defendant?”

  “Two years.”

  “And you lived with him for part of this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long, Miss Gavornée?”

  “Seven months.”

  “You know him well?”

  Slight hesitation—Mitch still wondered about the hesitation. “As well as I suppose you ever know someone.”

  “Fine. If you could tell the court, Miss Gavornée, what kind of man was Mr. Capruccio?”

  “Kind of man?”

  “Yes. Was he a patient man, a tender man? Tolerant, perhaps?”

  “He could be.”

  “Come on, Miss Gavornée. Isn’t it true that he often flew into violent rages? That in fact, he used to beat you? People have already mentioned seeing the bruises.”

  “Perhaps I’m just clumsy, Mr. Douglass. And I don’t see how you can hold Les accountable for that.”

  And so it had gone on for the afternoon. Miss Gavornée playing the role of the most reluctant prosecution’s witness. Mitch could understand that if she was trying to protect her lover. But in fact, Jessica Gavornée was the one who had walked into the attorney general’s office nearly five months ago and handed them Les Capruccio on a silver platter.

  Hell, they’d been after the man since 1989, when the federal government had begun its crackdown on the various connections between the mob and the teamster’s union. With the teamsters’ help, most of the cleanup had gone pretty quickly. By 1991, the teamsters had even elected in their first “outsider” president, showing that the metal cuffs of corruption had finally been broken. But even then the attorney general’s office hadn’t been able to get its hands on Les Capruccio. They only had common knowledge of his crimes, not the hard evidence.

  Until the day Jessica Gavornée had walked in with a stack of developed photographs, offering them Les Capruccio in return for enrolling her in the Witness Protection Program. Now they were about to nail the man on various charges of extortion, fraud and money laundering.

  All because of this one woman who now sat on the stand without a flicker of emotion running across her face: no guilt, no remorse, no love, no agony—nothing.

  He didn’t like the coldness. Dispassion led to trouble.

  As independent specialist to the Witness Protection Program, Mitch knew a lot about trouble. As of two weeks ago, Jessica Gavornée had become his assignment. He’d laughed at this one. The woman had only been one of the top models for the past eight years. And now they were simply supposed to make her disappear?

  They’d already had two attempts on her life, one killing an agent.

  And the more he researched the subject, the more Mitch wondered what was really going on. In his five years as part of the federal Witness Protection Program, he’d helped hide a lot of people. Some of them he’d trusted only as far as he could spit; they were low-down scums themselves who had only gotten off by nailing bigger fish. Others—the scared accountants, nervous fathers, terrified wives—he could sympathize with. All of them he at least understood. They had motives, and their motives were clearly outlined, recognizable.

  Except for Jessica Gavornée.

  What type of woman turned in her lover without any kind of remorse? What kind of woman gave up a life of international superstardom to nail a Mafia boss and didn’t appear anxious or scared?

  Eight years as one of the hottest models in the business, and still no one knew anything about her. According to the federal files, Jessica Gavornée was the elaborated version of Jessica Govern, but Jessica Govern didn’t even exist before the age of sixteen.

  Whatever her real name and identity had once been, Jessica Gavornée hid it very well. Certainly his own diggings hadn’t been able to uncover anything, and he was willing to bet serious money that the defense attorney had invested quite a bit of time and resources trying to uncover her past, as well.

  But, of course, they’d found nothing.

  All Mitch had was a million photographs of a woman who had been jetting around the world since she was a teenager. According to the press she did not go out to wild parties. She was religious about exercise and privacy. She didn’t own any pets and she didn’t have close friends. Her only public appearances were generally at high-profile events where she would be expected to appear. She always had an escort, but she was never linked with anyone.

  Had she hated Capruccio that much? If she had, it certainly didn’t show on her face when she looked at the man. Did she love him? There was no indication of that, either.

  Whatever went on behind those cool blue eyes didn’t seem to be known by anyone but herself.

  The prosecutor held up the first photographs of Les’s records, and Mitch leaned forward to hear.

  “If you would tell the court, Miss Gavornée, how did you come by prosecution exhibits G and H?”

  “I removed them from Les’s safe in his study.”

  “You removed these documents, detailing a list of artificial pension funds, from Mr. Capruccio’s own safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you do that, Miss Gavornée?”

  “I waited one night until he was asleep. Then I went downstairs to the study and removed the documents from his safe. I took pict
ures of the documents, replaced the originals and returned upstairs.”

  “And these pictures were the ones you submitted to the attorney general’s office on August 14?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Miss Gavornée. That will be all. You may step down.”

  Jessica Gavornée rose gracefully, murmurs filtering through the audience. She truly was stunning, all that cool blond beauty combined with full lips and thickly lashed eyes. She looked hot enough to burn a man, and cold enough not to care.

  Mitch watched her step down carefully, and noted she did not look at Capruccio at all. She simply walked to her seat behind the prosecutor’s bench. Hell, not even her hands were shaking.

  As she sat down, the two FBI agents in attendance took their posts. Capruccio nudged the man sitting next to him, and nodded toward the two agents. Mitch didn’t have to hear the words to feel his blood start to boil.

  One agent was already dead, and the trial wasn’t even over. There was not a good enough hell for a man like Capruccio.

  He forced himself to take a deep breath. One more week, maybe two, and the trial would end. Then Mitch would take over things, meeting Jessica Gavornée in person at a remote cabin in New Hampshire. They’d wanted to move her to South Carolina to get her farther away from the area, but she’d refused. For now, they were humoring her. It was part of Mitch’s job to make her realize the full implications of her new life. He had two weeks to orient her, to begin helping her select and build a new identity, then learn how to live with it. And he needed to understand her, needed to get under her skin to learn how to motivate her, how to change her.

  But if there was one thing he had learned in the last few weeks of research, it was that no one had ever gotten under Jessica Gavornée’s skin.

  That would have to change, now, Mitch resolved. He had two weeks with the woman. Two weeks to turn her inside out and learn every nook and cranny of her existence. Then he would tear her down, and the rebuilding would begin. She would start her life over as somebody else.

  That was the decision she had made.

  And really, it was the only hope she had of surviving.

  He made a few notes on his pad, and since her testimony was now complete, he slid back out of the room, retrieving his gun at the door.

  * * *

  Mitch returned three weeks later to hear the verdict, sitting once more in the back. As the judge took his seat, Mitch spared a glance over at the Ice Angel, looking composed and regal in pale blue.

  The judge read off the verdicts. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

  Cameras flashed, people erupting into a flood of clapping and clamoring. Jessica simply sat there, her hands folded on her lap, her eyes focused on the wall. Then Les Capruccio stood and turned right toward her.

  Through the din of the confusion, he grinned at her, slowly raising one arm. He cocked his hand into an imaginary gun and pointing right at her head, he pulled the trigger.

  Even as Mitch was leaping to his feet, the nearby FBI agents began pulling Jessica from the room. Stumbling slightly, she followed.

  And this time, Mitch noted, her hands were shaking.

  Chapter 1

  The cold January morning dawned the same as any other. If she’d been allowed to look out the window, she was sure she would see a bright winter sun sparkling over soft white fields and trees.

  Of course she wasn’t allowed to look out the windows.

  In the past five months, she’d learned plenty of things she was no longer allowed to do. Such as stand in front of windows. Answer doors. Be alone.

  Her life now was carefully controlled and monitored by a bunch of men in stiff blue suits who continuously said, “It’s for your own good, Miss Gavornée. Trust us on this one.”

  After the first few weeks, she’d stopped trying to argue with them. And she stopped trying to make them understand that Jessica Gavornée simply didn’t trust anyone.

  Once, in the very beginning of all this, she’d honestly believed it would work out. The Witness Protection Program would take care of her, and she would start over again as someone else. If anything, she was looking forward to the clean break. After all these years, the modeling was too draining for her and at twenty-four, she was past her peak in the profession; she wouldn’t have minded a new life at all.

  But those thoughts were before the late-fall afternoon when a sniper had taken a shot at her while the blue-suited men had been packing her into one of their dark sedans. That was before she’d seen a man abruptly arch, then drop into the bright gold leaves, taking the bullet meant for her. That was before the mid-December snow, and the Connecticut “room service” waiter had pulled out a semiautomatic with the entrée, only to be shot apart by four different blue suits.

  That was before she’d learned how to watch men die and know it was all because of her.

  Of course, she reminded herself now as she finished the last of her packing, it wasn’t really because of her. It was because of Les Capruccio and the type of man he was. It was because of greed and corruption and violence. The only thing she had to do with any of this current mayhem was her arctic blond looks.

  Les had taken one look at her, and decided he’d had to own her. What she hated to remember was the fact that in the end, he had. She’d underestimated him from the very start, thinking he’d accept no as all other men had accepted no. Then he’d appeared in her dressing room one day with the answer to the riddle she thought no one would ever solve.

  Suddenly she had no choice in the matter.

  Her hands tightened instinctively on the blouse she was holding and it took effort to make them relax. She hated Les Capruccio. Hated him in ways and depths no one would ever know. She hated his silk suits, his smirking face, his bloated hands. She hated the way he looked at her, and she abhorred the way he’d touched her.

  One late night, six months ago, she’d realized that she just couldn’t take it anymore. The pent-up anger was beyond even her control. If he touched her one more time, she would kill him. And the blood would flow again, staining white hands, soaking into the carpet. The silent scream would sound, echoing remorselessly down shuttered corridors. And the man would fall, down, down onto the gold-patterned carpet—

  The plan had come to her.

  She didn’t try to explain these things to the attorney general, and she certainly didn’t explain them to the jury or to the blue-suited men. Her reasons were her own, and she was careful to keep them that way. All they ever needed to know was the evidence that put Les Capruccio away once and for all. The rest, she would guard as she had guarded it for the past eight years.

  She was the Ice Angel, and she knew it.

  Even now, nothing showed on her face as she folded the last of her blouses and carefully tucked it into the suitcase, smoothing the surface once, then closing the lid. As usual, two of the blue suits were playing cards at the small table. They were careful to try and give her an illusion of privacy, but it was only an illusion. She hadn’t been left alone in over five months. In the beginning, she’d tried to learn their names and had gone along with the awkward attempts at small talk. It seemed a minor concession to make if they were all more comfortable.

  But after Darold had been shot, she’d stopped learning their names. Now she considered their presence purely a business arrangement. She’d made her choice and that was why she was here. They had made their choices and that was why they were here.

  She owed them nothing; they owed her nothing. She clung to that one thought more than she would ever admit.

  “I’m ready to go now,” she said quietly, breaking the silence. The two men looked up, their eyes resting on her briefly, then abruptly skittering away. She was used to it by now. Most men usually gawked the first time they saw her. Afterward, they tried so hard not to stare, they could barely look at her at all. These days, she found her face to be just one more of the grim ironies of life. Eight years ago, her blond looks had been her salvation. Now, they would probably put her in
the grave.

  How did you hide a cover girl? The blue suits really didn’t know, though they were careful not to tell her that. But she already knew the fact well enough. She’d heard the bullets that had fired the point home. And she’d seen their impact.

  Now the two men stood, nodding at each other in the kind of silent conversation they learned at FBI school. One came wordlessly forward and took her small leather suitcase and matching garment bag. Knowing the drill by now, Jessica stepped forward until she was between the two men. The front man—was his name Bill? Bob? she didn’t remember and she didn’t care—rapped on the inside of the door three times. After a minute, an answering rap came back, signaling the car was ready and all was clear. Only then did the man unlock and open the door. In a controlled rush, they moved her to the sedan.

  Minutes later, they were pulling away, a small three-vehicle convoy. Keeping to her side of the plush leather seats, and protected now by the dark-tinted, bulletproof glass, Jessica could finally gaze out at the white-blanketed hills of Western Massachusetts. It was really a beautiful winter’s day, she thought vaguely. Much too beautiful for blue suits that concealed black guns and dark sedans that carried grim arsenals.

  After all these exhausting months of jumping from hotel to hotel, they were now taking her to some remote New Hampshire hideout, where some hotshot man would begin training her on her new identity. They trusted this man so much, only a few of the blue suits would remain behind, and they would serve only as lookouts. Mostly, she would deal with just this man.

  She didn’t really care, she decided. One man, three men, it didn’t matter. They were only people doing their jobs, and no matter how good they were, sooner or later they would move on to other assignments. Then it would be just her, living some lie built upon another lie. Until some day she did walk in front of her new windows, until some day she did answer the front door by herself. The newspapers would carry the final headline. Quiet Schoolteacher Senselessly Shot Down On Her Own Doorstep.

  Jessica looked down and realized for the first time that her hands were shaking. She focused on them, her blue eyes narrowing slightly in concentration as abruptly, the shaking stopped. Now her hands lay quiet and still on her lap. Better.