He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I admire your logic, but I’d feel better if you were inside.”
She looked up at him, extending a hopeful smile. “Could we go for a walk in the woods? If we left by the back door no one would know.” She forced a little chuckle. “I’m starting to go a little stir-crazy being cooped up inside all the time.”
He captured her gaze, his eyes saying as much to her as his words. “You know the answer to that.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry. I know this is difficult for you.”
She couldn’t keep the despair out of her voice. “I suppose you’re right.” She gazed out over the mountains, drawing in another deep breath as she allowed the calming beauty of nature to settle over her. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
He hesitated before turning toward the door. The emotion in his voice conveyed the depth of his feelings. He turned back long enough to take hold of her hand for a moment. “Don’t be too long. It’s dangerous for you to be out here.”
She gave his hand a squeeze, then watched as he went inside. It was apparently dangerous for her to be anywhere, so what could standing on the porch hurt? She turned her attention to the little bit of activity that existed along the road. Summer was over and most of the tourists, vacationers and summer residents had gone home. The smell of autumn filled the air.
Her thoughts turned again to Brad, to what this was doing to his life and career, to what she could do to help rather than feeling like such a burden. She watched the cars traveling the road. Then one caught her undivided attention.
A jolt of fear stabbed at her. Her blood turned cold as she watched the car moving slowly down the road. She tried to give the appearance of someone minding her own business and not paying any attention to what was happening. The car slowed then pulled off the side of the road across the street and a few feet past the cabin. A hard lump formed in her throat. She forced herself to move slowly, not wanting her actions to be conspicuous.
She stepped over to the door, but didn’t go inside. She stood with her back to the door. With one hand she sipped her coffee. With the other she reached behind, wrapped her knuckles against the door, then grabbed the doorknob and held on to it. She pretended to be enjoying the morning. It only took a few seconds before she felt the doorknob move in her hand as Brad tried to open the door from the inside. She brought the coffee mug to her mouth to cover the fact that she was talking.
“Don’t come out here. See if you can peek through the window. Across the street…the car parked there…it’s the same kind Danny Vincent drives and I’m sure that’s Danny behind the wheel.”
His voice came back at her through the door. It carried a calm, commanding presence that immediately filled her with a sense that everything was under control. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m just looking around, trying not to stare at him while pretending to be enjoying my morning coffee. What do you want me to do?”
“Can you stay there for a minute or so, long enough for me to grab the binoculars and take a good look at him? As long as you’re out there he’ll probably continue to watch, especially if he doesn’t realize that you’ve spotted him. I can’t imagine him trying anything in broad daylight.”
“I’ll stay here by the door and sip my coffee.” Even though Brad instilled a feeling of confidence in her, she couldn’t control the butterflies wreaking havoc with her nervous system. She moved casually, trying to make each gesture seem at ease, as if nothing was wrong. But she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop the involuntary action of casting furtive glances toward the driver.
“Tara…” Brad’s words came through the door. “Get inside here as quickly as you can without appearing suspicious.”
“Right away.” A quick flash of anxiety hit her. The urgency in his voice was anything but calm. She pretended that her coffee cup was empty. She opened the door, breathing a sigh of relief when she was safely inside.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Her stress level rose with each breath she took. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he clenched his jaw into a hard line.
“I’ve never seen Danny in person, but the man sitting in the car is a dead ringer for the photos I’ve seen. There’s a handgun on the dashboard. He’s reached for it twice and each time hesitated, then pulled back and left it there. The third time he picked it up. He looked as if he was trying to screw up his courage to do something he didn’t want to do. He was definitely apprehensive. He put the gun back and then just sat there, staring straight ahead out the front windshield.”
Whatever hope she held out that Danny wasn’t really trying to harm her, that it was all some sort of misunderstanding, disappeared in an instant. The hurt and humiliation washed over her, the final undeniable realization that her fears had all come true—the firm knowledge that he had betrayed her and everything she thought they once had in such a cold and impersonal manner. A sob caught in her throat. She made an attempt to blink away the tears that formed in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Tara. I wish I could have made it easier for you.” He stopped short of telling her he wished it could have been different. If things had been different he never would have met her and never would have known that it was possible to open his heart again.
The ringing phone intruded into the moment.
“What do you have for me, Steve?” Brad listened intently as his friend provided the information he had requested. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch later.”
He turned to Tara. “Steve says the Palm Beach address belongs to a private mailbox service. Doreen Vincent could have made an arrangement with them to have her mail forwarded anywhere in the world and there wouldn’t be any official trail to follow the way there would be with the post office.”
The sound of car tires spinning on gravel caught Brad’s attention. He looked out the window just in time to see the car across the street pull onto the pavement and disappear down the road.
“It looks like Danny decided to leave rather than staying put. He probably realized we spotted him and now needs to stay out of sight for the rest of the day.”
Tara glanced out the window. “Maybe he’s gone to confer with Doreen.”
“From what you said about Danny being the controlling type, I don’t see him needing or wanting to consider someone else’s opinion and wishes and certainly not wanting anyone else’s input.”
“That’s true. Danny has always—” The image popped into her mind, as vivid as when she first saw it. She whirled toward Brad, her excitement barely contained. “That’s it! The photo…it was a picture I’d seen at Danny’s house. It was taken at one of the family functions that took place at John’s house. Everyone was out by the pool. Danny, Doreen…and Pat! Doreen Vincent knew Pat, too.”
Chapter Thirteen
Brad felt her excitement at the new bit of information. “What were they doing in the photograph?”
Tara wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “Doing? They were…” She closed her eyes and tried to visualize the scene. “They were showing off, almost like a contest of some sort. Doreen had picked up Danny and had him slung over her shoulder like in a fireman’s carry.”
“Hmm…a very unusual woman. I wonder if she’d known Pat for a while or if she just met him that day.”
Tara’s momentary excitement faded as she considered the full impact. She looked at Brad and saw the reservation in his eyes, the hesitation that said it wasn’t that simple. Her confusion and uncertainty crept into her voice. “It is Doreen that we need to find, isn’t it? Isn’t she the one working with Danny…the key to this?”
“That’s certainly one very good possibility, but not the only one.” He grabbed his notebook and a pencil and sat down at the table, indicating that she should sit down, too.
“Let’s take this from the beginning. We know there was a woman involved with the witnesses on the day of their deaths in the first and third accident. Both of those witnesses were supposedly safe in the Witness Security
Program with their new identities. One of those men might have let his true identity slip out in a moment of passion, but it’s unlikely that both men were so careless. We also know that Danny was in Seattle on those specific dates. Both deaths were attributed to the same thing—naturally poisonous foods.
“The second and fourth deaths don’t give us enough information to make an educated guess about who might have been involved, other than knowing that Danny was in a position to have been in those cities at those times, but we don’t know that he was. The fifth death does give us a specific person who committed what is now officially a murder rather than accidental death as the previous four had been designated.”
Tara had been following along with his recap. “Yes, and that person was Pat, who is now dead, himself a murder victim. But even if he was still alive, he’s only a hired killer and not the person who wanted the witnesses dead. His only motive was money…getting paid to do a job.”
“That’s right. And we now have definite connection between Danny, Pat and John Vincent in that they were business associates as evidenced by you seeing them in a meeting together at John’s office. We have a minor link between Doreen Vincent and Pat by virtue of them being in the same photograph along with Danny at a party. Perhaps she knew him well, perhaps that was the only time she had met him and had no other association with him.
“We know that Danny is involved and can assume that Danny is the one who hired Pat to do away with Phil Winthrope and possibly victims number two and four, also. We can assume it was Pat who planted the bomb in your car and took a shot at us through the motel window in Tacoma. We know it was not Pat who rigged the truck at the airport or who took a shot at you at Friday Harbor, because he was already dead. The time involved between my arranging the flight and our being attacked wasn’t long enough for a new hit man to have been located and hired. I think we can assume that was Danny Vincent driving the black car.”
Tara looked questioningly at Brad. “That leaves us with the unanswered question of who provided the flight information to him. Wouldn’t it have been the same person who gave out the information about where to find the witnesses?”
“Probably, but not necessarily. The three unprotected witnesses could have been tracked down by anyone, the same way I’ve been tracking people using the computer. The two protected witnesses are an entirely different matter. Their new identities had to have been leaked from inside, but it’s not just anyone who would have access to that type of highly classified information. It certainly isn’t the type of information routinely available in any of the Marshals Service offices.”
Tara leaned back in her chair. “Who does that leave? Who else belongs on our list?”
He hesitated for a moment, still unsure and unhappy about his suspicions. “Well, I’ve had Ralph Newman and Thom Satterly on my list of suspects for quite a while now. Thom heads the Seattle office and Ralph is a co-worker. Both are in a position to know where to start looking for classified information, have come to a standstill in the advancement of their careers and most significant is they both need money. Rumor has it that Ralph is in heavy debt to some Nevada casinos, which could give him an extra link to John Vincent through John’s bookmaking operation. He could have been providing information to them as payoff for gambling debts. Thom was hit heavy by the cost of taking care of his invalid father and paying off his father’s debts. He was strapped for cash, and about a year ago began selling off pieces of property that he owned.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper, the emotional stress coming through. “So we really aren’t any closer to resolving this than when you first contacted me and said I was in danger.”
He reached over and touched her cheek. The despair in her eyes and sadness on her face touched him on the deepest level. “That’s not true. We know for a fact that there has been a conspiracy to kill the witnesses, that it’s not just a wild theory. We know that Danny is heavily involved. We’ve also established motives for Ralph and Thom as accessories, and can assume that if either of them is involved the information they are providing is most likely going to Danny Vincent. The main task we have at the moment is figuring out where Doreen Vincent is, what her new identity is and whether she is actually involved in this or is playing out a totally separate agenda for herself that doesn’t have anything to do with you or the witnesses.”
Tara stood up and grabbed her empty mug. “I’m going to get a refill. Do you want any more coffee?”
He handed her his empty cup. “Yes, thanks.” He watched as she walked into the kitchen. He knew about the frustration of waiting for something to happen, the boredom of sitting on stakeouts, the tedious job of sifting through seemingly endless bits of information to find the pieces that fit together into a cohesive picture. But for Tara, he knew it was frustrating and nerve-racking with the specter of death always hovering over her shoulder. Not a pretty situation for a woman who should be enjoying life rather than hiding in fear.
Brad had been toying with another idea, a bit of information that had stuck in the back of his mind as one of those little details that didn’t seem to fit in with the picture that had been presented to him. While Tara refilled the coffee cups, he checked his address book for a phone number. He had been playing around with some ideas about disguises and changes in appearance that Doreen could be using and he wanted to check them out. He dialed Dr. Keeson, his optometrist. They had a good relationship and the doctor knew he was a deputy marshal.
“Dr. Keeson, it’s Brad Harrison. Could I impose on you for some help? I have a few questions about one of your patients and I need some basic information.”
“I’ll give you whatever help I can, Brad. Is this something official? What is it you want to know?”
“Semi-official and confidential. I want to know about a pair of glasses purchased from you. I also want you to fill me in on some information about contact lenses.”
He gave the optometrist a list of questions and made notes of the information the doctor gave him. “I see, a brown tint. Plain glass? Isn’t that a little odd? Okay. And the address you have in your records is a post office box?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN she spotted you? You’ve got to be the biggest idiot I’ve ever had the misfortune to be involved with! You’ve screwed up just about everything you’ve touched. It’s beyond me how you’ve managed to survive this long. It’s a simple task. All you had to do was get rid of Tara Ford. How many times have you tried and failed? Four? Five? If you’d gotten rid of her in the beginning there wouldn’t be a deputy marshal involved now.”
Danny Vincent bristled at the harsh words, his anger exploding as he talked. “I don’t take that kind of crap from anyone, least of all from the likes of you.” He leaned forward across the table in an aggressive manner, his voice dropping to a menacing rasp. “We wouldn’t be in this fix if you hadn’t insisted on killing all the witnesses. If you’d left well enough alone like I said to, all we’d have is two accidental unrelated deaths with no connection to anything or anyone.”
Danny straightened up, his attitude as condescending as his words. “You think you’re so damn clever, but it’s your overinflated ego that put us in this predicament. You may have inherited the construction company, but Uncle John put me in charge of the important stuff when he was convicted and that still applies. I’m the one who runs the loan-sharking, the bookmaking operation and the other extracurricular activities. I’m the one who gives the orders here, not you.”
“Daddy never would have left the construction company to you because he knew you were too incompetent to run it successfully. He only allowed you to take charge of the other operations as his outside contact. He fully intended to run things from prison until he got out and could take personal charge again. No way did he give you those operations to run on your own.”
“He certainly wouldn’t have left his illegal business affairs to someone who hasn’t been involved in any of it, someone who doesn’t know how we operate, doesn’t know any of our
people and doesn’t know our privileged contacts or which politicians and police we own. You don’t for a minute think my associates would be interested in doing business with a woman, do you? And I can assure you, none of them would ever take orders from a virtual stranger, regardless of whose daughter you are. It will never happen.”
“How dare you talk to me in that manner!”
“I’ve tried to accommodate your obsession with getting rid of all the witnesses following Uncle John’s death, but I’m through. You want Tara dead? Then you take care of it. I’ve got more important things to do with my time. I’m washing my hands of your mess.” With that, Danny turned his back on Doreen Vincent and walked angrily toward the door.
“WELL, that’s it on the corporate search.” Brad started to shut down his computer, then changed his mind. “I’ve plowed through all the state records I can access and all I’ve found out is that Doreen Vincent has a very smart attorney. She’s managed to hide ownership of Green Valley Construction behind a maze of corporate changes and holding companies. I couldn’t find anything that confirms what name she’s personally using or a valid address for her. I had three different company names that led me back to the mail service address we had already uncovered in Palm Beach.”
“So you’re at a dead end on tracking her down?”
“I have something else I want to try. So far, I’ve been searching for her new identity by using her real name and going forward in an attempt to find when she adopted a new identity and what it is. I have a new idea that might get us somewhere. Maybe if I started with a different name and tried to backtrack it to Florida as Doreen’s last known address.” He entered the name Judy Lameroux and started a search for a Florida driver’s license.
Tara leaned over his shoulder to read the screen. “You’re doing a search of Judy?” A hint of anxiety made its way into her voice. “Do you really think she could be Doreen with some plastic surgery? Wouldn’t she be afraid that I’d recognize her if she were so bold as to be in daily contact with me?”
In His Safekeeping Page 20
