“That was all smoke and mirrors, Marigold. Ron isn’t exactly what he seems. We checked with the Providence Police. He’s not one of theirs. He’s not with the state police or any other law enforcement agency, as best as we can tell.”
“You think he’s another hit man or something?” I sat up, leaning across the table. “Should I be worried?”
“It’s hard to say at this point.” Lincoln took another sip of coffee. “Maybe someone’s paying him to track you. Either that or he’s somehow involved in the original crime. He did say he worked for Jared Spears. Did you know him?”
“I didn’t recognize his voice. But he said the same thing that the guy at the pond said, just before he started shooting.”
“What’s that?”
“He used the phrase, ‘professional courtesy’.”
“That’s cop talk,” my dinner companion told me. “It’s usually reserved for those occasions when you can’t get help for a case you’re working when you’re out of your jurisdiction. Any chance he’s the same guy at the pond?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at the man’s face. It was too dark.” Thinking back, I tried to retrieve the details of that unpleasant confrontation. “The man was about a foot taller than me, and I’m five-foot three. He wore wire rim glasses. If I had to guess his age, he was in his forties.”
“That description doesn’t sound like Ron. Maybe he does have an accomplice. What set off alarm bells for you?”
“He insisted he was trying to help me when he grabbed me, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Why didn’t you?” the federal investigator wanted to know
“Well, for one thing, the guy tried to drag me away, right in front of the cops.”
“Bold move,” Lincoln decided. “He probably assumed he was working with country bumpkins.”
“That might explain it,” I grinned. “It all fell apart when the trooper asked to see his badge, but he didn’t have one.”
We returned to our room, planning to hit the road just after seven the following morning. Lincoln had something planned, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.
“It’s better that you don’t know what the plan is, Marigold, just in case.”
“Just in case what?” I inquired. He just looked at me with those brown eyes, without saying anything. “Oh.”
Just before we turned in for the night, he was kind enough to check my ear, examining it under the fluorescent light in the bathroom before he replaced the gauze pad. By now, I had been on the pills long enough that they were beginning to work their magic. My only real problem was that the stitches were making my skin itch.
Lincoln flopped onto his bed, the TV remote in his hand. “So? What are we watching tonight, Marigold?”
Much to my delight, Lincoln shared my love of classic films. We watched Double Indemnity, with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, sprawled out on our beds. We were both wearing sweats; I was back in my police-issued set, Lincoln in a pair of gray ones. Warm and toasty, I dozed off just after midnight.
The sound of sleet against the window woke me up just before six. I lay there, watching it pelt the glass for another few minutes before I rose. Once up, I padded quietly around the room, trying not to disturb the sleeping FBI agent. As quietly as I could, I filled the coffee pot, turned it on, and set up the insulated hot cups in their holders. When the trickle of freshly brewed coffee began to drip into the empty glass container, I headed into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash up. By the time I came out, Lincoln was awake, lying on the top of his bed and catching up on the news.
“Would you like some coffee?” I asked.
“I sure would. Cream, one sugar.”
He took his cup into the bathroom with him; I carried mine over to one of the club chairs and settled in to watch the news. When he emerged clean-shaven a half an hour later, we walked down the hall to the guest lounge for breakfast. By eight, we had enjoyed eggs, toast, and bacon and were ready to hit the road.
At Lincoln’s direction, I drove. He informed me that our destination was Philadelphia. The freezing rain caused havoc as we got underway. The local roads were icy, so I kept my speed down. By the time we hit the interstate, the salt trucks had come through, laying down a layer that eliminated most of the dangerous black ice, and we began to make better time as the miles fell away.
“We’re picking up my dog at my ex-wife’s house. She’s getting serious with some guy who’s allergic, so the dog she insisted I couldn’t have when we divorced is suddenly available to me.”
“Oh?” I couldn’t help smiling. “It sounds like there’s a story in there somewhere.”
“I’ll save that for when I know you better,” he replied, giving me a good-humored eye roll. “But if I could just ask one favor of you, please say nothing about your reason for being with me. I’d like to see the dragon lady smolder for a while, thinking that I’ve moved on.”
“As in I’m the new girlfriend?” I teased.
“Hey, it’s not my fault if she draws the wrong conclusion, is it?” He was clearly enjoying the idea of pulling one over on the woman who left him.
“You think you’re the first guy who’s asked me to help him make an ex-wife jealous? Good heavens! I’ve got my patter down and I can be quite convincing when I put some heat into it. Trust me. I know what I’m doing,” I told him playfully, lowering my voice to almost a whisper and letting my tongue linger on each word. I licked my lips hungrily, like he was about to be my next meal, and winked.
“Huh?” For a moment, a very long moment, he stared at me, shocked, as if he were seeing me for the first time, and then the lawman quickly shook his head from side to side, as if to clear it of whatever fantasy had popped into it. That’s when I knew caution was in order. Lincoln was one of those rare men who could be easily taken in by a simple gesture from the opposite sex. Tears must make him go weak in the knees, I decided, and a kiss from the wrong lips could prove worrisome. I tapped the brakes as I turned onto the next street and gave him a more sisterly smile. “Never fear. By the time I’m done, she’ll be kicking herself for letting you go.”
“Just don’t go overboard. I don’t want to lose the dog,” he informed me, his tone still cautious. It was time to change the subject.
“Did you two also have kids?” I asked, suddenly all too aware his masculinity. I knew we would continue to share close quarters. Did it make sense to tempt fate by flirting shamelessly, even now that I knew for sure that he was single? Real danger lurked in the shadows. What if another hit man came after me and Lincoln was too distracted to pay attention to the clues? It could get us both killed. “Is the new beau also allergic to them?”
“No kids. Deirdre was too busy building her career to take time out to procreate. Take the next exit off the turnpike. I want to make sure we don’t have a tail.”
I turned on my indicator and eased onto the Exit 7 B ramp, expecting the road to be slick. I could feel the steering wheel shimmy as the tires tried to grip the pavement without much luck.
“Careful,” he warned me sternly. “Steer into the skid.”
Chapter Ten
“Right,” I replied, gritting my teeth as we slid towards the right embankment. Ignoring the steep drop-off that awaited us, I took my foot off the gas and tried to keep the wheel steady until I felt the car slow. I was relieved when we got to the stop sign safely.
“That was close,” I decided. My passenger agreed.
“You’re a pretty good driver, though,” he remarked. “You’re calm under fire.”
“Years of crisis management. The party business is rather stressful, with lots of emotional meltdowns and blowups. I’m good unless it’s real bullets I’m facing. That’s when I really lose it.” I turned right when the traffic eased up. Here on the main road, salt and sand were plentiful, and the driving seemed easier. I went back to the thread of the conversation. “Is that what split you two up?”
“What do you mean?” Lincoln wanted to
know.
“Just that it sounds like you wanted kids and she didn’t.”
“Well, that may be, but there’s always more to a marriage than children.” He seemed to be determined to lecture me on the complications of marriage, but I just ignored all that, having already decided to be sisterly in my approach to him. It was the only way to avoid being tempted to fall for his strong, chiseled chin and that luscious mouth of his.
“Hadn’t you talked about the subject before the wedding?” I prodded him, curious.
“We had, but things can change once you’re in the trenches.” He rubbed the back of his head absentmindedly, lost in the memory.
“True, but in your case, it doesn’t seem like it was ever a match made in heaven,” I announced with the air of a self-appointed expert on love. “Did you ever have anything in common, above and beyond sex?”
“Ouch!” he groaned. “That’s kind of harsh...and rather blunt, Marigold. But I suppose there’s at least one tiny grain of truth to your assessment.”
“Oh? What might that be?”
“Deirdre’s not an ordinary woman. She can be dazzling.”
“Hmm....” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, contemplating the implications. It didn’t take a genius to realize Lincoln was still smitten with his ex-wife. The gold ring might be gone from his finger, but she still had a tight hold on his heart. He gave me a good demonstration of just how strong the remaining bond was as he continued.
“It was hard to ignore her beauty. I thought I was the luckiest man on the planet,” he said, somewhat wistfully.
“I see.” Maybe luck had nothing to do with it, I thought to myself. Maybe the magic wore off and the real woman surfaced. That’s the trouble with believing in a dream. You have to wake up sometime.
“You sound skeptical,” he decided, sounding defensive.
“Convince me not to be,” I shot back. “How did all that magic start?”
“We met at law school and got married eight months later. She graduated magna cum laude. I was only tenth in our class and merely summa, making me a real disappointment as far as husband material went. Like Avis. I had to try harder.”
“Ah, you married Superwoman. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. What a slouch you were at school,” I teased. “She kept you so busy on the hamster wheel that you never got out of the cage.”
“Interesting way to look at the dynamics of our relationship,” he told me, conceding with a shrug. “That’s rather astute.”
“I’m a woman, Lincoln. I know women. We’re not all sugar and spice, and many of us don’t qualify as nice, believe me!”
“Everyone called her a real go-getter. When Deirdre found out I had no plans to become director of the FBI, she claimed I lacked ambition. She was constantly trying to drive my career in a more positive direction and I was constantly resisting the effort.”
“More positive than what? It sounds like she didn’t understand your goals.”
“Oh, she understood them. She just didn’t like them,” he said with an air of regret. This was something that had obviously stuck in his craw for a long time.
“You didn’t give in? You didn’t wave the white flag and surrender?”
“Sometimes there are more important things in life that one’s career status. The first time I saved a life, I was scared out of my mind. After being on the job for a while, I just start thinking that it’s not okay for some idiot to take away someone’s right to exist, and I began to understand that I do what I do because it matters. Deirdre didn’t see it that way. She found it difficult to brag about me to her social circle. She’s very competitive.”
“I’ll bite. How competitive is she?”
“She likes to win at everything. It’s nearly impossible to stop her once she starts.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’ll probably try to win you back the second she thinks I’m interested in you, not because she cares, but because she still thinks she owns you. You’re her trophy boy.”
“No.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re wrong. She’s already replaced me.”
“That’s what you think,” I snickered. “Women like that don’t like to lose their power over men. They expect it to be eternal. You’re forever hers to command. It’s that ‘to the victor go the spoils of war’ thing.”
“That’s crazy,” he scoffed. “It’s like saying that the only reason she paid attention to me in the first place was to steal me away from another woman.”
“What was your former girlfriend’s name?” I fired back, taking a sideways glance in his direction.
“Lesley,” Lincoln answered automatically. When he realized what he had done, he was flustered. “Holy crapola! It never dawned on me before. Deirdre was Lesley’s best friend.”
“I rest my case,” I shrugged, “with a little lawyer humor.”
“Wow. Wouldn’t that be something?” he sighed. I could tell he was already imagining the upcoming encounter with his ex-wife, planning his strategy. I just hoped he also considered how to make a graceful exit before her claws came out. The last thing I wanted to see was the guy licking his wounds as he crawled away.
Just outside Camden, we stopped to refuel. Lincoln took the wheel as I slipped into the passenger seat for the final few miles. We crossed into Pennsylvania on the Ben Franklin Bridge. Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up to a tidy row of attached brick houses on an historic street.
“Do you mind waiting here while I grab Kary?” Lincoln wondered, as he shut off the engine. “That way I know I won’t overstay my welcome or turn into a complete babbling idiot.”
“You named the dog after Cary Grant? How cute.”
“What? Oh,” he chuckled. “No. It’s short for Karaoke.”
“Are you a karaoke freak?”
“Me? No.”
“Deirdre is?”
“No.” He shook his head, smiling at me. “You’ll find out soon enough. Well, wish me luck.”
I watched Lincoln stride up to the black door, his long legs covering the distance quickly. He pushed the doorbell button twice and then stepped back to wait. A moment later, a tall, willowy brunette in well-tailored black slacks and a crisp, white, body-hugging blouse appeared in the open doorway. Deirdre’s calculating gaze went from her ex-husband to the VW, and as she focused on me in the passenger seat, I saw those dark eyes narrow. I was now on her radar. Nice going, Marigold. That’s what you get for looking at the dragon lady.
She raised her left hand and determinedly waved me in, toward the house, like a benevolent hostess hailing a wayward guest. I shook my head, smiling pleasantly as I rejected the invitation. I had no intention of setting foot in her lair, so I forced myself to turn away, pretending to direct my attention elsewhere. I thought I had things under control as I sat there, but I underestimated my companion’s ex-wife. Rather than accept my response, Deirdre marched past Lincoln as he stood innocently on the top step and made her way to the Jetta. She yanked the driver’s door open and the smell of Chanel No. 5 instantly filled Lincoln’s car. She spoke through tight, unyielding lips that were painted the color of blood.
“Please come in. I’m running late and I don’t have the dog ready to go.”
“Thanks,” I replied evenly, “but I’m fine here.”
“I’m warning you. Lincoln won’t be out any time soon. You’ll be more comfortable inside,” she informed me in a voice that brooked no dissent.
“I’m good,” I insisted, hands on my thighs, feeling overwhelmed by the perfume and the power play. If she affected me this way, what did she do to Lincoln? Would I eventually have to go into the house and drag him kicking and screaming to the car?
“If you change your mind....” She let the sentence hang, even as she seemed to be measuring me for an imaginary noose. This was not a warm, caring person. This was a barracuda, used to eating little fishes like me.
“I’ll ring the bell,” I replied
sweetly.
“Do.” Turning brusquely on her expensive heels, Deirdre strutted back to the house, climbed the steps, and went into the house without a word to Lincoln. He looked back at me, an odd expression on his face that was part fear and part awe, and then disappeared through the opening, shutting the door behind him.
As I awaited his return, I kept myself amused by studying the street where Deirdre lived. This must be prime real estate, I decided. Everything from the wrought iron street lamps to the street signs suggested the residents had money for neighborhood improvements.
Ten minutes later, the black door opened again and Lincoln came carrying a dog bed, a small crate, and a canvas bag. I leaned over to the driver’s side of the car and popped the trunk latch for him. I could hear him moving things around behind me. A moment later, he slammed the trunk shut and paused at the driver’s side window on his way back to the row house, holding up a finger to indicate he would just be a minute, before he trotted back up the steps. Emerging triumphant thirty seconds later, carrying something black and white in his arms, Lincoln gave me a wide grin and a thumbs-up.
What had I expected when he said he was going to pick up the dog he once shared with his ex-wife? A big, black Labrador or some other sporting dog sprang to mind, some breed known for its athleticism and agility. A Shih Tzu wasn’t even on my list. And yet, while I watched Kary cover his master’s face with enthusiastic kisses, it was obvious this was a mutual love fest.
“Hey,” said Lincoln, opening the driver’s door and leaning in. “Do you mind driving?”
“Not at all.” Who was I to stand in the way of a long overdue reunion between a man and his dog? I opened my door and climbed out, passing the happy pair as I rounded the front of the car. As I slid into the driver’s seat, I glanced over, smiling. Lincoln returned it, his handsome mouth curling up at the ends.
“Thanks, Marigold. You were right, by the way. Deirdre made a pass at me. It felt good to walk away.”
Reluctant Witness Page 8
