“Will do,” said Kubiak, as he returned to the marked patrol car. Rocky turned his attention to me.
“In you go,” he said, popping the lock and grasping the handle, pulling the door open. “You’ll have to step up. Be careful in those heels.”
With a hand on my elbow, the short, burly security man guided me into the passenger seat and made sure I was buckled in before he shut the door. I could feel the dog’s tiny heartbeat against my palm as I cradled Kary’s chest to settle him on my lap. He was still terrified. I understood the feeling.
“It pays to hire real cops for private duty work. Kubiak moonlights at the studio.” Rocky confided, as he slid into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and shifted the transmission into gear, smoothly pulling out of the parking space. “What happened back there?”
“One minute everything was fine, and the next, some guy tried to snatch Kary from the dog park,” I answered, still a little breathless. Everywhere I looked I saw action; it seemed like airport security personnel were scrambling to find the suspect.
“Don’t worry about them, Susan. It’s standard procedure in a situation like this. They have to make sure the guy isn’t a terrorist. As we speak, they’ll be reviewing security tapes and using facial recognition software. Was the guy on the plane with you?”
“I don’t think so, but...I was one of the last ones on and first ones off. I didn’t really get a look at my fellow passengers.”
“Did he say anything, anything at all? Did he make a threat, or....” As Rocky left off in mid-sentence, I filled in the blank for him.
“No, he just went straight for the dog.”
“He went for the dog, not you?” There was a note of surprise in Rocky’s voice.
“Yes.”
“Huh....”
“Huh what?” I asked, wondering what in my response captured his attention.
Rocky pulled the Equinox onto the ramp for I-85, heading north, towards the city. He took his time responding. It was obvious to me, from the way he evaded my question, that something was bothering him. I let him mull it over in peace, turning my attention to my new surroundings. The amount of traffic in Atlanta surprised me, but Rocky seemed undaunted by it as he negotiated around slower drivers. Finally, he spoke.
“If, as Linc says, you’re a target and you need a bodyguard, it seems to me the guy had more than ample time and opportunity to snatch you, or even whack you. Why didn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” That question hit me hard because it came with an attached reminder. I was still vulnerable. The man almost came within touching distance of me. He got that close. All he had to do was pull a handgun from his pocket and shoot me. Or a knife and stab me. He could have even just broken my neck with one simple twist. So, why didn’t he make a move? “He didn’t even try.”
“No?” Rocky sounded almost confused by the situation, but considering his job was to keep me alive and through dumb luck I was still breathing, I could see why he might feel that way.
“Not at all. I had my back turned to him at the time, so he could have snuck up on me and I wouldn’t have seen him coming. If it wasn’t for Dave sounding the alarm, he might have snatched Kary.”
“But why would someone who’s trying to get to you want to take the dog?”
Chapter Seventeen
“I don’t know. None of this makes sense to me. In Windham, the hit woman shoved me in the trunk of the car instead of killing me, so the New York state cops thought I must have information she needed and that’s why she didn’t try to kill me right away. And even after someone shot her dead, another guy tried to grab me, but the cops stopped him. That’s how I got my ear pierced by a bullet.”
“You were shot?”
“Yes. The doctor said I was lucky to keep my ear.” I turned my head and lifted up my purple headband to show him the damage. From his reaction, I guessed my ear still looked like gazpacho.
“Ah...maybe you should tell me all about that, Marigold,” Rocky insisted. “From what I understood, you just needed a temporary babysitter until the FBI sorted this out. Folks didn’t seem to think there was much of a chance someone would try to come after you again, and certainly not while there was a cop standing thirty feet away. That was brazen. I’m not convinced this incident jives with the others. For one thing, it would have been a lot easier to grab you in the parking garage, which is far more secluded and less public than the dog park. Or better still, why not just wait until you and I are on our way and run us off the road?”
“There’s a cheery thought,” I grimaced.
“I’m just saying that’s the normal thing that happens in a case like this. With a murder for hire, the shooter doesn’t want to get caught. It’s all about survival for the bad guy.”
“Need I remind you the man got away? He hopped over the fence and fled. And they still haven’t caught him.”
Rocky’s eyes narrowed as I said that. I could tell he was tossing the facts around in his head and he didn’t seem to like what he ended up with when the dust settled.
“Why try to steal a dog from an airport dog park? It’s dumb. You’re going to show up on surveillance cameras. Everything is covered in case of a terror attack.” He gave me the rundown on the efforts by the responsible law enforcement agencies, from Homeland Security to the Atlanta Police. “There’s even a police station inside the Ground Transportation Building, and you saw for yourself there are cops all over the place.”
“Who knows? Maybe he was trying to get me to follow Kary, so he could attack me.”
“Why not just take you out and forget the dog? Why cause such a scene in front of so many witnesses?”
“Maybe I was supposed to have an accident. A car might have hit me as I chased him into the street....”
“That’s too iffy. How did he know you were going to run after the dog? In order to hit you with a car, his accomplice would have to show up at just the right moment. It’s hard to control a plot like that.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, now feeling a more than a little exasperated with him. Rocky was a highly focused investigator. I hated the fact that he was so logical, especially since none of this made any sense to me.
“The point is he picked a really bad place to make a move on you. Either he’s not a professional killer or he’s the world’s dumbest hit man.”
“I don’t understand. You think this was just an ordinary crime, a dog-napping, not an attempt to kill me?” I inquired. Rocky’s theory came as a surprise. That thought hadn’t occurred to me. “How can you be so sure?”
“A professional contract killer not only sets up the kill, but also the getaway. The smart thing to do is lie in wait until the moment is right. It’s a matter of intelligence. He’s going to figure out the contingencies and cover all the variables. A professional killer is just that, well-trained in murder. He’s even going to have a modus operandi, right down to his signature on the killing and the weapon of choice. Is it supposed to look like an ordinary accident or is it supposed to send a message?”
Those words hit me like a sharp blast of liquid nitrogen, instantly chilling me right down to my core, imprinting the image of a cold, calculating killer on my brain. Why did that image stay with me as the miles rolled on, refusing to let go? I kept thinking about it, gazing out the window as we came into Atlanta proper, unable to get it out of my head. Hired killers made plans. Was that why Tovar showed up at the Gilded Nest unexpectedly? Did he know there was a contract out on me? Was he following the killer...or was the killer following him?
So many things had changed in the last few months. Between Shaun retiring and Eve going out on maternity leave, Tovar was the only person I still knew on the witness protection team. He escorted me to my new location. He was the one who found me the apartment by the lake. He even helped me get started with my business, encouraging me to hire helpers. If it had only been a matter of Tovar being shot at the Gilded Nest that night, I might go on believing that he stumbled unexpe
ctedly into the banquet facility on the heels of a killer’s arrival, but there was always something that just never seemed right about it. Why hadn’t he called me first? My phone was on that night. He could have sent me a text to warn me. And yet, he didn’t.
But there were other questions that only seemed to add to the mystery. Eve went into premature labor after she fell on those steps. What if someone caused her to fall? And what about that terrible car accident Shaun’s wife was in, the one that forced him into an earlier retirement than planned? Did that mean the hired killer got sloppy when he beat the living daylights out of Shaun? What if a professional killer was deliberately stalking my WitSec team?
I considered my current situation. Whenever the WitSec team moved me prior to Jared’s murder, it was a very big production, with precision timing and back-up. But Tovar simply drove me up to Lake Placid, as if he wasn’t worried about me or my safety. That was the start of a very big change in my witness protection plan.
This, too, was so different. Why had Lincoln arranged for me to have only one bodyguard? What chance did I have to survive this quasi-protection game? Was someone actually trying to get me killed? Is that why Rocky wasn’t close enough to stop the assailant in the dog park?
He steered the SUV onto the entrance ramp for I-75, accelerated, and swung into traffic going north, slipping in between a freightliner and a milk tanker. Working the pedals as he rode the back end of the long white tractor trailer, he waited for an opening in the left lane and fell in behind a chartreuse-colored KIA Soul. As we sped past the truck in the right lane, I read the lettering on the cab door. J. J. Jardina, Forest Park, Georgia. It was a stark reminder that my life had changed once again. No more Lake Placid, with its glorious water views that seemed to go on forever. No more Adirondack mountains. No more Gilded Nest with its twinkling lights or Arturo and Lily. Those all-too-fleeting months of building my new life were now just a faint memory. What would Georgia offer me?
“Do you think there will be another attempt?” I finally summoned the courage to ask.
“Oh, that goes without saying. Bad guys don’t just walk away as long as they think the opportunity to complete the hit is survivable. Besides, Linc never would have sent you here unless he thought you were in real danger.”
“You didn’t seem too concerned at the dog park. How come you let the guy get that close?” There it was -- the question of the hour. Did I want to know? What if Rocky was the guy who was supposed to get me killed? He had me right where he wanted me, like a rabbit in a hutch. Or was I just feeling a little on the paranoid side of the equation?
“Honestly? I was hanging back because that’s what Tom asked me to do.”
“Tom? What does he have to do with any of this?”
“You don’t really think Linc would allow you to get on a plane all by yourself, do you? Tom sat four seats behind you. He was watching out for you the whole time.”
“But the creep still got too close in the dog park,” I pointed out. “Nobody stopped him from trying to grab Kary.”
“They had a reason for it, just like they had one when they let that guy with the black poodle talk to you.”
“Dave?”
“Tom wasn’t worried about you being in the dog park. No doubt we’ll find out why at the meeting, when we get to Jeff’s place.”
“Great,” I grumbled.
“I think you’re looking at this all wrong. You assume you’re the target because someone tried to take the pooch.”
“Aren’t I?” I fired back. Rocky shook his head, fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
“It sounds to me like someone wanted this little guy, not you.” Rocky paused, deep in thought. I let the idea sink in as the silence wore on. What if he was right? What if this wasn’t an attempt on my life? It had been so long since something ordinary had happened to me. Could it really jut be that someone wanted Kary? “What’s so special about him?”
I hadn’t known the little guy very long. What could I tell Rocky about him?
“He’s a nice dog. And a good boy,” I insisted, scratching the appreciative Shih Tzu under the chin. “Well-trained, house-broken, sweet disposition.”
“Okay. We’ve established he’s a likable dog. How did he come to be in your possession?”
“He’s Lincoln’s dog, and he just got him back from his ex-wife....”
“Deirdre. Boy, what a piece of work she is!” Rocky snorted. “That has to be the coldest chick to ever walk the planet. What she did to that boy was criminal.”
“You know her?”
“Know her? Oh, yeah! I know her. I warned Lincoln not to marry her, but he was sure that underneath all that rot was a nice girl trying to get out.”
“And you think this incident in the dog park was about Kary?” Even as I said it, I instinctively knew the answer. So did Rocky.
“Deirdre!” We both said it at the same time.
“Whoa!” I posed the question as the little dog sat up on my lap, no doubt curious as to why we were talking about his former mistress. “What if she’s setting Lincoln up?”
“Meaning what?”
“Lincoln said his ex-wife’s boyfriend didn’t want Kary around, so we had to stop and pick up the dog on our way to Virginia. This is the same dog she wouldn’t let him have when they split up. Does that make sense to you? First she wants the dog, fights tooth and nail to keep him, and then she meets a man and is suddenly willing to give the pooch up?”
“The proverbial gift horse?” Rocky considered the possibilities. “Deirdre only gives something away when it yields results. In this case, what could that be?”
“Lincoln,” I replied confidently. “She made a pass at him.”
“It might have just been because you were there. She’s notoriously competitive. That’s why most women hate her. Men who aren’t sleeping with her hate her because she’s a career-buster. Men who are sleeping with her hate her because she’s a royal...er, let’s just say Jeff was lucky.”
“About what?” I glanced over at him. There was so much I didn’t know about the Cornwall family.
“You didn’t know? She made a play for both brothers. Linc somehow thought that when she married him, he was the winner.”
“It’s amazing that didn’t cause a feud between brothers.”
“In a way, it did,” he confided.
“How so?”
“Jeff was so angry after Linc and Deirdre eloped, he headed to Hawaii and wrote his first thriller, Deadly Ride-Along, about brothers and the woman who comes between them.”
“That sounds suspiciously like real life, Rocky.”
“Well, Jeff changed a few details. Instead of the femme fatale being a lawyer, she’s a cop, and she winds up nearly killing the hero. I think that book is the reason Linc held onto Deirdre for so long. He doesn’t want to admit that Jeff was right, that Deirdre’s no good.”
“That would be a bitter pill to swallow, wouldn’t it?” I thought about Lincoln’s poorly concealed excitement when his ex-wife made a pass at him in Philadelphia. “She could be using the dog as a ploy to force Lincoln to pay attention to her once more.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her. This is the kind of stunt she’d pull. She probably figured they’d have plenty of conversations about the missing dog before Kary was recovered, and she’d no doubt play a role in that effort.”
“Maybe she doesn’t even have a boyfriend,” I suggested. “That could have all been a ruse to drag him down to Philadelphia. Deirdre certainly showed too interest in me. She tried to insist that I come into the house, but I refused, and I got the impression she was annoyed about that.”
“She must think you are a romantic couple,” Rocky decided. “When he showed up with you in the car, it probably threw her off her game and ruined her strategy.”
“Perhaps that’s why the guy tried to take Kary from the dog park. Maybe Deirdre wanted me to take the blame, so Lincoln would stop liking me.”
“It’s possible.” Rocky
nodded, as we dawdled at a traffic light. “She was probably trying to assess you as a contender for Linc’s affection. She’d want to know how serious he is about you.”
“It gave me the willies to see her watching me like that,” I admitted. “She struck me as pretty ruthless.”
“That’s Deirdre. She’s a predator.”
‘But how did she know about my flight to Atlanta?”
“Good question, Susan. Or should I go back to calling you Marigold, now that you’re here?”
“Marigold’s fine,” I told him. I was still stuck on Deirdre’s cunning plan to set me up at the dog park.
“It’s not really that hard to explain. She’s a lawyer. She uses private investigators all the time for her cases. It looks like she’s been stalking Linc, maybe tapping his phones, monitoring his activities, all in the effort to manipulate him. He bought your ticket to Atlanta, paid for your clothes, and sent Kary with you. To Deirdre, that would suggest you’re his girlfriend. She wouldn’t necessarily have realized Linc was doing it as part of an unofficial investigation.”
“If you find the guy, does that mean you can get him to confess?” I was already picturing Deirdre in the hot seat, trying to explain to detectives why she thought it was okay to send someone to snatch little Kary. “Would he implicate Deirdre?”
“She probably offered the creep free legal services in exchange for snatching the dog. Most likely, he’s just some run-of-the-mill criminal who got caught for burglary or breaking and entering. What kind of crime can we charge him with, trying to pet a pooch? He didn’t actually grab the dog.”
Chapter Eighteen
“He punched Dave,” I pointed out.
“That was more of a shoving match than a fight. And any good defense lawyer might argue that Dave started it by stepping in without witnessing an actual crime. It’s all very circumstantial.”
“That’s rather sleazy,” was my answer.
“And yet, it’s unfortunately true,” Rocky shrugged. “No, I think catching the creep at the dog park is the least of my concerns at the moment. I’m worried about the Cornwall boys and how this will all play out. It’s not going to be pretty, especially because now you’re down here with Jeff. If I know Deirdre, she’ll pit brother against brother in her effort to get what she wants. And we don’t really know what she wants at the moment, although we might know who.”
Reluctant Witness Page 14
