Reluctant Witness

by Barton, Sara M.

  I had plenty of time to adjust to the news about Nanette and the handsome Interpol officer. I forced myself to admit my romantic feelings were just a school girl crush on a man who had showed me kindness and rescued me from my tormentor. I still needed to find safety, and if Jean-Claude could provide it, who was I to refuse it?

  Ten minutes later, I heard the click-click-click of the indicator as we turned left and the car pulled off the road and onto a rougher surface. A moment later, the trunk lid popped open and Jean-Claude extended his hand to me.

  “I told you I would keep you safe,” he told me, his tense smile illuminated by the small trunk light. “Come, come. We must get to the plane before Maurice has time to contact Chartier.”

  There were four others waiting for us by the small plane on the runway. I recognized the de Havilland Beaver. It was used to spray organic fertilizer on the orchards for Le Papillon. At the controls was Guy’s friend, Laurent Gagnier.

  “Hurry, Nora. We must get you out of here!”

  “You are working with Jean-Claude?” I asked the grim-faced pilot sitting in front of me, stunned by the revelation.

  “Mais oui. Before he met that horrible death at sea, Guy told me of his suspicions about your husband, madame. How could I not help to avenge his death?”

  “Oh, how I wish I had never met him,” I groaned, “let alone married him! He is the epitome of evil!”

  “Technically, Nora, you married Alain Beaumont,” Jean-Claude reminded me.

  “Are you telling me I am not his legal wife?” I gasped. “We’re not really married at all?”

  “I am, chérie. Now, take off your clothes.”

  “Ready for lunch?” The sound of Nancy’s voice unexpectedly yanked me back to reality. With great reluctance, I dragged myself away from the last few chapters of Vanilla Orchid Magic.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Let’s go explore St. Augustine. There must be a nice restaurant with a waterfront terrace.”

  We ended up at South Beach Grill, parked under a colorful umbrella, sitting at a table facing Crescent Beach and enjoying fish tacos while we indulged in some people watching. There was a light breeze that came in from the water, keeping us comfortable. After lunch, we strolled on the sand, barefoot, enjoying the chance to explore St. Augustine.

  “So, what do you think? Is it time to get your stitches taken out?” Nancy asked me when we got back to the parking lot.

  “Jeff said I needed an alias for that,” I replied. “Does that mean I’m getting a new identity?”

  Chapter Thirty One

  “What it means is I found a physician who takes private patients who pay in cash when their out-of-network doctor visit isn’t covered. You let me do the talking. Don’t volunteer any information on the injury. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  We sat in the waiting room of a walk-in clinic for twenty minutes, the first appointment after the staff returned from lunch. Nancy made a big point of fussing over me, the worried mother hen, peppering the physician with questions about whether I would need future surgery on my ear.

  “Let me take a look,” the young physician replied. Examining my ear, she clucked a few times before deciding that I was stitched up by a very experienced plastic surgeon.

  “Considering the amount of tissue damage, it’s actually quite amazing that it has healed so well. You must have been very careful not to get the stitches wet.”

  “I’ve never gone that long without washing my hair before,” I admitted with a smile.

  “I’m so proud of my little girl,” Nancy gushed. “Darla’s been such a trooper!”

  “How did it happen?” the doctor wanted to know. Before I could even open my mouth, Nancy gave a dramatic rendition of my horrible car accident, right down to the frightful phone call she and my fake father received when they were out to dinner with friends. Nancy was so persuasive, I almost found myself believing the concocted tale. It was obvious that my doctor did.

  “Sounds like you were lucky to get to the hospital so quickly.”

  “Darla was!” Nancy was at it again, describing the shock of finding out her daughter had been in such a frightening car accident. “I can’t tell you how scared we were when we first set eyes on her lying on that gurney!”

  “What other injuries did you suffer?” asked the woman in the white coat, examining me. I saw Dr. Magrib’s assistant ready to type the information into my chart. “I’ll just have a look.”

  “Actually, there’s no need. She has an appointment in two weeks with her own doctor back home. He’s the one who recommended we get the stitches out now, said she’d feel better. He thought this trip to Florida would do a lot to bolster her spirits and get her back on the road to recovery. My husband couldn’t say no, not when he found out about the great golf....”

  Nancy repeatedly and skillfully steered the conversation away from me and onto the subject of parenthood, adept at pretending to be my mother. “Do you have children, Doctor?”

  “I do. I have a twenty-eight-month-old girl. What an active child she’s proven herself to be!” the proud physician told us.

  “So you know how worrisome it can be when your children are in danger,” Nancy declared. “Why, I remember when my son was that age. We took him to the beach with us one day, and while we were setting up the cabana tent, he wandered down to the water....”

  Twenty minutes later, after she carefully picked out every stitch, gently tugging at the stubborn ones, Dr. Magrib declared me healing nicely.

  “Please call if you have any more problems while you are down here,” she instructed me. Nancy made the appropriate parent noises as we departed.

  “We will. Thank you for everything. It’s such a relief to know Darla’s on the mend.”

  “Yes,” I nodded on the way out of the exam room, “thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. It was nice to meet both of you.”

  “You too,” we answered in unison.

  We stopped at the front desk so that Nancy could pay the bill in full, counting out the twenties. She waited patiently while the receptionist wrote out a receipt, double-checked it, and then folded it and tucked it in her wallet. Once we were outside, we both breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Thank goodness that’s over,” she declared.

  “Darla?” I looked at her, feigning horror. “What kind of name is that?”

  “I’ll have you know you were named after me. It’s my middle name.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I had no idea,” I quickly backpedaled.

  “You should talk, calling yourself Marigold Flowers!” she laughed. “What kind of lame cover name is that?”

  “Don’t look at me. I didn’t pick it. It was thrust upon me by the WitSec program.”

  “More like the witless security program, if you ask me. Why did they pick that particular name? It’s bound to invite questions.”

  “I know,” I replied. I hurried to fall into step with Nancy. A full head taller than me, she kept up a brisk pace crossing the parking lot. “It never made much sense to me either, any more than having the Rhode Island team remain in charge after I was moved to Lake Placid did. I mean, who goes from Margot Floyd to Marigold Flowers? It’s dumb.”

  Nancy stopped in her tracks, putting a hand on my arm. “You’re telling me the team that handled you before your fiancé died continued to handle you after they moved to New York and they were the ones who assigned you that ridiculous name?”

  “Yes. Why?” Nancy seemed to be flummoxed by the thought. She wasn’t the only one. “I begged them to change it. They even insisted that I start another party planning business, even though I thought it might make me too easy to track.”

  “That goes against all good sense for witness security. Any hit man or woman trying to locate you is going to have a very easy time of it. Why would they want to make it so easy? Unless....” Nancy got behind the wheel and started the engine.

  “Unless what?” I asked, sliding into the passen
ger seat, all too aware of my vulnerability.

  “Maybe they wanted you to be found. I’ve got to talk to Lincoln,” she replied. “There’s a big chunk of the puzzle that’s missing from this equation.”

  “There is?”

  “Marigold, did you ever engage in any behavior the WitSec team might have perceived as a security breach on your end?”

  “Of course I didn’t! I know better than to do that!”

  “Give it some thought. I’m not accusing you of anything.” Gone was the lighthearted joker, the roommate with a ready quip. The woman beside me suddenly sounded like a well-versed, no-nonsense investigator. “It’s not about you, kid. I’m trying to figure out if people misunderstood your actions because someone encouraged them to do that.”

  “Oh.” I sat in the passenger seat as she drove, wracking my brain and trying to recall that first sign. When did it all start to go wrong? “The head of the WitSec team called me to meet him for coffee to discuss his concerns about my engagement. He told me Jared did a lot of business outside the country and that could be a big problem for a protected witness like me. Shaun thought it was a bad idea for us to get married, but he wouldn’t tell me any specifics.”

  “It sounds like the Marshals Service had its suspicions about him, though. They would have checked him out when you two started dating. Maybe something popped up on the radar and rattled them, so they wanted to set a trap, only it backfired.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed.

  “I can tell you, kid, that in all my years as an investigator, there’s no such thing as a perfect record. We all make mistakes from time to time; that can happen for any of a number of reasons. The worst excuse is sloppy work. Fact-checking is critical if you want to make sure you got the right bad guy. But sometimes the information you have to work with is less than complete. And in a few cases, I actually saw the negative effects of political influence. Some guy finds out he’s under the microscope and the next thing you know, he’s got all his buddies coming to his rescue. They start floating rumors about other people, just to muddy the water, and they provide their own witnesses, to make themselves look good. But in your case, I’m not really sure that applies. It’s not like you had a very public life, given your status as a protected witness.”

  “I didn’t know a lot of important people, but Jared did. Politicians, business people, wealthy investors.”

  “Ah...maybe it wasn’t you after all. Maybe it was the fiancé. Could he have pissed off the wrong people? That might have gotten him killed.”

  “A few months before he was murdered, Dutch Island Investments ran into difficulty with one of the funds it managed. Jared had to scramble to cover the losses for a couple of very important clients. They were unhappy about the missing money. When a journalist from the Providence Journal started investigating, Jared was pretty upset about it.”

  “There’s a motive for murder,” she remarked, turning on her blinker before making a left turn.

  “One thing’s always bothered me, Nancy. Why would someone like Jared, an experienced international businessman, want to get involved with a party planner who has been in the witness protection program for almost seventeen years? Wouldn’t there be a potential risk that I could get him killed?” I suggested. A moment later, I sighed heavily and corrected myself. “I did get him killed.”

  “Take yourself off the hook, kid. He was a big boy, used to making his own decisions. Besides, I’m not convinced you’re the bad guy here.”

  “But being in WitSec was a complication he didn’t really need to take on. Every time I needed to take a trip anywhere, especially the time we went to Curaçao, I had to get approval from one of my handlers.”

  “Why did you go to Curaçao?” She was suddenly on alert, her interest peaking.

  “Jared needed me to sign some papers for a bank account he set up for me down there.”

  “Why didn’t he just set up the bank account in Rhode Island?”

  “I asked him that. He said the money was from Caribbean businesses he owned and in order to get it transferred to a bank in the United States, we first had to open an account for me down there, as a tax thing.”

  “I don’t think so, Marigold. That smells illegal. What kind of Caribbean business?”

  “Investments.”

  “In what?”

  “I don’t really know,” I was forced to admit. “Every time I asked him for the details, he told me it was complicated. He provided the venture capital to help start companies, so it was important to reduce the taxes paid by keeping the money in the Caribbean and reinvesting it.”

  “Still sounds fishy.”

  “Nancy, what if Jared set me up from the start? What if he only pretended to love me so he could use me?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time some rat pulled that stunt. Who approached whom? Did you make a play for him or did he make one for you?”

  “He pursued me, said it was love at first sight and that he knew he had to marry me the minute he laid eyes on me.”

  “It almost sounds too good to be true,” she remarked thoughtfully, “as if it was scripted.”

  “Believe it or not, that’s what I thought, but he was so persistent, he eventually wore down my resistance.”

  “Did he?” She gave me a sideways glance. “You went against your instincts, buttercup. Not a smart thing for a woman to do. When you’ve got a gut feeling, you need to pay attention to it.”

  “I know, I know, but the more he poured on the charm....

  “Never trust a charming man, Marigold. It usually means he doesn’t want you to see who he really is because he’s after something and he’s looking to con you into giving it to him.”

  “Where were you when I was all alone in Rhode Island?” I asked, chagrined. “I could have used your sage advice!”

  “Ah! That’s what Jared counted on -- you were his pigeon and he was hungry for a squab dinner.” She passed a car making a right turn and then looked over at me. “I’d like to borrow that book of yours, the one you can’t put down.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “I’m just about finished with it.”

  The two of us went back to the hotel and changed into our bathing suits; with beach towels and tote bags in hand, we headed to the adult pool for a swim. There were only a handful of people there. Wanting the privacy, we headed to the sparsely occupied end and grabbed a couple of chaise lounges.

  I took a long, leisurely dip, floating aimlessly on my back. I watched the clouds pass overhead in the blue, blue sky while I let my mind wander, hoping I would recall some important detail from my past. Nothing new came to me. When I emerged from the pool twenty minutes later, I was ready to read.

  Nancy spent a good half hour sitting at the edge of the pool, her feet in the water, as she talked on her Smartphone. I could tell her thoughts were elsewhere when she finally finished her conversation. She came over and plunked down in the chaise next to mine. For the better part of ten minutes, she stared straight ahead without saying a word. I left her to her thoughts, not wanting to intrude.

  A short time later, a tiny ping announced an incoming text on her phone. I glanced over at her. She picked up her cell phone, gazed at the screen briefly, and then put it back down. She had her poker face on, not showing any kind of emotion. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  “I need to do laps,” she announced, standing up quickly. “Do you mind watching my stuff?”

  “Not at all. I’m happy to keep an eye on it.”

  I watched her walk away, a tall, fit woman in a blue tank suit. She entered the shallow end of the pool and waded in up to her waist, gazing off into the distance. She seemed unaware that her hands were slowly ruffling the surface of the water, agitating it into rippling waves. Something had thrown Nancy for a loop; of that I was sure. But was it something I had done?

  Chapter Thirty Two

  A minute later, Nancy submerged herself the rest of the way and turned on her side; she had once been a competitive swimmer
and she was still graceful as she moved through her swimming strokes.

  Sitting back on my chaise lounge in our shady corner of the pool area, I opened my copy of Vanilla Orchid Magic and got back to the story. Nora had just boarded the small six-passenger plane.

  “Put these on,” said an older woman wearing a nurse’s uniform. She handed me a bright pink sundress and a pair of underpants. I took off my bathrobe and handed it to her before I pulled the sundress over my head modestly and wiggled out of my nightgown. She held out her hand, waiting. A moment later, she passed my nightclothes to the French policeman. “Jean-Claude, you must get going. You have an appointment with death.”

  “What?” I cried. I looked up at the man holding the door of the plane and once again our eyes met. That spark between us ignited once more and I felt a passion that seemed to possess me with electrifying results. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  “I cannot, ma chérie. I must go, lest Alain thinks you survived the crash I am about to have.”

  “But...must you die?”

  “Never fear, Nora. You shall see me again one day.” Leaning forward, Inspecteur Noiret kissed my cheek. “Stay safe.”

  I watched him disappear into the darkness and felt my heart sink.

  “Take off, Laurent. If we hurry, we may be able to see it from the air,” said a middle-aged man in a blue golf shirt and khaki slacks, climbing into the front passenger seat. “I’m Davis, CIA. This is Mifkin, my partner, Mrs. Beaumont.”

  “Ms. Hazen,” I corrected him firmly. “If I never really married the bastard, I certainly don’t want to use that name!”

  Ten minutes later, we were airborne, flying towards La Grande Soufrière. I could see the magnificent volcano bathed in moonlight, a sight that still awed me, even after all these years. But Mifkin’s attention was drawn elsewhere. He gestured excitedly, pointing to a tiny glow on an empty stretch of road just north of Baillif, on the Rue du Baron de Cluny.

  “There it is!”