The Witness (23 page)

“There’s no fault to place, Amy. You’ve coped with events and done the best you could; so has Marie.”

She carried the dishes into the kitchen. “I’ve missed them so much; I didn’t realize how much until they were both here.”

Her sisters needed her, and even more, she needed her sisters. “Give me forty-eight hours to show you this can work, that you can safely come in from the cold,” he asked as she came back into the room. She wanted to trust him. He could see the tears now back in her eyes and how badly she wanted to be able to say yes. “You can call me tomorrow or you could just come with me now. I’m fully prepared to make you safe from this moment on if you’ll let me.”

“I can’t stay tonight.”

“Then call me tomorrow and we’ll arrange another time and place to meet. Give me a chance to at least show you what I’m thinking about. They need you in their lives again, Amy. And you need them.”

“I’ll call you,” she whispered. “That’s the best I can promise.”

“You won’t regret it.”

Her hand touched the locket she now wore for a moment before she reached for her coat. “Please tell Connor and Marsh thanks for their help and Caroline. All of it is deeply appreciated.”

“I will.”

He didn’t want to see her leaving, but she was preparing to go as she had come. On her own.

“Please don’t try to tail me out tonight.”

“I won’t.”

She nodded and moments later her car disappeared down the drive.

“What do you think, Caroline?” Luke looked over at his friend as they walked the estate grounds, finalizing the last check before they reset the security codes and left the place as they had found it.

“Amy is good at hiding. And this is a family in crisis.”

“Would you take on her security?”

“Chief, I’ve got responsibilities and enough on my lap already.”

“I know. But there are no other good options. She’s not going to take a guy hanging around with her, not beyond deciding when and how she’ll slip his protection and disappear for something she needs.”

“She’ll do that with me too.”

“Not if you two agree to a simple fact that your loyalty is to her first and to me second. I don’t want to know what she’s doing, where’s she’s going, who she’s seeing—I do want to know, but not enough to injure something I need more—someone with her to keep her alive.”

“You need a retired secret service agent, not a retired cop. I don’t think I could carry a weapon right now, let alone fire it, even to protect Amy.”

“You would use the weapon if it was necessary to prevent someone dying,” Luke replied, knowing when it came down to it that Caroline’s training and instincts would do that job. He pushed his hand through his hair. “I want you back on the job, Caroline, but in this case, I need what you are better at than most people I know. You are one of the few people who might get Amy to trust and to talk; she needs someone hanging out with her, not just be protection around her. Just keep her company through this transition for a couple weeks. I’ll talk with Jonathan about something more permanent after that.”

“Where?” Caroline asked.

He smiled. “Got some ideas for me? We’ll have to slip the sisters out of town to take them to see Amy in order to get away from the reporters. After a couple times doing that, the reporters are going to see it as a personal challenge to figure out where they are going. Even under the cover of a date with Connor and Marsh, it’s going to be an ongoing game of cat and mouse.”

“We’ll need Daniel’s help; he has to know now. It’s going to take more than your personal financing for one thing, and I’ll need Jonathan’s guys for some specialized help.”

“I’ll be meeting with Daniel for breakfast tomorrow; he needs to know for a myriad of reasons, his own security just for starters.”

Caroline nodded. “I’ll help, Chief. But I don’t have quite as much hope as you do that Amy is ready to settle down. She’s been running an awfully long time.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll do my best.” She smiled at him. “Do I get to tease you about having a girlfriend now?”

“Maybe later, much later. I’ll settle for her simply telling me the name she’s using. That will mark progress.”

“Then I’ll work on that for you.”

He chuckled. “Do that.”

“Admit it—the idea is growing on you.”

“I’m old, set in my ways, and out of practice dating. It can wait awhile, I think.”

“You’ll do fine. I’ll be in your corner.”

“I don’t know what that says about a guy, when a former date is the one smoothing his path for another lady.…”

She laughed and hugged him. “We’ll just let that thought be. I like being that special lady in your past.”

Chapter Thirteen

LUKE TOOK HIS PERSONAL CAR Saturday morning east of town to the roadside deli Amy had given him directions to. He pulled into the eighth spot east of the doors next to the Dumpster and a lumbering semi, and a minute later she tapped on his side window. He unlocked the door and she slid inside, locking it again behind her.

“Don’t tell me you were out running this morning.” She was dressed in sweats, the hood up, gloves on, breathing hard and still sweating under that sweat-suit jacket.

“Five miles or so. I thought I was going to be late.” She braced her foot on his dash and tugged off her left tennis shoe to shake out a rock.

He shook his head at that and turned to back out of the spot. “You’re okay with no transportation of your own?”

“Would you let me drive around if I had a car?”

“No.”

“That’s what I figured. And in a serious pinch I can get as resourceful as I need to be.”

“Sam.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t tell you everything he taught me over the years.”

“I don’t suppose you should.” He turned onto the interstate, watching his rearview mirror for any signs he had a tail this morning. It had looked clean on the way over, but he wasn’t ready to say he was positive he wasn’t being followed. He would be sure before he headed toward their final destination. “So tell me how the last couple days have been. You’re not carrying luggage or any sign of that ledger you’ve been protecting.”

“Just because I agreed to come in doesn’t mean I’m shutting down the safe places I’ve got in the city. They’re going dormant for a while is all. And you can feel free to stop at a local Wal-Mart so I can get the basics in clothes for a few days. Marie still has my wardrobe from New York in storage boxes she said, too sentimental to want to discard my things, and they should still fit. I bought great stuff after I got out of the army, and most of it is coming back in style again.”

“We’ll stop to buy a few days of casual clothes,” he agreed. “Breakfast?”

“The nearest drive-thru would be great.”

He smiled. “You sound like you’re in a good mood.”

She shrugged. “The decision is made. Until I make a different one, this is the new take on the days. I am nervous, Luke, that you haven’t got things as prepared as you think you have, that I’ll take a look around and say you have to take me back. But I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

“We’ll know in about an hour then.”

She turned to face him. “So what’s been happening that I need to know about?”

“It’s been remarkably quiet. There’s been some talk in New York about your sisters, but the men we’re most concerned about are still around their usual haunts; when they travel we should hear about it. Word on the streets here doesn’t have anyone asking questions about you, so if your tails have arrived they are still laying low.”

“And with Tracey and Marie? Any repercussions there?”

Luke smiled. “Besides calls wanting to know if you’ve made contact again? They’re worried about you, excited you’re alive, offering money, people, anything at all that might help out. I put Sam on it to try and slow them up. It’s going to take a while before they can accept the patience that is needed right now.”

“I saw the newspapers. There were photos of them getting back from their dates Thursday night—Marie and Connor, Tracey and Marsh. You can tell the guys were not pleased to have flashbulbs going off in their faces. Can’t anything be done about the reporters bugging them?”

“A new, more interesting story will eventually show up; until then your sisters are the most interesting story around here. The newspapers have run a couple stories recently about Henry Benton, your aunt, and brought up some of the details about your apparent death in New York.”

“You know it’s only a matter of time before the headline reads ‘Oldest Sister Still Alive?’ and they repeat the rumor mill out of New York. Marie will have her hands full when that happens.”

“You can’t stop a free press. If a newspaper reporter gets ambitious enough to run that story with rumors you are alive or goes to the lengths to see Richard Wise in prison, we’ll cope with it when it happens.”

“You’ll have early word it’s coming?”

“I see a faxed list of people who visit Richard Wise every day; the cops in New York are providing whatever they hear on the streets. But until you are ready to admit to the New York cops you are alive, there is only so much I can do under cover of protecting your sisters. You know they’ll want you to testify against the shooter.”

“I didn’t see his face, just the jacket he wore and the center of his chest.”

Luke looked over at her. “And I’ll believe that when I think you don’t have solid reasons to lie to me about it. You saw the shooter, Amy, either at the scene or during the attempt to escape him afterward. I won’t push on that until I need to, since you don’t want a material-witness warrant issued on you, but don’t think I’ll dodge that question forever.”

He turned off the interstate to take his first detour through a subdivision, looking for any cars that might be following him through the turns. “You were hit in that shooting; where did you go to seek medical treatment?”

“Not a hospital.”

She hadn’t liked the warning he’d given about the shooter’s ID; he accepted that but still thought it best to push. He didn’t want buried secrets on him. “A less-than-reputable doctor then?”

“An army buddy helped me out,” she admitted.

“How bad were you hurt?”

“Enough to know I never want to be shot again. It healed. Where are we going?”

“In circles at the moment.” He pulled to the curb in front of a nice two-story colonial in a neighborhood of similar homes and watched the street behind him. “We’ll eventually depart the other entrance to this subdivision, opposite of where we came in.”

“You think you were followed?”

“No. But it’s good practice for when I find I might be. Your sisters are practicing a good form of staying in plain sight and not going anywhere; that is going to get frustrating for whoever is watching them after a while. That will leave following the people your sisters see occasionally—their new cousin, Sam, Connor and Marsh, me.”

“It was so much simpler when it was just me.”

He smiled. “Only in some respects. You could be dead and the rest of us would just be furious with you for not letting us help.” He pulled away from the curb. “How long do you need for doing your shopping?”

“Fifteen—twenty minutes, max.”

He chose a store halfway to their final destination. “Pick me up a package of AA batteries too.” He handed her an envelope. “Your sisters insisted, so don’t jump on me about the cash. It’s already yours.”

“Fine.” She pushed the envelope into her pocket. “I won’t be long.”

Luke held the car door open for Amy. “Do you like the country?”

She glanced around before looking at him and smiling. “I guess I’m going to learn.”

There was crushed gravel under their feet, the long driveway not paved, and still a long walk ahead to reach the house. Luke’s dogs were already here and came racing to meet them. Two other German shepherds tagged along. “The shepherds are Zack and Obby and belong to Caroline.”

Amy knelt to get acquainted. “More cop dogs. I should be relieved, but I think I’m getting surrounded.”

Luke chuckled and ruffled Chester’s fur while he tossed the ball Wilks had brought him. “They like the open territory to run.”

“I didn’t get to meet Caroline Thursday.”

He looked around the property. “There she is.” He nodded toward the barn, where Caroline was closing the large swinging doors. “I’ll let her show you around the house; it apparently struck her fancy when she saw it.”

“You’re not into the big outdoors.”

Luke smiled. “Not as much as I am the convenience of a grocery store and gas station a block away from my house. And winters out here can give you a lot of snow to shovel and push around.”

She laughed and he relaxed. This was going to work out okay.

Caroline had been out somewhere on the property taking its measure, Luke thought. She still wore work gloves, and the farmer’s coat was spotted with mud. And if he wasn’t mistaken, that was her service revolver being worn on her belt and something of the cop’s gaze he remembered as she walked over to join them, relaxed but alert. “Amy, I’d like you to meet Caroline St. James. Caroline, Amanda Griffin.”

“Hello, Amy.”

“Caroline. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

They shook hands and it was a quiet sizing up. Caroline smiled and gestured to the house. “Come on in—let me show you around. We’ll see what you think of this place.”