Reluctant Witness (39 page)

“Not even when you were in Curaçao?”

“No. It was all in English. Why?”

“When you were down there with him, did he
ever excuse himself to go take care of business?” Rocky wanted to
know.

“All the time. In fact, whenever we were down
there, I spent most of the time by myself, at whatever hotel we
were staying in. He sometimes didn’t even come back for dinner, so
I’d have to eat by myself. I think that’s why I’m feeling so
frustrated here.” As soon as I said it, I realized it was true. The
past few weeks gave me so much time to remember what I didn’t like
about my relationship with Jared. “I feel like my life is always on
hold.”

“Do you remember anything about Jared’s
business? Did he ever share information with you about what it was
he did?”

“He told me he was one of the original owners
of Quicksilver Limited down in Delaware. When they sold the
company, he made a small fortune.”

“Actually, it was a rather large fortune,”
Rocky corrected me.

“Just before he died, a group of overseas
investors formed Cinnabar Capital in Curaçao and bought a
controlling interest in Quicksilver. Lincoln said something to me
that I didn’t really understand. Quicksilver and Cinnabar are terms
for mercury.”

“Yeah, I talked to him about that. Jared
started out at Helmut Gruen 80 and Mercury Industries.”

“And now you’re asking me about Cyprus and my
signature and houses I’ve never seen before.” I saw the guarded
look on his face and knew something was terribly wrong. “Are you
saying Jared was a money launderer? That’s what he did for a
living?”

“You tell me.”

“But if that’s true, why would he be
interested in me? I’m a nobody.”

“Wrong. You’re a woman with a past and a need
to remain anonymous. Either he knew you were in the witness
protection program and pursued you to get at your father, or by
some weird coincidence, he discovered you were in the witness
protection program after the fact and thought he’d use it to his
own advantage.”

“That’s the second time someone’s said that
to me.”

“Here’s the problem, Marigold. Twice we’ve
had professional killers come after you, not to kill you, but to
kidnap you. How does that make sense? Why not just hire guys to
kidnap you?”

“Maybe someone wanted to see me alive before
I was killed,” I sighed. “Why else would someone need to pay a
killer to kidnap me?”

“To see you alive before killing you....”
There was surprise in Rocky’s voice at that thought. “Maybe.”

“But what does it have to do with that watch
Jared gave me?” I asked. “That’s what really bothers me. If it had
a GPS locator, it would mean that anyone who knew that would be
able to track me wherever I went, right?”

“Right.”

“And as long as I wore that watch, he could
find me at any time.”

“Sure.”

“So why kidnap me? Why not just kill me? Or
is it the watch that’s important?”

Rocky shook his head and smiled at me. “Jeff
was right. You’re one smart cookie. Mind if I make some phone
calls?”

“You need privacy?”

“I do.”

“In that case, I’ll grab my laptop and go sit
out on the balcony to work.”

“I appreciate that, Marigold.”

It only took me a moment to gather my things
and open the slider. Shutting it behind me, I settled myself in a
chair at the glass table and got to work. Jeff had sent along a
couple of USB sticks loaded with the floor plans and his personal
thoughts on the condo project back in Atlanta, including his color
and style preferences. For his master bath, he had one “must have”
-- a therapeutic whirlpool bath for his bad back. It was obvious to
me the man was being kind, trying to help me fill the hours with
productive activities, so I wouldn’t just fritter away the hours,
worrying. I was more than happy to oblige. Within minutes, I was
searching for paint colors on the Benjamin Moore site.

I couldn’t completely walk away from the
conversation Rocky and I had had, though. Even as I flipped through
paint samples for just the right combination of colors for Jeff’s
walls, my mind kept going back to those trips with Jared. What had
bothered me at the time?

And then it came back to me. We went to these
foreign countries and I didn’t get to see anything. No sightseeing
trips, no excursions, not even dinners at memorable restaurants. My
time was spent in hotel rooms at lovely resorts. Most of the time
when I was with him, I felt like a potted plant set down in a sunny
room. We didn’t do anything together as a couple. No boat trips, no
scenic drives, no snorkeling. The minute that thought popped into
my head, I knew. I had been Jared’s cover for something
nefarious.

“Rocky!” Hands trembling, I pulled open the
sliding door. The security man for Roaring Kill Productions looked
up at me, startled. “I was cover for Jared!”

“What?” He put his hand over the phone and
gave me his full attention.

“I never went anywhere with him. I never did
anything with him. I was only there as cover.”

“So?”

“There has to be another woman!”

“Another what?”

“What kind of man takes his fiancée on exotic
trips with him and then just leaves her alone in the hotel room? He
needed me to be in those places. And he needed the WitSec people to
know I was going with him to those places. Doesn’t that mean that
whatever happened there, he wanted people to believe I was
involved?”

“Say that again,” he instructed me, this time
as he held out his phone. I repeated what I said. When I was done,
he put the phone up to his mouth and said, “Did you get that,
Jeff?”

“Cherchez la femme!” I crowed. “That bastard
used me to cover his sleazy business transactions. The question is
which came first, the chicken or the egg.”

“Say what?”

“Did he pick me because I looked like his
girlfriend? Or did he pick me and then find his girlfriend?”

“No,” Rocky said into the mouthpiece, with an
amused chuckle, “I didn’t get that far, man. She figured it out
herself. Right. I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?”

“Jeff says he could kiss you.”

“Tell him he’s welcome to kiss me any time.”
Those words came out of the blue. As soon as I said them, I knew I
couldn’t take them back. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do that.
What possessed me to say that? Was it the Cornwall magic? First
Lincoln, now Jeff? I remembered what Rocky said to me the day I met
him. Jeff was Atlanta’s most eligible bachelor, a man about town,
with women constantly throwing themselves at him. Had I completely
gone mad by letting the idea of Jefferson Cornwall creep into my
heart? Maybe it was Nora’s story. Or maybe it was that he showed me
so much kindness. I reminded myself not to get carried away. After
all, this wasn’t a relationship that was likely to go anywhere.

Rocky gave me a funny look before he turned
his back on me and resumed his conversation. I wandered back out to
the balcony and sat down, no longer able to concentrate on my
decorating project.

What was wrong with me? Why was I always
falling for the wrong guy? Sure, I had trust issues. That was to be
expected. But even my sisters were living happily ever after in
their lives. Pansy had met a Special Forces soldier three years ago
and they were in the midst of planning a wedding. Violet had been
involved with her boss, a symphony conductor from Linz, for the
last eight years. As she said, they made beautiful music
together.

But me? Looking back on my romantic life, I
couldn’t say I ever had much of one. It seemed like every time I
started dating a man, something interrupted our relationship just
as we were falling in love. Twice I was transferred to other cities
when I worked for the hotel chain, ruining a couple of promising
relationships. Since I hadn’t really been invested in them, it was
no real hardship to let go of them, but David was different. He was
the man who came before Jared, the last one I dated when life still
seemed normal.

We met at a social gathering hosted by the
hotel chain for its regional employees. He was the assistant
hospitality services manager in another city fifty miles away. We
got together on weekends, sometimes just the two of us; other times
with a group of friends.

Looking back now with the clarity that time
and wisdom bring, I’d have to say I knew he wasn’t the one for me.
It’s easy to keep a relationship going when you’re having fun, but
when things begin to roll downhill, that’s when you find out what a
person is really like, good or bad.

When my mother got sick and my father asked
me to move back home to help care for her in her final months,
David resented my decision. He thought I was wasting my time and
energy looking after a dying woman; his solution to the dilemma was
to just hire someone to do it. I balked at the idea. It struck me
as heartless and cruel, even calculatingly cold. What my mother
needed most at the end of her life was to know she was loved, that
we would be with her no matter what came her way. I stood my
ground. That’s when I learned the true measure of the man. At a
time when I most needed his support, David told me that he didn’t
think he could wait on the sidelines while I did my duty as a
family caregiver. I’m not sure I ever forgave him for being such a
cad. It surely killed any stirrings of love that survived in my
heart.

I was still reeling from my mother’s death
when I arrived in Rhode Island. I was like a wounded bird, waiting
for my wings to heal, not quite ready to fly again. My emotions
were so raw at the time and the pain was so deep inside me, it was
difficult for me to meet new people. I cautiously moved into my new
life, tiptoeing at a time when most people might have barged right
in. If Jared hadn’t pursued me, I probably never would have paid
attention to him. I would have stayed in my own little world of
hurt.

Chapter Thirty
Five

Was that why he seemed to bowl me over so
easily? Was my resistance so unusually low that it made me
especially susceptible to his charms? He seemed so determined, so
focused on achieving his goals. I was swept away in the whirlwind
that was Jared Spears.

But what if he took advantage of me because
he had a plan of some kind and needed a scapegoat? What if he
deliberately searched for someone who looked like his mysterious
girlfriend, a woman he could use to pose as me for his shady
business dealings?

As a newcomer in town, Jared didn’t really
know many local people; much of his energy was directed at
attracting wealthy clients in Newport as potential investors. He
had had worked in Boston and Wilmington, Delaware long before he
set up Dutch Island Investments. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that
he gave that name to his company.

But what if he had already established
himself in Curaçao before he showed up in Newport? Did that mean
that those investments were all part of a carefully planned and
executed scam? Did he intend all along to make that money vanish,
in a Bernie Madoff-style scheme, especially after that reporter got
wind of the story? More importantly, had someone betrayed Jared,
committing murder to get him out of the way and take over the
scheme? He could have had a partner, couldn’t he?

This time I didn’t rush back into the room.
Instead, I lightly tapped on the glass and waited until Rocky waved
me in.

“Let me guess,” he smiled, pocketing his
phone. “You remembered something else.”

“And then some,” I grinned.

Two hours later, we were sitting outside on
the balcony, and Rocky was taking notes when Nancy and Terry
returned from their golf game.

“What’s on the agenda today?” she wanted to
know. By the time Rocky gave them the short version, I knew we had
made important connections in the baffling story. “Should we cancel
our trip home?”

“No, no. Don’t do that. It’s going to take
some time to track all this information down. Finish your business
and we’ll get all our ducks set up in a row before we do anything.
As long as that Citizen Chronograph keeps moving, whoever it is
that’s tracking it will think Marigold’s on the run. And when we’re
ready to spring our trap, we’ll put it back on her wrist and wait
to see who shows up for the party.”

“We’re springing a trap?” I asked, slightly
apprehensive. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being a target with a
bull’s eye on my back again.

“We can’t let you spend the rest of you days
on the run, Marigold. That’s no way to live,” Terry told me.

“You deserve better than that,” Nancy
added.

“Time to get to work,” Rocky announced. “I’ve
got to get back to Atlanta.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Terry told him.

Nancy and I got dressed for
a swim. I handed her
Vanilla Orchid
Magic
.

“It’s definitely one of my all-time favorite
books,” I announced. “I love the ending.”

“What are you going to do now that you
finished this?”

“Jeff lent me a copy
of
A Whisper of Ginger
. He said it continues Nora’s story.”

“That sounds like fun.”

Terry joined us at the pool a short time
later, wearing his neon orange swim trunks. Nancy challenged me to
swim some laps with her, so we left him guarding our gear and I
gave it a go. Twenty minutes later, we climbed out of the water and
flopped on our chaises.

“Not bad,” Terry decided. “Considering the
fact that Nancy spent ten years as a swim champ and lifeguard, you
kept up with her fairly well.”

“It’s been a while,” I confessed.

“But you don’t normally have a workout
routine?” he wanted to know.

“I was always told not to stick to a schedule
of any kind, to vary my activities, so they weren’t
predictable.”