Reluctant Witness (54 page)

By four o’clock, we were all sitting around
the dining room table, with plenty of time before the men planned
to take off for a boys’ night out at the bowling alley, followed by
pizza and beer. Clovis’s sister and sister-in-law arrived, husbands
in tow.

“What are we going to do for fun?” Raeanne
wanted to know.

“I thought we could just hang out and chill,”
said the bride-to-be.

“You thought wrong.” Nancy brought out the
party hats she purchased earlier in the day at the party store.
“It’s time for a bridal shower!”

“Come on, guys. That’s really not
necessary!”

“Oh yes, it is!” Julie carefully tucked her
glittered paper cap over her turban. “Now let’s have a party!”

When the men returned just after ten, we were
still whooping it up in the dining room. Clovis blushed when her
mother held up the gift card from Victoria’s Secret for the groom
to see.

“My, my, my,” he grinned. “You ladies have
been busy!”

Nancy and I got to bed just before eleven.
Cooper made his way up onto the bed and settled down beside me.
Nancy was about to turn off the light, but changed her mind.

“I’ve got to tell you, kid, I’m
impressed.”

“Are you?” I smiled.

“Clovis is going to remember this wedding for
the rest of her life.”

“I hope so.”

“Julie tells me that her cancer seems to be
going into remission, at least for the time being.”

“That explains the red eyes on the bride
earlier today,” I decided. “It’s never over till the fat lady
sings.”

“Tomorrow’s going to be a great day,” she
sighed. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

Of all the weddings I had arranged, this was
my sentimental favorite. It went off without a hitch. By the time
the reception ended just after eight and we saw the bride and groom
off in their decorated car, complete with a “just married” sign, we
were all quite content to sit back and remember the day with great
fondness. Julie excused herself, pleading exhaustion. She and Bob
had danced several times, making their way slowly across the dance
floor to familiar tunes.

Raeanne and her husband stayed over, planning
to take Beatrice back to Salinas with them on Sunday. The little
beagle would stay there until Clovis and David returned from their
honeymoon in two weeks.

Nancy and I had flights scheduled first thing
in the morning. I was curious about where I was headed, but Nancy
said it was a surprise. She told me not to worry about flying
alone, because I really wouldn’t be on my own.

“You’ll understand what I mean when you see
your escorts.”

At just after nine on Sunday, Nancy waited
with me at the Hawaiian Airlines gate. We sat in the lounge,
chatting for half an hour. I had never been to Hawaii before, and I
was really excited by the prospect. As the flight was called, the
crowd began to assemble, ready to board.

“No need to rush, Marigold. You’re in the
middle of the pack.”

“Right,” I nodded. I felt a gentle poke in my
ribs from Nancy’s elbow.

“There they are.”

Across the wide corridor, two figures came
hurrying. Clovis and David pretended not to know us as they passed
by.

“You’re a real piece of work, Nance,” I
laughed.

“What can I say? They needed a honeymoon and
you needed to get to Hawaii. It’s killing two birds with one
stone.”

“I never would have guessed this
surprise.”

“Let’s hope no one else does either. You’ll
have to transfer in Honolulu. There will be a driver waiting for
you when you get off in Lihue. This bag is for you.” She handed me
a blue cloth tote with straps. “Your travel documents are in the
folder, along with all of the contact information. When you get to
where you’re going, stop at the front desk and pick up the key from
the clerk. Have a great time.”

I hugged her, feeling the gratitude of all
the kindnesses she had shown me through the last several weeks. I
remembered how she had stood up for me when Jeff had doubts. She’d
even been willing to quit her job and take me home with her because
she believed in me. “You’re the best, Nance.”

“Go make me proud, little bird,” she
insisted, kissing my cheek before she hurried off to catch her
flight to Atlanta.

In line, I checked my travel documents, my
eyes growing wide when I saw the name on the new driver’s license
issued in Atlanta -- Chrisanth Neeson. I noticed that my place of
residence was Park Place on Peachtree, Jeff’s address. It must have
taken a lot of fiddling to accomplish this, I thought to myself. I
was once again using my birth name. A tiny thrill traveled through
me, exciting me. Jeff had promised me a great life. Was he about to
deliver on that promise?

On the plane, I stowed the
tiny terrier in his carrier under my seat and then tried to settle
myself down. Was this an end to the charade? I hadn’t been
Chrisanth since I was sixteen; it was an odd feeling to resume my
old identity. I was returning to a life I used to know, one that
was both familiar and yet not. I would never know what my life
would have been, had it not been interrupted by the murder of my
grandfather. Who would I have become? All I had was the here and
now, this fresh start. I was on my way to Hawaii, the South Pacific
paradise. The anticipation sent my head spinning. What would it be
like? Throw in the little dog and a surfboard; it sounded like a
teen movie.
Chrisanth Goes Hawaiian.
I smiled at the thought.

My parents, with their roots in the world of
flowers, gave me the name Chrisanth when I was born, for the genus
Chrysanthemum. Most of the time they just called me Chris. They
named the twins after members of the violet family; Hortensia,
after the Viola Hortensis, and Cornelia, after the Viola
Cornuta.

After my grandparents were murdered and we
went into witness protection, we became the Farnsworth family for a
while. I was fine as the newly emerged Susan, trying hard to blend
into the teenage crowd, but Tensie and Nealie had trouble
remembering they were now Sharon and Sheila. We were constantly
afraid they would give up our secret, so my mother decided the
twins would have an easier time of easing out of their old
identities and into their new ones if they were given special
nicknames. Tensie became Princess Petal and Nealie became Princess
Blossom, complete with costumes, tiaras, and magic wands. They
insisted I join in the game, so my mother crowned me Queen
Floribunda. By the time the twins turned ten, they were so used to
using their nicknames instead of their aliases, they had almost
forgotten they were ever anything other than the flower
princesses.

This unexpected return to my old life kicked
up a question. Why had the marshals chosen to replace Margot Floyd
with the alias Marigold Flowers when they moved me to Lake Placid?
Was it intentional on the part of my WitSec handlers, meant to have
some kind of psychological impact on me, because they knew I had
been born Chrisanth Neeson and wanted me to think I was putting my
sisters at risk by cooperating with Jared? Or was it just dumb luck
they happened to choose a name that echoed that name given to me at
birth?

Honest with myself, I admitted I still felt
torn up about what happened to Shaun and the others. They had been
brutalized by Jared’s hired thugs. Shaun had taken a punch that
broke his eye socket and permanently affected his vision. As for
Tovar, one of the bullets had nicked his liver, causing serious
complications. Maybe what I was now feeling was a touch of
survivor’s guilt. But did I really play a part in what happened to
the members of my WitSec team? Sitting on this plane, so far from
Newport, from Lake Placid, I knew I was innocent -- there was no
blood on my hands.

But could I say the same for them? The memory
of what happened in the Gilded Nest was still imprinted on my mind.
I could still feel the hands of that man on me when he surprised me
in that hallway. And I could still recall the sight of Tovar
falling to the floor in a hail of bullets. And climbing into that
dark trunk? I still woke up some nights in a panic.

Why couldn’t Tovar have called me from Rhode
Island to warn me I was in danger? Why didn’t Shaun explain to me
why he was so worried about Jared? I would have been honest and
cooperated. I would have shared my information with them. Had I
been aware of Jared’s deception, I would have turned him in to my
WitSec team.

The truth was they never trusted me enough to
tell me their concerns. Trust is always a two-way street. For those
of us in need of protection, we place our faith in those charged
with our security. We rely on them to have our backs. What happens
when they let us down, when they go outside the playbook and start
making decisions they keep from their bosses? Should they get a
pass when they are harmed as a result, or should they be held
accountable? If they had followed the rules, would any of this have
happened?

A part of me was still angry at the
unfairness of it all. To this day, no one had apologized to me for
what happened. No one had tried to make things right, to admit
there was a failure in their security program. It was as if they
wanted to pretend I was still at fault, and if that failed, the
next best thing was to pretend it never happened. But it did
happen. I could have died in that water-logged car. I could have
died in that dark, cold metal coffin. No one would have ever known
the truth of what happened to me. I would have been a statistic, a
protected witness believed to have gone bad. Jared would have
gotten away with murder.

But worst of all, I realized just how
dangerous it would have been had there still been an active effort
to track down my father and kill him for his work in detoxifying
opium poppies. I might have shared my real identity with Jared and
he could he have sold it to any of the drug cartels with a grudge,
in some twisted effort to get himself out of trouble. Where would I
be then? What would have happened to my family?

As much as I felt bad about the trouble
Shaun, Tovar, and Eve were in, there was no way I could pretend
that what they did was okay. They took the law into their own hands
and decided to teach me a lesson I didn’t need to learn. I never
did betray them, even when they thought I did. What would have
happened to me if the Cornwall family hadn’t happened to come
along? I was so glad I never had to find out.

But if the danger for the Neeson family was
really over, would I see my father and sisters again? Was it
possible for us to be reunited once more, or would we have to
continue pretending not to know each other? That was part of the
dream I couldn’t yet imagined.

Part Three:
Paradise

The Puaiohi, known as the Small Kauai Thrush,
is one of only two native thrushes still found in Hawaii today.
With fewer than five hundred birds remaining, the population is
endangered. Efforts to restore the secretive songbird’s native
habitat through conservation and smarter agricultural practices may
yet save it from extinction.

Chapter Forty
Eight

Once the plane started
rolling down the runway, I opened Nancy’s blue tote bag again. In
addition to the travel documents, I also found a copy of one of
Jeff’s thrillers,
Dangerous
Deception
. Opening it up to the title page,
I saw the note he wrote to me:

Aloha, Chrisanth! We’ll talk more after you
read this. With love, J. C.

I felt an unexpected thrill at seeing my real
name scrawled in Jeff’s handwriting. How long had he known who I
really was? And what was in the book that he wanted to discuss?

It didn’t take me long to lose myself in the
story, so hungry was I to learn more about Jeff. Although I didn’t
normally read thrillers, I found myself mesmerized by this one. The
tale opened in the middle of a desperate chase up a South American
mountain. A Navy SEAL team was pursued by a drug trafficker’s
private army. The hero, Fin Manetti, described the tense scene:

As I put down fire on the advancing column
of men through the rainforest jungle, my mind worked overtime.
Behind me, Cash was frantically calling in our position, even as he
applied pressure to the bullet hole in his leg. I counted ten men,
all with automatic weapons, coming our way. Through my sniper
scope, I could see their heavy ammo belts slung across their
shoulders, weighing them down. This didn’t look good. Player and
Domino were out of commission, as was Cash. We were down to five
operational members of our original SEAL Team Two unit and the
morning sun was already rising in the east.

The first two shots missed their mark. The
third one was the charm. I saw the man clutch his chest, stumble,
and then drop over the side of the mountain. His comrades seemed to
assume he had simply lost his footing. One down, nine to go. And
then I saw a sight that chilled me to the bone. The last two
cowboys in camouflage were dragging one scrawny cadaver of a man
along with them. His hands were bound and he had at least a month’s
worth of beard. Roger Douglas was alive, but just barely. If we
could outwit the revolutionaries, we would bring home the prize, a
hostage held in captivity for more than three years. He was long
overdue for that homecoming.

Mano Jimenez hissed at me, trying to get my
attention. I glanced up briefly in his direction, as he clung to
the tree above me. We exchanged hand signals, determining our
strategy. The plan was to take out our targets one by one. Barnacle
was tucked away behind a boulder, just to my north. I knew Jumper
and Fullback were somewhere further down the mountain, lying in
wait, but without knowing a specific position for the men, we
risked hitting them with gunfire, if they hadn’t already been cut
down during the earlier skirmish.