Conard County Witness Read online

  Well, you couldn’t put someone under protection for the better part of a year and not expect them to have some aftershocks. What’s more, he didn’t think she was being at all silly. The Feds thought they’d gotten everyone involved, but how could they be sure? And then there was the revenge she had mentioned. The huge sums of money that had been passing through those accounts might mean someone else was still out there, someone very angry, someone who held her responsible for their losses. He wasn’t as prepared to dismiss her fears as the Feds, even if she had already told them everything she knew.

  But she ought to be safe here, he assured himself. There was no reason anyone should link the two of them, not when they hadn’t seen each other since the funeral. The phone calls might be like breadcrumbs but probably unavailable to anyone except the phone company and the government.

  “Good morning.”

  He looked up almost with a start. Only then did he realize how lost in thought he’d been. He hadn’t even heard her come downstairs, and that disturbed him. Some gatekeeper he’d make if he lost the basics of staying alert to every noise. He guessed he was rusty, but that had to end now. Surely he could remember all his hard-learned skills.

  “Good morning. Grab a cup and some coffee. Just regular this morning. And if you want toast, get a plate, too. There’s jam in the fridge if you like.”

  He’d already decided that he wasn’t going to take care of her like a guest. He figured that would make her uncomfortable over the long run.

  She was wrapped in a royal-blue fleece robe with matching slippers on her feet, and her blond hair looked charmingly tousled, as if she’d only wasted a quick minute with her brush. “Coffee,” she said in a pretend-zombie voice, holding her arms out in front of her and swaying side to side as she crossed the kitchen.

  He laughed. Apparently a good night’s sleep had done her wonders. She found herself a mug and a plate, but skipped the offer of jam.

  “That bed was so comfortable,” she said as she sat with her coffee and plate. “Like sleeping on clouds.”

  “Or you were just that tired.”

  Her blue eyes twinkled at him. “That’s a definite possibility. I’ll test it again tonight and let you know.”

  “Good idea. I got it in a hurry when you said you’d come, and the selection wasn’t exactly breathtaking. I spent about five minutes on each mattress, then realized I didn’t have the faintest idea whether you’d prefer hard or soft.”

  “It was great,” she assured him. “The best test is sleeping for ten hours and waking up without any stiffness or sore spots. The mattress passed. Even my bed at home can’t do that.”

  Toast popped up just as he saw a shadow cross her face. He let it ride while he reached for her plate and placed two slices on it. Then he nudged the butter her way.

  “Thanks.” She busied herself spreading the soft butter thinly on the toast, while he considered how he could get some more calories into her. It wasn’t as if he knew what foods she liked, and he’d been reluctant to buy too much until he found out.

  “You need to eat more,” he said before biting into his own piece of toast.

  “Eating hasn’t been easy with my stomach always in knots,” she confessed. “Are you going all medical on me?”

  He half smiled. “Once a medic, always a medic. You know it’s not healthy to be underweight. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that. So if we can unknot your stomach, I suggest you indulge in a little overeating. Not too much, just a little.”

  “Orders received.”

  She tried to keep her tone playful, but he heard something else in it, something beneath it that was dark. “Lacy? Talk to me if you can.”

  “So says the world’s biggest clam.”

  He couldn’t deny it. He hadn’t always been that way, certainly not before Sara’s passing. But he guessed he was now, and stared into the empty years since, years when he’d tried to skim the surface with everyone while facing his demons alone. He’d certainly put this woman at arm’s length when it came to the things that mattered most to him. He wondered if he’d been unfair. But at the same time, he’d sensed that opening all that up might spill ugliness all over everyone who cared about him.

  “Touché,” he said.

  She shook her head. “That wasn’t fair. You had your reasons.”

  “And you have yours.”

  She swallowed another bite of toast and drank some more coffee. “The day the FBI descended on my company with their search warrants, I knew I was in for it. No one there knew I’d told them, but by the time the agents walked out with all those computers and files, it was probably pretty clear it was me. We were all sent home, of course, because no one could work.”

  “So this effectively cost you your job.”

  “Mine and a few other people. There was only one section that was handling these transactions, as it turned out. So everyone else was in the clear.”

  “Then what?”

  She smiled ruefully. Or perhaps bitterly. He couldn’t tell. “Nothing for a while. The firm continued to pay me even though I was furloughed, maybe because they didn’t want to look bad in the middle of the mess.”

  “Or maybe because they didn’t want any disgruntled employees finding other things to report.”

  She tilted her head, her blue eyes looking thoughtful. “That might have been it as much as anything. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  She sighed and didn’t object when he placed another slice of toast on her plate. Rising, he refreshed both their coffee mugs, then resumed his seat.

  He spoke when she remained silent for a while. “So you sat around twiddling your thumbs, wondering if you should find another job?”

  “Not exactly. There was little time for thumb twiddling. The FBI and US Attorney kept me pretty busy answering questions about the money trail.”

  “That’s what exposed you to the death threat?”

  She nodded and looked down. “That would be my guess. I didn’t get details, probably because they were protecting their sources. I just got told to pack up, that there was a credible threat against me, and I was moving to a safe house. After that, the grand jury and the trial. In between, I spent a lot of time with federal forensic accountants, building the information into an unmistakable series of money transfers. They got a number of the people at my company, mostly some higher-ups, and they got the people who were involved in the drug trafficking. All very dull.”

  “Except the part where you were threatened.”

  She laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Except that part. Then, all of a sudden the trial was over, everyone was in jail and because of the threat against me, the judge refused to release anyone pending appeal. So I was safe.”

  He watched her make a nightmare sound mundane, and wondered if either of them would ever get past that. Trivializing all the traumas and fears. It seemed they were a pair. “But not really safe.”

  She looked at him. “I don’t know, Jess. That’s the bad part. I don’t know. Everyone seems to think I’m past the point of trouble. I have no more information to give, the testifying is all over, the people who might want to hurt me are in prison. But...” She looked away.

  “You can’t quite believe it.”

  “No. I can’t. I got to watch this whole thing unfold from a front row seat. My God, the tentacles just kept reaching out. When you’re dealing with that, how can you be sure you’ve found everyone? Especially shadowy figures who might be even higher up that no one could find? I don’t know. What I do know is that I just don’t feel safe anymore. Time will help, I suppose. But nothing is going to help me find another job.”

  He reared back. “Why?”

  “Because obviously I can’t be trusted. I revealed privileged information which led to the arrest of some of my former bosses. Who would trust me now?
”

  “Anybody who wants to run an honest business,” he said firmly, but he had to admit he could see her problem. Still, her situation had been unique. Surely some employer ought to see that. “How are you managing? Financially, I mean.”

  “Well, the Feds took care of my expenses until the trial was over, and I have an inheritance from my parents.”

  He nodded. He knew her folks had died just after he had married Sara. They’d been sailing to Bermuda on their small boat and had never arrived. The Bermuda Triangle again, except he believed the causes were natural. He’d heard that sudden storms could blow up out there, not to mention rogue waves. And the Gulf Stream itself was fast enough to sweep away wreckage and bodies in no time at all.

  “Maybe you should ask the Feds if they need another forensic accountant.”

  She surprised him with a laugh, her face clearing. “One of them mentioned that possibility to me. At the time, I wasn’t looking for a job, obviously, and didn’t realize that I’d totally screwed myself by going to the government with that information. But he said he’d be in touch if he heard of an opening. Or I could start my own small firm.” She shrugged. “First, I need to stop looking over my shoulder all the time.”

  There was that, he thought, finishing his toast and getting more coffee. He could make her safe here, off the grid, but what about going home? How much time would pass before she felt truly safe again? Would she ever?

  “Jess?” She spoke just as he sat again.

  “Hmm?”

  “What about you? How are you doing now? Really?”

  He hesitated, the urge to say everything was just great taking over again. The two of them had been doing that for a long time now. But she’d just let him know she was facing a problem as big as her fear: finding employment. He preferred riding the surface these days, leaving the depths of his being untouched, but she’d know he wasn’t being truthful. On the phone, she’d seemed acutely aware of changes in his tone, even when she had learned not to press him, but now she could see him, face-to-face. Maybe it was time to cross one of those bridges he’d been talking about yesterday.

  “Mostly okay,” he said. “I run the minor emergency clinic. It’s an extension of the community hospital. But I think I told you that. Being a physician’s assistant, I can take care of a lot of things on my own, but I’m under a doctor’s supervision. I like it.”

  “Sort of what you trained for.”

  “Exactly. And I much more enjoy taking care of broken bones or sore throats than war wounds, I can tell you.”

  “I have absolutely no trouble believing that.” She smiled at him over her cup. “I never told you, but I thought you were incredibly brave, being a medic. You strike me as the type who would take risks that others might not be willing to.”

  “I don’t know that that’s fair or even true. We were all taking risks. Any one of the guys in my squad would have risked everything to help a wounded buddy. I was just lucky in that I could do more extensive first aid than they could, so I could do more. That’s all.”

  She hesitated visibly. “If you don’t want to talk about this, I understand.”

  “Might as well,” he said after a beat. “It’s not like the movies anymore. I carried a weapon because of the places we were going into. I had to be prepared to protect my patients or myself. Just like any other soldier. The Red Cross on my pack and shoulders was no protection, but more of a target. In theory, it protected me as long as I didn’t shoot offensively. In theory.”

  She compressed her lips, looking at him from suddenly haunted eyes. “It certainly didn’t protect you in the end.”

  “No.” Not much he could say about that. It hadn’t protected him, or anyone else, from a glory hound who’d changed the operation in midstream and cost the lives of his buddies and the lives of a lot of innocent civilians. He closed his eyes, allowing himself for one instant to see the little girl he’d been trying to help when the grenade hit too close. He didn’t know what happened to that child. Hell, he didn’t remember much after that. An air strike had come, they told him; combat search and rescue had pulled out the dead and wounded, but he didn’t remember. He just wished he knew what had happened to that little girl.

  Ah, hell. Standing, he walked out of the room, letting his leg hitch all it wanted until he stood at the front window. He pulled back the heavy curtain a bit and looked out at a cold gray day. He’d have bet on snow before the day was out. A light one.

  A step behind him caused him to turn around. “Jess, you okay?”

  He couldn’t quite summon a smile. “I will be.”

  She nodded. “I’m going to head up and take a shower, if that’s okay. And don’t keep the curtains closed on my account.”

  Before he could answer, she turned and ran up the stairs.

  There were good reasons for skimming the surface. That little girl was one of them. He’d tried to find out about her, but nobody knew. A buddy had been back in the area and asked about the child who had an infected wound and was being helped by a medic before hell had rained on them from the cliffs above. No one knew, or no one wanted to answer. She was a big question mark that would probably remain for the rest of his days.

  He turned back to the window, staring blindly out at the winter-dying world. He didn’t often open the doors to the past. It was a dangerous place to go, dangerous in a very different way from actually being there.

  Unfortunately, by her mere presence here, he suspected Lacy was going to open some of those doors. They had a past together, of sorts, and what else were they going to talk about? The future? Neither of them seemed to have much of one right now.

  Swearing softly, he dropped the curtain and decided he’d take Lacy out, show her the little town, go to the grocery and find out what she liked to eat. Take it day by day until she started to settle and feel safe again.

  What else could they do?

  * * *

  Lacy scolded herself all the way through her shower, blow-drying her hair and getting dressed. She shouldn’t have brought up the war. Some matters were best left alone, and she couldn’t imagine his nightmare experiences in combat. Why disturb the ashes by stirring them up? But she’d stirred them and had watched a change come over him, watched him mentally leave the room even before he walked out of it. Going to some faraway place, a bad place he probably wanted to forget.

  Man, had she lost all her tact and sensitivity during her time in protection? Basic social skills had repeatedly slipped away from her since Jess had picked her up, and she couldn’t blame lack of sleep this morning.

  She sat on the edge of her bed to pull on socks and her walking boots, thinking that she needed to rattle herself back into shape. What did she think she was doing here? Hiding out, that was all, and that didn’t entitle her to disturb whatever peace Jess had managed to find. Or was she hoping for something else, something she had no right to?

  He was sexy, all right. Very. But he was also the husband of her deceased best friend. To see him any other way would dishonor Sara’s memory. And if Sara were here, she’d probably be demanding to know when Lacy had become such an emotionally inept idiot. Leave the man alone.

  Somehow she had to find other things to talk with him about, safe things. Matters that wouldn’t stir up painful memories for him.

  The problem was, their entire relationship had been founded on Sara. She had brought them together. So they could talk of memories of happier times with her, which would inevitably lead to the sorrow of her sudden loss, or they could talk about the aftermath, the war... God, it seemed hopeless. Everything they had left seemed to rest on pain. How could she get past that?

  She found Jess downstairs, looking as if he had shaken off the shadows she had brought back.

  “I thought we could go into town,” he said. “Conard City is a little place, but it has charm. Then groce
ry shopping. I didn’t do much because I have no idea what you like to eat.”

  She returned his smile. “Odd, isn’t it? We’ve known each other thirteen years and we don’t know the simplest things about each other.”

  “Well, Sara always took care of the cooking, and I honestly don’t remember if she made any special dishes just for you. It’s not like I was home a lot.”

  “No.” Two endless wars, a navy medic assigned to the Marine Corps...no, he hadn’t been home a lot. And when he had been, Lacy had kept her visits reasonably brief so as not to impinge on the couple’s rare time together. “Well, let’s go. I’d like to see the town and maybe we can reach a meeting of palates at the grocery.”

  He laughed and reached for her coat. “We need to get you a parka. This may be okay for Dallas, but the wind and cold here is going to be a problem.”

  “I can’t,” she reminded him. “You told me not to access my bank or credit cards.”

  He arched a dark brow at her. “Okay then, keep a tally sheet, Ms. CPA, and when you feel safe enough to go home, you can repay me.”

  She guessed that was fair enough and let him help her into her coat.

  “Why did you decide to settle here?” she asked as they drove toward town.

  “One of the very few long-range plans Sara and I ever made was to get a place in the country when we retired. This isn’t exactly what she was thinking of, but it’s fine for me. Anyway, after living all crammed in the kind of housing we could afford around military bases, Sara started longing for open space. She used to say she didn’t want neighbors close enough to know every time she flushed the toilet.”

  Lacy laughed. “I can hear her saying that. Do you see her mother often?”

  “Not at all. After the funeral, it was like she didn’t want anything to do with me. You?”

  Lacy shook her head. “No. I decided it was probably too painful for her.”