Reluctant Witness (44 page)

“Your own interests,” Nancy shot back. “What
about hers? Did you ever think maybe she was the one getting the
shaft?”

“Guys!” Terry bellowed, moving swiftly
between Nancy and Jeff. “Hey!”

“What?” Jeff demanded, more than a little
perturbed. Nancy glared at her husband, still loaded for bear.

“Let’s focus on the subject at hand,” Terry
suggested. “You’re so distracted by the love angle of the equation
that you’re both missing the big picture. You’re being played by a
third party, an agent provocateur.”

Jeff gave Terry his full attention. “In what
way?”

“If Marigold didn’t send that message to
Lincoln, it was sent by someone who’s deliberately trying to create
trouble,” Terry pointed out, “and it looks like the plan is
working. He even knows that in order for Lincoln to believe she
sent the email, it has to come from her laptop, because she’s got
the encryption program. That’s some serious intelligence behind the
effort.”

Rocky took it from there. “Think about it.
Doesn’t that suggest that someone knows about the brothers’
rivalry? Maybe this guy has been right on Marigold’s heels the
whole time, from the moment she was kidnapped from the Gilded Nest.
That means he knows that Jack and Phil looked after her in Windham,
Lincoln took her to Reston, Jeff took her to Atlanta, and now she’s
in Florida.”

“But why is he doing this?” Now I was more
curious than scared. “Who is he and what does he want from me?”

Chapter Thirty
Nine

“He still needs her,” Tom nodded thoughtfully
as he looked up at me. “She’s still part of his overall
scheme.”

“Whoever he is, he wants you to cut Marigold
loose, Jeff, to send her out on her own. That’s why he is trying to
pit one Cornwall brother against the other,” Terry added. “By
pushing all your emotional buttons, he’s got you so rattled, you
can’t think straight.”

“But why didn’t he just snatch her? He’s had
plenty of chances.” Nancy was puzzled. “We’ve had her out in public
on numerous occasions and there hasn’t been a single approach, as
far as I can tell.”

“The watch,” Jeff suggested. “If all he
wanted was Marigold, he’d have kidnapped her by now. There must be
something important about that particular watch. He needs it
back.”

“It could be something inside the watch
that’s important and we just haven’t recognized its significance
because it doesn’t look out of place.” Terry bit his lip as he
contemplated the possibilities.

“Or on the outside,” Nancy added. “Could it
be some kind of code that only the bad guy understands?”

“No, it’s more than that,” Rocky insisted.
“He must need both the watch and the victim, because he’s also had
ample opportunity to snatch the watch. For some unknown reason,
Marigold is important to him. The people he hired to snatch her
were all professional killers. If all he wanted was the watch, any
idiot could have stolen it from her.”

“Do we know every thing we need to know about
it, right down to how it functions?” asked Tom.

Rocky bobbed his head, lost in thought. “Once
we knew it was a potential problem, we checked it from top to
bottom. That’s how we found the GPS chip inside. I had the jeweler
photograph every inch of it, right down to every mark on the case
and even the inscription.”

“There might be another reason Marigold is
being set up with the fake emails,” Jeff suggested. “Let’s say he
needs us to cut her loose, so she’s on her own, and he needs the
watch. That means he needs her alive even after he gets his hands
on the watch. Does he want her to do something or go somewhere
before he kills her?”

I glanced around at the people sitting at the
table. The solution seemed so simple to me. “Why can’t we set up
the guy who set me up? If he wants me and the watch, let’s let him
believe he’s getting both and catch him in the act.”

“It might work,” Nancy concurred, “especially
if we lured him in by backing off Marigold’s security. We could
fool him into believing he successfully provoked the brothers.”

“We’d have to keep a pretty close eye on
every detail. It would definitely be risky,” Rocky reminded us.

Tom took a look at the two laptops on the
table. “If someone is accessing Marigold’s computer from a remote
location, we’ll need an Internet security guy to watch the watcher.
We need to know who he is, where he is, and what he’s doing.”

Nancy thought it would be easy to pull
together a team to keep me constantly under surveillance. Terry
said that as long as he could control the playing field, he could
make sure the bad guy didn’t get the upper hand.

“It’s all about having the right kind of
intelligence,” Tom declared confidently, “and being able to contain
the threat.”

“It’s the only way we’re going to wrap this
up,” Rocky acknowledged with a shrug as he sat at the table. “We’ve
got to give the creep what he wants because that’s the only thing
that will satisfy him. We need to convince him that we no longer
believe Marigold’s in any danger. He’ll crawl out of his
hidey-hole, and we can catch him in the act.”

Jeff was the only hold-out. “No way, no how.
It’s too dangerous for Marigold.”

“Boss, if we do nothing, she’s stuck here for
God knows how long. This guy could be very patient. He might be
willing to wait months to get his hands on the girl and the
watch.”

“You’ve forgotten one important fact, Rocky.
He nearly killed three marshals in his effort to get at her. If
Marigold is so important to the bad guy that he would be willing to
murder federal agents, the risk is too great. If his plan goes
belly up, he might kill her with a vengeance.”

Our eyes met across the table and I felt a
shiver go through me. Jefferson Cornwall was in love with me. Now
that he had accepted the truth about his feelings, he wasn’t
willing to give me up. I put my hand on his and felt him take hold
of my fingers.

“I can’t spend the rest of my life on the
run, Jeff.”

“Marigold....”

“Please. It’s the only way I’m ever going to
be truly free.”

“I don’t know,” he sighed doubtfully. “If we
miss one little thing, we could get you killed....”

“Boss, we can do this.” Rocky sounded more
confident now. “Let’s string him along, let him think you’ve bought
the crap about Marigold having a crush on Lincoln. We’ll take it
slow before we put the ball in play. I’ll set Lincoln straight.
He’ll play his part if he knows this is a real investigation. And
if we catch the bad guy in the act, the Justice Department can
prosecute him for those attempted murders.”

Jeff inhaled deeply and slowly let the breath
out. He seemed to be reluctantly weighing the odds. When he did
speak, his comment surprised me.

“Before I say yes, I want to know what’s so
important about that watch. Let’s get it back and go over it with a
fine-toothed comb. If there are any secrets hidden in it, I want to
know what they are.”

The watch...could that really be the key to
this entire mystery? I always just assumed it was a love token from
Jared. But if there was a tracking chip in it, maybe it contained
other secrets as well.

“Fair enough,” Rocky replied.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Nancy replied,
clapping her hands once. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Things moved swiftly after our meeting
concluded. The first thing Rocky did was identify every occupant in
the building, to determine who might be spying on me. It turned out
to be a guy on the second floor. Not only was the stranger
monitoring my computer activity, he had surreptitiously planted
cameras at key locations throughout the building. There was even
one positioned opposite the penthouse door. Every time any of us
stepped in or out, he knew about it. Rocky left those in place, to
convince my secret stalker his spying went undetected.

“He must know you and I argued,” Jeff told
me. “No doubt he watched the whole thing unfold by the elevator.
He’s probably hoping you’ll run to Lincoln the second I turn on
you.”

“But how do you know he’s not spying on us in
here?” I asked.

“He’d expect us to have security for the
condo, some kind of alarm system that probably involves
motion-activated cameras. That’s why he’s keeping tabs on the
outside of the residence, the part of the building we don’t
control.”

“Oh. So, what do I do?” I wanted to know.

“You and I are going to have a very big
break-up. I’m going to tell you that I’m done looking after you.
And you’re going to tell me that you want your watch back, and
you’re not leaving until I return it to you. That buys you some
time, Marigold. While he’s waiting for that watch to be returned,
he won’t harm you.”

“But shouldn’t we move to a new location and
make him follow us?”

“Better to deal with the devil you know than
to take your chances with the one you don’t,” Rocky chimed in.
“This guy was hired for the job. He has spent a lot of time getting
set up here, Marigold. If we move you now, his boss might get
suspicious and create more trouble for us. He could get rid of this
guy and replace him with someone else. Don’t forget, the brains of
this operation hired two killers for the botched job at the Gilded
Nest, just to cover his bases.”

“That makes sense.”

“So, here’s what we’re going to do,” the head
of Roaring Kill Productions security continued. “Jeff, you and I
are going to have a conversation in the corridor. You tell me you
think Marigold is putting on an act and you are no longer willing
to foot the bill for her antics. I’ll tell you that I think she’s
probably still in cahoots with the bad guy, so we should try and
get the feds involved in an investigation.”

“And I’ll break in and insist that she’s the
type of woman to go looking for another sugar daddy,” Jeff decided,
giving me a quick wink. “We’ll talk about the need the identity of
her next patsy. That way, the creep will probably try to use the
situation to his advantage.”

“Sure. I’ll also suggest that we help her set
up her own party planning business again, so she can support
herself, but it’s really an opportunity for us to track her
actions. We can make it look like Marigold is actually getting back
into the swing of things on the party front. He might try to mess
with her, sending out more phony emails, or he might decide he’s in
a good wait-and-see position. I’ll recommend that you leave Terry
and Nancy here to babysit her, but we pull everyone else out.”

“Does that mean I’ll be heading back to
Reston?” Tom wanted to know.

“Hell, no,” Rocky grinned. “You’re going to
be our point man down here. We’ll make it look like you’re watching
Marigold without her knowledge, but you’ll really be watching the
guy who’s watching Marigold. We’ll make a big point of setting you
up in another building, as if it’s a secret.”

Terry agreed with the plan. “That’s good. It
will discourage him from getting too close to her if he thinks
she’s under surveillance.”

Jeff uncrossed his legs, stretching to get
comfortable in the chair. His slight wince turned into a grimace;
it suggested his back was bothering him, but he didn’t let that
stop him.

“There’s one more thing. The creep obviously
knows Marigold has been helping me with my condo. She and I should
argue about it.” Jeff turned to me. “You can ask me what I want you
to do with your design plans. I’ll tell you I’ve decided to sell
the place.”

“You’re selling the place?” I was dismayed.
“But it’s got so much potential!”

“Relax,” he told me. “I’ll just put it in a
real estate trust for now and rent it back to myself. The point is
I want you to demand that I pay you for the work you’ve already
done for me. I’ll tell you that I have no intention of giving you
any more of my hard-earned cash....”

“You’re going to do that with a straight
face?” Nancy teased. “Won’t the creep think you’re a cheap
bastard?”

“Oh, yeah,” he grinned. “I have no problem
with that. And I’ll tell Marigold that she has three weeks to find
a new place to live.”

“I do?” For a moment, I panicked, thinking I
would actually have to find a job that could pay the rent, as part
of the scenario.

“Marigold, have you forgotten what I do for a
living? I write stories and scripts, and that’s what I’m doing
here. We just had a royal battle outside about you leaving. We have
to maintain that fiction. I’m not really kicking you out at the end
of the month, although we will have to find another place to stash
you for a while when this is over.”

“You scared me there for a minute,” I
laughed, feeling the relief wash over me. “But do you really think
I can ever have a normal life?”

Jeff reached over and put his hand on the
back of my chair, ignoring the titters of our fellow team members.
Leaning in, with his tantalizing lips just an inch from my ear, he
whispered words that filled me with delight.

“I promise you that I will do everything in
my power to give you a great life, Marigold.”

“Hey, what’s he saying to her?” Nancy leaned
towards us. “No fair! We have a right to know!”

“Only if it’s a security matter,” Rocky
replied, an amused look on his face. Tom added his own
observation.

“From the way Marigold is blushing, I’d say
this is a personal thing between the two of them.”

“Shoot!” said my bodyguard, her
disappointment obvious. “I guess I’ll just have to squeeze it out
of her later, when you boys are gone.”

“Speaking of which,” Tom laughed, “I think
I’ll head back downstairs and get to work.”

“Good idea.” Terry stood up and stretched his
long, lean body. “I’m going to make some phone calls to some old
buddies, get that ball rolling.”

A little woof from my bedroom reminded me
that there was a little Yorkie still crated in my bedroom. I got up
from my chair.