Stand (7 page)

The minute I got upstairs my act fell away. I wanted to be tough and strong, but my sanctuary had been violated. I leaned my head against my shut bedroom door and felt the trembling begin. Max whined behind me.

My knees turned to water. I pulled Max to me with one arm and held tight to Kitty with the other. For a few minutes I just let myself go all the pain, fear, and anger came out in hot tears muffled against their fur.

The rough scrape of Kitty’s tongue and the hot pant of Max’s breath calmed me. I pushed to my feet and got ready for bed with Max kept tight by my side.

Before I could crawl into bed there was one thing I needed to do, one thing that was bugging me. I opened my laptop and pulled up a search engine. I typed in ‘meaning of pink carnation.’ Several responses filled the browser window. I clicked on the first one. An icy foreboding slid over me like unseen watching eyes. I glanced over my shoulder to find nothing by my bedroom wall, but the feeling remained. A trepidation that knotted my stomach and made my heart thump. A pink carnation meant ‘I’ll remember you.’

I slept fitfully. Every noise woke me. Max and Kitty both slept curled next to me. It helped that Jack was downstairs. I didn’t say so, but I was grateful he had stayed. The night was a trial. One I was determined to make it through. I would not be chased from my home. Also, I think on that drive back from D.C., all of my determination to overcome my fear had coalesced into a purpose. I was a survivor. I would not let the monsters win.

Chapter 13

My doorbell rang the next morning at a little after seven. Since I had been expecting the wake-up call I was already up, dressed, make up on, and my blonde hair pulled into a pony tail. Jack was still half asleep on the sofa.

When I opened the door Tammy gave me a hug with one arm while she juggled muffins and coffee with the other.

Tammy always wakes up cheerful. She is cheery from the minute her eyes open. So when she walked in she was already going full speed. She didn’t know what had happened the night before so her chatter was mostly about her job and her plans for the day. Since it was Saturday we were both dressed in yoga wear. Tammy and I used to work out together, but since I work out at Joe’s now we try to get together sometimes before the workout. Jack probably thought he would be able to sleep in a little, especially since it had been well after two before he went to sleep. With Tammy chatting, it would be impossible.

I looked over at him as Tammy got a few plates out of the cabinet. She was talking a mile a minute. Jack was sitting up on the sofa, but he still looked half asleep. I sent him a grin over the counter. Tammy noticed Jack sitting there.

“Hi Jack, I was wondering who that third coffee was for. Uh oh.” It was dawning on her that something was wrong. “What’s he doing here? What happened?”

She looked at me for a minute before she turned back toward Jack. “What happened?”

I guess she figured she would get a faster answer from him. She might have if he wasn’t still half asleep. Jack groaned and stood up. He kind of shuffled into the kitchen. “Please tell me you have coffee.”

Tammy handed it over and Jack took a seat at the table while I told Tammy about last night’s adventure. She was appropriately sympathetic, the way best friends are. We talked and ate muffins before we parted ways with a hug at the door. She made me promise to stay safe.

Now that we had our breakfast, I had to meet the alarm guy before heading into the city. I knew my training sessions were about to go up another notch. I asked Jack what his plans for the day were. He was vague and wanted to know what time I was going to the gym.

The alarm guy showed up while Jack and I were in the middle of debating whether or not he was going to follow me around all day. Clearly, I lost that battle. Since Jack wasn’t going to leave I let him deal with the alarm guy while I took Max outside for a walk and fed Max and Kitty.

By nine I was on my way to the gym. While I was at the gym Jack went into his office. I don’t know what he was planning to do or find out, but he was determined to be my bodyguard. That wasn’t going to work for me.

As I expected, Moshe put me through my paces. By the time eleven a.m. rolled around I was ready to leave. I was hurting. Also, despite my best efforts to engage Skeet in helping me with Jimmy’s case, he wasn’t budging.

I called Jack while I was driving home. I assured him I would be fine. My alarm was reset and my gun was inside the safe. Truthfully, I wanted a little time to myself to think about Jimmy’s case. I had made some progress yesterday before being completely derailed by Georgia and her hired intruder. I needed to figure out what my next step would be.

Chapter 14

The man hired to break into Charlotte’s home lay dead on the floor in front of the woman’s desk, a bullet hole between his eyes. The woman prided herself on being able to take care of business. That didn’t mean she couldn’t rely on her men, when needed. She picked up her office phone and called Grant. While she waited for him to come and remove the body, she placed her hand gun back into her top drawer.

There was a polite knock on the door.

“Come in, Grant darling.”

She smiled at the man in the doorway. At six foot five and three hundred and seventy pounds Grant McCairn was brutal, heavy handed and stupid. The way she loved them best, easily manipulated.

“Could you take out the trash, please. Thank you sweetie.”

Grant hefted the body onto his shoulder and carried it out.

With that unpleasant task taken care of the woman could focus again on her most important undertaking, breaking Charlotte Marshall.

Chapter 15

Back home I followed my security routine before taking my gun and Max and Kitty into the office with me. Together felt right. I studied what I had dubbed the Jimmy wall. It looked sparse and frail. There were far too many gaps and questions. I plugged in the new information I had gotten yesterday.

When I stepped back and looked at the timeline, I couldn’t make sense of it. The pieces didn’t seem to fit together. I needed to start back at the beginning. What did I know? What were the facts?

1. James Barnes went missing on April 9 at around twelve-thirty p.m.
   
2. By all reports his marriage was good, he had no major debt, his friends and family all mentioned how good his life was.
   
3. He was involved in a big case at Johnson, Lewes, and Ferguson.
   
4. There were five cases that could potentially be the case of interest.
   
5. There was a big meeting at the firm the morning he went missing.
   
6. People at the firm didn’t seem to like when I asked questions.
   

It all came back to that case he was working on. That was what I needed to look at. I hung my list of facts on my wall and came up with a list of questions to get answered. The first one was easy.

1. What case was Jimmy working on?
   
2. Who else was involved in that case?
   
3. What was important about that case?
   

I hung that list next to first. Then I wrote out the case numbers, defendants, and dates of the five potential cases. I hung that list next to the first two. Making the lists was easy, but now that I looked at the information I honestly didn’t know what step to take first.

I remembered that Jack was going to check in with me again. I had an expert investigator at my disposal and if what Jack said about Sergeant First Class Nathaniel Jacobs, aka Skeet, was true, I had two first class investigators. It was time I dragged them into this.

______

When Jack got to my house at about seven that evening I was ready for him. I had looked at my questions and figured which ones I really needed help with. I had decided to ask Jack to help me find out more about the five cases. I was hoping Jack might have some access to inside information. I also was hoping he would have some general advice and tell me which direction to search next.

To ease Jack into helping me, I made rosemary chicken with root vegetables. If I do say so myself, I’m a pretty good cook. I hoped to feed Jack, thank him for his help the night before, then when he was feeling nice and relaxed I would ask for his help.

It didn’t work quite the way I planned. Jack knew something was up the minute he sat down at my kitchen table. He studied the nicely prepared meal and wine that I had set in front of him. One brow arched as he looked at me, looked back at the food, then asked what I wanted. Maybe I’m not as subtle as I think I am. Oops.

I took Jack into my office and showed him everything. He looked over the wall and sighed.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you. I think you have a case of terminal curiosity.”

I decided it was wiser to keep my mouth shut. At least he was looking.

“Okay, Char, what do you need?”

“Well, I figured his last case is the key. Talking about it made the members of his firm very nervous. His personal life seems fine. Everything comes back to that big case. I hoped you could look at his files and see if there was anything off about the cases.”

“I’m not making any promises Char, but I’ll see what I can find.”

He stared at the wall a little more before shaking his head and walking away.

When we went back out into the kitchen Jack directed me back to the table.

“I want to talk to you about Georgia Layeen.” Uh oh. This might not be pretty.

He paused to look at me. “The problem is, there’s no evidence to suggest that Georgia is alive. We don’t have fingerprints or DNA to link Georgia to anything. We know different, but as far as we can prove, Georgia was killed by Lawrence Pheares.”

______

Jack slept on my couch again that night. I lay in bed for a long time before I finally fell asleep. No one was looking for Georgia, because as far as anyone knew, Georgia was dead. Wherever she was, she wasn’t Georgia anymore. How do you catch someone who’s dead? Would I be running from her forever? While I lay there sleepless and upset, it seemed a distinct possibility that I would spend the rest of my life running.

______

I woke alone in the middle of a forest. The forest I had run through in order to escape Pheares just nine months ago.

I knew I was in a dream. I knew the forest around me wasn’t real. I knew the ground I could feel under my feet was just my subconscious. The fear though, the fear that made my heart pound and my hands shake, the fear that made cold sweat slick my body, that fear was real. As real as anything I have ever felt.

In the dark I could hear them moving. I could hear them coming closer. More than Pheares, more than Georgia, the darkness itself was a living, breathing thing that surrounded me. In the darkness thousands of eyes watched and waited for the perfect moment to strike, the perfect moment to destroy me.

______

The dream woke me at a little after three thirty in the morning. It was a time I was too familiar with. I had been here before with a scream trapped in my throat and the sweat of a nightmare drying on my skin. Georgia would torment me forever, if I let her. She had already disrupted me. I was forever changed. I had reached the point of no return. The Charlotte Marshall I once was no longer existed. The Charlotte I was now was on the cusp of something big. I could feel it. I had a choice. Let the fear control me, or I could control the fear. I knew the fear might not go away, but I didn’t have to let it win. Do you ever have an image that goes with an emotion, like a picture in your head? I have that a lot, right then the picture was me standing on a mountain with my hands in the air. Empowered.

There was no point in continuing to lie in bed. I wasn’t going to fall back asleep.

I got up and for once skipped my yoga routine. I got my laptop and quietly went into the office. I sat on the floor in front of Jimmy’s wall and worked for hours. When Jack woke several hours later and came upstairs I was still working in the exact same position.

Chapter 16

Jack tried to get me to take a break, but I was driven. I didn’t even get a shower. Yes I know that I was being crazy. I was letting myself become obsessed with Jimmy’s case to avoid my own troubles. Deep inside, I was very aware of that. It was a distraction, but it felt empowering to be doing something I could control and understand.

At a little after three that afternoon my obsession paid off. I found the thing that didn’t make sense, the chink in the armor, the beginning of the end. Turns out, I didn’t need Jack’s help to find the first break after all.

______

In 2006, Muriel Fitzgerald created her final Will, leaving her considerable wealth to a cat rescue. The Will was kept a secret, locked inside a safety deposit box, and forgotten by all except the lawyer who drew it up. Muriel died in 2008. There would have been no conflict if the Will had stayed secret. It didn’t though. Her lawyer brought it forward and her family immediately hired Jimmy’s firm to discredit its validity. The case was worth millions. The law firm stood to make millions in legal fees. It was the biggest case Jimmy was involved in. The most money Jimmy had touched, which was interesting, but not earth shattering. What made me look twice and think this was the most important case wasn’t the money. It was the death.

Muriel lived alone in an old plantation home. She was the perfect, stereotypical eccentric southern woman. When she could no longer care for herself, she hired round the clock caregivers. During the investigation regarding the family’s claims against the Will, it came to light that the woman caring for her had actually been hired by her daughter. To make things worse, Muriel died of an infection from pressure ulcers. Bed sores. That poor woman. She died of neglect.

All that might have been just coincidence, but there was more. Four months after Jimmy disappeared Muriel’s daughter, who was worth several million in her own right, walked away with one hundred and fifty million dollars in a settlement. A generous donation was made to the cat rescue in Muriel Fitzgerald’s name and life moved on.

The case just struck me as wrong. It was like a novel, the wealthy woman and the greedy family. It seemed so obvious. Was it really possible that no one else investigated the connection to this case?

______

I added details regarding Muriel Fitzgerald and the lawsuit to my Jimmy wall. As I hung the last note on the wall I got a whiff of myself. I needed a shower and some deodorant desperately. My ability to devote myself completely to something is a strength, but forgetting to take care of myself wasn’t acceptable.

Thirty minutes later I trotted downstairs having showered and smelling much better. Jack sat on my couch and was busy with his laptop and a stack of files.

“You’re alive.” He smiled at me. He was probably happy to see me cleaned up and wearing real clothes. My jeans and blue sweater were much nicer than my tattered yoga outfits and my blonde hair was blow-dried and hung in a soft sheet down my back.

I plopped into my recliner across from Jack. It was amazing how well he fit into my home.

“I’m hungry. Do you want to order pizza?” Clean, dressed, and hungry. Jack was ecstatic.

I didn’t bring up Jimmy until two hours later over a large pie of half veggie, half pepperoni. I was hoping that the hot pizza and cold beer would soften Jack up for what I was asking.

I insisted that I didn’t need Jack to spend the night again. When he declared he was staying, I suggested a movie before we went to bed. Look at me, playing nice.

It wasn’t until the
Matrix
was in the player and a bowl of popcorn was between us on the sofa that I brought up Jimmy.

Jack’s somewhat sarcastic laughter annoyed me. “I knew you were holding that in. Okay, what do you need?”

If I didn’t need his help I think I would have kicked him out. Instead I grit my teeth and told him about Muriel. Jack sat with his head leaning on the back of the sofa and sighed, looking toward the ceiling.

“Alright,” he shoved his hand through his dark brown hair as he sat upright. Rumpled was a good look. But then, everything looked good on Jack. “Alright, I’ll see what I can find.

Satisfied that he was on my side, I started the movie, and settled back in my seat. After the final credits rolled, Jack and I took Max outside. Before I stumbled upstairs to my bed I looked at Jack, “Thanks, really.”

“You’re welcome, really. I’ll do what I can, Char. You know I’ll try and help you.”

“I do. And thank you for that, too.”

His smile followed me up the stairs.

______

Truthfully, although I was glad Jack was helping me, it was never my sole intention for him to work the case alone. I needed the contact information for Muriel’s family and caregivers. Once I knew where to find them, I was going on another trip.