John had pulled on his jeans, leaving them unzipped. He walked barefoot toward her, clutching her arms in a grip that almost, but not quite, hurt. He shook her. “What’s going on, Suzanne? What the hell do you mean—you saw a murder?”
Suzanne opened her mouth, but felt a sob about to come out. She snapped her mouth closed and shook her head. I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. It was a mantra in her head. She swallowed heavily, bile rising in her throat. “I haven’t seen a TV here. Do you have one?”
His jaws clenched, but he didn’t blink at the change of subject. “No.”
“Oh.” Suzanne thought furiously. She needed to know—“Do you have a computer with internet access?”
He studied her for a long moment, then gave a sharp nod of his head. “Follow me.”
Follow me sounded odd when applied to a tiny shack. Still, she followed his broad back into the living room then watched, astounded, as he moved a throw rug aside, put his thumb to a screen and a piece of the floor simply rose up on silent hydraulics. It was connected to a steel ladder angling downwards.
He had another room downstairs, and she hadn’t even suspected. He took the lead and she followed him down the rungs of the ladder to stand under a harsh neon light, blinking. The room’s perimeters were the perimeters of the whole shack, so it was fairly large. It was bristling with electronics, blue steel, brushed aluminum. Suzanne didn’t know much about computer technology but she knew enough to realize that she was looking at tens of thousands of dollars of top-of-the-line equipment. No wonder upstairs had felt so bleak and abandoned. The heart of the house was here, gleaming metal, blinking lights, the hum of technology.
John was unfolding a sleek ultra thin laptop. He punched a few keys and with a beep, the screen was filled with the logo of a famous search engine. He looked at her, waiting. His expression was still.
“Can you find a news site, something local?” Suzanne doubted whether the murder would have made any of the major news sites, like CNN. It had to be local.
John nodded and logged onto an unfamiliar site. It had what she wanted, though.
“Click here.” She pointed at the screen and John obeyed. She was glad he wasn’t plying her with questions, because she wasn’t sure how cogent she could be. A new page blinked on and there it was—Portland Woman Bludgeoned to Death. Suzanne pointed at the screen again. He clicked and up came a studio portrait of Marissa, which she recognized, from having seen it in Marissa’s living room.
“I was in that woman’s apartment the afternoon she was murdered. She was a client. I might be the last person to see her alive.” She reached past John to scroll down to the photograph of the husband, Peter Carson, being interviewed at the airport on his arrival from Aruba. “Except for him. He wasn’t in Aruba, John. He was in Portland, and I saw him going into Marissa’s house the afternoon she was killed.” She laid a hand on his massive shoulder and squeezed. “He killed her.”
* * * * *
Fuck.
John stared at the computer screen. He was used to tactical and strategic thinking and he saw it all, plain as the chart of a Civil War battlefield. He saw every move and what every move entailed. He saw the steps that had to be taken and the consequences.
He also saw that this was the end of her life, as she knew it. And his. He leaned back, feeling old and tired, knowing what was ahead.
“Peter Carson.” He looked up at Suzanne. She was pale, a few lines of stress etched on her forehead. There’d be more—lots more—before this was over. “What do you know about him? And about his wife?”
Suzanne took one of his camp chairs, unfolded it, and sat down. “I don’t know Peter Carson at all. I never met him, except for on the twenty-second, as I told you. His wife is—was—a client of mine. I was called in to redecorate her home and we spent some time together going over the design. She was difficult, always changing her mind, so I probably saw her a few times more than I would have a normal client. She wasn’t a particularly nice woman. I never saw her husband. I just saw photographs of him everywhere in Marissa’s apartment. Or rather…his pictures were everywhere until the last time I was there. On the twenty-second. The day she died.”
“All the photographs were gone?”
“Yes. And Marissa was…I don’t know. Agitated. She couldn’t sit still. She kept making comments and hints, and then looking at me as if I should understand what she was saying. The only thing I really grasped was that she thought she was going to come into some money. A lot of money.”
It couldn’t have been clearer to John if he’d had a diagram drawn for him. “She was blackmailing him. She was hoping for a big divorce settlement otherwise she’d go public with what she knew about his business dealings. Or go to the police. It doesn’t matter. The point is she was going to expose him unless he paid her.”
“Expose what?”
John sighed and stood up. She might as well know. While he talked, he was planning. In fifteen minutes they could be packed and out of here. What would be a good place to fly out of? Not Portland, not Seattle. Maybe Boise. They could make it to Boise by morning. Abandon the Yukon with another set of false plates. He had two sets of false identities here, but not for a woman. He had to get them to a small town outside St. Louis where a master forger he knew could get a new set of papers for Suzanne. They’d lay low somewhere in the Midwest for a few weeks, then take the next leg of the journey.
There was a tug of regret at having to abandon the shack. He had a lot of good material up here. An even greater tug of regret at having to give up his new company. But he’d learned the hard way not to dwell on regrets. This was the way it was.
“Paul Carson isn’t a businessman, honey,” he said as he started climbing the ladder. She was following him up, puzzled. He headed into the bedroom and pulled his duffel bag out. “He’s the point man on the West Coast for the Russian Mafia. He’s got his hand in all sorts of nasty stuff, including human trafficking. He’s also under suspicion of counterfeiting airplane parts. You remember the crash of Flight 901?”
Suzanne nodded, wide-eyed.
“The FBI traced the sale of defective washers to Carson, to a company he owned, but they couldn’t prove it. Not something that would hold up in court. Their inside witness was found hanging from a meat hook. The guy’s ruthless as hell. Get your stuff together.”
“All right.” Without arguing, Suzanne quietly set about packing her bag. Good girl, he thought. “Do you want to tell Bud that we’re coming?”
He just stared at her. Hadn’t she heard what he’d just said? “No, of course not. We’re not going to Bud, we’re going to disappear. This is worse than I thought. We’ll have to go underground and reappear somewhere else, as someone else, far away. I have a couple of false documents and I know where to get more. I was thinking we could relocate to the Keys, if you like the beach. Or Canada, if you’re hung up on the cold. Can you step it up a little, honey? I want to get going as soon as possible. I thought we’d drive to Boise, catch a flight out of there.”
Suzanne was holding a shirt bunched in her hands, staring. “I don’t understand. Why on earth would I want to go to the Keys? Or Canada? Or Boise? I need to get down to Bud. Or—or the FBI. Or someone. Didn’t you hear what I said, John? I witnessed a murder. Or at least, my testimony puts the husband at Marissa’s house at the right time. If he was lying about being there, then he must be the killer.”
Now he was angry. Good. Anger kept the fear away. Anger made sure he didn’t think too closely about Paul Carson gunning for Suzanne. Getting his hands on her. Carson was utterly ruthless and would take her apart.
John strode over to Suzanne, ripped the shirt out of her hands and glared down at her. He went toe to toe with her, so she was forced to tilt her head back to look at him. He knew how intimidating he could be and he used that deliberately now, utterly without remorse.
She looked up at him and he made sure she was aware that he outweighed her by a hundred pounds and was almost a
foot taller than she was.
“Now listen up, Suzanne, I’m going to say this once. We don’t have much time and every minute I spend explaining the situation to you is a minute lost. You are not going to testify against Paul Carson. The man is a murderer, and was one long before he offed his wife. If you testify against him, your life is over. He will gun you down before you make it to the courthouse to testify before the grand jury. If he doesn’t manage that, and maybe, just maybe he won’t because the FBI will put you in a safe house and guard you 24/7, you can bet Carson will pull out all the stops to get to you before you testify in court. Every hired gun in the country will have a photograph of you and a contract in his pocket. The FBI will sit on you until your trial and you just might live till then. Maybe. But afterwards you’ll go straight into Witness Protection where you’ll wind up a waitress in Bumfuck, Nebraska for the rest of what remains of your life. And Paul Carson’s in prison with lots of time to think of ways of getting to you. He’s got more money than a third world country and a small army of goons and he won’t quit. It’s a question of time. So those are your choices—being dumped by the Marshall’s Service on some windblown prairie to live out your life—your very short life—in some dead-end job, completely alone and always looking over your shoulder. Oh, and if you go into the Program forget about ever seeing your parents or me or your friends or Portland again for the rest of your life.”
His voice had risen. Now he took a deep breath and lowered it. “Or you can come with me. I know how to make us disappear. I can set us up in another part of the country, or even abroad, with completely new identities and I can do it better and faster than the Witness Protection people. We can live quietly and even well. If we keep our noses clean, make sure our new identities are deep enough, you could even have a low-key job as a decorator in five or ten years’ time. So those are your choices, Suzanne. Waitressing on the prairie and living alone or coming with me.”
He could feel his jaws clench, holding back the fear and the rage.
“Which will it be?”
* * * * *
The Midnight Man was back. That was Suzanne’s first thought. He’d come back the moment John had seen the name Paul Carson on the screen. John’s eyes were the color of blued steel. Just as cold and just as hard.
What he’d said…her mind whirled. He’d already made the leap forward into her choices while she was still struggling with the implications of what she’d seen and what it meant.
Run away. It sounded enticing, especially with John Huntington by her side. Go to some tropical island somewhere, calling themselves Patsy and Steven Smith and eat coconuts and down drinks with little umbrellas. It beat waitressing in Nebraska, all alone. She wouldn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder, not with John by her side. He’d take care of her in all ways. Disappearing with John was the more attractive solution, no doubt about it.
There was only one thing wrong.
A man would get away with murder.
John was standing too close to her, well within what she considered her personal space, and he was glaring at her. It was as if he could will her into escaping with him. Stepping into a void and stepping out again somewhere else, someone else. God, was the thought tempting.
What John hadn’t said, hadn’t mentioned in any way, was the sacrifice he would be making. He hadn’t said that, in making his offer, he was willing to throw away a lifetime of hard work. Jettison his new company. Be unable to use his military background as reference. He’d do all that for her, without question and without asking anything in return.
Midnight Man might be a harsh warrior, but he’d proven that he had a soft spot for her, that he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. Tears burned her eyes.
She sat down on the side of the bed and tugged at his arm until he sat too. She could feel him vibrate with his desire to get moving, but the question was—in which direction?
“Which will it be?” he’d asked. And she answered him.
“John,” she said quietly. “Listen to me. Listen carefully.” She put her hand over his. It was pale and slender, almost half the size of his but she knew it was as if she’d put a stake through his hand. He was frozen in place by her hand on his. “Do you know, I admire your courage tremendously. It’s the kind of courage I simply don’t have.” He started to speak and she placed a finger across his lips. “Shh. Hear me out. As I was saying, I’m not brave at all. You’re not going to catch me with a gun in my hand, going after the bad guys. But I can do this, John. No, I have to do this. Paul Carson probably killed his wife. If he did, he has to go to jail. If I refuse to testify, I’m condoning murder. If I refuse to testify, our system crashes. I must do this. I must. It’s my duty as a citizen. I am honor-bound to do it.”
His hand tensed under hers and he bowed his head, broad shoulders slumping. Suzanne knew she’d used the one argument he couldn’t refute. He was a former military officer. Duty and honor were bred in his blood and bone.
John rose, slowly, as if he were an old man. Their eyes met. This moment changed everything. He was about to set in motion a process that would separate them forever.
The tears that had been threatening were now flowing down her cheeks, but she met his gaze head-on. She wasn’t backing down, and he knew it.
John reached for something in his duffel bag. A cell phone. He punched in some numbers.
“Bud. John here. Listen up. There’ve been developments.”
* * * * *
It happened fast. Within twenty minutes, they were heading back down the dirt road, which led to a secondary road feeding into the highway. John had made an appointment with Bud and the federal agents at a spot about fifty miles away.
Suzanne knew what was going to happen, because John had explained it carefully, eyes blank, face hard, no expression at all in his deep voice. Midnight Man.
She would be taken into custody by federal agents. It was a federal case—trafficking and smuggling—and they’d been on Paul Carson’s tail for the past fifteen years. Bud Morrison would accompany her. John had explained that Bud would be there as ‘liaison’ between Portland PD and what he called ‘the feebs’, but she’d heard him on the phone arguing, insisting on Bud’s presence. Bud would be there, at least in the beginning, because she knew Bud and would be reassured by a familiar face.
John was doing his best to protect her even when she would be taken beyond his reach.
The FBI would debrief her, which was a fancy term for questioning her. She would be taken to a safe house until the District Attorney could put together a case for a grand jury. After testifying, she would be kept in another safe house until the trial. The FBI’s job stopped then. The U.S. Marshal’s Service would take over, giving her a new identity and placing her in the most anonymous setting they could devise. And that was where she would spend the rest of her life. In hiding.
She’d never see her parents again. Technically, they weren’t supposed to know anything about what had happened to her. To them, she would have disappeared off the face of the earth. But John had promised her he’d let them know, discreetly.
Taking care of her, again.
She’d never see John again. Scant hours after realizing she loved the man, he’d be taken from her forever. There would be no other man for her. How could there be? Having known John, having loved him, she couldn’t even contemplate loving another man. No other man could ever measure up.
Her life was ending with each mile the SUV ate up, bleeding away just as surely as the lifeblood bled out of someone who’d been in a fatal accident.
She blinked back tears. She didn’t want to cry, she wanted to see everything, grasp every second of this life before it ended. The night was still, the stars brilliant in the icy sky. A beautiful night to be the last night of her old life. Suzanne shivered and huddled more deeply into the comfort of John's sheepskin jacket, which he’d insisted she put on. It smelled of him, a musky male scent she’d carry with her forever.
His pro
file was hard and clean, the only signs of tension the muscles jumping in his jaw. Suzanne eyed him hungrily, wanting to hoard images of him to add to her pitiful stockpile. A few days. They’d only had a few days. Despite her best efforts, a lone tear coursed down her cheek.
With a vicious curse, John wrenched the steering wheel and brought the SUV to a sudden halt by the side of the road. He stared ahead, breathing hard, and then lowered his head to the steering wheel.
“Fuck.” His voice was the merest whisper. He turned his head, eyes bleak. “I can’t do this, Suzanne. I can’t give you up to them.”
“You have to.” Her heart was cracking open. There was no question of holding back the tears now. “You have no choice.”
They moved at the same time. She launched herself into his arms at the same moment he opened them to haul her onto his lap.
They kissed, violently, hungrily, a meeting of lips and tongue and tears. Her tears. He wasn’t crying but she could feel his muscles tense as rocks beneath her hands.