“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 bolts 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. He wouldn’t stop at hanging her from a meat hook.
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 thugs and he won’t quit. It’s a question of time. So those are your choices—being dumped by the U.S. Marshal’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 thought 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.