Witness Protection Widow. Debra Webb

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СКАЧАТЬ thanks. My wife was here until just a few minutes ago. She’s hovered over me since the paramedics brought me in. Between her and the nurses, I’m good, trust me.”

      Jax nodded. “You didn’t want to discuss the case by phone. I take it this is a dark one.” Some cases were listed as dark. These were generally the ones where the person or persons who wanted to hurt the witness had an abundance of resources, making the witness far more vulnerable. Sometimes a case was dark simply because of the priority tag associated with the investigation. The least number of people possible were involved with dark cases.

      There were bad guys in this world, and then there were really bad guys.

      “Need-to-know basis only,” Holloway said. “We’re only days out from trial. Keeping this witness safe is essential. At this point, we pretty much need to keep her under surveillance twenty-four hours a day until trial. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”

      “Understandable,” Jax agreed.

      “I’m sure you’re familiar with the Armone case. It’s been all over the news.”

      Jax’s eyebrows went up with a jolt of surprise. “That’s not a name I expected to hear. I knew the patriarch of the family was awaiting trial, but I haven’t kept up with the details. Besides, that’s a ways out of our district.”

      “The powers that be felt moving her out of Georgia until trial would help keep her safe. They’ve kept the details quiet on this one to the greatest extent possible. Even with all those precautions and a media blackout, her first location was jeopardized.”

      Her? A bad, bad feeling began a slow creep through Jax.

      “Hell of a time for you to be out of commission,” he said instead of demanding who the hell the witness was. This could not happen. Maybe it was someone else. A secretary or other associate of the old man. Or maybe of the son, since he was dead. His death may have prompted someone—an illicit lover, perhaps—to come forward.

      “Tell me about it,” Holloway grumbled.

      “Why don’t you bring me up to speed,” Jax suggested. “We’ll go from there.”

      “The file’s under my pillow.”

      Jax chuckled as he reached beneath the thin hospital pillow. “I have to say, this is going the distance for the job.”

      “We do what we have to, right?”

      “Right.” Jax opened the file, his gaze landing on the attached photo. He blinked. Looked again. She looked exactly as she had ten years ago.

      “You okay there?” Holloway asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

      “Full disclosure, Holloway.” Jax frowned. “I know this woman.” No. That was wrong. He didn’t just know this woman—he knew her intimately. Had been disappointed in and angry with her for years now.

      “Well, hell. If this is a problem, we should call someone else in as quickly as possible. I’ve got the local sheriff, a friend of mine, taking care of things now. But I can’t keep him tied up this way. No one wants this bastard to get away this time. We’ve got him. As long as she lives to testify, he’s not walking.”

      Holloway was right. The Armone family had escaped justice far too long. “I’ve got this.” Jax cleared his head. If Holloway thought he was not up to par, he would insist on calling in someone else. Jax was startled, no denying it. But he wanted to do this. He had to do this. For reasons that went beyond the job. Purely selfish reasons. “You can count on me. I just wanted to be up front. We knew each other a long time ago.”

      “If you’re sure,” Holloway countered. “I’m confident I can count on you. I just don’t want to put you in an unnecessarily awkward situation. Sometimes the past can adversely affect the present.”

      Jax felt his gut tighten. Maybe he wasn’t as ready for this as he’d thought.

      No choice.

      If he didn’t do this, he would never fully extract her from his head.

      The what-ifs would haunt him forever.

      “I can handle it. Like I said, we haven’t seen each other in years,” he assured the other man. “No one wants this family to go down more than me.”

      That part was more true than he cared to admit.

      “If we’re lucky, that family will be history when this trial is done,” Holloway said. “The son is dead. Now all we need is for the father to be put away for the rest of his sorry life.” Holloway searched his face as if looking for any uncertainty. “I can ask Sheriff Tanner to show you the way to her location if you’re sure we’re good to go.”

      “That works.”

      “Thanks, Stevens. I’ll owe you one.”

      THE CABIN WAS well out of town. Sheriff Colt Tanner had met Jax at the courthouse and led the way. Tanner had last checked on the witness an hour ago. At this stage, Jax wasn’t going to simply check on her—he was to stick with her until she walked into that courtroom to testify. Protect, transport...whatever necessary.

      On the drive to her location, he had decided he really didn’t have a problem with doing the job. He couldn’t deny that he had spent a great deal of time trying to find Allison James, aka Alice Stewart, the widow of Harrison Armone Jr., illegal drugs and weapons kingpin of the southeast. In fact, he wanted to do this. He wanted to learn what had happened to the sweet young woman he had known during his training. How had the shy, soft-spoken girl become the wife of one of the most wanted bastards on the minds of FBI, ATF and DEA agents alike? Maybe it was sheer curiosity, but he needed to understand how the hell that happened.

      The actual problem, in his opinion, was how she would feel about him being the one charged with her safety. She no doubt would understand that he was well aware of who she had gotten involved with and would be disgusted by it. Members of law enforcement from Atlanta to DC had wished for a way to eradicate this problem.

      He guessed he would find out soon enough.

      Jax parked his SUV next to hers and got out. She was likely watching out the window. Tanner had updated her on Holloway’s condition and told her that a new marshal would be arriving shortly. Jax had no idea whether the sheriff had given her his name. If he had, she might be waiting behind that door with her weapon drawn. Not that she had any reason to be holding a grudge. He’d asked her to go with him to Seattle, but she had turned him down. No matter that he shouldn’t—didn’t want to—he wondered if she had attempted to track him down at any time during those early years after he left and before she made the mistake of her life.

      Had she even thought of him?

      He hadn’t asked her to marry him, but they had talked about marriage. They had talked about the future and what they each wanted. She’d had expectations. He had recognized this. But that hadn’t stopped him from leaving when an opportunity he couldn’t turn down came his way. She wouldn’t go. Her father was still alive and alone. She didn’t want to move so far away from him. What was he supposed to do? Ignore the offer he had hoped for from СКАЧАТЬ