Loe raamatut: «A Winchester, Tennessee Thriller»

Chapter One
Four days until trial
Sunday, February 2
Winchester, Tennessee

It was colder now.

The meteorologist had warned that it might snow on Monday. The temperature was already dropping. She didn’t mind. She had no appointments, no deadlines and no place to be—except here.

Four days.

Four more days until the day.

If she lived that long.

She stopped and surveyed the thick woods around her, making a full three-sixty turn. Nothing but trees and this one trail for as far as the eye could see. The fading sun trickled through the bare limbs. This place had taken her through the last weeks of summer and then fall, and now the end of winter was only weeks away. In all that time, she had only seen one other living human. It was best, they said. For her protection, they insisted.

It was true. But she had never felt more alone in her life. Not since her father died, anyway. That first year after his death, she had to come to terms with being only twenty-four and an orphan. No siblings. No known distant relatives. Just alone.

Bob nudged her. She pushed aside the troubling thoughts and looked down at her black Labrador. “I know, boy. I should get moving. It’s cold out here.”

She was always keenly aware of the temperature and the time. When it was this cold, the idea of an accidental fall leading to a serious injury haunted her. Other times, when she couldn’t bear the walls around her a minute longer, no matter that it was late in the day, she was careful not to stay gone too long. Allowing herself to get caught out in the woods in the dark—no matter that she knew the way back to the cabin by heart—was a bad idea. She started forward once more. Her hiking shoes crunched the rocks and the few frozen leaves scattered across the trail. Bob trotted beside her, his tail wagging happily. She’d never had a dog before coming to this place. When she was growing up, her mother’s allergies wouldn’t allow pets. Later, when she was out on her own, the apartment building didn’t permit pets.

Even after she married and moved into one of Atlanta’s megamansions, she couldn’t have a dog. Her husband had hated dogs, cats, any sort of pet. How had she not recognized the evil in him then? Anyone who hated animals so much couldn’t be good inside. Whatever good he possessed was only skin-deep and primarily for show.

She hugged herself, rubbed her arms. Thinking of him, even in such simple terms, unsettled her. Soon, she hoped, she would be able to put that part of her life behind her and never look back again.

Never, ever.

“Not soon enough,” she muttered.

Most widows grieved the loss of their spouses. She did not. No matter the circumstances, she had never wished him dead, though she had wished many, many times that she had never met him.

But she had met him, and there was no taking back the five years they were married. At first, she had believed the illusion he presented to her. Harrison had been older, very handsome and extremely charming. She had grown up in small-town Georgia on a farm to parents who taught her that fairy tales and dreams weren’t real. There was only reality and the lessons that came from hard work and forging forward even when the worst happened. Suddenly, at twenty-six, she was convinced her parents had been wrong. Harrison had swooped into her life like Prince Charming poised to rescue a damsel in distress.

Except she hadn’t been in distress, really. But she had been so very hopeful that the future would be bright. Desperately hopeful that good things would one day come her way. Perhaps that was why she didn’t see through him for so long. He filled her life with trips to places she’d only dreamed of visiting, like Paris and London. He’d lavished her with gifts: exquisite clothing, endless jewels. Even when she tried to tell him it was too much, more came.

He gave her anything she wanted...except children. He had been married once before and had two college-aged children. Though he was estranged from those adult children, he had no desire to go down that path again. No wish for a chance to have a different outcome. She had been devastated at first. But she had been in love, so she learned to live within that disappointing restriction. Soon after this revelation, she discovered a way to satisfy her mothering needs. She volunteered at Atlanta’s rescue mission for at-risk kids. Several months after she began helping out part-time, she was faced with the first unpleasantness about her husband. To her dismay, there were those who believed he and his family were exceptionally bad people.

The shock and horror on the other woman’s face when she’d asked, “You’re married to Harrison Armone?”

Alice—of course, that wasn’t her name then—had smiled, a bit confused, and said, “I am.”

The woman had never spoken to her again. In fact, she had done all within her power to avoid her. At least twice she had seen the shocked woman whisper something to another volunteer, who subsequently avoided her, as well. Arriving at the center on her scheduled volunteer days had become something she dreaded rather than looked forward to. From that moment she understood there was something wrong with who she was—the wife of Harrison Armone.

If only she had realized then the level of evil the Armone family represented. Perhaps she would have escaped before the real nightmare that came later. Too bad she hadn’t been smart enough to escape before it was too late.

She stared up at the sky, visible only by virtue of the fact that the trees remained bare for the winter. She closed her eyes and tried to force away the images that always followed on the heels of memories even remotely related to him. Those first couple of years had been so blissful. So perfect. For the most part, she had been kept away from the rest of the family. Their estate had been well away from his father’s. Her husband went to work each day at a beautiful, upscale building on the most distinguished street in the city. Her life was protected from all things bad and painful.

Until her covolunteer had asked her that damning question.

The worry had grown and swelled inside her like a tidal wave rushing to shore to destroy all in its path. But the trouble didn’t begin until a few weeks later. Until she could no longer bear the building pressure inside her.

Her first real mistake was when she asked him—point-blank—if there was anything he’d failed to disclose before they married.

The question had obviously startled him. He wanted to know where she had gotten such a ridiculous idea. His voice had been calm and kind, as always, tinged with only the tiniest bit of concern. But something about the look in his eyes when he asked the question terrified her. She hadn’t wanted to answer his question. He had been far too strangely calm and yet wild-eyed. An unreasonable fear that he would track down her fellow volunteers and give them a hard time had horrified her. After much prodding and far too much pretending at how devastated he was, he had let it go. But she understood that deep down something fundamental had changed.

Whether it was the idea that the bond of trust had been fractured, or that she finally just woke up, she could not look at him the same way again.

The worst part was that he noticed immediately. He realized that thin veil of make-believe had been torn. Every word she uttered, every move she made was suddenly under intense scrutiny. He became suspicious to the point of paranoia. Every day was another in-depth examination of what she had done that day, to whom she had spoken. Then he allowed his true character to show. One by one those ugly family secrets were revealed by his actions. Late-night business meetings that were once handled at his father’s house were suddenly held in their home.

One night after a particularly long meeting with lots of drinking involved, he confessed that he had wanted to keep the fantasy of their “normal” life, and she had taken it from him.

From that moment forward, she became his prisoner. He punished her in unspeakable ways for taking away his fairy tale.

Now, even with him dead, he still haunted her.

She shook off the memories and focused on the moment. The crisp, clean air. The nature all around her. She’d had her reservations at first, but this place was cleansing for her soul. She had seen so much cruelty and ugliness. This was the perfect sanctuary for healing.

And, of course, hiding.

Only a few more days until the trial. She was the star witness—the first and only witness who had survived to testify against what was left of the Armone family, Harrison Armone Sr. The man had built an empire in the southeast, and Atlanta was his headquarters. The Armone family had run organized crime for three generations—four if you counted her husband, since he would have eventually taken over the business.

But he no longer counted, because he was dead.

Murdered by his own father.

She had witnessed Mr. Armone putting the gun to the back of Harrison’s head and pulling the trigger. Then he’d turned to her and announced that she now belonged to him, as did all else his son had hoarded to himself. He would give her adequate grieving time, and then he would expect things from her.

Within twenty-four hours, the family’s private physician had provided a death certificate, and another family friend with a funeral home had taken care of the rest. No cops were involved, no investigation and certainly no autopsy. Cause of death was listed as a heart attack. The obituary was pompous and filled half a page in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

It wasn’t until three days after the funeral that she had her first opportunity to attempt an escape.

She had prepared well. For months before Harrison’s death she had been readying for an opportunity to flee. She had hidden away a considerable amount of cash and numerous prepaid cards that could not be traced back to her. She’d even purchased a phone—one for which minutes could be bought at the supermarket. When the day came, she left the house with nothing more than the clothes on her back. The money and cards were tucked into her jacket. The entire jacket was basically padded with cash and plastic beneath the layer of fabric that served as the lining. She’d worn her favorite running shoes and workout clothes.

This was another way she had prepared. Shortly after her husband had started to show his true colors, she had become obsessed with fitness and building her physical strength.

The week before her own personal D-day, she had gone to the gym and stashed jeans, a sweatshirt, a ball cap, big sunglasses and a clasp for pinning her long blond hair out of sight beneath the cap in a locker.

When D-day arrived, she had left the gym through a rear exit and jogged the nearly three miles to the Four Seasons, where she’d taken a taxi to the bus station. She’d loaded onto the bus headed to Birmingham, Alabama. In Birmingham, she had boarded another bus to Nashville, Tennessee, and finally from Nashville to Louisville, Kentucky. Each time she changed something about her appearance. She picked up another jacket or traded with another traveler. Changed the hat and the way she wore her hair. Eventually she reached her destination. Scared to death but with no other recourse, she walked into the FBI office and told whoever would listen her story.

Now she was here.

The small clearing where her temporary home—a rustic cabin—stood came into view. The setting sun spilled the last of its glow across the mountain.

In the middle of nowhere, on a mountain, she awaited the moment when she would tell the world what kind of monster Harrison Armone Sr. was. His son had been equally evil, but no one deserved to be murdered, particularly by his own father.

Those last three years of their marriage, when he’d recognized that she knew what he was, his decision to permit her to see and hear things had somehow been calculated. She supposed he had hoped to keep her scared into submission. She had been scared, all right. Scared to death. But she had planned her escape when no one was looking.

The FBI had been thrilled with what she had to offer. But they had also recognized that keeping her alive until and through the trial wouldn’t be easy. Welcome to witness protection. She had been moved once already. The security of the first location where she’d been hidden away had been breached after only three months. She’d had no idea anything was going on when two marshals had shown up to take her away.

So far things had gone smoothly in Winchester. She kept to herself. Ordered her food online and the marshal assigned to her picked up the goods and delivered the load to her. Though she had a small SUV for emergencies, she did not leave the property and put herself in a position where someone might see and remember her.

Anything she needed, the marshal took care of.

The SUV parked next to the house was equipped with all-wheel drive since she lived out in the woods on a curvy mountain road. US Marshal Branch Holloway checked on her regularly. She had a special phone for emergencies and for contacting him. He’d made her feel at ease from the beginning. He was patient and kind. Far more understanding than the first marshal assigned to her had been.

For this she was immensely grateful.

Yes. She had married an evil man. Yes. She had been a fool. But she hadn’t set out to do so. She had been taught to believe the best in everyone until she had reason to see otherwise.

Two years. Yes, it had taken a long time to see past the seemingly perfect facade he had built for her, but she was only human. She had loved him. She had waited a very long time to feel that way again after her first heartbreak at the age of twenty-one.

“Get over it,” she muttered to herself. Beating herself up for being naive wasn’t going to change history.

This—she surveyed the bare trees and little cabin—was her life now. At least until the trial.

In the movies witness protection was made to look like a glamourous adventure, but that could not be farther from the truth. It was terrifying. Justice depended on her survival to testify in court, and her survival depended upon the marshal assigned to her case and on her own actions. The FBI had shown her how much bigger this case was than just the murder of her husband and the small amount of knowledge she had absorbed. The Armones had murdered countless people. Drugs, guns and all sorts of other criminal activities were a part of their network. She alone held the power to end the Armone reign.

No matter that the family was so obviously evil, she still couldn’t understand how a father could murder his son—his only child. Of course, it was Harrison’s own fault. He had been secretly working to overthrow his father. The old man was nearing seventy and had no plans to retire. Harrison had wanted to be king.

Instead, he’d gotten dead.

She shuddered at the idea that his father—after murdering him—had intended to take his widow as his own plaything.

Sick. The man was absolutely disgusting. Like his son, he was a charming and quite handsome man for his age. But beneath the surface lived a monster.

Once the trial was over, she hoped she never had to think of him again, much less see him.

Staying alert to her surroundings, she unlocked the back door and sent Bob inside ahead of her. He was trained to spot trouble. She wasn’t overly concerned at this point. If anything had been amiss, he would have warned her as they approached the cabin.

The dogs were a new addition to the witness protection family. She hadn’t had a dog at the first location. It wasn’t until she’d arrived here and had Bob living with her that she’d realized how very lonely she had been for a very long time. Since well before her husband was murdered.

She locked the door behind her, taking care to check all the locks. Then she followed Bob through the three rooms. There was a small living-dining-kitchen combination, a bedroom with an attached bath and the mudroom–laundry room at the back. Furnishings were sparse, but she had what she needed.

Since cell service was sketchy at best, she had a state-of-the-art signal booster. She had a generator in case the power went out and a bug-out bag if it became necessary to cut and run.

She shivered. The fire had gone out. She kept on her jacket while she added logs to the fireplace and kindling to get it started. Within a couple of minutes, the fire was going. She’d had a fireplace as a kid, so relearning her way around this one hadn’t been so bad. She went back to the kitchen and turned on the kettle for tea.

Bob growled low in his throat and stared toward the front door.

She froze. Her phone was in her hip pocket. Her gun was still in her waistband at the small of her back. This was something else Marshal Holloway had insisted upon. He’d taught her how to use a handgun. They’d held many target practices right behind this cabin.

A creak beyond the front door warned that someone was on the porch. She eased across the room and went to the special peephole that had been installed. There was one on each side of the cabin, allowing for views all the way around. A man stood on the porch. He was the typical local cowboy. Jeans and boots. Hat in his hands. Big truck in the drive. Just like Marshal Holloway.

But she did not know this man.

“Alice Stewart, if you’re in there, it’s okay for you to open the door. I’m Sheriff Colt Tanner. Branch sent me.”

Her heart thudding, she held perfectly still. Branch would never send someone to her without letting her know first. If for some reason he couldn’t tell her in advance, they had a protocol for these situations.

She reached back, fingers curled about the butt of her weapon. Bob moved stealthily toward the door.

“I know you’re concerned about opening the door to a stranger, but you need to trust me. Branch has been in an accident, and he’s in the hospital undergoing surgery right now. No matter that his injuries were serious, he refused to go into surgery until he spoke to me and I assured him I would look after you, ma’am.”

Worry joined the mixture of fear and dread churning inside her. She hoped Branch wasn’t hurt too badly. He had a wife and a daughter.

She opened her mouth to ask about his condition, but then she snapped it shut. The man at her door had not said the code word.

“Wait,” he said. “I know what the problem is. I forgot to say ‘superhero.’ He told me that’s your code word.”

Relief rushed through her. She moved to the door and unlocked the four dead bolts, then opened it. When she faced the man—Sheriff Tanner—she asked, “Is he going to be okay?”

The sheriff ducked his head. “I sure hope so. Branch is a good friend of mine. May I come in?”

“Quiet, Bob,” she ordered the dog at her side as she backed up and allowed the sheriff to come inside before closing the door. She resisted the impulse to lock it and leaned against it instead. Holloway wouldn’t have trusted this man if he wasn’t one of the good guys.

Still, standing here with a stranger after all these months, she couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy. Bob sat at her feet, his gaze tracking every move the stranger made.

“Is there anything you need, ma’am? Anything at all. I’ll be happy to bring you any supplies or just...” He shrugged. “Whatever you need.”

The kettle screamed out, making her jump. She’d completely forgotten about it. “I’ll be right back.”

She hurried to the kitchen and turned off the flame beneath the whistling kettle. She took a breath, pushed her hair behind her ears and walked back into the living room.

“Thank you for coming, Sheriff, but I have everything I need.”

“All right.” He pulled a card from his shirt pocket and offered it to her. “Call me if you need anything. I’ll check on you again later today and give you an update on Branch’s condition.”

She studied the card. “Thank you.” She looked up at him then. “I appreciate your concern. Please let the marshal know I’m hoping for his speedy recovery.”

“Will do.” He gave her another of those quick nods. “I’ll be on my way then.”

Before she opened the door for him to go, she had to ask. “Are his injuries life-threatening?”

“He was real lucky, ma’am. Things could have been far worse. Thankfully, he’s stable, and we have every reason to believe he’ll be fine.”

“What about his wife?”

“She wasn’t with him, so she’s fine. She’s at the hospital waiting for him to come out of surgery. If you’re certain you don’t need me for anything, I’m going back there now.”

“Really, I’m fine. Thank you.”

When the sheriff had said his goodbyes and headed out to his truck, she locked the door—all four dead bolts. She watched as the truck turned around and rolled away. She told herself that Marshal Holloway’s accident most likely didn’t have anything to do with her or the trial. Still, she couldn’t help but worry just a little.

What if they had found her? What if hurting the marshal was just the first step in getting to her? Old man Armone was pure evil. He would want her to know in advance that he was coming just to be sure she felt as much fear as possible. Instilling fear gave him great pleasure.

Harrison Armone Sr. had a small army at his beck and call. All were trained mercenaries. Ruthless, like him. Proficient in killing. Relentless in attaining their target. They would be hunting her. If being careful would get her through this, she had nothing to worry about. But that alone would never be enough. She needed help and luck on her side.

With this unexpected development, she would need to be extra vigilant.

“Bob.”

He looked up at her expectantly.

“We have to be especially alert, my friend.”

The devil might be coming.

And he wouldn’t be alone.