Witness Protection Widow. Debra Webb
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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.