Margaret Daley - Guarding the Witness

“I’m on an assignment to keep you safe. I can’t let down my guard ever or allow for any distractions. You should know what that means.”

His intense, dark brown eyes drilling into her exemplified strong will and fierce determination—traits she shared. He was a person she should be able to identify with if she stopped feeling sorry for herself—something she rarely did. But she hated change, and the changing of the guard not half an hour ago bothered her more than she’d realized. She now had to get to know her three new guards, and she still couldn’t shake the thought that her safe house in Anchorage might have been compromised. She’d feel better if two of the female bodyguards from Guardians, Inc. were here with her instead. She knew where they were coming from.

“How about chess?” Kevin asked from the kitchen area, gesturing to the chess set perched on a shelf, while Brody crossed to the door.

“I don’t play it. Where are you going?” she asked Brody as he opened the door.

“Outside. I’m relieving Mark.”

“But he just left.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Can I come with you?” the imp in her asked.

He frowned and left, the door slamming shut.

“Ms. Jackson, I can teach you to play chess. It’ll take your mind off what’s going on.” Kevin moved into the main part of the room.

“Nothing is going on. That’s the problem.” She strode toward the table and took a chair. “Sure. I might as well learn.” She checked her watch. Noon. It was going to be another long day.

* * *

Finishing his last trip around the perimeter of the cabin, Brody took a deep breath of the fresh air, laced with the scent of earth and trees, then mounted the steps to the porch. When he reached the door to the ranger’s cabin, he panned the small clearing. Nearing midnight, it was still light outside. The temperature began to drop as the sun finally started its descent. When moving to Alaska, the only thing he really had to adjust to was the long daylight hours in summer and equally long nighttime ones in winter. At least in Anchorage where he was living it was farther south and the days and nights didn’t get as skewed as they did up here nearer the Arctic Circle.

Inside the cabin, he left the shotgun by the door for Kevin, who was relieving him on patrol. He turned to find Arianna sitting on the couch, staring at him. Her gray eyes with a hint of blue reminded him of the lake he’d flown over this morning.

“Did you see the mama bear that’s been hanging around the cabin lately?” she asked and went back to playing solitaire.

“No. Where’s Kevin?”

“Right here. Sorry. I figured I needed a jacket since the sun was going down.” Kevin picked up the shotgun and exited the cabin.

“So it’s just you and me since Mark is taking his turn sleeping.”

For a second he thought he saw a teasing gleam in her eyes before she averted her gaze to study the spread of cards on the coffee table in front of her. He sat in a chair across from her. “Have you won any games?”

“Two probably out of fifty.” She raised her head. “Wanna play Scrabble?”

“I’ve been warned about you and Scrabble.”

“I took you for a man who likes a good challenge.” A full-fledged smile encompassed her whole face.

“And baiting me guarantees you’ll have an opponent.”

“Yep, kinda hard playing Scrabble with yourself. No challenge really.”

“You’re on. Where’s the game?”

Arianna gestured toward the bookcase behind him. “I think I’ll leave the ranger who lives here a thank-you note. I don’t know what I would have done without some of his games. I brought a deck of cards and some books, but I went through the books in the first four days and I’m sick of playing solitaire. Do you have any idea when I’ll get to testify and can move back to civilization?”

“No. Rainwater’s attorney gets big bucks to delay the trial as long as he can.”

“Because he’s got people out there looking for me.”

“Yes, you know the score. If you testify, he’ll most likely go down for murder. Without finding the ledger Rainwater killed Perkins over, you’re the main witness in his trial. Without you, he’d probably get acquitted, if they even went ahead with the trial.”

“Something very incriminating must be in the ledger Rainwater was looking for.”

“Perkins kept the books for Rainwater. The public set has been sanitized not to include anything incriminating. We think Perkins kept a second ledger with all the dirt on the man. As you know, risky for Perkins to do, but it could be invaluable to us. Rainwater has gone to great lengths to find it.”

“We can’t afford for people like him to win. I’m even more determined to testify.”

“And he’s as determined to stop you.” Brody rose and retrieved the box with the Scrabble game in it, then laid the board and tiles out on the coffee table. When he sat again, he pulled his chair closer. “Ready to get trounced?”

“Is that any way to speak to a poor defenseless witness?” Arianna said as she laid down seven tiles for a score of seventy-six points.

He looked down at his letters and could only come up with a twelve-point word. Now he was beginning to understand what Ted meant. Forty minutes later it was confirmed. She was very good at Scrabble.

“What do you do? Study the dictionary like Ted threatened?”

“No. Don’t have to. I have a photographic memory, and I enjoy reading a lot. Once I see something, I remember it.”

“So that’s how you could give such a detailed description of what went down the day Thomas Perkins was murdered.”

“The gift has helped me in my job. When I go on a new assignment, I case the house or wherever I’m staying with the client so I can pull up the layout in a hurry in my mind. It has helped me on more than one occasion, especially in the dark.” She gathered up the tiles and began putting them into the box.

“I do something similar although I don’t have a photographic memory.”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “I consider it one of the weapons in my arsenal.”

He laughed, folding the game board and laying it on top of the tiles. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

Arianna yawned. “I’d better call it a night and try to sleep.”

“Are you having problems sleeping?”

“Yes. Wouldn’t you if you were in my position, with all that’s been going on?”

“We’re guarding you. You don’t have to be alert and on the job.”

“Actually the quiet is too quiet. I’m glad to hear an occasional animal call in the night.”

“I grew up in New York City. The first few years after I left I had the hardest time with the silence at nighttime. Until I was assigned to L.A., I was located in smaller cities. Now when I get it, I love it. My house is outside Anchorage where it’s—”

A blast from a shotgun exploded in the air.

As Arianna dove over the back of the sofa with a wall of the cabin behind her, Brody moved toward the door. Another gunshot sound reverberated through the quiet.

Mark rushed down the hallway, weapon drawn. “What’s going on?”

“Stay with Ms. Jackson. I’ll go check.”

Suddenly there was a rattling on the window on the left side of the room as if someone or something was tearing at the screen. Brody moved toward it. A roar split the air as he opened the blinds to find a grizzly bear attacking the window. The screen hung in metal shreds from its frame. The huge animal batted it away, only a pane of glass now between him and the bear.

“Stay put, Arianna.” Brody signaled for Mark to keep an eye on the window where the bear was.

Where is Kevin? His heart pounding, Brody charged toward the exit, knowing his Glock might not be enough to stop a bear coming at him or Kevin. In the gray light of an Alaskan night this far north, he saw his partner backing around the corner of the cabin while squeezing off another shot into the air.