at that time, I didn’t make the connection with Patrick. I was just paid a good contract price and did it. But certain things have since been said and done for me to make that connection, and obviously some kind of convincing evidence was obtained by Governor Jenesen for him to let it be known it was going in his campaign.”
“Just what is it, Arnie, that you expect I could do for you?”
“I need some protection. Set me up in the witness protection program so I could start a new life. I know I would have to face a murder charge on Vincent, but I could testify against Patrick, and maybe get some kind of amnesty, and at least be jailed where, hopefully, they couldn’t get to me.”
“You’re asking a lot, even if it would save the governor’s life. I am not sure what, if anything, I can do. Can you tell me who hired you for the hit and just how they planned you should do this?”
“You know that governors’ conference that is going to be held next month on the Caribbean? That’s the place. I am to use my own method of doing so, but he is to literally be ‘thrown to the sharks.’”
“Arnie,” Dan pressed, “if I am to have any luck at all in helping you, I need to know who is behind this. I can’t do anything unless I know all the details.”
“I’m running scared, Dan, and I don’t know who I can or can’t trust. I just hope it is you. Can you meet me again tomorrow and let me know just what to do next?”
“You’re not answering my question, Arnie,” said Dan.
“Tomorrow—tomorrow night here at the same time—I’ll bring money, and if you’re here, I will tell you more,” Arnie said as he once again wiped his brow and hurriedly walked away.
Oh my god, thought Dan, I knew I should never have come to this meeting. I am ethically bound to report this on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is privileged information.
Dan grabbed his coat and headed out the restaurant. As he stepped through the revolving door, he saw Arnie starting to crawl into a cab. As he did so, a very large black limo sped by, spraying bullets everywhere. Arnie never made it inside the cab.
Waves of panic swept through Dan.
Get out of here now. Stay out of sight. Don’t let them know you were talking to Arnie, he thought, and then he realized, They must already know. Otherwise, how would they know where Arnie would be so they could take him out?
Dan kept on revolving with the door and reentered the restaurant and quietly left through the back entrance. The wail of sirens was already piercing the night, and the rain had begun to pour again. Dan tried to hail a cab, but none of the cabs were stopping amid the confusion, so he kept on walking, ducking in and out of storefronts, trying to stay dry long enough to make some kind of decision where to go until he could think this thing through. After walking several blocks, he was finally able to get a cab, and he headed back to his office.
He signed in at security and took the elevator that opened into to the private offices of his law firm. He quickly went to his office and locked the door behind him.
God, I am scared, he thought, and not even very bright. A little lock is not going to stop them if they really want to get me.
He mixed a strong drink and tried to calm himself. Waves of panic began to wash over him again as he started wondering if Jenene was safe. He picked up the phone and dialed, but there was no answer.
“Where in the hell is she?” he asked himself. “She is always there when I need her, and I need to talk to her now!” Damn, what a time for Jenene to have the car.
He grabbed his briefcase and headed back out to the street for a cab.
Chapter 4
Shakedown
Jenene was still in a daze as she left the post office with the letter. Where to go, whom to see, what to do about this were all questions dancing about her mind so fast that she couldn’t begin to think straight. Although a sense of exhilaration surged through her at the thought of finally finding out the truth of her parents’ death, almost simultaneously, apprehension bordering on pure alarm was quickly surfacing. Who sent her this note? What did they want? Blackmail money? Maybe they thought she knew something that needed to be kept a secret? And why should this surface now after all this time? The clandestine way of getting a message to her was scary.
Almost running from the post office, she quickly got into her car and started driving. She had to go somewhere to think, to plan what to do. She could go home. Dan wouldn’t be home for hours yet. Although Dan was, of course, aware of how her parents supposedly died, Jenene had not let him know her obsession of finding their true killers. Even though Dan had not actually discussed with her his political ambitions, Jenene was acutely aware of them, and she knew that bringing this out would not, to say the least, help him climb the political ladder. Maybe home was not the best place at the moment.
She found herself turning to the highway, heading for their cabin in the mountains. This was where she often went when she was seeking the solution to a problem. The higher she climbed, the worse the rain poured, and visibility was almost zero. Cars were few, and most of them on the road were headed back to the city.
One car approaching her was traveling at a much-greater speed than was warranted under the storm conditions, and just as that car started by her, it went into a skid and almost collided, but the car just kept on going. Shaken, but unhurt, Jenene turned off the highway onto the unpaved stretch of road to the cabin. As she made the turn, her headlights reflected momentarily upon a set of tire tracks on the rain-soaked road, and she wondered who might have been on this road to their cabin in this kind of weather. Assuming it was someone who made the wrong turn, she kept on driving, concentrating at this point on simply keeping the car on the road.
Finally, she spotted the cabin, and with a fervent prayer that the storm had not knocked out the electrical power, she pulled into the drive, grabbed a flashlight, and made a quick dash to the cabin door. Fumbling in her purse for the cabin key, she dropped the flashlight. As she picked it up from the entryway, she saw an envelope sticking out from under the door, and her heart started pounding and pounding. No one knew she was here! Who would know to leave a message under the door? Had she been followed? No, that couldn’t be. They would have had to be here first since the envelope was already under the doorway. This was getting too scary.
With trembling hands, she opened the envelope and, shining the flashlight on the paper, read for the second time that day six very scary words: “Watch your back or you’re next.”
Scared and wet, she ran stumbling back to her car. Making a quick U-turn, she careened back down the unpaved road toward the highway, slipping and sliding all the way. Once on the highway again, her pounding heart began to subside, and she began to think more rationally.
I must get home, she thought, whether Dan is home or not. I must get someplace where I am safe so I can think this through.
She grabbed her cell phone and tried to call Dan, but the interference from the storm was too severe to make the connection. As she pressed on the accelerator, now driving too fast for the wet highway, she suddenly remembered the car nearly sideswiping her on her way up to the cabin, and began now to wonder if that was really just a coincidence. As she descended the mountain and started coming into the outer limits of the city, her cell phone rang. It was Dan, frantic as to where she was.
“I’m almost home,” she
