“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 said to Dan, “we’ll talk when I get there.”
As she finished the call, the tears began. She didn’t know if it was from being scared or from being relieved from talking to Dan, or both; regardless, she was ready for home. She knew that the time had come to tell Dan about her search for the truth about her parents and her obsession for the same, even though it might put a stumbling block in Dan’s climb up the political ladder. Someone must want something from her, or maybe even Dan. Her mind was becoming a jumbled chaos, and nothing was making any sense. Could it simply be a shakedown?
Chapter 5
No Meeting of the Minds
Dan had tried to settle down after having reached Jenene by phone, but there had been simply too much happening in one day—the appointment of Tom Harding (instead of himself) as the chief defense attorney in place of Kevin Moore, meeting that gorgeous green-eyed Cheri (and even now he felt that biological urge surging through his body), and his meeting with Arnie with the consequent picture being ever embodied in his mind of the blood-splattered taxi and the crumpled blood-splattered body of Arnie hanging out the taxi door. God, could he use a drink!
As he mixed himself a drink, he began thinking about the meeting with Arnie. In the aftermath of Arnie being killed, he had momentarily forgotten about the confession to him by Arnie to the killing of Jenene’s parents. Just how was he to handle this? By ethics he could not reveal this information to Jenene. Of course, on the other hand, he ethically could not conceal a crime either. Of course, there was always the theory that technically Arnie was not yet his client. No retainer had yet been received from Arnie, and there had not yet been an acceptance of Arnie by him as a client even though they were supposed to meet the next day to finalize this. And what about the plan to kill the governor? Would this be carried out now by someone else now that Arnie had been killed? Did Dan have an undeniable duty to report this to the proper authorities? He mixed himself another drink while waiting for Jenene, trying to figure just which way to turn.
Just maybe, I should keep quiet. This might be one of those times when silence is golden. I don’t know how yet, but I could turn this into a high-powered plus for myself. I wouldn’t have to tell Jenene anything—the death of her parents was a long time ago. She surely has reconciled to their death by now. Arnie is dead, so he wouldn’t be killing the governor, so I would not have to report anything to the authorities, he rationalized.
He poured himself another drink and turned on the nightly news to await Jenene. As Jenene entered the house, she found Dan standing in a frozen stupor as the anchorman on television kept repeating that the governor had been found dead in the one of the hotels and that further details would be given as soon as they were known. Jenene shook Dan and finally got him to sit down.
“Dan, what is happening,” she asked. “I need to know now and need to know if you know anything about this?”
“What do you mean you need to know if I know anything about this? This is your husband you are talking to. How would I know anything about this?”
“Read this,” she spat at him as she jammed the note from the cabin into Dan’s hand, “and tell me that there is no connection.”
“Where did this come from?”
“Under the cabin door,” she replied.
“And what were you doing at the cabin in this kind of weather, you and whomever?” he asked.
“You bastard!” she screamed. “Never mind that I have a threat on my life, you have to be worried about some imaginary lover of mine.”
“You had better not have a lover, my little wife, you are mine, and don’t you ever forget it!’ With that, Dan grabbed the keys and slammed out of the house.
Chapter 6
Green-Eyed