Chapter 14

Dupris never left anything to chance, he sent two, two-man teams to grab Marsh. When the first team failed and got arrested, the second team swung into action, hoping to do a much better job.

“See, I told you she’d show up sooner or later,” one of the men said.

“Yeah, but we can’t snatch her right now because she’s with that cop,” his partner replied.

“Don’t worry, we’ll follow them and see where that cop is taking her. If it’s to a safe place, we can hang around, see how closely she’s guarded, and pick her up the first chance we get.”

The driver grunted in agreement, put his car in gear and tailed the police car at a discreet distance. The policewoman had no idea she was being followed and drove Jennifer to a grocery store where she bought her enough food to last several days, then went directly to a motel the police often used to stash witnesses whose life’s were in danger. She made sure the management was okay with arrangement, and that Jennifer was safely settled in a suite before departing.

Dupris’s goons watched it all from a distance. They were relieved to see the cop car drive away.

“Good, that’s make our job that much easier,” the driver said. “We don’t want to make a move in daylight, so we’ll wait until later tonight when everybody is sleeping, and since she’s unarmed this should be a piece of cake.”

Completely unaware that she’d been followed, Jennifer worked on her news story until hungry pains forced her to quit. She eyed the groceries with trepidation. Her big secret was that she’d never learned to cook, and she wished the policewoman had stuffed the fridge with frozen dinners. That didn’t happen so she was forced to concoct a meal on her own.

After Jennifer threw something together that filled her stomach she returned to her lap top to check on her blog. In order to keep her subscribers happy, she needed to have a steady stream of stories on it at regular intervals so she published a couple of human interest articles that she had been holding back.

There was still a little daylight left when she snapped her lap top closed. She was feeling restless and wondered if it would be okay to take a quick walk to stretch her legs and get some fresh air. The police had told her to stay in the motel until it was safe, but surely they didn’t expect her to be couped up in a room for ever. Besides, the policewoman had assured her it would take Dupris a couple of days to find some new help. Therefore, she reasoned there shouldn’t be anything wrong with a stroll before it got dark.