Witness Protection: Hide and Seek (2 page)

Helen and George were bringing down the rest of their
luggage.

“Madison, are you sure you won’t change your mind? You can
always catch a later flight and meet us in London.” Helen’s thin arms rested on
her shoulders, squeezing them tight.

Madison drew in a long breath and exhaled slowly.

“Thanks for the offer Helen, but no.” She smiled weakly.
“I’m just not ready for anything that involves leaving the country.”

George moved a few pieces of luggage towards the door with a
light clunk and asked Zoe if she’d mind loading up the car.

When the young woman was out of earshot, George made his way
over to his daughter-in law.

“Madison, I know that things have been a bit hectic and
dismal around here what with the anniversary of his death and all. But Helen
and I think it’s time that you tried getting back into the swing of things. I
mean at least see about getting your old job back.”

“You can’t sit around and mope for the rest of your life
sweetheart. It’s not healthy and it’s not good for Zoe to see you like this.
She needs to know that life goes on.”

Madison could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. “I feel
as if I’m sleep walking through my life. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt this
empty.” She reached out for Helen’s hand and felt that familiar ache in her
heart.

“Oh sweetheart, you’ll be fine. I know you will. We miss him
too. When Tristan first told us that he wanted to go into law enforcement, we
couldn’t have been more proud of him, and we still are.

He told us several years ago that he loved what he did. He
never once regretted his decision to become a marshal.

He told us that if anything were to happen to him, to
remember that he died doing something that he loved, which was protecting
innocent people.

I hold on to that each and every day… we hold onto it. It’s
what gets us through.”

“And there’s one thing that I can guarantee about my boy.”
George’s lips creased into a reminiscing smile. “He wouldn’t want you to sit
around here wallowing in misery. He’d want you to pick yourself up and get on
with your life. So that’s what you need to do Madison. Now what are your
plans?”

George spoke with a straightforwardness that she was not
expecting.

Madison shook her head. “I’m not really sure. I have been
thinking about paying Hank and Donna a visit. I haven’t seen them in so long
and since I’m no longer in the program, I don’t see why I can’t go back to
Tennessee.”

Helen let out a small gasp. “Do you think that’s wise
Madison? I mean, being out of the program is one thing, but going back to where
it all started is another.”

“Maybe you ought to check with the Marshal Service first, or
the D.A. I’m not sure I want you traipsing around Tennessee without some kind
of protection.”

Madison released a snicker. “Helen, they dropped me from the
program because they caught a bigger gun with a lot more ammo than I had.
Castillo’s number one guy gave him up and he had far more than just my one time
eyewitness account.

Besides, I thought that …" Her voice trailed off and
she wiped an angry tear from her eye.

“Honey, if Tristan taught you anything, it was not to be
naïve. Now you and I both know that just because Castillo is in prison, does
not mean that you are no longer in danger.”

“George, I appreciate your concern, I really do. But this is
something that’s been in the back of my mind for a long time now. Everything
that happened with Castillo happened three years ago and I’ve been out of the
program for almost the same amount of time. I can come and go as I please and
I’ve made the decision to go to Tennessee. I’m through hiding.”

“And what are you going to do if you run into trouble while
you’re down there?” George leaned back against the kitchen sink and folded his
arms across his chest.

 
The pose, reminded
her of Tristan. It was a fond memory and she smiled softly.

“I’m sure that won’t happen, but if it does? Well I’m sure
I’ll think of something,” she said and kissed him on the cheek.

“I want you to check in as much as you can Madison, you hear
me?” George commanded.

“Of course. Now you guys better get going, you don’t want to
miss your flight.”

Helen turned towards her with a questioning look in her eye,
but before she opened her mouth to speak, Madison stopped her.

“Yes Helen, I plan on coming back.” Madison reassured her,
but was silent when she thought to herself,
I
just don’t know when.

Helen smiled and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

Stepping outside into the bright sunshine, Madison spied Zoe
staring off into the direction of the trail that led into the woods.

“Your father loved to hike that trail with you didn’t he?”
She asked and put her arms around Zoe.

“Yes he did,” she said quietly.

Madison turned her around so that Zoe could look at her.

“Zoe, you are going off to unfamiliar shores and distant,
exotic lands. Take this time to enjoy it. You will never be alone, and you will
never want for love. Life goes on sweetheart and your father would not want you
to waste it. So please have a wonderful time. Text me, send me pictures, and
keep your father and I in your heart. I love you Zoe.”

“I love you too,” Zoe said as they held one another in a
warm embrace.

Madison stood in the driveway, sobbing and waving. She
didn’t stop until they were no longer in sight.

                                                          
****

The house felt incredibly empty now. There was no sound, no
low chatter between Helen and George. There was no clattering sound coming from
the keyboard of Zoe’s laptop while she surfed the web.

After Tristan died, his parents found themselves spending
more and more time at the house. Madison assumed that it was because they
somehow felt closer to him there. It was the house where they’d shared holiday
meals, movie nights, and lazy Sunday's barbecuing and relaxing on the back
deck.

And when they were alone, there were days and nights filled
with lovemaking.

She made her way into the bedroom and began to tidy up. A
warm summer breeze came through an open window, billowing the soft, lace
curtains.

She closed her eyes and welcomed its soft touch; it was then
that she felt the warm embrace of her husband.

 
It was the first
time, in a very long time that she felt warm again. It made her optimistic,
happy even. After the year she’d just had, the feeling was like a drug.

Not wanting the feeling or her nerve to disappear, she
immediately called the airline and booked a flight to Tennessee.

                                                          
****

Three days alone in the house felt like three years. She’d
spent it packing, and waiting, mostly waiting. She didn’t want to tell Hank and
Donna about her visit. Not because she wanted it to be a surprise, but because
she was pretty sure that they would insist that she not visit at all.

Besides a few telephone conversations, the couple whom she
considered family, had insisted that she not get in touch with them too often.
Even though Madison had told them that she was released from the program, they
were still convinced that her life was in danger.

They were so convinced in fact, that they’d refused to come
to she and Tristan’s wedding, and his funeral. They told her that they didn’t
want to take the chance of being followed from Memphis up to Maine.

“Castillo’s thugs are like cockroaches, they hide from the
light, but crawl out of every dark corner and crevasse when it gets dark. You
cannot underestimate him for a second. He’s got people all over the world who
work for him and for the right price; they’ll hunt you down in a minute
Madison.” Hank told her one night during one of their telephone conversations.

There would be no changing her mind though. She needed to
get away. See Hank and Donna and spend some time with them. And if they weren't
available, well… she'd simply wait until they were.

The past year had been the closest thing to hell that she’d
ever experienced and although she was going back to where it all began,
anything was better than staying in that empty house.

Juan Hernandez was now living under the assumed name, “Paulo
Antunez.” And he was supposed to keep his mouth shut and his profile low.
 
But, being in the Witness Protection program
for so many years was beginning to take its toll on him.

Life in the small town of Redmerrow, Oklahoma had gotten
boring and mundane. The only good thing about living there was that he’d met a
decent woman. Maria was a woman he could see himself settling down with. But he
wasn’t quite ready to settle down, not yet anyway.

Not even in his job at the post office could he find some
sense of happiness. Schlepping bags of mail around all day wasn’t exactly what
he had in mind. When he’d first arrived in Oklahoma, he thought he had it made.
The government gave him a monthly stiffened of over 2,500.00 and extra money to
purchase a used car. He received the stiffened for 20 months, but then the
government abruptly stopped sending him the money.

His contact told him that his life was stabilized and that
it was time for him to go out and start earning his own money. That’s when he
got the job at the post office and where he met Maria.

Some days, her love for him was the only thing that kept him
going. He didn’t dare tell her about his past life, about how he ratted out
crime boss, Ricardo Castillo. Not only was there no reason to tell her, but he
wasn’t allowed to tell her. So he kept his mouth shut and invented the story
that the feds told him to invent. His name was Paulo Antunez and he was born
and raised in Oklahoma.

Besides Maria, there was nothing. His assigned contact, Dane
Spear, down at the marshal's office, telephoned regularly. But rarely came to
check up on him.

That all changed when Juan, a.k.a. Paulo started complaining
about his surroundings.

 
“Listen Antunez, this
isn’t some kind of Hollywood movie. You’re not living the life of some kind of
mafia gangster in hiding, so stop thinking that you are. You were placed here
for a reason. It’s been three years, if you haven’t gotten used to it by now,
you never will. But that doesn’t mean a thing is going to change for you, so
you had better make the most of it. There are three ways you’re getting out of
the program, either you get caught violating the laws and get kicked out, you
leave on your own accord, or you get carried out in a body bag.”

Having just graduated from the Academy last year, Marshal
Dane Spear was still new at his job. But taking on a witness who'd testified
against well-known drug and sex trafficker, Ricardo Castillo was his chance to
prove to his superiors that he could get the job done.

Besides complaining a lot, his witness wasn’t that much of a
problem. But still, he'd tried his best to let him know, that under no
circumstances was he going to get away with trying anything shady.

Juan released a frustrated breath, narrowed his eyes, and
turned his attention towards the window.

He wondered then, if being a snitch had all been worth it.
Sure, snitching had kept him from getting the gas chamber, and had given him
his freedom. But this was not the kind of freedom he wanted; he missed the
‘thug’ life and being Castillo’s number one man. Now he was living out in the
middle of nowhere, living a life that was far more distinct than anything he
could have imagined.

"I should have kept my mouth shut." He shook his
head in regret.

When Castillo’s mother, Lucia, answered the telephone, her
face lit up. The voice on the other end was telling her that an inmate from the
Riverbend correctional facility was making a collect call. When the voice asked
if she would accept the charges, she said yes and nodded her head ardently.

“Hola mamá.” She heard her son’s voice on the telephone.

Lucia spoke with excitement to her son. When he asked her
why she was so excited, she told him that a package that she'd been waiting on
had finally arrived.

Ricardo shared in his mother’s happiness. “Las cosas buenas
vienen a aquellos que esperan mamá!” He said with excitement before hanging up
the phone.

 
He told her that
good things really do come to those who wait. Not only was he excited for his
mother, he was excited for himself. He looked around at his fellow inmates as a
cheesy smile spread across his face.

Sayonara, mother
fuckers. In a couple of days, I'll be a free man.

Lucia made the sign of the cross after she hung up the
phone. She wanted everything to go smoothly for her son. It took almost three
years in the making, but finally, standing beside her was Ricardo’s cousin,
Salvador Nunez. He’d just flown in from Bolivia. And was the spitting image of
her son, Ricardo Castillo.

To Salvador, family was everything. So giving up his
freedom, in exchange for his cousin's, was of no importance to him. When
Castillo first thought of the idea three years ago, his family told him that
the idea, although a good one, would never work.

They told him that he would not be able to outsmart the
prison guards, that without inside help and money, the idea was not feasible.

But Castillo kept the idea in his head and each day he
picked and prodded at it. And although it would take some time, he told them,
three years to be exact. He knew that it could be done.

Castillo’s offer to take care of Salvador’s ex-wife and the
rest of his family financially, only added to his cousin’s already steadfast
devotion to his extended family.

For Salvador, life in Bolivia meant nothing. Days and nights
spent robbing tourists, or delivering a package or two for local crime lords
was getting to be tiring. It was no way to live, Castillo told him. He also
told his cousin that he’d be better suited to life inside Riverbend
Correctional. He told him that he would be treated like a king, that there was
even a group of thugs he’d be in charge of.

“Every luxury that one tries to obtain on the outside, mi
querido primo, you will have at your fingertips on the inside. In prison, you
can be whatever you want to be.”

After that, Salvador quickly began brushing up on his
English, and perfecting his cousin’s Americanized moves and expressions. It
took three years, but by the time he stepped off the plane, he was… Ricardo
Castillo.

Having gone through year after year of bribery’s and
coercion’s, Ricardo knew that there was nothing that a large magnitude of
inside help and money couldn’t buy.

“And that includes freedom,” he told Nurse Higgins one day
during a visit to the medical clinic.

He thought it funny how the feds lied about freezing his
assets. He still had money hidden all over the world. But most of it
ironically, was hidden in the United States. Tennessee to be exact.

Between money laundering, using aliases, and phony
documentation, he was able to put away large amounts of money. Money that he
knew would come in handy one day. He had so much money in fact, that when he
got out, he’d be able to live the life that he’d grown accustomed to. He had
enough money to go anywhere and do anything.

When his parents suggested that he immediately leave the
country once he got out, he vehemently agreed. “But first,” he told them,
“there are two people that must be taken care of. I need to see it done. Only
after they are gone and I’ve seen it with my own eyes, will I go back to
Bolivia.”

After a year of good behavior, he was finally given
permission to visit the prison library. He then paid a guard to look the other
way while he used the pass code of another inmate to sign online.

Once he was granted access to the internet, he began
searching for Juan on the more popular social media outlets. With just a couple
of clicks, he was able to find the rat. He'd changed his name to Paulo Antunez.
Castillo was surprised at how easy it was to find him. There, looking right at
him was a picture of Juan Hernandez.
You
really can find anyone on the internet
, he thought to himself.

“No one and nothing is private anymore. Everybody wants to
be seen and heard,” he snickered.
 

“And for me, that is a very good thing.”

Castillo was sure that the feds had warned Hernandez about
setting up any social media accounts. But there he was, in the bathroom, taking
a
selfie
.

“You always were a fat, dumb, son of a bitch,” he mumbled
and shook his head.

“Guess the government no longer cares about you, mierda de
rata,” he swore at the computer screen.

“Enjoy it while you can, you fat fuck. Enjoy it while you
can.”

Shortly after he’d found Hernandez, he began his search for
Madison West. Finding her proved to be harder than he thought. But when Nurse
John Higgins told him that he used to be a private investigator, Castillo
immediately went to work.

At first, John refused to help the inmate. But after doing
some digging of his own, he thought it would be in his best interest to help.
In the beginning, he offered only tidbits of information about Madison, but
when Castillo told him that it wasn’t enough, he tried ignoring any further
inquiries about the woman’s whereabouts.

It wasn’t until Castillo sent a couple of thugs to beat up
his wife, did he change his mind. They’d beaten her so bad, that she ended up
in the hospital.

After that, Higgins became Castillo’s new best friend.

That night, while Castillo lie in bed awake with
anticipation, his cousin Salvador was making one last call to Nurse John
Higgins.

                                                          
****

Even though there were bars upon the prison windows,
Castillo could tell that it was going to be a wonderful day. He was being led
to the prison medical clinic by two guards. He’d told them that his asthma was
acting up and that he’d filled out a ‘sick call’ form, the night before.

The guards only nodded their heads as they led him,
unshackled, to the clinic. Nurse John Higgins and a new male intern were there
waiting for him.

After the guards deposited Castillo into the private
examination room, they moved away from the closed door and began making small
talk with some of the nurses that were there.

The cousin’s exchanged hugs and kissed one another on the
cheek before quickly removing their clothes.

It took less than twenty minutes to switch identities. By
the time Nurse Higgins told the guards that he was finished giving Castillo his
asthma treatment, Ricardo Castillo, wearing a lab coat, dress shirt, and casual
slacks had all but forgotten that he’d just spent the last three years in
prison. “We’re not out of the woods yet.” Higgins warned him. “So wipe that smug
look off your face,” he whispered.

After the guards shackled the prisoner, they gave Castillo,
one last nod of understanding and cooperation.

Higgins and his new intern, checked on two more patients
before it was time to leave.

Castillo kept his cool as he passed each guarded station.
Their blasé glances told him that everything and everyone had been taken care
of. He had absolutely nothing to worry about.

When they reached the last guard that would check their
identification and buzz them out of the building, Castillo took one last glance
behind him. Freedom was only inches away.

“Nurse Higgins, how are you this morning?” Warden Karl
Robinson was making his way into the building. He held out his hand and waited
for Higgins to shake it.

Higgins tried wiping the sweat off his hands before taking
it.

“Sorry about that sir, too much antibacterial soap.” He
grinned nervously.

“No worries Higgins and who have we here?” The warden nodded
at Castillo. He'd just finished showing the guard his id badge.

Castillo had tried to ease his way past the warden, but it
was no use. The large man had them cornered.

“Um, this… this is Salvador Nunez, he’s a new intern.

The warden raised an eyebrow and after taking a quick glance
at the id badge, shook the man’s hand.

“And what school do you attend Mr. Nunez?”

“Vanderbilt school of nursing sir.” Castillo answered
quickly and with confidence.

“Very good, said the warden. “And how do you find this
establishment?”

“I find it to be top-notch sir. I look forward to spending my
rotations here,” he said and shook his hand again.

“I hate to be rude, but I’ve got to get back to class.” He
patted Higgins on the shoulder.

“Of course, I’ve kept you long enough.” The warden stepped
aside, allowing the men through.

“Have a good day gentleman, it’s a beautiful one,” he said
and made his way into the prison.

“Yes it is.” Castillo grinned. “Yes it is.”