Sara in Montana - A Christmas Wish (4 page)

Swallowing down the tears that threatened to come to the surface, Sara took a small breath, “My mom died of pancreatic cancer when I was in college. The last several months were the worst. When the morphine couldn’t manage the pain anymore, we tried everything we could think of. The man who lived in the condo next to my mom was a natural medicine practitioner and had really good success with helping to dull her pain.”

Dr. Baker watched as Sara talked about her mom and his heart broke for the pain she must have gone through at such a young age. “I wish we had access to his skills. I think Bill would be willing to try anything at this point.”

Sara glanced at Trent before offering, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if I’m still here tomorrow, maybe I could show you what I remember. It couldn’t hurt.”

Dr. Baker gave her an encouraging smile and nodded, “I’ll take you up on that.” Glancing at Trent for confirmation that Sara would indeed still be around on the morrow, “I have a feeling you will definitely be here tomorrow.” Looking back at Trent, “You better get this young lady settled in before that cough medicine starts to wear off. She’s exhausted and I imagine a might hungry as well.”

Trent smiled, “That I can do. Let’s get going.” He held the door open for Sara, and giving Dr. Baker another nod, followed her towards the parking lot.

Dr. Baker tipped his head as Trent closed the door. He’d known Trent all of his life. He’d delivered him, casted his arm the summer he had fallen out of his grandfather’s barn and watched him grow into a fine young man. He wasn’t sure what it was about the young woman he had just treated, but she had gotten underneath Trent’s skin. He’d never seen the young man so on edge. When he had mentioned the bruising, Trent had looked as if he wanted to kill someone.

Shaking his head and wishing both of them luck, he turned off the lights and headed out the back door. Trent knew how to get a hold of him if Sara needed additional treatment, and he looked forward to learning what he could from her about acupressure tomorrow.

Chapter 4

Trent drove Sara back to the sheriff’s office and put her in his office with a cup of tea. He had offered her coffee, but the grimace that had immediately appeared on her face told him more than any words could.

Sitting behind his desk, he steepled his hands on the desktop and looked at her for several minutes before he started speaking. “Tell me about David Patterson.”

Sara had been watching the steam rise from her cup, dreading the coming conversation. Hearing Trent’s question, she slowly looked up and met his eyes. As she tried to decide where to begin, she had to fight to keep the tears away. Crying would solve nothing.

Looking down at her clasped hands, she began, “David Patterson was my boss for the last three years. He owns an import/export business and I managed the acquisitions side of things for our South American partners. We started dating a little over a year ago, and I thought I was in love with him. Things have been really stressful at work for the last several months and I guess I missed the signs.”

“Signs?”

“David changed over the last several months. I excused his behavior away as being under too much pressure at work and wedding jitters. We flew to Las Vegas three days ago and were married. I was hoping that things would get back to normal, but they got worse.” She stopped for a moment to take a sip of the tea, as much to help her sore throat as to give her emotions a breather.

Looking up, she saw Trent watching her, his face devoid of accusation, just simple curiosity present. Looking out the window, she continued, “We flew to Las Vegas and then flew back to San Francisco. We were supposed to take our honeymoon aboard his yacht. We were going to sail down to Baja for a week, and then stop in San Diego and spend Christmas with Grace, my sister and her daughter.”

As Sara thought about the possibility of never seeing her sister or niece again, the tears started to come and she couldn’t stop them. Sara stopped talking. She couldn’t believe the events that had happened, and now, putting them into words she was at a lost for how to explain what she had seen.

Handing her some tissues, Trent asked her to continue, “What happened when you got back to San Francisco?”

Taking a breath she continued, “David had his driver leave his car at the airport so that we could go straight to the marina. He had already arranged for our luggage to be taken to the yacht, so we drove straight there from the airport. Everything seemed fine until we got to the marina.” Taking another sip of her tea, she sat up straighter and prepared herself to recall the events of that day.

“Some of his security team was waiting for him. Trevor Ward heads his security team and he’s always given me the creeps.” Sara stopped talking as another coughing fit took over her, but noticed Trent taking notes and writing down names on a piece of paper in front of him.

“Anyway,” she continued after recovering, “David sent me on to the yacht while he dealt with what he called a ‘small problem.’ I didn’t have any reason to question this so I did what he said. The last several weeks he had been really short-tempered and I didn’t want to begin our honeymoon getting yelled at or making him upset.”

Trent looked up from his desk and studied her for a moment before saying, “Did he yell at you often?”

Sara shook her head, “No…well, at least not normally. I don’t think things have been going very well with the business the last several months. He’s been really short-tempered and preoccupied.”

Trent picked up on the fact that Sara had felt very alone in the weeks before her wedding. He would love to get his hands on David Patterson and make him pay for hurting her feelings. Her wedding should have been perfect.

“Why Vegas?” Trent watched the emotions as they crossed her face and didn’t like the sadness he saw lingering there at all.

“We were supposed to get married after Christmas. My sister and niece were going to drive up from San Diego. I don’t have much family and David has none, so it was just going to be a small get together at the courthouse. We had the date and time reserved and everything…” Sara let her voice trail off as she became lost in what might have been.

Trent let her thoughts roam for a few seconds, before speaking and bringing her back to the present, “So David decided to speed things up? Did he have a reason for doing so?”

Sara nodded, “He said that negotiations with his contacts in Columbia had gotten sticky and he was having trouble with the customs personnel, so he was leaving the day after Christmas to go down there and straighten everything out for himself.”

“David was planning on traveling to Columbia?” Trent was surprised at this information.  It was one thing to be involved in helping traffic drugs once they entered the United States, but if David was planning on visiting the cartel locations personally, he was more involved than even Trent’s FBI contacts had suspected.

“Yes, he said he was going to be gone about a week, but planned on being back before New Year’s Eve. I was going to hang out with my sister and niece while he was gone.”

Trent was quiet for a moment before he asked, “So exactly when did your plans change? When did David convince you to fly to Vegas and get married early?”

“Four days ago. He had already been at work when I arrived, and on some sort of conference call. There was a lot of yelling and cursing on his end, so whomever he was talking to was definitely upsetting him. I tried to take him a cup of coffee and see if there was anything I could bring him, but Trevor wouldn’t let me in his office.”

“Trevor Ward? His security guy? Was it normal for him to hang around David’s office and keep people out?”

Sara shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know. Usually David came to my office to see me when we were at work. I rarely needed to go to his office.”

Again, Trent’s radar was going off. She was marrying the head of the company and didn’t make frequent trips to his office to see him during the day?

“Okay, so getting back to the day you married David. What happened after you went on the boat?”

“When he didn’t show up after 20 minutes, I changed into my swimsuit and headed up to the sun deck. I should have stayed in the cabin.” Her last statement sounded as if she was speaking to herself.

“As I prepared to lay down on one of the deck chairs, I could see his security team unloading brown paper packages from a vehicle and bringing them to the yacht. Everyone seemed really agitated and anxious. I knew we hadn’t been expecting any shipments and was curious as to what they could be loading onto the boat.

“I figured maybe someone had made a last minute deal and we were going to save some transport time and cost by taking the items with us and delivering them ourselves. It wouldn’t be the first time we had done that. Several times over the last several months, when David and I would take a weekend trip, he would stop and deliver or pick up items for the business.

“I didn’t think anything about it until Trevor showed up on the deck. He wanted to know what I was doing there and how much I had seen. I told him I was waiting on David and wasn’t worried about the delivery interrupting our honeymoon.

“He grabbed my arm, pulled me up from the chair, and started yelling for David. When David joined us, his security chief started yelling at David and they argued. David told me to go below deck and stay there until he got things sorted out with Trevor. I climbed down the stairs, but when I looked up, just before entering the cabin again, I heard David tell him he would take care of me.”

Sara shivered as she remembered the coldness she had heard in David’s voice.

“What did you think he meant by that statement?”

“I got really scared,” she said, barely holding back tears. “I saw Trevor hand him a gun. I snuck over the side of the boat and swam under the dock. When I got close to the shoreline, I pulled myself up and snuck back to the car. David always kept an extra key under the wheel well of his cars. He said you could never be too prepared and being stranded without transportation could mean the difference between life and death.”

Trent nodded for her to continue.

“I stopped by my apartment, grabbed a few changes of clothes, some blankets, and a pillow. I called my sister but she didn’t answer. I had to leave her a message. I told her that plans had changed and I would call her when I was able to. I got on the highway and headed north.”

“Did you give your sister details and what had happened? And, why north?”

“I just left her a brief message that I wouldn’t be coming to San Diego as soon and would try to get there before Christmas. I asked her not to call my cell phone. I told her it wasn’t working and I was going to try and replace it soon. As far as heading north, I don’t know. I just drove.” Sara shuddered as she finished telling her part of the story.

Trent thought about her story and then asked, “Sara, what was in the brown paper packages? Do you know?”

Sara shook her head. She suspected, but didn’t know. When she didn’t answer him, he pressed a little more, “If you had to guess, what would you think were in the packages?”

Sara looked up and a chill went through her body as she replied, “Drugs. I think there were drugs in them.”

Trent would have probably made the same guess, but pressed her for more information, “Why would you guess the packages had drugs in them? Does David use drugs?”

Sara shook her head, “Not that I know of. It just kind of fits with this feeling I’ve had the last several months.”
 

“What feeling?”

Sara thought for a minute, she wanted to say this correctly, “Things haven’t been adding up at work. The company has been doing a lot of business with an exporter in Columbia who specializes in ancient artifacts, replicas
... that type of thing. Anyway, those types of things are usually fairly inexpensive, but the company has been paying large sums of money for them.”

“Have you seen any of those packages?”

“No, that’s not my department anymore. Six months ago, David reorganized the warehouse and I only deal with the paperwork side of things now. I rarely see the items as they come in.”