Page 50 of Operation: Reckless Angel

She recognized her new client and her husband as soon as they pulled into the parking lot, which she had a good view of from where she sat. The county Sheriff’s car was right on time. Two p.m. on the dot. When the couple came through the door, she recognized them both. He wore his uniform. She was bundled in a long, black wool coat.

Sheriff Darren Elsworth was an attractive man in his early forties. He was trim and fit. Amanda Elsworth was a slim, beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed woman with a naturally radiant complexion over perfect bone structure.

Briana always did research on a client before she accepted a case. In Amanda’s late teens, she had been Miss Rhode Island. She attended college in Boston, where they met. Her degree was in marketing, his in criminal justice.

Upon graduation, he got a position with the Boston P.D. where he worked his way up to detective. According to Amanda, he felt the brass was looking at him for unsubstantiated crimes, rumors, he said, started by other cops who were jealous of him, so they relocated to Maine. Amanda had also said she believed he had been involved in some illegal activity. Darren was hired by the local Sheriff to help modernize and upgrade the Sheriff’s department. Darren, being an outgoing social climber, made friends with those in the community who mattered and the following year, was elected Sheriff.

They’d been married for fifteen years. Amanda had told Briana that her husband’s jealousy, and his need to control her, began immediately after the wedding. Next came the mental abuse, little things at first, comments and remarks to undermine her self-confidence. He was a narcissistic dominant bully who kept his wife under his thumb with threats of violence. The physical abuse began after her first attempt to leave him.

The waitress behind the counter greeted them by name. “Hi Amanda, Darren. You want the usual?”

“Please,” the Sheriff said, heading towards his normal booth towards the other back corner of the diner where he had the best vantage point to observe the front door as well as the front and side parking lots. “You got any of your famous apple pie today?”

“I saved you a piece,” she said with a smile.

Briana immediately got up and went into the ladies’ room.

“I just have to use the restroom. I’d love a piece of that pie too, if you have a spare slice,” Amanda Elsworth said with a smile, even though her heart was pounding in her chest. She prayed the contact would be there so she could reschedule the pickup. She shed her coat and dropped it over her chair.

“Sure thing, sugar,” the waitress said.

“I’ll be right back,” Amanda told her husband.

He grabbed hold of her upper arm. “Don’t be too long,” he warned in a hushed voice. “You don’t want your coffee to get cold,” he added to make his initial threat sound less harsh. But she got the message.

She forced a smile and nodded. She kept her pace normal as she rounded the counter and headed for the ladies’ room, fighting the urge to hurry. When she pushed through the door, she came face to face with a woman she hoped was her savior. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She had auburn hair pulled into a messy bun on top of her head and very bright green eyes.

“Amanda, I’m Lisa. Are you ready?” Briana asked quietly.

“I can’t. There’s not enough time,” she whispered. “He’ll look for me in less than five minutes if I’m not back. I had it planned. He was supposed to get a call and have to go in a few minutes, but my friend who was going to create that distraction got cold feet.”

“Okay. We create a Plan B,” Briana said in a soothing tone of voice. She could hear the panic in this woman’s words. “When will be your next window and where?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Amanda said. “He leaves for work at seven and Wednesday is the day I stay home and do laundry. He usually doesn’t check in on me until lunch. So we can have a few hours before my absence is discovered.”

“Good. Where do you want me to get you and at exactly what time?”

“You have my address. Along the back of the property is the lake. The boathouse is on the west end of the property and there is a black-topped driveway coming in to it from the south. If you can drive in and park on the side of the boathouse opposite the house, even if he’s home, he’ll never see you. I can come to you there. Get there at seven-fifteen and I’ll come as soon as I know the coast is clear.”

“Okay, I’ll be there,” Briana said. “I’m going to hang here until you’re gone, just in case he gets a call.”

Amanda nodded and then glanced at the door nervously. “I have to go.”

Briana watched her quickly exit the room. Most of the women she worked with were afraid and acted nervous, but Amanda Elsworth took nervousness to a new high. It never failed to surprise Briana the controlling situations ruled by fear that so many women lived under. She knew there were a lot of violent men out there though, and the system didn’t protect these women like it should.

She waited a few minutes after Amanda had exited the bathroom before she left, retaking her seat. Immediately, the waitress came over with the check. “Are you done, sugar? I didn’t want to take your cup until I knew for sure you were.”

“Thank you. Actually, can I put in an order to go? I’m spending the night up the road at one of the hotels and I don’t want to have to go out for dinner. If I could get your Cobb salad with the dressing on the side to go, I can have that.”

The waitress picked the check back up from the table. “Sure thing. I’ll put that in and add it to the check.”

“And I will take another cup of coffee while I wait for my to-go order. Thank you,” Briana said.

She sat back and watched and waited. The Sheriff and Amanda finished and left together right as the waitress brought her to-go container out and the new check. “Thank you,” she told the waitress and kept her eyes on her client as she got into the front passenger-side seat of the Sheriff’s car. She really wished she was on the road heading out of town with her client right now. A bad feeling settled over her.

Overnight, the winter storm arrived with a vengeance. Briana woke to eight inches of snow at five a.m., and it was still coming down, blanketing the entire area in the heavy, wet stuff. The forecast was for snow to continue all day with another two feet of accumulation. If that wasn’t bad enough, the afternoon promised to bring with it blowing and drifting conditions. She hoped they’d be on the road before then.

With the heavy cloud cover and unrelenting snow, the sunrise scheduled for seven-fifteen was a mere lightening of the sky that vomited snow. To give herself extra time, Briana checked out of the hotel and drove out of the parking lot at six-thirty. Thankfully, the plow had been out, and the heavy, wet snow gave her some traction. There didn’t appear to be any ice beneath it. And not many other cars were on the road. She figured the locals were all smart enough to stay home when the weather was this shitty. She’d seen on the local television station that just about everything in the area was closed due to the storm.

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