Hidden Witness Read online

  “You’re risking your life for me, Mac. Take the coat. Lock me in. Let’s get this done.” She stepped into the shed, refusing to think about whatever creature had been scurrying through the dark.

  Mac studied her face, his gaze touching hers, then drifting down to her running gear. Running tights. Compression top. Jacket. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” he murmured, tugging the hood of her jacket over her head and tucking strands of hair inside, his fingers sliding across her cheek as his hand slipped away.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  He nodded and shut the door, closing her into the dark shed. The chain rattled. The lock snapped home. She thought she heard his footsteps as he left, but it might have been her imagination.

  Mac didn’t enter rooms or leave loudly. He moved nearly silently. She had noticed that the same way she had noticed his gruff kindness, his concern for clients and for employees, his focus on the ranch, on the cattle, on his work. He didn’t announce his presence when he entered a room the way some men did. The way Gabe had.

  She frowned, pushing thoughts of her ex-husband away.

  The marriage had ended three years ago.

  She hadn’t wasted time mourning it or wondering if her ex was happy with the woman he had left her for.

  “You have way more important things to do than think about Gabe,” she muttered.

  At the sound of her voice, the thing in the shed scurried through the darkness, the rustling of dry leaves making her wonder if there were a nest of critters someone.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m not here to evict you. I just want to share the space for a little while. We’ll keep a few feet between us, and we’ll both be happy. Okay?”

  No more scurrying noises. No squeaks. No rodent feet clawing up her leg.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she could make out shadowy tools. A riding lawn mower. A rake. A shovel. There were paint buckets stacked near one wall. A trashcan near another. A window on the wall looked out into thick hedges that had probably once been trimmed and cared for. Now they were overgrown, their branches butting up against the glass. She unlocked the window and wiggled it, testing to see if it would open. The last thing she wanted was to be trapped, if he didn’t return.

  But he would.

  He had to.

  She didn’t want more regrets. She didn’t want to spend more sleepless nights wondering if she could have done something different. If she could have tried harder. If she could have saved him.

  “Keep him safe,” she whispered, wondering if God would listen and respond. Since her divorce, she had spent more time working than worshiping. As a child and young adult, her faith had been unshakable. She had needed God to help her through the tough times with her mother. She had met Gabe in law school, two years after her mother’s suicide. She had still been grieving, still been wracked with guilt for not being there when Sheila needed her most. Gabe had given her something to focus on. Serious and driven with undeniable charm, he had been the guy every girl in law school wanted. Annalise had felt privileged that he chose her.

  They had married after graduation, taken the bar exam on the same day, celebrated their passing scores, their new jobs, their courtroom wins. For two years, she had been certain that God had blessed her with an amazing life to make up for the difficult one she’d had as a child. Gabe had cooked dinners and brought flowers and treated her like she was the only woman in the world.

  He probably would have continued to do that for the rest of their lives if she hadn’t returned home for lunch on a particularly stressful day and found him with another woman.

  She had forgiven him, of course. She had been set to live happily ever after, but even in that, she had known there would be bumps in the road. She had understood his busy schedule and his focus on his career. She had wanted children. He had wanted to wait. He had dreamed of practicing law in a city like New York or Las Vegas. A place with lights and glitz and glamour. She had liked the familiarity of Boston. She had made efforts to appease him. She had stopped talking about kids and looked for jobs in other cities, but her heart wasn’t in any of it. She wasn’t sure her heart had been in the marriage.

  Gabe’s certainly hadn’t been. After three years of marriage, he had announced that he had fallen in love with another woman. Annalise had known her. Allie was a paralegal who had worked with Gabe. The two had spent hours together on the weekends and after hours, prepping for trials and doing research for cases. If she had been paying more attention or been more interested in what he was doing, Annalise probably would have suspected the affair long before Gabe had announced it.

  She probably should have been heartbroken, but she had felt relief more than anything.

  He had moved out, filed for divorce, and moved on.

  She had poured herself into her job, spending long weekends prepping for trials, foregoing church to catch a few hours of sleep. Sundays had become just another day to work, and she hadn’t even realized it had happened until she had arrived at Sweet Valley Ranch and been forced to slow down, to breathe, and to think. She had spent the first few weeks getting used to the easy pace of life on the ranch. Once she had settled in, she had begun to think about how busy things had been in Boston, how hectic her life had often felt and how much she missed the connection to God that came with quiet moments spent in prayer.

  She had never lost her faith or stopped praying, but her prayer time had often been rushed. A quick request for guidance as she ran through her day.

  Now, every Sunday when she went to church with other ranch employees, she realized how far she had drifted from the faith-filled woman she had once been.

  The window held tight, and she put muscle into it, breathing a sigh of relief as it inched up. If she had to, she could get out. She was hoping she wouldn’t have to. She wanted things to go as Mac planned. He would get to the sheriff and bring help back to her. There would be no more gunfire. No men lunging at her from the shadows.

  She shuddered, closing the window and retreating to the door. This wasn’t what she had pictured when she’d agreed to enter Witness Protection. Maybe she had been naive, but it had never occurred to her that she wouldn’t be safe. There were fail-safes in place to keep the program secure. There was no way anyone should have known that she was at Sweet Valley Ranch. She hadn’t contacted anyone from her old life. She didn’t have family that would worry about her. There had been no temptation to reach out and let people know that she was okay. She had friends, of course, but not the kind that would pace a hospital room waiting if she were badly injured.

  She frowned, skirting the old lawn mower and searching the shed for a weapon and a hiding place. If she and Mac had been able to break into the shed, other people could do the same. She needed to be prepared.

  Other people? Assassins. That’s what they are, and you need to face up to that and deal with it.

  She could almost hear Sheila’s raspy smoker’s voice and the frenetic tap of her fingers on her thighs. She had had her problems, but she had been the best mother she knew how to be. She had tried to give Annalise what she hadn’t had herself—stability and love, security and affection. If she had lived, Annalise would have made good on the promise she had once made her—to buy her a little house near a lake. A quiet retreat where she could live her life away from the rushing madness of Boston life.

  She had been going to college, planning her future and her mother’s when she had received news of her Sheila’s death. A suicide that had surprised even her psychiatrist, it had left a hole in Annalise’s heart and her life.

  And it had left her feeling guilty.

  Guilt on top of guilt on top of guilt.

  That seemed to be the story of her life.

  “Part of the story,” she reminded herself as she picked her way across the small shed, lifting old burlap bags, hoping to find a pitchfork, shovel, rake. Ax. Anything th
at she might be able to use to defend herself.

  She wanted to get through this.

  She wanted to testify and go back to her life.

  Whatever was left of it when this was over.

  She tried not to think about giant rats or men with guns. She tried not to imagine Mac ambushed, bleeding, dying on the ground.

  He was strong.

  He was tough.

  He was smart.

  He wouldn’t allow himself to be overtaken.

  He would return.

  They would escape.

  She would make it back to Boston for the trial.

  That was what she needed to focus on. It was what she needed to believe.

  Aside from the riding mower and garden tools that were rusty or broken, there wasn’t much in the shed. No boxes. Nothing to hide behind if trouble came. Except the trashcan. She lifted the lid. It was empty. She could fit inside if she needed to. She replaced the lid and glanced up. There was a small loft, but no ladder to access it. She stood on tiptoe and reached for the edge, her fingers barely grazing it. She dragged the trashcan over, tipped it upside down and climbed onto it, hoisting herself up and scrambling onto the plywood floor. She couldn’t stand, so she crawled, easing in between boxes that she hoped were filled with something she could use to protect herself.

  She opened one, telling herself she wasn’t going to find a rat’s nest or a bed of finger-nipping mice. She found file folders filled with papers, a few books and a framed photograph of a couple on their wedding day. She opened a second box and a third with the same results. Plenty of paper. Nothing that would be useful in defending herself. There were several boxes shoved against the shed’s eaves. She reached for one, sliding it toward her, the soft scuffing sound mixing with another sound. She stopped pulling and listened, her heartbeat ratcheting up as the murmur of voices drifted into the shed.

  She froze, her heart thudding painfully in her chest.

  Someone was coming.

  She eased backward away from the edge, shimmying behind boxes, hoping she was completely hidden from anyone who might look in the window. The chain rattled, the door squeaking as someone attempted to open it. Not Mac. He hadn’t had time to get to the sheriff’s and back.

  “Kick it in,” a man said, the words clear as day and filling her with dread. If they entered, they’d find her. The trashcan below was a dead giveaway to what she’d done and where she was.

  “Kick it in and wake up the neighborhood? I don’t think so,” another man responded. The voice sounded familiar. Not someone from her old life. There was a Southern drawl rather than a Boston accent.

  “What neighborhood? This place is in the middle of nowhere.”

  “It only looks that way. Go past those trees and there are plenty of homes. And sound travels far in places like this. Someone will hear. The cops will be called. Next thing you know, we’re in jail.”

  “Only if they catch us.” The chain rattled again.

  Annalise tensed, expecting the door to crash in and light to illuminate her hiding spot.

  “Our transportation is back near the ranch. Since everyone in this town is home and in bed before ten most nights, it’ll be pretty easy for the sheriff and his deputies to find us,” the second man argued. “Besides, the door is locked and has been forever. Look at the rust on it. Do you really think she ducked in there, then somehow managed to lock an exterior lock?”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to keep me from checking the shed,” the first man growled, rattling the lock again.

  “I’m trying to keep us from getting caught. We don’t get paid unless she’s gone. And she won’t be gone if we end up in jail.”

  “You’ve got a point, but I still want to check this place. Maybe there’s another entrance.”

  “There’s a window.”

  “You know an awful lot about this little town and this property, don’t you?”

  “In a town this size, that’s not difficult.”

  “Where’s the window?”

  “Around the side.”

  They men fell silent, the sound of feet crunching dead leaves and winter-dry grass muted but audible.

  Annalise counted their steps, her heart in her throat, her mind racing. She’d left the trashcan in the middle of the shed, the lid on the floor beside it. She had no idea who either man was, but one seemed to know everything there was to know about her hiding spot.

  Did he know where the trashcan had been?

  Would he realize it had been moved?

  Light flashed near the window.

  She held her breath, watching as the soft glow brightened. A beam of light speared through the window. She ducked, wanting to watch, but afraid the light would find her.

  “I told you she wasn’t in there,” one of the men muttered. “Even if she had managed to get the door open—”

  “We aren’t just talking about her,” the first man spat. “We’re talking about MacArthur Davis. From the intel I’ve got on him, it looks like he knows how to take care of himself and everyone around him. A guy like him could easily pick a lock and enter a shed.”

  “A guy like Mac would be way too smart to back himself in a corner. And that’s what he’d be doing if he were in the shed.”

  “All the more reason to take him out. We’re being paid for the woman, but he’s standing in our way. Let’s check out the church.”

  “It’s locked.”

  “I said, we’re checking it out.”

  The second man said something Annalise couldn’t hear. She waited as the conversation faded, then lowered onto the floor. She left the trashcan where it was, eased open the window and climbed out. She closed it carefully, listening for voices, her pulse swooshing loudly in her ears.

  She had told Mac she would stay where he had left her.

  But that was before she had realized the men who were after her also planned to kill him.

  She had to warn him.

  She couldn’t allow him to be hurt or killed because of her.

  She knew the way to the sheriff’s office. If she sprinted, she could make it there before the hit men caught up.

  She glanced at the church. Both men were there, silhouetted by the outdoor lights. They were moving away, rounding the side of the building and disappearing. She ran in the opposite direction, crossing a small field and sprinting onto the road. Her feet pounded pavement, her frozen toes burning as blood circulated into her extremities.

  She passed a crossroad and another, turned down Main Street and kept going. There were plenty of businesses around. All of them were closed. Even if they hadn’t been, even if the sidewalk had been overflowing with pedestrians, she wouldn’t have felt safe. Witnessing the cold-blooded murder of two men had made her very aware of how fragile life was and how quickly things could change from good to bad. Moreno’s henchman, Reginald Boeing, hadn’t cared if he was seen. He hadn’t been worried about being tried and convicted of murder. More than likely, he had planned to kill everyone standing on the courthouse steps that night. He had failed, but Archie Moreno had more money than Midas, and he knew how to use it to get what he wanted.

  He wanted Annalise dead.

  She had seen Reginald’s face. She had known exactly who he was from news reports on other murders that he was suspected in. Even if she hadn’t seen the reports, she would have known him. She had come face to face with him a few times in her work, and she had recognized him immediately. It had taken a few seconds longer to realize he was holding a gun, pointing it out the window of the vehicle he was riding in.

  It was only after the shooting, that she realized why he had been there and why he had opened fire. The prosecuting attorneys working the shooting investigation against Reginald could easily link him with Moreno through phone records. The FBI had extensive surveillance video of the m
ob boss and Reginald meeting. Reginald had been on their radar for years, suspected of several murders that the FBI was certain Moreno had paid for. There had been no proof, though. No evidence. Nothing to tie Reginald to the crimes he was suspected of.

  Until the courthouse shooting.

  Thomas Ryland, Moreno’s second-in-command, had known too much about the inner workings of the business. He had been willing to talk for the right plea deal, and Moreno had needed to make certain that didn’t happen. If Annalise hadn’t witnessed the shooting, he would have walked away again.

  Now the only thing standing between Moreno and freedom was Annalise and her testimony. She had seen Reginald Boeing fire the shots that had killed two men. Until now, no case against Moreno had ever been successful. She wanted to make certain this one was. Once Boeing was convicted, then Moreno would be tried for solicitation of murder. That, along with other charges the prosecuting attorney had filed, would put him away for life.

  She needed to return to Boston safely so that she could testify in the trial. But first, she needed to let Mac know that the hit men who were after her knew who he was, and that they were after him too.

  * * *

  Mac had known Sheriff River Williams for almost as long as either of them had been alive. They had met as grade school kids, both visiting family for the summer. Mac had been at the ranch. River had been at his grandmother’s farm just outside of the town. Mac had gone home after the summer. River had stayed for reasons he had never explained to anyone. Mac had been certain that River would return to his hometown of Houston once he graduated high school, but River had stayed. He’d followed his Aunt Bonnie’s footsteps and gone into law enforcement. Three years ago, he had become the town’s youngest sheriff. He took the job seriously. He took the town and the people in it seriously. He kept his cruiser spotless, his uniform pressed and his shoes shined. He also kept the crime rate down and communication between the small town and its law enforcement officers open.

  Right now, he was sitting behind the wheel of his marked sheriff’s car, looking at Mac as if he had grown two heads and a tail.