Hidden Witness Page 9

  That was to Mac and Anna’s advantage. With the windows boarded up, it would be impossible for searchers to see light through the woods. He set the lamp on the small coffee table that stood beside an old plaid sofa. His grandfather had taken it from the ranch when Ada had upgraded to leather. Mac had no idea how long ago that had been, but the plaid sofa had been in the cabin for as long as he could remember.

  “This is cute,” Anna said, her voice echoing in the quietness of the moment. A million memories were etched into four walls and three windows.

  “My grandfather and grandmother use to stay here when they hunted and fished. That was before they had five kids.”

  “Five children? That’s a large family.”

  “Not for a rancher. I think they hoped one of their kids would take over running the cattle business, but none of them were interested.”

  “That must have been disappointing,” she said, walking to one of the shelves and lifting an old water pitcher.

  “I don’t think they felt that. My uncle Brady is a doctor. I have two aunts who are nurses. Uncle Mitchel is an accountant with a firm that handles investments for high-profile clients. My father is a computer engineer.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of achievement.”

  “It is, but my grandparents would have been proud of their kids regardless of what jobs they had. Once they started having children, my grandfather used the cabin. My grandmother stayed home. Eventually, grandchildren were brought here for fishing weekends. There’s a river a few miles away. Nice hunting, too. If you’re into that.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I prefer to not look through the scope of a rifle unless I have to. I buy my meat from the grocery store, and I’m happy with things that way,” he replied. He had seen too much carnage during his time as a navy SEAL. He had no desire to see more.

  “Were you in the military?” she asked, somehow guessing the truth he rarely shared.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a hard job, Mac. And I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of things you’d rather not remember.”

  “You’re right, but it’s not something I talk about, so how about we focus on you.”

  She frowned. Her eyes were deep green-blue in the lamplight, her face glowing gold as the flames flickered and cast shadows through the room. “Focus on me?”

  “On a coming up with a plan to figure out who leaked information about your whereabouts.”

  “Okay. Mind if I sit down while we do it? I’m beat.”

  “Go ahead.” He motioned to a chair, then walked to a trunk that stood at the end of a queen-sized bed. There were blankets inside. Not the soft ones he had at the ranch. These were thick wool and made for keeping people warm.

  He pulled one out and threw it over her shoulders, tucking the ends in around her neck. “Warmer?” he asked.

  “Yes, but what about you?”

  “There are plenty of blankets. And I’m not cold. This is the kind of weather I grew up with. I’m used to it.”

  “I grew up in Boston. It’s even colder there.”

  “But how much time do you spend outside in it?”

  “Plenty.” She frowned. “Some. Okay. Not much. I walk from a parking garage to my office. From my apartment to my car. And, I run. But that keeps me warm.”

  “I have noticed you’ve got a fondness for running,” he said, taking the second chair. They were close enough that their knees touched, but he didn’t scoot back. Neither did she. Maybe they both needed a little closeness after their brush with danger.

  “My mother got me hooked on it when I was a kid.”

  “She was a runner?”

  “She was on medication that prevented her from being able to drive. We walked everywhere until I got old enough to keep up. Then, we ran.”

  “I’d ask what medication, but that would probably be overstepping,” he said, curious despite himself. He hadn’t asked much when Daniel presented the job opportunity. His grandfather had mortgaged the ranch to help pay for Ada’s cancer treatment. Ranching wasn’t as lucrative as it had once been, and he had been having trouble making the payments. It had come to a point where they were in danger of losing the ranch.

  That’s when Mac stepped in.

  He had been home from Afghanistan, recovering from injuries. The ranch had seemed like the perfect place to recover, to regain some balance in his chaotic stressful life, to heal his body and his soul. He’d had no idea his grandfather was in financial trouble, but he’d seen the letters on the old roll-front desk. Warnings that the property would soon go into foreclosure. He’d emptied his account to pay the arears.

  “You’re welcome to ask. Nearly dying together must mean we have some kind of unbreakable bond, don’t you think?” she asked with a wry smile.

  “That’s the way it works in the military,” he replied, and her smile broadened. She was lovely in a wholesome girl-next-door way. Nothing overtly sensuous about her. She almost never wore makeup. Her hair was usually pulled back. She wore clothes that fit but that didn’t contour every curve of her body.

  Somehow, though, she drew the attention of every man on the ranch. More than one of the ranch hands had asked her out. He’d heard stories of her kind rejections, her pats on the back for the men who had dared try to get close. There had been murmurs about her having a boyfriend or fiancé somewhere. If she did, they hadn’t seen one another in seven long months.

  “That’s what I’ve heard. So, we’re buddies, now, huh? Comrades?”

  “If you want,” he replied, smiling despite himself, despite the circumstances, despite the danger they were still in.

  “My mother had bipolar disorder,” she said abruptly. “She was a great lady who just happened to have an illness. Her symptoms were mostly controlled by medication, but sometimes they weren’t, or we didn’t have money for what she needed, or she forgot to take the drugs.” She shrugged as if it weren’t painful to talk about, as if none of what had happened during her childhood mattered. “We ran because Mom sometimes thought we were being chased. As I grew up and matured, I began to recognize that as a sign that she wasn’t taking her medicine.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, the words lame and useless but almost necessary to say.

  “Why? I had a good childhood. Better than a lot of people’s, anyway. Now, how about we discuss our next move before I fall asleep where I’m sitting?”

  She wanted to change the subject.

  That was obvious.

  He would have preferred to keep chasing the rabbit down the hole. He’d been curious about Anna since the day he’d conducted the phony interview and hired her for the position of assistant cook. But she was right in saying they needed to stay focused. They had to come up with a plan. One that would get them the answers they needed.

  Someone had leaked information to Archie Moreno.

  Until they found out who, Anna’s life would remain in jeopardy.

  “Okay. Let’s discuss it. Have you contacted anyone from your old life since you arrived in Texas?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Have you seen anyone you recognize? Maybe a guest on the ranch? Someone who wouldn’t normally be in Texas?”

  “No. If I had, I would have let Marshal Avery know about it.”

  “Daniel Avery is the person who hired me. He said your whereabouts were on a need-to-know basis, and only a few people need to know.”

  She nodded, her ponytail sliding across her shoulder, pale against dark gray wool. “He told me the same. I have the contact number for someone who works for Justice Department. I’ve never had to call it, but Marshal Avery told me that if I did, I’d be out of here faster than I could blink my eyes.”

  “So there are two people who knew where you were. Daniel and your emergency contact.”

  “The local sheriff’s office, too. They were supp
osed to be informed.”

  “Daniel told you that?”

  “Yes. He said that if things went south, he wanted to have local law enforcement on our side.”

  “Did he mention anyone else?” Mac stood and opened a drawer in the scuffed and dinged dresser that stood against a wall. There were dozens of pencils and small notebooks that had scribbled notes from scratched out games of tic-tac-toe. He grabbed one and turned to the first blank page. Jotting down Daniel’s name as one means of the leak made him physically ill. He wrote River’s name next. Then mystery contact. He didn’t think anyone on the ranch knew that he was helping the Justice Department. He had certainly never mentioned it. Not even to his foreman, Lucas Sanders, a man he trusted with his life.

  “Anyone else?” he asked, glancing at Anna.

  She had her head on the table, the blanket pulled up around her head so that only her profile was visible. Her eyes were closed, lamplight and shadows flickering across smooth skin. He didn’t wake her. They had a little time, and he wanted to think through their options before he presented them to her.

  He pulled a second blanket from the trunk and wrapped it around her shoulders. The cabin was colder than he’d have liked, and he couldn’t start the wood stove without sending up a smoke signal that announced their whereabouts.

  Anna didn’t move. Just like in the SUV, she seemed completely out. He grabbed the notebook and pen and sat opposite of her. Doing what he always did when he had a problem to solve, he jotted down names, dates, ideas. He added to his list of potential leaks. Anyone in the sheriff’s department who might have known that there was witness hiding on the ranch. Any of the Mac’s employees. From what he’d heard from Daniel, Archie Moreno had eyes and ears all over the country. If he wanted to find someone, it wasn’t a stretch to believe that he could do it. Even while he was locked up in jail.

  He also had money, and money was a powerful motivator.

  Most people in Briarwood were content with their lives. There wasn’t much poverty. People worked in the next town over—a forty-minute drive to big box stores, hospitals, restaurants. Or, they worked locally, serving meals at the diner or owning small businesses, or eking out livings on small farms and ranches. As far as he was aware, there wasn’t an underworld of crime in the small town. It was what it appeared to be. An oasis from the hectic pace of modern life. A town where everyone seemed to know the business of everyone else, where neighbor helped neighbor and deep bonds were formed of decades and generations.

  But that didn’t mean it was perfect.

  Crimes occurred. Men and women struggled. Life sapped people of their joy and purpose. It was possible someone in town was desperate enough to report back to Archie. It wasn’t like Anna had stayed on the ranch. She had lived her life the way most people in Witness Protection did, moving through her new life as if it had always been hers. If she was telling the truth, if she had not contacted anyone from her old life, Mac needed to look closer to home.

  Or closer to the Justice Department.

  He needed to find out who he could trust and who he couldn’t. Once Anna woke up, they’d go back to the SUV and head to Pine Gap. The forty minute drive to the larger, more metropolitan town would give him an opportunity to ask more questions, to dig a little deeper and make sure Anna was being honest about what she had done or not done.

  Maybe she had followed all the rules.

  Maybe she hadn’t.

  He would find out. Then he’d buy a burner phone and start making some calls. Someone, somewhere was fist-deep in Moreno’s pockets. There were ways to discover who that was. Bank records. Phone records. Mac might not be in law enforcement, but he had plenty of military buddies who were or had been. One of them owned a private security company in Dallas. Mac thought Seamus Murphy would be just the person to help find the answers.

  SEVEN

  She dreamed about the courthouse. Walking out into the well-lit night, thinking about the weekend ahead and how she would fill her time. Not paying enough attention to the car that was rounding the corner until it was too late. The first shot fired, and a police officer fell back, his body armor keeping him from certain death as the bullet plowed into his chest.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  She was on the ground, bullets pinging the cement stairs. A woman screamed in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own.

  She woke abruptly, her heart racing, her throat raw, her head pressed to Mac’s chest, his hand stroking her hair.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “You’re all right.”

  Disoriented, unsure, she listened to his heartbeat and the soothing sound of his voice. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt completely safe and completely at home. As if everything that had come before had been wrong, and this one thing was absolutely right.

  Only it couldn’t be, because she was in MacArthur Davis’s arms, in a cabin in the woods, being hunted by the police and by hit men.

  She pulled back, nearly jumping to her feet, her heart still racing frantically.

  “Slow down, Anna. Before you fall over.” He cupped her elbow as she caught her balance.

  “What happened?” she managed to say, her words as wobbly as her legs.

  “You were screaming in your sleep,” he replied, his tone one she’d heard him use with young children who visited the ranch with their parents and were sometimes afraid of the horses and cattle. Soothing. Soft.

  “I’m not a child,” she said, embarrassed that he’d heard her scream, that she’d woken in his arms, that she wished she were still there.

  “I don’t recall saying you were.”

  “You’re speaking to me like I am.”

  “I’m speaking to you like I’d speak to a friend who had a nightmare and woke up screaming,” he responded easily. Apparently not at all put off by her prickly tone. A tone he didn’t deserve. One that embarrassed her more than all the other things combined.

  “I’m sorry. You’re were trying to help, and I shouldn’t be snapping at you. It’s just embarrassing to wake up screaming in a stranger’s arms.”

  “I’m not a stranger, and why should you be embarrassed? You can’t help the nightmares that are living in your head.”

  “Wouldn’t you be? Waking up with your throat raw and your heart pounding, with someone you barely know right next to you?”

  “Maybe the first time. After a while, you get used to it.”

  “That’s easy to say when you’re not the one who was screaming.”

  “It’s not easy to say. I’ve lived it. I know how you feel,” he responded easily. “So, how about we move on and forget it happened.”

  “Just like that?” she asked, wondering what he woke up screaming from. What memories haunted his mind and woke him in the middle of the night?

  “How else would it be?” He smiled and lifted a small notebook from the table. “While you were sleeping, I came up with a list of possible leaks. If what you said about not contacting anyone from your old life is true.”

  “It is.”

  “Then the leak is someone in the Justice Department, someone on the ranch or someone you rubbed shoulders with in Briarwood.”

  “That’s a whole lot of people, Mac.”

  “Who have you been closest to at the ranch?” he asked, opening the door and staring into a dusty white world.

  “Stacey Hamlin.” The head cook had taken Anna under her wing and helped her get acclimated to the kitchen and the job.

  “I have her on my list. Anyone else?”

  “Not really. Lucas drives the van to church every Sunday. I’ve talked to him, but not often enough to really call him a friend.” The middle-aged foreman had always been kind, his dark eyes and easy smile putting Anna at ease. He had a wife and a couple of kids, and his family was usually what they talked about. She hadn’t shared mu
ch about her life. It was easier to be quiet than to give details of the fake background she had been provided.

  She had it memorized, of course, but it wasn’t her real life, and she hated to lie to anyone. Especially people she liked.

  “I have Lucas on the list, too,” he responded, his tone grim.

  “You don’t sound happy about it.”

  “He’s been working on the ranch longer than I’ve been here. He was my grandfather’s foreman for ten years before I showed up and took over.”

  “Then why put him on the list?”

  “Because he has access to places other people don’t. My office. The safe where I keep bank records. My computer.”

  “Is there something he could have found that would have given my identity away?”

  “No, but it’s possible someone from Moreno’s crime family reached out to a vulnerable member of my ranch family.”

  Family? She liked the way that sounded. As if they were more than just employees to him. “In that case, it could be anyone.”

  “It had to be someone who could get the key to your cabin. Remember the tracking device in your pedometer?”

  She hadn’t until he mentioned it. “I do keep the door locked.”

  She was careful about that. Almost obsessive, locking it and then checking it twice before she left.

  “There are only three people on the ranch who have access to my office and the master set of keys. Stacey, Lucas, and my housekeeper, Lou. She is only in twice a week, and I’m usually in the office, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t get her hands on the key.”

  “You have security cameras at the ranch. Can we access them remotely?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I have a friend in Dallas I’m going to contact. I want him to do a little research for me and maybe be a second set of eyes.”

  “Second set of eyes?”

  “We have to go back to the ranch. I have cameras installed outside all the guest cabins. The security footage should show us who entered your cabin and planted the tracking device. With a little added manpower, we should be safe doing that.”