The Witness

by Nichole Severn

  This was her fault. Jodie Adler was dead because of her. Just like all those other victims she could’ve saved if she’d seen Jeff Burnes for the killer he was. Darkness closed in around the edges of her vision, and it wasn’t until pain blossomed in her chest that Camille realized she’d been holding her breath. “I dropped my camera after I took the photo. I couldn’t get those images of all of Jeff’s victims out of my head, and I ended up breaking the LCD panel. I had to print the photo out to show him I was serious about doing the work it’d take to get my life back.”

  Only now, she realized, it was possible he’d been using her as a conduit to the man in her nightmares. Why? Her hand grazed the lacerations Finn had dressed, and she froze. The change in MO. The man who’d attacked her had finished carving the letters into her chest before strangling her. He’d broken the Carver’s routine. Because it hadn’t been her former fiancé that night. It’d been Dr. Gruner.

  “I need to call this in to my team.” Finn bolted for the door, his phone already in his hand as he retraced their steps to the front of the house. He spoke into the phone without looking back at her, and suddenly the gouges carved into her chest burned. “It’s Reed. Get Remi on the line. She’s going to want to hear this.”

  The obsession with her case, the repeated attempts to get her to tell him what’d happened that Valentine’s Day over and over. Dr. Henry Gruner hadn’t been trying to help her recover from the trauma of surviving a serial killer’s attack at all. He’d been trying to get the details right. So he could hunt his own victims.

  Bile worked up her throat. Air. She needed air. Camille ran for the sliding glass door off the kitchen. Wrenching the door to her left, she bolted from the house and ran across the property, her legs growing heavy as she neared the tree line. A cold breeze swept off the surface of the river and pushed her hair behind her. Goose pimples prickled the skin around her neck and arms as she weighted both hands onto her knees. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Tears streaked down her face and fell into the lush soil under her feet. Her hands shook as she pressed a hand over her mouth and screamed as hard as she could into her palms. Sobs wracked through her, bringing her to her knees.

  A twig snapped under pressure from the tree line just before the outline of a masked man solidified. “Hello, Camille. I’ve been looking for you.”

  Chapter Seven

  The scream made his neck muscles jump. Finn ripped the phone from his ear and twisted back toward the house. He withdrew his weapon and yelled into the phone. “I need every available unit and deputy at Camille Goodman’s house. Now!”

  He thrust the phone into his coat pocket, not even sure if he’d ended the call with his chief deputy, Remington Barton. It didn’t matter. He recognized the source of that scream.

  Camille.

  Shadows engulfed him on either side as he ran through the front door. Silence echoed off the plain walls, hiking his blood pressure higher. He’d left her in the second bedroom, but the sheer white curtains hanging above the sliding glass door lifted off the hardwood floor with a burst of wind. The door had been left wide open. But had she gone outside or had someone come in? “Camille?”

  No answer.

  His heart pounded hard behind his ears as he moved through the kitchen and into the small living room, just as he’d done last night after her message for help. Finn rounded into the hallway. Empty. The door to the guest bedroom had been left wide open, but a quick scan revealed she wasn’t inside. Damn it. He checked the master bedroom and the single bathroom. No sign of her. “Where the hell are you, Red?”

  Retracing his steps, he approached the sliding glass door. It was too quiet. Camille wouldn’t have run off on her own, wouldn’t intentionally hide from him or leave. Not with a killer placing her in his sights. Which meant the SOB who’d attacked her ago had come to finish the job.

  He swept one curtain panel out of the way, meeting nothing but the long expanse of property and darkness over the splintered back deck. The photo connecting Camille to Jodie Adler’s death scene demanded attention from inside his jacket pocket as old wood protested under his weight. There was no way Jeff Burnes would’ve known about the photograph Camille had taken or that specific location near her property, which meant whoever’d killed Jodie Adler had to have intimate knowledge of her movements, of that photograph and the specific details of the Carver’s kills that’d never been released to the public.

  Her therapist. Dr. Henry Gruner.

  He’d been watching her. Stalking her. Using their sessions against her so he could bide his time until the perfect moment and he had the chance to strike. Only that didn’t explain why the Carver had escaped federal custody, how he played into this mind game or where he was now. Finn honed in on the sway of the trees outlining a nearly invisible trailhead at the edge of the property. “I’ll be damned.”

  Memories of the night of the attack played across his mind. The feeling of being watched as he’d rushed Camille out of the house, the prickling of his instincts when he’d tried to force his senses to adjust through the haze of adrenaline. Studying the angle between that trailhead and the sliding glass doors, Finn was fairly certain at that vantage point, anyone could walk out of those woods and get close enough to the house without catching Camille’s attention from inside.

  That was where the killer had vanished that night.

  That was where he’d left his latest victim to be found.

  That was where the bastard had taken Camille.

  Digging for his flashlight in his back pocket, he pressed the power button and jogged for the trailhead. Two minutes—maybe three—since her scream had turned his blood cold. The bastard couldn’t have gotten far. A burst of wind threatened to knock him off course before he hit the tree line. Rain had started, drops plastering to his face, but that wouldn’t slow him down. He followed the unpaved trail deeper into the woods, damp soil clinging to his boots. The wind picked up, the rain fell harder. Didn’t matter. It was his job to protect his witness, and that was exactly what he was going to do. No matter the cost.

  “Finn!” Terror echoed in her voice, pushing him harder.

  The trail split in two directions ahead, and Finn slowed. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs as he jerked the flashlight beam over the ground. Where was she? The rain, combined with the entire team of forensic investigators who’d processed Jodie Adler’s crime scene, had already compromised any tracks the killer might’ve left behind. He couldn’t tell the difference in treads or when each divot in the dirt had been made. His heart nearly beat straight out of his chest as the chance of finding her alive dwindled with every moment he second-guessed himself. “Camille!”

  Drops of water slid into his vision, the hard rain suctioning his clothing to his skin. He couldn’t wait. Couldn’t stop. Pumping his legs as hard as he could, Finn followed the trail on the left, gun in hand. There was no sign of her. No more calls for help. Twigs scratched at the exposed skin on his face and neck as the natural path carved through the trees narrowed, then disappeared altogether before it ended at a stretch of dark shoreline of Siuslaw River. Glimmers of moonlight distorted across the jagged surface of the river as rain pelted into the shallows, and the breath rushed out of him as realization hit. “No. Damn it, no.”

  He’d chosen the wrong trail.

  He’d lost her.

  Strengthening his grip on his weapon, Finn turned back.

  A fist slammed into his face. Lightning raced across his vision, his eyes watering as he smashed against the nearest tree. The gun fell from his hand into the bushes along the narrow trail, but before he could dive for the weapon, another hit rocked his head back into the tree. Dizziness rolled through him, but Finn managed to stay on his feet. “Not cool.”

  The outline of his attacker blocked the trail leading back the way he’d come.

  Every cell in his body focused entirely on the one thing keeping him f
rom getting to his witness. The masked SOB who’d taken her, who’d tried to kill her. Who’d killed an innocent woman to draw Camille into his sick game. But Finn wasn’t going to lose her. Not like this. Straightening, he faced off with the man he recognized as the masked attacker he’d fought the night of Camille’s attack. “Where is she, you son of a bitch?”

  The suspect reached toward his lower back, and pulled a long, gleaming blade. The sound of rain on steel reached his ears a mere moment before his attacker sliced the knife down across Finn’s chest. Stinging pain burned across his skin as his attacker threw another punch. Finn dodged the attempt and slammed his fist into the suspect’s jaw. Seeing an opening, he shoved the bastard off balance, but it wasn’t enough. Camille’s abductor spun, then followed up with another ear-ringing hit to Finn’s temple.

  In an instant, bark cut into his back and head as his attacker hauled him against the tree. An explosion of agony ripped through him as Finn took another hard left to the face. He was pinned. His opponent was stronger, faster, more skilled, but he wasn’t going to leave Camille in the hands of a killer. Kicking out, he connected his heel into his opponent’s knee and brought him down. He threw everything he had into knocking out his attacker with one final strike, but the world suddenly tilted on its axis as his legs were swept out from under him. Pain arced down his spine and across his neck as he crashed down on an exposed tree root. His head snapped back.

  Camille. He had to get to Camille.

  The suspect, who was lying beside him, hadn’t said a word, but Finn didn’t have to hear the bastard’s voice to know who was behind the mask.

  “I know you’ve been watching her, Dr. Gruner, and I know why.” Rolling onto his side, he clocked the son of a bitch as the man tried to get to his feet to buy himself a few more seconds. Finn pushed upright, but a solid kick to his rib cage knocked the air from his lungs. His arms and knees collapsed right out from under him, and he landed hard on his front. His lungs groaned for the slightest hint of air.

  Stinging pain exploded across his skull as Dr. Gruner grabbed a fistful of his hair and dragged him off the trail. Finn swung out for contact but missed. Ice sparked through his nerve endings as his attacker tossed him down a short decline to the river’s shore. Broken twigs, dead foliage and mud clung to his clothing as he slid into the first foot of river water. His ribs protested with sharp inhales as the hiss of knee-high grass reached through the consistent pattering of rain across the river’s surface. Pressure wedged between his shoulder blades with the help of the killer’s boot, and Finn screamed out.

  His head dipped beneath the water’s surface.

  Pressing his palms into the crumbling soil beneath him, he couldn’t get solid purchase to hoist himself out. Not with the added weight on his back and possible broken ribs. Bubbles escaped his mouth and tickled along his face as he tried to wrench free of Dr. Gruner’s hold. His lungs burned as algae and cold water battled for entry into his mouth and nose. No. This wasn’t how it was going to end. He wasn’t going to leave Camille to fight this monster on her own.

  She’d spent the past year in hiding, scared, alone, and damn it, she deserved better. She deserved someone to stand up for her, to fight for her. Make her feel safe and in control of her life for once.

  Finn tried to calm his body’s automatic panic enough to focus on finding something—anything—he could use as a weapon. He sifted through the loose dirt and debris that’d collected beneath the surface, intentionally slowing his movements. The more he struggled, the faster he’d burn through his oxygen supply. His finger grazed a long, flat rock a few inches below the silt, and he grabbed it with everything he had left before jerking his back into the killer’s boots. Once. Twice.

  Then he waited.

  The weight of Dr. Gruner’s boot disappeared from between his shoulder blades, but before the bastard could get his balance, Finn rocketed to his feet and swept the rock’s edge across the killer’s neck.

  The thin shale dissolved on impact in his hand.

  “Well, that didn’t go as planned.” In his next breath, gut-wrenching agony ripped through his middle. His heels sank low in the mud as he stumbled back. Finn studied the rivulets of water forming long lines from the blade’s handle straight into the left side of his body.

  Then collapsed back into the river.

  * * *

  HER STOMACH ROLLED with the sway of the floor underneath her.

  Camille tasted the bile sticking to the sides of her mouth and pressed her forehead into the cold, hard wood. Her mouth had dried from screaming and her throat was raw as it’d been twenty-four hours ago, but her clothing was soaked through. Where...?

  The floor rolled again, and she opened her eyes. Dark curtains nearly blended into the blackness through two windows on the other side of the small space. A minimalist set of folding chairs, with a short round table between them, had been arranged against the wall, their feet sliding toward her with slow waves passing beneath her. The single lamp on a desk tucked into the corner highlighted lime-green walls with turquoise accents. A trundle bed took up most of the space at her back. Minimal decoration. No personal effects. No way to tell where her attacker had brought her.

  Nausea crested with another wave. She’d been knocked unconscious to stop her from screaming for Finn. So her abductor couldn’t have taken her far. She had to still be in Florence. Rotating her head back over her shoulder, she tugged at the ties securing her wrists behind her back and her ankles. The space was too large for a boat, but with the motion of the floor, a houseboat made sense as a possibility.

  Something secluded, easily accessible and impossible to escape quickly, depending whether or not he’d taken her to open water.

  She couldn’t hold back the groan that escaped from her lips. A tremor coursed from the top of her head straight down to her toes as reality set in. She’d been abducted from her property, knocked unconscious and relocated. Did the marshals even know she was missing? Did Finn? The last day of conversations with the deputy assigned to protect her lit up a part of her she’d tried to keep buried over the past year. The part that’d tried to convince her nobody who hadn’t survived what she’d survived could understand her, would give up trying and would cut their losses when they realized they’d be better off without her. She’d handed him proof that all of this—the manipulation games, Jodie Adler’s death, the Carver’s obsessive need for revenge—had all been because of her. It’d been her fault. She was the reason he’d been brought on the case, why he’d become as much of a target as she had. Despite his assignment given to him by the marshals service, she’d put him in the same position his mother had when she’d been shot all those years ago because she wasn’t strong enough to face this evil alone. By casting him as her only defense against her past, she’d brought the threat into his life, and Camille hated herself for it.

  “Finn?” Her voice failed. No answer. The past raced to meet the present in a violent rush of memory and emotional loneliness. The dull ache at the base of her head intensified as she rolled onto one arm and used the swaying motion of the house to sit upright. Back pressed against the bed, she held her strained breath and pulled her wrists apart as hard as she could. Plastic dug into the thin skin below her palms, right where her pulse had pressed against Finn’s thumb when he’d promised they were in this together, but she didn’t feel like she was part of a partnership now. This felt like the first time she’d stood in that big house that didn’t belong to her all by herself. She’d been ordered to stay in a town she wasn’t familiar with, where she didn’t know anyone, where she couldn’t talk to anyone without lying. No more interrogations by the FBI. No more personal protection detail from the marshals. No one to talk to more than once a month. Once again, her attacker had made her feel utterly empty and alone.

  An invisible quake hitched her insides. Dr. Henry Gruner had taken her vulnerabilities, the access she’d given him to her darkest,
most painful self and used it against her and an innocent woman. Why? He was supposed to be the one to help her heal, help her move on, but he’d only dragged her back into a nightmare she couldn’t escape.

  Her fantasy self, the one she’d always looked up to, would be brave. She wouldn’t be sitting here wondering why she’d become the obsession of a psychopath or playing the victim. She’d notch her chin higher and think of a way out of these zip ties, then figure out where she was and how hard it would be to get to shore.

  Camille closed her eyes, envisioning every thought, every move that imaginary self would make. Her abductor wouldn’t leave her alone for long, and she couldn’t take the risk of sticking around to confirm who was behind that dark ski mask. She opened her eyes. She had to find something to cut through the zip ties and get back to the house. Had to find Finn.

  She didn’t care that Finn had shut down any chance of their roles becoming something more than witness and protector. Whether Dr. Gruner was behind that mask or the Carver had come to finish the job he’d started last Valentine’s Day didn’t matter. They didn’t just hurt their victims. They destroyed their lives and the lives of the people they cared about the most, and Finn didn’t deserve to suffer because of her. The letters carved into her chest had burned as a constant reminder of what she’d lost, but Finn had somehow soothed the shame and hatred she’d carried since their bloodied inception with a single change in dressing. He’d taken his time with her when she’d jerked out of his reach, made her feel safe and important. More than anyone ever had. Their combined love of the same brand of chocolate and quirky inside jokes had forged a connection she hadn’t expected to feel with anyone again. But what she really didn’t understand was the bizarre, illogical need to savor the softness and clean, laundered scent of one of his superhero T-shirts one more time. Maybe if she’d kept the one he’d loaned her, uncertainty and fear wouldn’t have such a tight hold on her now.