Secret Witness

by Jessica Andersen

  This is what she’d wanted, right? She’d wanted him to go away and leave her alone. She’d hoped he would buy the “artifact” story she’d cooked up after she’d glanced over from her phone conversation and seen him looking at the Makepeace film. She’d prayed he wouldn’t insist on driving—or worse, walking her home, leaving her to make the voice on the phone believe that she hadn’t told him anything.

  “So this is a good thing,” she told herself firmly. “He’s gone and I can go home.”

  Then why did she feel like scratching the eyes out of the woman Detective Peters was running to? Why did she feel such a twisting sense of betrayal that he’d asked her for coffee when he had someone waiting for him?

  “Not everyone says coffee and means sex, Stephanie,” she lectured herself sternly. Her face flushed at the word and her skin heated at the memory of the good, solid bulk of the detective’s body beneath hers in the elevator and the heavy warmth that had stolen through her. The quick throb of her pulse as their limbs intertwined, and…and she’d sworn off men for good.

  You have terrible taste, she told herself, don’t even go there. And besides, you’ve done nothing but lie to Detective Peters for the last twelve hours. That’s not exactly a great basis for a lasting relationship.

  Or a brief, explosive one. The thought brought a quick liquid heat.

  “You okay, Miss Alberts?” She jolted and shot a glance at the back hall of the lobby, relaxing when she saw the night watchman’s familiar stocky form. Though thoughts of the handsome detective were a momentary distraction, the fear that the man on the phone was watching her stayed near. Lurked.

  “I’m fine, Bobby.” When had the words I’m fine become a mantra? “Just heading home.” She looked out past the revolving glass doors and suppressed a shudder. She didn’t want to go home through the Zone. Not tonight.

  “It’s late, Miss Alberts, why don’t you take the catwalk over to the train station? It’ll be safer.”

  She seized the idea gratefully. Usually, she spurned the T because the hospital was a mere ten-minute walk from her house and it took twice that to wait for the train. But tonight the brightly lit, well-guarded MBTA station seemed like heaven. “I’ll do that, Bobby. Thank you.”

  So she took the catwalk and waited for the train. But the feeling of being watched didn’t go away.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Reid trotted up the old granite steps and banged on the nail-studded door with the cast-iron knocker. There was something to be said for the charm of the Patriot District, he thought as he scanned the narrow cobbled street. There were flower boxes at every window overflowing with period-correct plantings, and a discreet kiosk on the corner filled with brochures.

  A sweet slide of saxophone drifted out of the window next door, making Reid think of beignets and open-air cafés.

  Though the neighborhoods were only fifteen minutes apart by foot, Patriot was a far cry from the open markets and seedy underbelly of Chinatown. He wasn’t sure which he preferred.

  He knocked again, and a little wooden window opened in the big wooden door. Jade-green eyes stared out at him.

  “Well, that’s not very safe,” he commented. “I could stick a gun right through there and start shooting. Aren’t peepholes considered historically accurate around here? They’re certainly safer. You never know who’s going to come knocking.”

  The eyes blinked. Then Steph’s voice said, “You’re absolutely right. I’ll keep it closed from now on.”

  The little window slid shut.

  It took him a full minute to realize she wasn’t going to open the door.

  He knocked again, harder, and started to feel prickles on the back of his neck. On the pretext of scratching his head, he scanned the neat neighborhood again. Nothing. Patriot might be pretty to look at, but there were certainly plenty of places to hide.

  Or else he needed a vacation. A long one, with sun and beaches, and curvy redheads wearing string bikinis.

  Or lab coats.

  “Stephanie? I need to talk to you.” He knocked, and kept knocking until he heard a dead bolt being shot from inside.

  “Go away,” she said, then contradicted herself by opening the door. “What do you want?”

  “Coffee,” he said, and pushed his way into the house. “Your aunt here?”

  “No. But why don’t you come in and make yourself at home?” she offered sarcastically as he prowled through the first floor and found nothing amiss. “Maureen’s out for the evening.”

  He found Stephanie’s daughter in the living room, playing quietly with a model horse and a stuffed bear. She was galloping the bear around with the horse on the bear’s back. He supposed it made sense to a three-year-old.

  “Hey, kid,” he said, because it seemed rude not to acknowledge her, and the girl gave him a blinding smile that lit her whole face and shifted something inside his chest.

  God! That human beings could ever do something evil to a child. He felt suddenly small, tainted by the things he’d seen. The things he’d done.

  When the little girl stood up and walked toward him, Reid took a step back and bumped into Stephanie. The brief contact reminded him of their almost-clinch in the elevator, and the shadows in her eyes reminded him of questions still unanswered.

  She quirked a smile. “Don’t like kids much?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just—” He shrugged. “I guess I don’t see them at their best too often, you know?”

  “Too many tantrums?”

  Too much blood, he thought. Too many babies hanging on their mothers’ legs while their daddies were dragged out the front door. But he said, “Something like that.” Noticing that Stephanie was holding a pair of mugs, he reached for one. “Thanks.”

  At her invitation, he sat on a stiff-looking old-fashioned chair that startled him by being comfortable. Stephanie sat on the sofa. She sipped her drink. “Why are you here, Detective? Wasn’t your… company glad to see you?”

  Reid glanced at the four parallel scratches on his arm. “She wasn’t in a very good mood. I think she’s feeling fat.”

  There was a little tug at his pant leg, and an inquiring noise, like a small bird chirping. He looked down at the kid. Her lips were pursed, and another chirp emerged. “She whistles?”

  Stephanie nodded. “Maureen said she started it this morning. We’re hoping it’s a sign that she’s getting ready to talk again.”

  The girl frowned as though concentrating, and warbled a few more notes.

  “Almost a song,” he said for lack of anything more profound to say. He wished she would go lean on her mother’s leg. He was finding the warm, heavy press of her little body more than a bit distracting. To ward off the sudden urge to reach down and lift the kid into his lap, he took a healthy slug of coffee, hoping he’d burn his tongue and shock himself back to rationality.

  The liquid—which absolutely, positively wasn’t coffee—seared its way down his throat and set up a nice, cozy fire in his stomach. He coughed hard, and was relieved when the noise sent the kid scuttling over to her mother. “God! What is this?” He glared at the inoffensive mug, which had a cartoon dog playing the guitar, with the slogan Rock and Roll! on it.

  Stephanie put a hand to her mouth. He was pretty sure she was trying to hide a grin, though the little wrinkle between her eyebrows remained. “Um. Hot chocolate?”

  “Have a little hot chocolate with your liqueur, why don’t you?”

  She lifted her daughter up to her lap. Dark hair shone against red curls. Liquid-brown eyes glittered beside jade-green. For a moment, Reid wished he still painted. Then he wished he could get a grip on himself. He was losing it.

  “Maureen makes chocolate for me when I’m stressed.” Stephanie shrugged. “I guess I just reached for it automatically. I can make coffee if you’d prefer.”

  “Stressed?” It gave him the opening he’d been looking for. He should’ve been at home, waiting for kittens and watching the Sox whup the tar out of the Indians, but instead he’d gone
out for a bag of cheese puffies and wound up on her doorstep.

  Call it a hunch.

  Call it an excuse, whispered a little voice in the back of his head.

  He didn’t have an answer for the voice in his head, and Stephanie didn’t seem to have an answer for him.

  “Stephanie?” He waited until she looked up. Their eyes held as he said, “You can trust me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She frowned. “Nothing is wrong. How many times do I have to tell you that? I’m fine.”

  She shot to her feet and slung Jilly on her hip, and Reid set his mug aside and stood as well, trying to figure out if Stephanie was afraid or annoyed. The little girl watched him with solemn eyes. Her lips pursed and she whistled that same string of notes. Damned if it didn’t sound like a song, but it wasn’t any song he knew.

  “I think you’d better go now, Detective Peters.” Steph’s voice made an attempt at being level. “I need to put Jilly to bed. Pull the door shut on your way out, please.”

  She marched up the stairs toward her daughter’s room and Reid took a step to follow. Then he stopped himself.

  What was he doing?

  She’d told him nothing was wrong. She’d explained the test results from that morning. There was no reason to believe that Jilly’s disappearing act had been anything other than a field trip.

  And she’d asked him to leave.

  “Give it up, Peters,” he told himself sternly. “There’s nothing fishy going on here and the woman’s made it plain as day that she’s not interested in you. Go home.”

  Could it be that the itch between his shoulder blades had been displaced from somewhere a little farther south, and that he’d been making up excuses to see her?

  Yeah, he admitted, more than likely. Since that first day he’d seen her at the Watson lab, wrapped in that ridiculous white coat and worried for her boss, Stephanie Alberts had lurked around the edges of his mind. When she’d been hurt during the course of his investigation, he’d blamed guilt for the compulsion that had him sitting at her bedside when he was off duty.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” he told himself. “Go home.” He heard the water in the upstairs bathroom shut off. He tried not to picture the young mother helping her daughter brush her teeth. Tucking the dark-haired child into bed.

  Kissing her goodnight.

  He thought of the little girl he hadn’t saved, and knew that if Stephanie and Jilly were okay, the best place for him was far away from them both.

  For their sake and his.

  He spun on his heel, headed for the door—

  And heard Stephanie scream.

  Chapter Four

  Reid spun and bolted up the stairs, yanking his weapon clear of the shoulder holster as the screams rang through the narrow house like a Halloween soundtrack. He collided with Stephanie in the hall as she ran out of her daughter’s bedroom, clutching Jilly, who’d begun to wail.

  Steph flung herself at him and pressed her face into his chest. She was drawing in big, sobbing gulps of air and he pulled her close with his free arm, holding the gun well away from mother and child. The rage sang through him, and the need to protect.

  Hearing no movement from the bedroom, Reid pressed them against the far wall of the hallway. “Stay here.”

  He peeked into the room, and seeing that it was empty, stepped all the way in and fanned the small space with his weapon. The window was open, the ruffled white curtains blowing inward on the slight night breeze. He stepped across and looked down. Nothing out there except a hundred dark, historical hiding places.

  “All clear,” he said to nobody in particular, before hearing a commotion on the stairs. A man’s raised voice.

  Stephanie!

  Forgetting caution, forgetting training and unleashing the rage, Reid leapt out of the bedroom into the hall. “Stop, police!”

  And ducked as a saxophone whistled through the air where his head had just been. Reid plastered himself against the wall, repeating, “Police!”

  His attacker froze and Reid found himself pointing his gun at a large, grizzled black man with a hoop in one ear, a faded marine tattoo on the opposite bicep, and a saxophone cocked on his shoulder like a baseball bat.

  Stephanie leapt between them. “Detective Peters! Mortimer! No!”

  Even before Stephanie’s quick cry, Reid was lowering his weapon, having seen Maureen on the big guy’s heels. With no immediate threat apparent, he tucked his gun back out of sight and returned to the bedroom while a babble of voices erupted in the hallway.

  “What’s wrong? Steph, what happened? We—I heard you scream. Are you okay?” Maureen’s questions tumbled over each other, but Reid barely registered them as he scanned the little ruffled room.

  Stuffed animals. A jumble of toys on the floor. Frilly white bed.

  A teddy bear’s bodyless head placed on the center of the bed, and the words Do It spelled out in grotesque letters formed from the elegant, spindly legs that had been broken off a herd of model horses.

  Reid checked the window. The historically correct latch had been popped.

  Child’s play.

  He walked back into the hall, where Maureen was alternately soothing Jilly and asking her niece questions while Stephanie stared blankly into the bedroom, looking shocked.

  Well hell, that was fine with him. Now maybe she’d tell him what was going on, because this was sure as hell no artifact. He pulled his cell from his pocket and called the incident in to Patriot while battling the ridiculous urge to stroke Stephanie’s hair and tell her everything was going to be okay.

  Empty words. He didn’t have a clue what was going on.

  Stupid words. He wasn’t sure he could fix it even if he knew. But he was sure as hell going to try. It was his job.

  “They’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said to the others. “Maureen, is there somewhere you can take Jilly for the night? Somewhere nearby?” Though she was a flutterer by nature, Reid had learned that Maureen could be a rock when she needed to be. She merely nodded.

  The big, black ex-marine with the saxophone and the earring stepped forward and introduced himself as their next-door neighbor, Mortimer. “I’ll take the little peanut and her—” he cut a glance at Maureen and Reid felt the tension hum “—home with me for a while. We’ll be there when you need us.”

  Maureen huffed a bit, but agreed “if only so Jilly could have some peace and quiet.” Once they’d gone, Reid steered Stephanie downstairs and stuffed her in a kitchen chair, ready to drag the answers out of her if necessary.

  He glanced at the hot chocolate and made coffee instead.

  When he returned to the table, she had tears running down her face. Her shoulders were shaking with silent sobs.

  He placed a mug in front of her and sat. “Artifacts, right? Everything’s fine, right? Nothing to worry about, why don’t you head on home, Detective Peters, right? What the hell’s going on, Stephanie?”

  Though he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and let her cry it out on his chest, he knew it wasn’t the right time. Knew she wasn’t the right woman.

  The Patriot cops arrived then, and Reid took a moment to explain the situation—what little he knew of it. When they’d headed upstairs to begin the routine of evidence collection, he returned to the kitchen, only to find that she had rebuilt her defenses while he was out of the room.

  “You needn’t be too bothered, Detective Peters. It was probably just a prank.” She sipped the coffee and grimaced. Her fingers were pale shadows on the white mug that she held with two hands to keep it from shaking.

  “Bull,” he said bluntly, and had the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. “Pranks in Patriot are limited to replacing the Stars and Stripes with British flags on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.” Although Reid remembered the Patriot cops talking about the neighborhood’s uproar, he’d thought it a fine joke at the time. “Kids around here don’t break second-story windows to write messages with broken toys.” And leave a headl
ess teddy bear that had given even Reid the creeps. It was too close to the little girl. He took a breath and tried to keep his voice level when he wanted to shout. “I’m not buying it. Try again.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have to try again, Detective Peters. Like I said, it was a prank. Nothing more.”

  Burning impatience bloomed from Reid’s left shoulder blade and skittered through his body. His fingers tingled as he gripped her upper arms and dragged her up. The kitchen chair clattered as it fell to the tiled floor behind her.

  He felt like shaking her until she told him the truth. He felt like kissing her until the truth didn’t matter any more.

  Instead, he picked her up clean off the floor and held her at his eye level. He glared and said, “Swear to me you don’t know why this happened. Swear to me you’re not in any danger, and I’ll walk out your front door and never bother you again. Swear it.”

  Stephanie stared into his eyes, and he into hers, and when her answer came, it wasn’t the one he’d expected.

  She kissed him.

  IT WAS AN IMPULSE born of desperation, of deception, but once she’d acted on the mad urge a wholly different array of feelings rose up and swamped Steph with a wash of sensation.

  His lips were softer than she might have imagined for a man who’d charged up the stairs with a neat, deadly looking gun in his hand, ready to protect Jilly and her from a headless teddy bear and a pile of maimed model horses.

  Make me tell you about the man on the phone, her mind whispered as she deepened the kiss, sliding her tongue along the seam of his lips until they parted and he let her in. He tasted of strong coffee and a hint of chocolate, and as he leaned back and dropped her suspended weight so gravity pressed them together chest to chest, hip to hip, she wanted to say, Make me tell you. Make me trust you. She needed to tell someone. Needed to trust someone. She didn’t want to lie any more. Didn’t want to be alone any more.

  With her hands trapped between their bodies, she strained closer to him as a kiss meant only to distract him became something more.