The Eyewitness

by Nancy C. Weeks

  He forced his eyes open. Taking a quick survey of his surroundings, he couldn’t stop the hard laugh that echoed off the empty warehouse walls. The kidnapping bastard had no imagination. A murky, deserted warehouse, his arms and legs chained to the wall . . . Fucking cliché.

  Alec yanked at the rusty clamp on his wrist. It didn’t budge, but the metal scratched a nice slit across the inside of his wrist. Shit! If he walked out of here alive, a tetanus shot was in his future.

  He stood straight, his arms spread eagle, the wrist clamps pulling at his skin. His neck hurt like hell. That was the least of his worries. Was Em safe? Did the scumbag have her stashed somewhere in the building? Rage burned up from his soul, and he let it come.

  A door clanged shut. The man’s smell hit Alec first, almost making him gag. Thick, musky cologne wafted a good five yards in front of him. Did the ass bathe in the stuff? And how in hell had Alec missed it back at the house?

  “Detective Pearce. You’re awake.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Alec glared into the eyes of another cold-hearted monster.

  “Now that’s just rude. I thought we had such a nice time the other night,” the man said, nodding at the dark bruise on the side of Alec’s head.

  It was going to feel damn good to beat this man into the ground until his bones crunched beneath his knuckles. Alec jerked at his restraints again. Joe’s killer. It had to be. “Say your prayers, asshole.”

  The man laughed as he stepped in close. He pivoted, sending his boot into Alec’s abdomen. “Shut your pie hole, Detective, and pay attention.”

  Alec swallowed the pain but couldn’t keep the grunt from his lips. He spit blood and saliva onto the floor.

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing from you.” The man lifted his phone. “But your girlfriend,” he snarled, “is going to do exactly what I want.”

  “You leave her the fuck alone.”

  Again, the bastard let out an unnatural laugh that brought Alec back to the time his father had had him trapped. But he was no longer a scared, helpless kid.

  Alec charged him, and got within an inch of the guy before the chains hurled him backward. Before he could gain his balance, a bucket of ice water hit him full in the face, drenching him to the bone.

  “That ought to cool you down,” the man said, removing a switchblade from his back pocket. He flipped the latch, and a sharp blade slipped from its casing. “I thought your training would have taught you a few hostage negotiation techniques. Pissing off the person with the power isn’t a smart move.” He yanked on the neck of Alec’s T-shirt, ripping it down the middle, and pulled it off him.

  If the ice water wasn’t painful enough, the chilled air burned through Alec’s skin. The man had a point. There was a way out of this hell, and he had to keep things together for Em. His only hope was that McNeil’s brother was as good as rumored. For now, he had to play for time. “You killed Joe D’Azzo.”

  The man turned his back on Alec.

  “If I’m going to die tonight, tell me who hired you to kill my partner.”

  The man knelt and hit a switch on a car battery. “What makes you think I didn’t want the guy dead myself?”

  “You’re a killer for hire.”

  He stood, straightening his spine. “It was an easy job, until you and your girlfriend decided to put your noses where they didn’t belong.”

  Alec swallowed the bile in his throat. “You have no emotional attachment to any of this. Tell me who hired you.”

  The man picked up a long, steel rod covered with a filthy towel. He dunked it into another bucket of water. Alec fought against his chains, pulling with all his might. But the rod hit him in the chest, inches below his heart, sending a piercing hot, electric jolt through every cell. A roar of pain echoed against the walls as his body quivered.

  “That’s for assuming I’m too stupid to live. If I were you, I would shut the hell up. You’re not doing yourself any favors.” The man placed the rod on a table. “But that seems to be your mode of operation. You are such a dumb shit. She practically threw herself at you, and you sent her packing. Damn, it was hard to hear and even harder to watch.”

  Alec couldn’t have responded if he’d wanted to. Pain like he’d never experienced rippled through him. How the hell was he still conscious? There was only one thing he could do. It had never helped in the past, but he had to give it a try. Em couldn’t be brought into this. Taking in a breath that hurt like hell, he begged, “Please leave her out of this. I’ll do anything you ask.”

  A grin appeared at the corners of the bastard’s lips. “That’s the thing, Pearce. I meant it when I said you have nothing I need. You don’t have the journals. The girl does.” He picked up his cell phone from a tarnished workbench. “I’m going to ask her to bring me the journals, and then you both get to die. Fast and clean.”

  He dialed a phone number, and the call connected. Em’s voice was barely audible, but it was her.

  “Em!” Alec yelled with all his might. “Don’t come!”

  The rod jabbed into his chest, searing his skin. Alec clamped down on his lips to keep the pain quiet. When he didn’t scream, the bastard struck him again on the opposite breast. An agonizing roar sliced through the warehouse.

  “I hope your lover boy’s screams got your attention, Ms. D’Azzo. I want the journals, and any other evidence you’re hiding away, in my hands in twenty minutes. I’ll text you the address.”

  Alec couldn’t hear what she said, but he had to warn her. “Don’t come!”

  The next jolt almost knocked him off his feet. Still, he screamed over and over again for Em not to come, until his voice was raw.

  Blackness seeped in through the edges of his mind. He fought it. Em needed him.

  But, as always, pain won.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Don’t hurt him!” Emersyn screeched into her phone. Alec let out another gut-wrenching scream. “I’ll bring the journals.”

  “You have nineteen minutes and thirteen seconds, Ms. D’Azzo.”

  The line died, and Emersyn’s phone slipped from her fingers. Time ticked away with each heartbeat, and fear clutched her chest. She grabbed her phone and tossed it into her messenger bag. The journals were still tucked in the side pocket.

  Listen to me echoed in her head. The phrase held a new meaning.

  Trust your instinct.

  Whenever she found herself up against a wall, those three words were the only thing her dad ever said to her. She glanced at her bedside clock, the second hand ticking away time. Shit! She’d made a vow only a couple hours ago to go that extra mile. Time to put her heart where her mouth was.

  She counted four seconds as she shrugged into her winter coat and grabbed her keys. The door opened as she reached for it.

  “Emersyn, you’re home so soon.” Her mother’s happy expression changed. “What’s wrong? You’ve been crying.”

  She slipped past her mother, but her aunts and uncles stood in her path to the porch. Damn it. She checked her phone. Seventeen minutes. “Call Jared McNeil. Tell him the shooter has Alec.”

  Her mother grabbed Emersyn’s arm. “What is going on?”

  “I can’t explain. Tell Jared I’ll text the address, and he has to come in quietly.”

  In unison, her three uncles pressed her back toward the house.

  The fear in her mother’s eyes broke her heart. “Please, Mom, I only have seventeen minutes,” she begged. “I can’t be one of the people who turned their back on Alec.” She opened her bag wide. “The bastard wants Dad’s journals. I won’t hide here while he tortures Alec.”

  “Alec doesn’t want you there, Emersyn,” her mother said.

  It was true. He’d made that point all too clear. But before the sob burning her throat rushed to the surface, she gulped it down and took her mother into her arms, soaking in the strength that had always been there. “I know.”

  Her mother took her face in her hands and kissed each cheek. “Come
home.”

  Emersyn stepped away from her mother and shoved through the three men who had been in her life since day one. They compressed together, making a wall of muscle and stubbornness.

  “Let her go,” her mother said.

  “Please,” Emersyn begged. “I’m at sixteen and a half minutes.”

  The wall moved, and Emersyn charged down the sidewalk. Once in the car, she sent Jared a quick text of the address and pulled out of her space. She scanned the street, praying her detail had followed her. Sweat rolled down her back, and her frantic heartbeat drowned out all sound. Her fingers shook as she fumbled with the window control, lowering it an inch to allow in a gust of cold air.

  The next fifteen minutes seemed to pass in slow motion, even though she kept the pedal to the floor. She had been through the BWI airport campus many times but was unfamiliar with the deserted industrial park on the outskirts. Her GPS noted what looked like an airport service road. With any luck, airport security would spot her on their cameras and investigate. She slowed to a stop at Siri’s prompt that she was at her destination. The time screamed at her from the dashboard. Two minutes.

  A small, yellowish light illuminated the only entrance to a large warehouse. All the other buildings were dark. She checked her rearview mirror one more time, and her heart dropped. There was no sign of her protection detail. She was on her own.

  She shrugged her bag over her shoulder and stepped out of her car. Icy rain struck her cheeks and neck. Ignoring the cold, she rushed to the door and tried the knob. It turned.

  She fingered the journals in her bag then slipped her hand deeper, until her palm landed on the grip of her father’s Glock. She had meant to return it to the strongbox days ago. The magazine was full. A small comfort, but she would take it.

  She opened the door and allowed it to slam shut behind her, making as much noise as possible. She filled her lungs with a mixture of cold air and the stench of motor oil and gasoline. A painful groan from the back-left corner sent a chill down her spine. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, her heartbeat roared between her ears, and heat flashed into her cheeks. She was going to destroy that bastard.

  She raced toward Alec, her eyes watering, making it hard to see where she was going, and jolted to a complete stop at the liquid pooled around him. The pole the bastard had obviously used to shock Alec rested against a carbon steel drum. A car battery sat on a workbench, but it wasn’t attached to the rod.

  Emersyn dipped the toe of her sneaker into the fluid and let out a shaky breath. Her arm circled Alec’s waist, taking the weight off the clamps digging into his wrists. His lids opened halfway as his entire body trembled. She cupped his chin. “What did that sick bastard do to you?” she asked, leaning back to get a better look at his chest.

  The stench of blood and burnt skin almost made her gag. The skin around the three burns on his chest was blistered and red, with a hint of black and blue splotches within the outlines. Blood seeped from the corners of the wounds, inches above his heart. But it was the icy feel of his skin that scared her the most.

  “Get out,” he whispered. “Now.”

  His voice, hoarse, shaky, broke her heart. “I’m not leaving you.” She scanned the warehouse. “I have the journals, you deranged prick.”

  “Damn it, Em. Go!”

  Before she could respond, a deafening blast ricocheted off the walls, and a bullet sliced through the links of the chain on Alec’s right hand. She spread her body in front of his. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Duck.” The high-pitched male voice over the intercom chuckled.

  Three earsplitting rifle shots took out the remaining chains, and Alec stumbled into Emersyn’s arms. His weight knocked her backward, but she steadied her stance, wrapping both arms around him until he found his balance. His right arm circled her waist, and he tugged her toward the entrance. The warehouse again vibrated with the roar of gunfire. A bullet slammed into the cement inches from Alec’s toe. He tried shoving her behind him, but she circled his waist and held him close.

  He again staggered before finding his balance. “Why don’t you ever listen?”

  “Because you ask the impossible.”

  “I needed you safe.”

  “But you’re here. My word means something.” She rested her forehead on his. “This is me standing by you. I’ll never turn my back on you.”

  “True love to the end,” the man snickered over the intercom. “Show me the journals.”

  Emersyn moved away from Alec but kept her arm around him and lifted the books from her bag. There was no way she would parade her fear. She steadied her voice. “You have my father’s file?”

  “I do.”

  Emersyn’s body shuddered as hate pulsed through her veins.

  Alec’s hold tightened, and his lips touched her ear. “No emotion. Shut it down.”

  How in the hell was that supposed to happen?

  She’d prayed for this moment, a chance to face her father’s killer, since she’d awakened from surgery. It was staring at her in the face, and every muscle tensed, the urge to strike unbearable. “He was a good man. How could you . . . ”

  Emersyn’s remaining words caught in her throat as several red laser beams spread across her body then flipped over Alec’s chest. A bright light lit the catwalk above them, and she took her first glance at a killer.

  He had an ordinary, clean haircut, with no facial hair—the average boy-next-door image. She could have walked past this guy without a twinge of concern. But there was no ignoring the six Bushmaster XM-15 rifles attached to the railing and aimed right at them.

  “Throw your bag into that steel drum.”

  The gun. There was no way she could lose it. She reached for a journal and tossed it into the drum. “Our agreement was three journals. There’s one. Let us go, and I’ll leave the other two in the parking lot.”

  The man jogged down the steel staircase, each footstep in tune with her heartbeat as it pounded against her rib cage. Damn, how she ached to knock the sickening smirk off his face. Instead, she slipped her hand between the two remaining journals and slid her father’s Glock to the edge of her bag.

  “Don’t,” Alec murmured.

  She removed her hand from the bag. “We had a deal.”

  “My dear,” the stranger said, “didn’t your good old dad teach you never to make deals with a killer?” His hand waved in front of him, the small remote on the tip of his finger bouncing the red lasers from Emersyn’s kneecap to her chest.

  The prick was playing a fucking game of cat and mouse. Emersyn tuned in to the sounds of the warehouse. Nothing. Maybe Jared never received her text. She pressed her bag closer to her chest. They were alone with a madman with six sniper rifles.

  “Who hired you?” Alec roared, his stance and tone almost as cold as the killer’s.

  “What the fuck does that matter? Thinking of revenge from the grave?”

  “Why not just humor me?”

  The man’s smirk turned ugly. He was a vicious killer, immoral. But Emersyn needed time. Help had to be on the way. The alternative was unthinkable. “Okay, easier question. Why go after Ben in the lab? That sample never would have been admissible in court.”

  “You were played like a fine-tuned violin,” he said. “And so damn predictable. How did it feel to sit in my nest? It must really eat you up knowing you were my target.”

  Alec’s words, shut it down, straightened her spine, her stance steady. Don’t let him enjoy your fear.

  “And it must have been all kinds of fun facing the man who hired you when you fucked up the lab accident,” Emersyn shot back.

  The man stalked closer. “I never fuck up.”

  He lifted the hand with the remote. Alec stepped in front of her. The red laser beams were harmless, but they shot fear right into Emersyn’s gut.

  “Like I said, I enjoy the game. You, I’m afraid, will not.”

  The warehouse door slammed, drowning out the
man’s sick laugh. Oliver Gates strolled toward them as if he were out for a leisurely walk and had decided to drop in for a visit—no weapon, no men to back him up. The shooter didn’t flinch or pull a weapon. The only change was a hardening of his sneer.

  Emersyn had lived with fear for months, but this time around, it crawled through her system like cancer, eating away any hope that she would see another day. The man who’d held her as an infant, her father’s best friend since childhood, calmly approached her father’s killer. Not like long-lost friends. But they knew each other.

  He stopped inches from the man, his breathing slow, patient. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He’s about to rip our bodies apart. Emersyn’s silent screams shuddered through her. But Oliver wasn’t there to help her and Alec. He’d clearly expected the job to be done already.

  Once again, Emersyn inched the Glock toward the edge of her bag. Alec gripped her hand, the chain around his wrist pressing into her arm. The only sign of emotion from him was a slight tremble in his fingers.

  “My job.” The captor’s voice crackled, and color rose in his high cheekbones. “So, fuck off.”

  “Not from what I can see,” Oliver said, approaching Emersyn.

  Alec stiffened and held his place.

  Oliver pinched Emersyn’s chin and forced her to meet his glare. “You never listen.” He tore her bag off her shoulder and whispered, “I promised I would take care of everything.”

  “Easy promise to make when this asshole is on your payroll.” She shot her fist out, but Alec caught it mid-swing and pinned her arm between them.

  “Touch her again, and I’ll rip you to shreds,” he promised Oliver.

  Hello, monster Alec. Calm settled within her. And to think he’d shoved her away before that part of him could destroy them. Stupid move. His monster surrounded him like a dark cloak, and it was a godsend, her redeemer.

  Impossible battles were won with calm and precision. To win this one, she had to change. Be the monster repeated in her head as she molded her stance and facial expression to match Alec’s. Emptiness seeped into her heart for Oliver, this man who had been so much a part of her life.