Key Witness

by Christy Barritt

  Elle nodded, pain staining her gaze. She stared vacantly in the distance, her eyes red and rimmed with tears.

  As soon as Denton pulled out his cell phone, Elle’s began playing a cheerful melody that contradicted the somber mood of the house. Her eyes widened as she looked at the screen. “It’s Brianna.”

  He stepped closer. “Stay calm and answer. Listen carefully to any signs as to where she is.”

  Elle nodded and put the phone to her ear. Denton leaned in close so he could hear. “Brianna, is that you?”

  “Elle. You’ve got to help me.” Brianna’s voice teetered on the edge of panic. Every other syllable seemed to break with tension.

  “I want to help you. Are you okay?” Elle’s voice broke. Her entire body looked tight with strain. “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know, Elle. I don’t know where I am. It’s so dark and cold.” Brianna let out another sob. The sound was gut-wrenching, laced with pulse-pounding fear.

  A masculine voice in the background growled, “That’s enough!”

  “Wait!” Elle screamed.

  A scraggily voice came on the line. “Think about what you’ll do to get her back. Think long and hard because you don’t want this case to end like your sister’s.”

  The line went dead.

  Elle looked up at Denton, her face drained of any color.

  Then she erupted in sobs.

  TWELVE

  Elle paced in front of the windows of her bedroom, absently biting her fingernails. Usually work was her drug, her escape from all her other problems. But even keeping herself busy with work didn’t help today. All she could think about was Brianna.

  And Emily.

  Panic squeezed her insides. Not again. How could something like this happen twice in her life? First, her sister, who’d also been her best friend. And now her best friend, who was like a sister to her.

  The authorities were all working on the case. In fact, the FBI, along with local police, had set up a command post downstairs in their living room, complete with computers and other equipment that Elle couldn’t identify. Denton was with them right now, pacing with his sleeves rolled to his elbows, looking every bit the part of a high-powered official.

  Elle pictured all of them. They were probably plotting and theorizing and strategizing, she supposed. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding Brianna. But with each minute that passed, Elle found her hope deflating.

  She’d held on to hope that Emily would be found and brought back home. Hope had kept her going for those first few days. It had been like the air she breathed. But then the days continued to pass with no word. The press had a field day with the story, but Elle didn’t even care—not if all their reporting managed to somehow help them get Emily back.

  But nothing had helped. Despite all the negotiating and searching, the kidnapper had known from the start how everything would end. He’d known he would kill Emily.

  And with that, Elle’s life had been changed forever. She was now an only child whose already overprotective parents were sure to be even more sheltering. Some of the light and the life in their little family had disappeared.

  For weeks, everyone walked around seeming like an empty shell. Elle had tried to put on a good front, to be the strong one, at least in front of her parents. But inside her heart was broken.

  Her grandmother was the only one who’d really reached out to her. Sure, Elle had seen counselors and people had looked at her with pity in their eyes. But only her grandmother had seen through everything and realized how devastated Elle truly was.

  And now her grandmother was gone, too.

  Did everyone she loved have to die?

  A knock tapped at the door. Elle pivoted toward the sound, staring at the wood a moment. Who could it be? Did they come bearing more bad news? “Come in.”

  Denton stepped inside, looking just the way she remembered seeing him earlier. Strikingly handsome. Strong but gentle, as he’d evidenced in the brief moments of comfort he’d offered. But still, no matter how Elle looked at it, he was someone who liked to live on the edge. He was off-limits.

  Arm’s length, she reminded herself.

  Denton stepped closer, his five o’clock shadow a little darker than usual today. Even his presence in her room seemed to cause electricity to crackle through the air, seemed to heighten all of Elle’s senses. She swallowed her emotions and dared to meet his eyes.

  “How’s it going?” His gaze was firm but inquisitive and compassionate.

  She shrugged and drew her arms tighter around herself. “You tell me. Any news?”

  He stared at her a moment, his hand twitching as if he contemplated reaching out for her. Finally, he nodded. “They’ve got some video feed from the parking lot. It’s the same man from the gala. He was parked beside Brianna’s car and apparently asked her a question or initiated some kind of conversation. She stepped closer to the man’s van when someone pulled her inside.”

  Elle squeezed her eyes closed. “Have they made any more contact?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “They’re probably waiting on me.” Waiting on Elle. She was the common denominator here. Yet she felt powerless to do anything.

  Brianna’s voice replayed in her mind, and Elle could hear her friend’s desperation and fear. What were they doing to her sweet friend? Tears threatened to squeeze out.

  Denton appeared at her side. His hands grasped her arms. “They’re playing a game with you, Elle. A sick, twisted game.”

  “And the next step of the game could be the death of my best friend.” Powerless. But did she have to be? There had to be something she could do. She opened her eyes, feeling a new resolve build in her. “Do you have any suspects? Did the photo match any in the system?”

  Denton shook his head. “No matches.”

  Who else could it be? Who were the main suspects in her mind? Her thoughts immediately went to Emily’s disappearance and murder. “Did you check the visitor record for the man who killed my sister?”

  Denton slipped his hands from her arms and took a step back, snapping back into professional bodyguard mode. “He hasn’t had any visitors in a year. We’re still looking into him, though, checking any other records or things that might give us a clue if he’s been corresponding with someone.”

  If this wasn’t connected to her sister, then who? Who were those other suspects that constantly saturated her thoughts? “How about a member of my dad’s staff? Is that still a possibility?”

  “Anything is possible. There’s obviously an accomplice, and we have no idea what he looks like. He could be anyone.”

  She paced over to the window, shaking her head as she shoved aside a curtain and stared at the barrage of cars parked out front—cars belonging to her family, Eyes, the FBI. What a nightmare. Everything that had happened just didn’t seem real. “This was never about the bank robbery. That’s what floors me. Whoever is behind all of this had some kind of master plan this whole time, didn’t they? And everything has fallen in place for them. They’ve had us on wild goose chases, searching up and down. But the whole time, they had an end goal. Me.”

  She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know that Denton was beside her again. She could feel his presence igniting every fiber of her being.

  “There are sick people in the world, Elle. I’ve looked into the eyes of men who didn’t seem to have a soul. It chills you down to the core.”

  She looked up at him, his words causing cold fear to race through her veins. “You’ve seen your share of evil.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “How do you keep your sanity?”

  “By focusing on the eternal. Remembering that this world isn’t our real home.”

  She nodded, processing his words. “Good perspective. I like that.
I guess I haven’t been spending as much time keeping my thoughts focused lately. I’ve let life consume me.”

  “It’s easy to do.”

  “I want to help. I want to do something before someone else is hurt...or worse.”

  “Let the FBI handle it.”

  “That’s what everyone told us with Emily.” She shook her head. “I want to see the picture of the security guard at the gala again. Something’s nagging me about it, but I don’t know what.”

  His gaze stayed on her a moment too long before he finally nodded. “Okay. Let’s go downstairs.”

  With a hand on her back, he led her downstairs and into what used to be her living room. The place had been transformed. All nonessential staff, volunteers and interns had been cleared out until this was over and in their place were FBI agents. Bentley sat at a nearby table, his face pale as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep—probably because he hadn’t. No one had, not since Brianna disappeared.

  It seemed like everyone stopped what they were doing when Elle stepped into the room. She forced a courtesy smile and kept her mission forefront in her mind. Look at the picture. Figure out what was bugging her. She could do this. She could face everyone, even if they blamed her for her friend’s disappearance just like Alex did.

  Denton took a picture from the table and handed it to her. “Did you remember something?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m hoping I will.” She looked at the picture again. Why did he look familiar to her? Where had she seen this man?

  “Could you guys take away his hat and give him a buzz cut or something a little shorter?”

  An FBI agent sat down at a laptop computer and started tapping the keys. A moment later, an altered picture of the man appeared.

  “Can you make his face thinner?”

  An updated picture popped on the screen.

  Denton leaned toward the computer from behind her. “Do you recognize him?”

  “I think that man used to work IT for my father.” She searched her memory for a clearer image of the man. All she could remember was the way he’d watched her. He hadn’t struck her as too unusual at the time, simply socially inept. “Up in Dad’s D.C. office. I remember he always gave me the creeps. I always felt like he was watching me. He was thinner when I remembered him and his hair was shorter, lighter.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  She shook her head. “No, I have no idea. I don’t know if I ever knew.” She looked over at Bentley, who hung out to the side. “Bentley, can you find the name of the company we used?”

  The man nodded and immediately left the room to head toward the office.

  Elle’s heart pounded erratically. Could this be the clue they’d been looking for? She prayed the answer was yes.

  Denton squeezed her shoulder. “Good job, Elle. Good job.”

  * * *

  Elle downed another cup of coffee, trying to pass the time and ward away her feeling of helplessness. She sat in an armchair in the corner of her living room, listening to the flurry of activity and theories being thrown out all around her. Her mind turned over her encounter with the man from the photo. She prayed that she might remember something else—anything else—that would help the authorities find the man.

  “You know the caffeine is only going to make you more jittery.” Denton raised an eyebrow at her as he lowered himself into the seat near her.

  “Is it possible to be more jittery than I already am?” She shook her head. “Time is of the essence when someone is missing. Each second that goes by makes me feel like Brianna’s never coming back.”

  “They found the name of the IT company. Now they’re just trying to identify the man. We’re getting closer, Elle.”

  But would they get closer fast enough? She shoved down the thought, trying to stay positive.

  “Something else interesting about the IT company...Bob Allen uses the same company.”

  Elle sat up straighter. “As in the Bob Allen who’s running against my father?”

  “The one and only.”

  “He couldn’t be involved in this...could he?”

  A knock sounded at the door, and one of the agents strode over to answer. Alex stood on the other side, looking as bad as Elle had ever seen him with his clothes and hair rumpled and circles under his eyes. Elle motioned to let him come in and then rose to meet him.

  “Are there any updates?”

  Elle shook her head. “No. None.”

  “How could this happen?”

  Denton stepped closer. “What do you know that you’re not telling us?”

  Alex visibly tensed. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something you’re not saying. I want to know what it is. Why did you really go to Brianna’s apartment today?”

  He raised his hands. “I have nothing to do with this.”

  Elle remembered the suspicious way he’d acted. “You didn’t just show up with plans to casually let yourself in, did you?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I came over to convince her to give my grandmother’s wedding ring back. It’s special to my family, and Brianna was being stubborn in keeping it, just doing it to hurt me. That was it—the only reason I stopped by. Nothing else.”

  Across the room, one of the agents stood. “We’ve got another text message.”

  “Put a trace on the phone, see if we can determine where it’s coming from,” another agent said.

  A flurry of agents crowded around the phone. Elle stood, took a step closer. She’d never get close to the phone. She knew that. Her heart pounded in her ears as she waited to hear what the message said.

  “‘Time is ticking away and with each tick the pain becomes greater. This is all for you, Ellebird,’” an agent read.

  All the color drained from Elle’s face. She took a step back and lowered herself into the chair behind her.

  Denton knelt in front of her. “Ellebird?”

  “My grandmother used to call me that.”

  “Who would know that?”

  “Only someone who’d been around my family.” She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thoughts there. “The pain becomes greater? What are they doing to my friend?”

  “A picture just popped onto the screen,” an agent said.

  Elle started toward the phone when Denton stopped her. “I want to see—”

  He shook his head, a certain somberness falling over him. “Let me look at it first.”

  “It’s Brianna,” Agent Duffield, the lead in the investigation, said.

  Elle could hardly breathe as Denton stood and went to peer at the phone. He shook his head and looked over at her. Elle knew what that meant. It meant she couldn’t see the picture, which meant Brianna... She couldn’t let her thoughts go there. She couldn’t let herself imagine what the picture might look like.

  “Is she okay? How does she look?” she asked anyway.

  “She’s alive,” Denton murmured.

  “Oh, Brianna...” She covered her face with her hands, trying to erase the images that crept into her mind. Denton put his hand at her elbow as if he feared she might pass out.

  “What can I do?” Alex shifted, looking ill at ease.

  Denton shook his head. “Nothing. Go home. We’ll call you if we need something.”

  He nodded, slowly, regretfully, as his eyes met Elle’s. “I would never wish this on her, you know,” Alex explained.

  Elle sighed, a new somberness washing over her. “I know.”

  He turned and strode to the door. As soon as Alex had left, Denton turned to her. “Come on. Let’s take a walk while they get things figured out. The fresh air will be good for you.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “We’ll stay close to the house.”

&nbs
p; They stepped outside and the sunny day greeted them like a much-welcomed hug. They walked several paces in silence, and Elle felt grateful for the change in environment. Maybe the fresh air really would do her some good.

  Denton stuffed his hands into his pockets. “You said your grandmother died a year ago?”

  Elle nodded. “That’s right.”

  “How often did she call you Ellebird? All the time? Ever in public?”

  “She called me that all the time. But she didn’t often go out in public with us as a family. She didn’t like the limelight.” She glanced at him. “What’s wrong? Why are you frowning?”

  “Elle, if your grandmother died a year ago, I’m afraid these guys have been planning this for a long time. How else would they know that?”

  “You think they were around my family just for the purpose of one day doing this?”

  He nodded. “I do. Was the IT guy ever at your house?”

  She shook her head. “No, I only saw him up at my dad’s D.C. office.” She paused. “Now that I think about it, he may have been at the campaign office in Norfolk, also. He was from an outside firm that we used whenever we had computer problems.”

  “That would explain how someone hacked into your father’s email account and website so easily.”

  She shivered. “They’ve been planning this a year. That’s disturbing, to say the least. And they chose to implement their little plan right now while my father is trying to get reelected. That’s probably not a coincidence.”

  “The FBI is on it. They’ll figure out who this guy is. And maybe then we’ll be able to track him down, figure out who his partner is, also.”

  Elle nodded, not wanting to admit that her hope was dying little by little.

  She had to find a way to keep it alive, though. She had to find a way to keep Brianna alive.

  * * *

  Another wave of insomnia kept Elle unsettled, praying for sleep to find her. She had too much on her mind to sleep. Too many worries. Too many fears.

  She simply couldn’t get Brianna out of her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she pictured what her friend might be going through. The sheets lay twisted at her feet, evidence of her anguish. Finally, she sat up and threw her feet over the edge of the bed. Her heart raced and her throat felt dry with emotion as she stared at the dark room around her. The only light was that of the moon outside that shone in through her window.